Edwin T. Dahlberg - "Truth before Freedom" (January 24, 1965)

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-	So if the sun make.	0:04
	Words cannot express the sense of privilege	0:28
	that is mine in being present with you	0:31
	in this great hour of worship together.	0:33
	I'm sure we are deeply moved by the solemnity	0:38
	of this moment in the life of men and of nations	0:41
	as the drama of human history moves on	0:46
	and one generation gives way to another.	0:50
	And as I speak today on the subject "Truth Before Freedom,"	0:55
	I would like to direct your attention to the words of Jesus,	0:59
	in the eighth chapter of John, where he said to his hearers,	1:03
	"If you continue in my word,	1:08
	you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth	1:10
	and the truth will make you free.	1:15
	If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed."	1:18
	I am told that there is a certain variety	1:26
	of African termite,	1:29
	which though it lives in the ground below,	1:32
	climbs to incredible heights on the trees	1:37
	above the ground and feeds upon the topmost reaches	1:41
	of the trees.	1:45
	But as these little creatures climb up the trees,	1:48
	they build around themselves, a tunnel of the earth	1:51
	from which they have come,	1:55
	so that no matter how high they proceed	1:58
	into the light, they carry with them the darkness.	2:01
	Now there is a survival value in this.	2:08
	They are protected from the heat of the sun.	2:13
	They are protected against their enemies.	2:16
	And they preserve the humidity of the soil	2:20
	from their habitations underground.	2:23
	But no matter how high they climb into the sunlight,	2:27
	they build around them, the darkness from which they came.	2:31
	This seems to me to be a parable of human progress.	2:37
	Today, we are probably on the highest levels of culture	2:42
	and knowledge and learning that man has ever known.	2:48
	And we are feeding upon the top most reaches	2:52
	of human history.	2:56
	And yet, somehow we have carried with us all the way,	2:59
	the darkness from which we came.	3:03
	Beginning with the cave man with his club and stone,	3:07
	coming up to the warrior with his sword and shield	3:11
	and spear, then to the bow and arrow	3:14
	and to the gun powder age	3:18
	and on up to the age of planes and bombers,	3:20
	and now to jet planes and rockets,	3:24
	constantly making progress,	3:27
	and yet building around ourselves,	3:29
	the tunnels of enmity, hostility, fear and suspicion	3:32
	from which we came in the beginning.	3:39
	So going into the light, we carry with us the darkness,	3:43
	which I think is what the apostle Paul meant	3:47
	when he said to his young colleague, Timothy.	3:49
	Ever learning and never coming to the truth.	3:54
	I think one of the most extreme examples that I ever saw	4:01
	of this was in 1960,	4:03
	when for some reason that I've never been able to fathom,	4:05
	I was invited to attend	4:08
	the fifth annual Military Industrial Conference in Chicago.	4:09
	Here were gathered hundreds of men	4:16
	from every part of the world and represented	4:18
	the top flight leadership in almost every area of life.	4:21
	There were men from Asia, from Africa	4:27
	and United States and all the continents	4:29
	and islands of the world, men like Wernher von Braun,	4:32
	the great rocket expert.	4:36
	But as I listened two days to the discussions	4:39
	and the are conferences,	4:42
	I came away profoundly depressed	4:44
	because here in the 20th century,	4:47
	the whole debate seemed to revolve around the question,	4:48
	of launching pads and space platforms	4:54
	by which we might carry on out in space,	4:57
	the same wars which we have carried on, upon the earth.	5:00
	So here we were in the midst of the knowledge	5:04
	and the culture of the 20th century	5:06
	grabbing among the stars and returning to the bomb shelters	5:09
	and the caves underground.	5:14
	Why is this?	5:18
	That we always carry with us the darkness into the light?	5:19
	I think it a cause we have our values completely in reverse.	5:22
	We somehow have come to the conviction	5:28
	that freedom is the greatest value of the world	5:30
	and that the survival of truth depends upon freedom.	5:34
	Jesus, on the contrary taught exactly the reverse of this.	5:41
	He said, freedom was not the primary value,	5:46
	truth was the first value.	5:50
	And the survival of freedom depended upon truth	5:52
	Said He, in His exact words,	5:59
	"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."	6:00
	We know that there are many men who have had	6:06
	all of the freedoms, freedom of conscience,	6:09
	freedom of the franchise, freedom of the press,	6:12
	freedom of religion.	6:16
