Warren Carr - "Crying over Spilled Wine" (August 15, 1965)

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	(microphone glitching)	0:08
-	The 20th century	0:29
	both enjoys and agonizes over	0:33
	the greatest theological ferment,	0:39
	since the days of the reformation.	0:43
	It would be ridiculous to say that,	0:48
	no man of any theological stature	0:51
	has come to the surface,	0:57
	in the interim between the reformation and now.	1:00
	But I think it's a safe conjecture to say that	1:06
	most of these men were not appreciated in their time.	1:09
	Men like the Danish philosopher, Kierkegaard,	1:16
	who came into his own in our own century.	1:19
	And most of the theologians between then and now,	1:25
	were exceptions rather than the rule.	1:30
	It is the 20th century,	1:37
	which has heard and read	1:41
	from Barth and Brunner and Bultmann.	1:45
	From the Niebuhr brothers and Paul Tillich.	1:52
	Bonhoeffer, John A.T. Robinson	1:58
	and many others.	2:04
	And because of this tremendous theological awakening,	2:06
	this surging revival of theological	2:13
	and intellectual concern,	2:16
	the parable of Jesus does become appropriate.	2:21
	You cannot put new wine into old wineskins.	2:26
	You cannot take what is happening today	2:35
	in religious and theological circles	2:40
	and pour it into the same outmoded vessels,	2:45
	which have been such miserable failures over recent years.	2:51
	We are a people if we are concerned at all with the church	3:00
	who have watched in our time,	3:08
	the new heady brew of theology,	3:12
	first average traditional form	3:17
	with which we have become accustomed.	3:20
	And the new wine is mixed with our tears.	3:25
	As it pours out over the ground	3:30
	and earth is no connoisseur of wine.	3:35
	The greatest need of Christians today	3:42
	is to discover,	3:49
	to establish and to sustain	3:51
	the new forms of which the new faith	3:57
	so desperately cries for.	4:03
	And as we stand contemplating our loss,	4:07
	theological wine mixed with the dirt.	4:14
	We have three options.	4:20
	We can try to patch up the old forms,	4:23
	which we have been trying to do	4:29
	with such remarkable failure.	4:31
	We can become anti-institutional	4:36
	and do away with all forms.	4:39
	Or we can find new skins for the new wine.	4:44
	I think most of us know	4:52
	what we have been doing recently.	4:57
	It is to confess to ourselves and to the world	5:02
	that the old forms are obsolete and gone,	5:06
	but because it is the line of least resistance.	5:12
	And because it has a certain fashionableness to it,	5:17
	we are rapidly becoming a people who say	5:23
	let's do away with form altogether.	5:28
	Let's do away with institution.	5:33
	And there is no more paradoxical and ironic place	5:38
	that this is occurring than in the academic community.	5:44
	Or whether it be Duke or Wake Forest.	5:52
	Or Davidson.	5:57
	Or universities farther away.	5:59
	These great, imposing institutions of learning	6:03
	are currently practicing and following the fad of say,	6:10
	let's do away with the institution of faith.	6:15
	This is a cheap and tawdry solution to a pressing problem.	6:21
	We cannot stem the tide of the faith,	6:29
	which does engulf us.	6:34
	I watched for many years with amazement	6:38
	student after student at Duke University.	6:43
	And the pattern is repeated where I now am.	6:46
	Students who would not be caught dead in church,	6:51
	majoring in religion.	6:55
	And I was reminded that these students	7:00
	were drinking theology to great excess	7:05
	because they had no place to keep it.	7:08
	It was much like the man who	7:13
	bought his bottle on Saturday night	7:17
	and because he had no place to hide it from his wife,	7:21
	he had to drink it all.	7:25
	We are in danger of what I would call	7:28
	a kind of theological hangover,	7:31
	because we've had no place to store the faith,	7:36
	no channels by which we can exercise new insights,	7:40
	no kind of institution or organization or program,	7:47
	which gives to the new theology	7:53
	in a particular sense or direction or endurance.	7:56
	And consequently,	8:01
	we are a people who,	8:03
	under the impact of the intellectual theological thrust	8:06
	are greatly enamored, preoccupied and intrigued	8:12
	with what we call the new theology.	8:18
	And yet it is a burden and an agony to us	8:21