	And in spite of all of these freedoms,	6:19
	they have been slaves, gangsters,	6:21
	captives to their own lusts and evil desires.	6:25
	And on the other hand, all through the ages,	6:30
	there have been saints and prophets and martyrs	6:32
	who have been captives and prisoners	6:35
	in and the lowest of dungeons,	6:38
	and yet to have maintained their inner freedom.	6:40
	I had a striking example of this in 1953,	6:43
	when Mrs. Dalberg and I were in India	6:47
	for the central committee meeting	6:50
	of the World Council of Churches, following the meeting,	6:51
	we went down to the little community of Midnapore	6:54
	to visit one of our Baptist mission fields.	6:57
	And there I met one of our fine missionaries,	7:01
	Mr. Noran, who just 10 days previously	7:04
	had been released from a communist prison in south China,	7:08
	where he had been in solitary confinement for two years.	7:12
	The communists had done everything inconceivable	7:17
	to brainwash him during that two year period.	7:20
	But without success,	7:24
	fortunately, they had allowed him to retain nine books.	7:27
	They didn't permit him to have the Bible,	7:31
	but they did permit him to have the Hymn book.	7:33
	And every week during those two years,	7:37
	as he, (indistinct),	7:39
	Two of the great hymns of the church,	7:47
	so that when he came out of the prison	7:49
	at the conclusion of the two years,	7:51
	he had committed to memory more than 200 of our great	7:53
	Christian hymns.	7:57
	Hymns like " How firm a foundation is laid	8:00
	for your faith in his excellent word.	8:02
	Faith of our Father's living still	8:05
	in spite of dungeon, fire and sword,	8:08
	oh God, our help in ages passed	8:12
	our hope for years to come.	8:15
	Here was a man who though pallet with prison pallet,	8:18
	came out a free man.	8:22
	And today he's back in Hong Kong,	8:25
	ministering to his beloved south Chinese Christians.	8:28
	So it is a fact that what Jesus said,	8:35
	"Ye shall know the truth and the shall make you free."	8:39
	I would have you bear in mind, however,	8:44
	that this truth was something more	8:46
	than academic truth.	8:48
	Academic truth, scientific truth,	8:53
	laboratory truth that's all important	8:54
	as I imagine you realize during this final exam week,	8:57
	for the first time in my life,	9:02
	after 45 years in the local pastor at the active ministry,	9:03
	I am now a member of faculty trying to be a professor.	9:08
	And I'm very glad that this week	9:12
	I I'm at the giving end of final exams,	9:14
	rather than at the taking end of them.	9:19
	I hope you'll all come out successfully,	9:22
	not be like that young man who flunked	9:24
	all of his examinations and sent a telegram	9:27
	to his sister saying, "Flunked all my examinations	9:29
	prepare Papa."	9:32
	And a wire came by from his sister saying,	9:34
	"Papa prepared, prepare yourself."	9:35
	(audience laughing)	9:38
	I take it this is the situation	9:39
	that we are all guarding against these days.	9:41
	So we must all have respect for facts	9:46
	in any realm of knowledge,	9:48
	engineering facts, chemical facts, legal facts,	9:51
	whatever they may be.	9:54
	But I would point out to you that Jesus	9:56
	was speaking of something more significant	9:58
	than academic truth or philosophic truth.	10:00
	He was speaking of that truth,	10:04
	which was personified in himself.	10:06
	If the son shall make you free, capital S-O-N,	10:10
	if the son shall make you free,	10:15
	ye shall be free indeed.	10:18
	Now this truth is something even more significant	10:22
	than the truth that we learn in the academic realm.	10:25
	I shall never forget the statement of Adolph Keller,	10:29
	the great Swiss theologian and humanitarian	10:32
	who during the years after the last world war,	10:36
	captured the love of all of Europe,	10:40
	by reason of the ministry that he carried on to the children	10:42
	of refugees, the orphans of the war,	10:47
	as he fed them and clothed them and housed them.	10:50
	He was addressing the delegates to the first assembly,	10:54
	the World Council of Churches,	10:56
	the American delegation in New York,	10:58
	shortly before we went to Amsterdam in 1948,	11:00
	I wish I could communicate to you,	11:08
	the urgency of what he said as he in his broken English.	11:10
	He said, "Here in America,	11:17
	you, you always want to have the facts.	11:19
	We in Europe, he said are sick of facts.	11:25
	We have too many facts.	11:29
	If you had a thousand children to feed	11:33
	and you had no bread with which to feed them,	11:36
	you too would be sick of facts.	11:40
	What we want is not more facts,	11:45
	but a word of hope that will shine like a star	11:49
	through the darkness of Europe."	11:54
	I've never forgotten that unless with our facts,	11:57
	we have a star of hope,	12:02
	the kind of hope that we have in Jesus Christ,	12:05
	who said, if the son shall make you free,	12:09
	ye shall be indeed.	12:12
	Unless we have that hope we are lost.	12:15
	I remember hearing on one occasion,	12:20
	Dr. Elton Trueblood, speaking about this same passage	12:21
	that we are thinking of this morning,	12:27
	he told about how he had been in a college	12:28
	up in New England, or he had called attention to the fact	12:30
	that the truth here represented was something	12:34
	more than laboratory facts,	12:38
	that this was the truth personified in Christ.	12:41
	And as he came to the conclusion of his sermon,	12:45
	the president of the college came to him,	12:48
	I'm sure that this would not be a situation	12:50
	for the president here at Duke university,	12:54
	but the president of this particular New England college	12:57
	came to him and he said,	12:59
	"For 15 years, I have been president of this institution,	13:02
	and all over the country,	13:07
	I have seen these words carved into cornerstones	13:09
	of college buildings and engraved on the walls of libraries,	13:13
	you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.	13:17
	But this is the first time that I ever realized	13:21
	that the truth that was referred	13:25
	to that was the truth in Jesus Christ.	13:27
	Now this truth is personified truth.	13:31
	This is flesh and blood truth,	13:35
	activated truth.	13:38
	This is truth on the cross, crucified suffering truth,	13:41
	truth risen from the dead.	13:47
	We have enough facts now,	13:50
	so that we could solve most of the problems of the world.	13:53
	We could solve the race question.	13:55
	We could solve international affairs.	13:57
	We could solve many of the industrial problems of the time	13:59
	on the basis of the facts that we know,	14:04
	but it's the will to carry out the deed that is lacking.	14:07
	And this will, is inspired and fired and empowered	14:13
	by our relationship to Jesus Christ.	14:18
	I've always liked the translation by Dr. Clarence Jordan	14:22
	of Koinonia farms and America's, Georgia, who,	14:26
	as you know, has a new Testament community there,	14:30
	which is in interracial great peace loving community.	14:32
	I've heard Dr. Jordan on many occasions,	14:39
	he translates the New Testament,	14:41
	right from the Greek into the English.	14:45
	As he speaks, he is such a popular speaker	14:47
	with young people.	14:51
	If you have not yet come across what	14:52
	he calls his cutpicking version of the Bible,	14:54
	the substandard version of the Bible, as he calls it,	14:57
	I hope you will come into contact with it.	15:00
	As he translates the opening verses	15:04
	of the first chapter of the gospel, according to John,	15:06
	which you will remember big begins	15:09
	with a rather perplexing phrases.	15:11
	"In the beginning was the word.	15:16
	And the word was with God. And the word was God."	15:18
	The same was in the beginning with God.	15:22
	Through Him, was everything made that has been made.	15:26
	And without Him has not anything been made	15:29
	that has been made.	15:31
	Dr. Jordan translates it this way.	15:34
	I'm not enough of a Greek scholar	15:36
	to know how accurate this is,	15:38
	but it has conveyed something to me.	15:39
	In the beginning was the idea.	15:43
	And the idea was with God.	15:47
	And the idea was, God.	15:50
	The same was in the beginning with God,	15:53
	by that idea was everything made.	15:57
	And without that idea has nothing been made	16:01
	that has been made.	16:04
	And the idea became flesh and blood among us.	16:07
	And we beheld His glory, full of grace and truth.	16:11
	Now we know that God is something more than an idea.	16:18
	But this thought of the idea of God as being clothed	16:22
	in flesh, walking among us so	16:26
	that we could see His glory full of grace and truth.	16:28
	This is the essential meaning	16:32
	of the gospel that God has dwelt among us.	16:35
	This great creative spirit in Jesus Christ,	16:39
	which have communicated to us,	16:42
	can give to us true greatness and the spirit	16:45
	of those who live as neighbors to immensity.	16:50
	Let me give to you just two examples of people that I feel	16:54
	have caught this spirit of the Christ,	16:59
	who have caught this idea	17:02
	and have believed that it is embedded	17:03
	in the very constitution of the universe	17:06
	so that we ignore it at our peril.	17:07
	Some years ago, the last year of the second world war,	17:11
	I was speaking at a chapel service	17:17
	at a little Baptist college for women	17:19
	up in central New York, college,	17:23
	and as I got off the bus that afternoon at the gates	17:27
	of the university of the college,	17:30