	because we have no place to put it.	8:25
	I there, therefore, on any occasion,	8:30
	to be pedestrian enough to say	8:35
	that the church is an institution.	8:39
	And that unapologetically,	8:44
	it must be an institution.	8:47
	And that the only hope for our day religiously	8:51
	is to make of the church institutionally	8:56
	a reputable and meaningful community of people	8:59
	who take truth seriously enough	9:05
	to organize it and communicate it	9:10
	to the world in which we live.	9:14
	The church is the body of Christ.	9:19
	And when one tries to understand that theologically,	9:24
	the thing that strikes him most forcibly is this,	9:30
	that even the Holy Spirit was not willing	9:34
	to perpetuate himself in disembodiment.	9:37
	Even the Holy Spirit found the institution.	9:42
	And it is the church, the body of Christ in which,	9:46
	through which and by which the Holy Spirit makes himself	9:52
	felt and known in the world today.	9:56
	No matter how rash and reckless we may want to be,	10:02
	no matter how much we enjoy escaping	10:10
	of the rigidities of the institution	10:13
	and drinking in new truth,	10:16
	unless we are wise enough to recognize	10:20
	that it is necessary to incorporate faith	10:24
	into those terms that can be communicated to the world,	10:28
	then what we really are saying is	10:34
	that we do not take our faith seriously.	10:37
	No one is ever more ready than am I	10:43
	to be critical of the church,	10:50
	to talk about its inanities.	10:54
	It's pre-occupation with the trivia	10:58
	and it's introverted selfishness	11:02
	where it does not want to save the world,	11:04
	but only save itself.	11:07
	That is tragic.	11:11
	Let it be that that comes under the awful judgment of God.	11:14
	But the answer to that tragedy of our time	11:21
	is not an irresponsible dismissal	11:27
	of the institution we call the church.	11:32
	I wish that I were capable.	11:38
	Tying up these ideas in some neatly ribboned form	11:43
	and say, "This is the problem.	11:49
	"And here is the answer."	11:53
	And hand it to you as if it were a gift and say,	11:54
	"Take it home with you and open it up at your convenience."	11:57
	It is not that simple.	12:03
	Theology is so dynamic and so vital,	12:07
	biblical criticism and the addenda insights	12:13
	that come to doctrine move so rapidly	12:16
	that the development of forms to contain these truths	12:22
	is an exceedingly difficult task.	12:27
	A colleague of mine some four years ago,	12:31
	wrote a scholarly work on Soren Kierkegaard	12:36
	only to discover that as recently as four years ago,	12:42
	Kierkegaard was already out of date.	12:47
	How does one, therefore,	12:52
	in this dynamic changing society of ours	12:55
	develop the forms of the church?	13:00
	I cannot say for certain.	13:04
	But I can positively say these things	13:07
	about new skins for new wines.	13:10
	It is neither new nor profound to suggest to you	13:16
	that we need an increasing lay ministry.	13:20
	We have heard this,	13:26
	I affirm it and then asked for two safeguards.	13:29
	What bothers me about the lay ministry?	13:35
	The increasing lay ministry of the church	13:39
	is that whatever a layman	13:44
	gets a peculiar and specific religious bug inside of him,	13:45
	he wants to start preaching.	13:53
	Laymen can't preach.	13:57
	I do not say that laymen ought to stay out of the pulpit	14:01
	because I'm threatened by them,	14:04
	I am human enough to be threatened by other preachers,	14:08
	but not by lay preachers.	14:11
	And most of the time when they would pretend to do this	14:14
	out of their call to the lay ministry,	14:19
	do they simply succeed in making a terrible mess of things	14:22
	theologically and ecclesiastically speaking.	14:27
	The lay ministry means that the laymen	14:32
	ought to work in the world at those places	14:35
	and in those ways, which are shut up against the clergy.	14:40
	Lay ministry, yes.	14:47
	Not presiding over pulpit	14:50
	or holding businessman's revivals,	14:53
	but in the labor union.	14:57
	And in the national association of manufacturing,	15:00
	abroad in the world	15:05
	as laymen who have keys	15:09
	both to the kingdom of Heaven	15:13
	and to the doors locked up by secularism in our society.	15:16
	And if we are to have a lay ministry,	15:25
	let us make sure that this does do something	15:27