	I was met by four young women,	17:34
	one American girl, Betty Covell,	17:37
	three other American girls who were Japanese, Nisei girls.	17:40
	That is, they were Americans.	17:45
	They'd been born in this country,	17:47
	but they were of Japanese parentage.	17:48
	These four girls conducted	17:52
	the worship service at the chapel,	17:54
	and I was deeply moved by that worship service by reason of	17:58
	of its reality.	18:02
	It was so genuine as this worship service today	18:03
	is so genuine.	18:07
	The next morning I met with these same four girls	18:10
	at breakfast in the college dining room,	18:13
	along with, with Dr. Henry Allen,	18:15
	president of the college who is now coordinator	18:18
	of religion at My Alma mater, University of Minnesota.	18:20
	And I remarked to Dr. Allen at the close of the breakfast.	18:24
	I'm deeply impressed with these four girls,	18:27
	particularly with Betty Covell.	18:30
	Betty Covell had been born of missionary parents in Japan.	18:32
	Well, he said what a wonderful person she is.	18:38
	You'll realize when I tell you this.	18:40
	Just a few weeks ago,	18:44
	and this was not yet known to the public by reason	18:45
	of the top secret priorities of the war.	18:48
	Just a few weeks ago,	18:54
	she was going to go down to New York to meet her parents who	18:55
	were missionaries in Japan	18:58
	and who had been prisoners in Japan.	19:00
	They were coming home on the,	19:03
	Swedish exchange ship, the Gripsholm.	19:05
	But just before we were going down to the ship,	19:09
	we received a cable gram stating that her father and mother,	19:13
	along with 11 other missionaries and two or three children	19:17
	had been executed by the Japanese in the Philippine islands	19:22
	and had been beheaded.	19:25
	So Dr. Allen, when I read this message to Betty,	19:29
	she was silent for a moment, and then she said,	19:32
	"Now I know that I must give my life	19:36
	in Christian service to the Japanese."	19:39
	And immediately at the close of the war,	19:44
	a few months later, while her husband was still	19:45
	in the uniform of the American army,	19:47
	she went out to Colorado,	19:50
	to the internment camp	19:51
	for Japanese prisoners as a social worker.	19:53
	And there, her witness for Christ was so radiant	19:56
	and her story became so known to the Japanese	20:00
	that one of the Japanese Airforce officers	20:03
	was converted to Christ.	20:08
	Later when he went back to Japan,	20:11
	after the prisoners exchange,	20:13
	this Japanese Christian was standing	20:16
	on a street corner one morning, giving us witness	20:19
	to his newfound faith.	20:21
	And in the little crowd standing around him that morning was	20:23
	the man who led the attack on Pearl Harbor.	20:26
	The Japanese air force officer who led that attack.	20:29
	And as he listened to his comrade,	20:32
	speaking of the Christ and of this American girl	20:36
	who was giving her life in service of the Japanese though,	20:39
	her mother and father had been beheaded by the Japanese,	20:42
	that air force officer who led the attack on Pearl Harbor	20:47
	became a Christian.	20:50
	And on the Friday before the Christmas that I went out into	20:52
	the Pacific to visit the military installation	20:56
	for the national council of churches,	21:00
	I heard this same Japanese air force officer	21:03
	that led the Pearl Harbor attack speaking	21:06
	over station KFUO, the Missouri Senate Lutheran radio	21:09
	and TV station in St. Louis, where I lived.	21:14
	And he was giving his explanation why he was in America as	21:17
	an evangelist, giving his witness to Jesus Christ.	21:22
	This is what I mean by the truth that makes us free,	21:28
	liberating, emancipating truth that tears away,	21:32
	these walls and tunnels of darkness,	21:35
	and enmity and permits us to see the light that is in Him,	21:38
	who is the light of the world.	21:42
	The other example is from the other side of the line.	21:45
	While I was pastoring in Syracuse, New York,	21:50
	we had not far away from us in little community,	21:53
	on Lake Oneida, a Japanese American couple,	21:56
	named Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Iyanaga.	22:01
	Mr. Iyanaga's father had been a famous professor	22:05
	of history at Columbia and Chicago universities,	22:09
	but now by reason of the war situation,	22:13
	he and his wife had been reduced to trying to make a living	22:16
	by selling little souvenirs in a souvenir shop	22:20
	in a summer colony.	22:23
	They were faithful Christians.	22:26
	Mrs. Iyanaga was a graduate of one of our Baptist colleges.	22:28
	She'd been a teacher in the Sunday school.	22:30
	Mr. Iyanaga's, old mother, fine Japanese Christian,	22:35
	whose Japanese Bible was worn from cover to cover	22:39
	from frequent reading,	22:42
	were living in their little home there	22:44
	at lake Oneida.	22:46
	Next to them there lived a neighbor, Marty Otul,	22:49
	who was a bartender, rough pune fellow,	22:52
	but man of fine spirit,	22:55
	he and his wife were very dear friends	22:59
	of Mr. and Mrs. Iyanaga.	23:01
	On Christmas day, a year after the world war began,	23:04
	as Mr and Mrs Iyanaga and their two boys	23:09
	and the grandmother were sitting at the breakfast table,	23:13
	suddenly the door was flung open and here was Marty Otul,	23:15
	their next door neighbor,	23:18
	intoxicated with the pistol in both hands,	23:19
	they thinking it was some kind of a practical joke said,	23:23
	"Well, Marty, what's the big idea?"	23:25
	He said, "I'm gonna shoot some dirty Japs."	23:27
	And he began firing. He shot and killed Mr Iyanaga.	23:29
	He wounded Mr Iyanaga's mother in a stomach	23:34
	so that she could hardly stand erect the rest of her life.	23:39
	She wounded the younger Mrs. Iyanaga through the throat.	23:43
	And then he escaped.	23:48
	He was captured, convicted,	23:51
	sentenced to the prison for the criminally insane,	23:53
	up in (indistinct).	23:59
	Weeks later, Mrs. Iyanaga's pastor told me this.	24:03
	Weeks later, Mrs. Iyanaga wrote to Mrs. Otul,	24:08
	the killer's wife, who was now working in a restaurant	24:13
	down in Utica, trying to make a living for herself	24:17
	and her two boys.	24:20
	Mrs. Iyanaga wrote to Mrs. Otul and said,	24:21
	"Dear Helen, this has been a terrible tragedy,	24:24
	but we must not permit it to affect our friendship."	24:30
	Here are two people who have caught the spirit of the cross,	24:36
	it's forgiveness, it's freedom, it's emancipation,	24:42
	and if there is to be true greatness in life,	24:48
	if there is to come peace in the world,	24:52
	it will be because there have been those who have heard	24:55
	and obeyed the promise of Jesus.	24:58
	Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.	25:02
	If the son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed	25:07
	Those were great words we just sang.	25:14
	Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free.	25:17
	Force me to render up my sword.	25:25
	And I shall conqueror be.	25:29
	Let us pray.	25:34
	In these closing moments of our worship, Oh God,	25:46
	we would look into the level eyes of Jesus Christ,	25:51
	our savior, as with searching gaze,	25:54
	He looks deep into our hearts into all that is there.	26:01
	Turn us from the darkness within us	26:08
	to the light that is in Him.	26:12
	And we pray that if our Christian faith	26:16
	has been purely nominal, ceremonial, outward,	26:20
	that it might become personal and warm	26:27
	and completely surrendered to the will of Him	26:30
	who alone can set us free.	26:33
	Bless all of these young people here gathered, oh God.	26:36
	And those listening in over the air,	26:41
	granted all of us may so live in the presence of Christ	26:44
	from day to day, that we shall welcome the time	26:47
	when the kingdoms of this world shall become	26:52
	the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.	26:54
	Now may the Lord bless you and keep you.	26:58
	The Lord make His face to shine upon you	27:01
	and be gracious unto you.	27:03
	The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,	27:06
	in your going out and in your coming in,	27:10
	in your lying down and in your rising up,	27:13
	in your labor and in your leisure,	27:16
	in your laughter and in your tears.	27:19
	Till you come to stand before Him,	27:22
	in that day, which has no sunset and no dawning.	27:25
	This we ask in the name of, and spirit of Jesus Christ,	27:30
	our savior and our Lord.	27:33

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Title:

Edwin T. Dahlberg - "Truth before Freedom" (January 24, 1965)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4qr4ss0h

Date:

January 24, 1965

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Dahlberg, Edwin T.

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0281
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uachapelsermaud
duke:628510
dcrau002280
ark:/87924/r4qr4ss0h
8ccf798e-fa3a-4b90-8feb-0b6ab8389f54

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Edwin T. Dahlberg - "Truth before Freedom" (January 24, 1965)

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1. Edwin T. Dahlberg - "Truth before Freedom" (January 24, 1965)

Duke University Archives

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Edwin T. Dahlberg - "Truth before Freedom" (January 24, 1965)

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Duke University Archives

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