	about the rift hood the risk between,	15:32
	the rift lay and clergy.	15:34
	This rift is not primarily important	15:38
	because lay and clergy do not usually like each other.	15:41
	We have good reasons, I suppose, on both sides for that.	15:46
	The lay-clergy rift is most serious	15:52
	at that point where the layman saying	15:56
	they embrace the priesthood of believers,	16:00
	still willing to make of the clergy	16:02
	a peculiar kind of person so that if by chance,	16:04
	he must represent them before God, he will do a good job.	16:09
	And this is occurring increasingly in the churches,	16:16
	which do not believe in the sacrament.	16:23
	Priesthood of believers, these churches say,	16:27
	we embrace this.	16:29
	No priest can administer sacrament to us	16:31
	and thereby assure us of grace.	16:35
	What develops?	16:40
	They get a clergyman who has a personality	16:42
	who will be well-pleasing to God.	16:45
	And we joined therefore with a kind of personality cult	16:49
	for the clergy.	16:54
	Given the choice,	16:57
	I would always depend on for my salvation	16:59
	more upon the priest who can administer the sacrament	17:03
	than the priest who has a good personality.	17:08
	Secondly, the new forms of the church	17:14
	must demand active rather than static patterns.	17:17
	No longer can the church simply sit	17:26
	and say to the world, "Come and join with our fellowship."	17:32
	If the church is to have meaning in this society,	17:41
	the church must be at work.	17:45
	It must take seriously	17:47
	the bargain that our Lord made with his own time	17:49
	when he said,	17:53
	"If you do not believe that I do the work of the Father,	17:54
	"then just believe in me	17:59
	"for the sake of the works themselves."	18:00
	I dare to suggest that the church quit inviting people	18:06
	to join its membership	18:12
	on the basis of its fellowship or even its community.	18:16
	For this has proven to become a homogeneous	18:21
	club-like community,	18:26
	which always excludes the different.	18:28
	The church perhaps ought to invite people to join its work,	18:34
	to take a new posture in the world and to say,	18:42
	"This is what we are doing.	18:45
	"Do you want to join this?"	18:49
	Now, if the church dare to restrict its invitation	18:54
	to membership on the basis of an invitation to work,	18:57
	the church would become smaller.	19:03
	But this leanness of work would at the very least,	19:07
	rid us of those fat churches with their rose bud preachers,	19:12
	who try to deodorize the atmosphere	19:17
	so that we can't smell the stench of dead men's bones.	19:21
	Well, this leanness of work would strip the church	19:28
	of its rigidities and its encumbrances	19:32
	so that it could move in a mobile society.	19:35
	This leanness of work would put the church on edge	19:42
	and make it nervous and anxious	19:47
	so that it could anticipate the wiles of the devil.	19:51
	Thirdly, the new form of the church will most certainly	20:01
	embrace what I call	20:06
	ecumenical particularity.	20:12
	I am somewhat disenchanted	20:18
	with much of the ecumenical movement	20:23
	and I am disenchanted with it	20:27
	because I think it fails to recognize the economy of God.	20:29
	There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.	20:34
	But in the Providence and the economy of God,	20:38
	there are many peoples and many churches	20:43
	to do His will and work in the world.	20:45
	These churches should not be at each other's throats.	20:48
	These churches ought to be in cooperation,	20:51
	but these churches ought to have particular	20:54
	and distinctive missions.	20:57
	Some years ago,	21:01
	a well-meaning mother came to me after a sermon I preached.	21:04
	And literally pointing her finger at my right eye,	21:13
	she said in evident anger,	21:21
	"It is time for my son to become a Christian.	21:23
	"And he could not understand a single word	21:29
	"in your sermon today."	21:35
	Now her son was only seven or eight years old.	21:38
	And I said to her,	21:42
	"I would have been grievously disappointed in my sermon	21:43
	"had your eight year old son been able to understand it."	21:47
	This university worship has a particular mission.	21:55
	It cannot cover the whole spectrum of God's will.	22:02
	So let it find what it can do and do it.	22:09
	And I would say that the most important	22:18
	concept to bring to the new forms of the church,	22:22
	is that the church must learn	22:27
	how to be an orphan in the world,	22:29
	because it is as Martin, Marty,	22:34
	has pointed out socially and culturally displaced.	22:38
	He criticizes the church because it is so busy defending	22:46
	its occupied ground	22:51
	and keeps saying the world owes us a particular place.	22:54
	The church has got to get over that.	23:00
	Do you remember the bill that was introduced	23:04
	at the national level,	23:07
	suggesting that we perhaps move election day to Sunday?	23:08
	And the clergy began its harangue?	23:14
	Now the church has to come to the place where it would say,	23:18
	if the choice must be made between voting on Sunday	23:24
	in the national election are going to worship,	23:31
	then fOr God's sakes, go vote.	23:34
	Society Doesn't owe us a place.	23:40
	But at least those of us who belong to the free church,	23:47
	disestablished ourselves a long time ago	23:50
	and said to society, "We don't really need you."	23:53
	Now, let's be faithful.	23:59
	Let us say,	24:02
	if we are free that we can operate in this society of ours	24:03
	without it giving to us place or establishment.	24:09
	This means that we must make room	24:15
	for ourselves unapologetically.	24:21
	Perhaps the church has to learn the technique	24:27
	of the PTA and the Boy Scouts.	24:30
	For of all organizations I know,	24:36
	these two organizations can make me feel	24:38
	as if I'm the lowest form of father	24:41
	if I don't join and attend.	24:46
	There are recent newcomers to the scene,	24:51
	somehow they've made their place.	24:55
	And in a world of competing elbows,	24:58
	the church needs to learn how to swing its own	25:04
	and make rules for itself in the world,	25:08
	rather than saying, "Give to us this place."	25:12
	The same is said for time.	25:17
	Sunday may have to be traded in for Tuesday.	25:23
	And if the weekends become more recreational,	25:32
	perhaps we shall seek this special	25:38
	dispensation from the Spirit	25:40
	to suggest the Tuesday become our holy day.	25:43
	All that I am saying is that the church has no right	25:49
	to demand time.	25:53
	And if by any chance,	25:57
	some of us drove by a pagan front yard this morning	25:58
	and saw a pagan up there playing with his children,	26:03
	having a better time than we were having coming to church,	26:08
	make sure of this, the pagan couldn't care less	26:14
	if you pray for him.	26:17
	And you also must make sure of this,	26:21
	that there isn't any particular kind of righteousness,	26:24
	which brought us to this place this morning.	26:28
	The church must find time.	26:33
	On many days and many nights.	26:39
	It may startle you for me to close by saying	26:44
	that in this cultural displacement,	26:48
	the church is also going to have to become honest	26:52
	and clever about money.	26:56
	Are we really telling the truth	27:02
	when we say the money you give to the church	27:04
	goes to the good cause?	27:07
	Into the United Fund,	27:10
	well, it's all right.	27:12
	Cigarettes, which built this building, that's bad.	27:17
	If the church is to be as clever as serpents	27:26
	and as harmless as doves in the world,	27:29
	a lot of it's real places of activity is money.	27:33
	And we must trick the world into giving money to good causes	27:38
	when it would not think of giving it to the church.	27:45
	Maybe the church will have to again,	27:51
	embrace the power of poverty and say,	27:54
	"Neither does the world owe us any money."	28:00
	The only money we need is money formation.	28:05
	Will we be able to store new wine?	28:16
	Are you concerned with foreign and institution	28:24
	which will take this tremendously exciting age	28:32
	and make it endure and store it	28:40
	against the uncertain tomorrows?	28:45
	This is the burning question	28:50
	of Christendom.	28:54
	Please stand for the prayer.	28:57
	Let us find in thee, oh God.	29:07
	And in the risen spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ,	29:11
	the courage and wisdom for the day.	29:15
	And the burning and tremendous excitement	29:18
	about the venture to my mission in life.	29:21
	And to bide with us, both in judgment and loss,	29:26
	as we joined those involved was called	29:31
	for thy purpose.	29:36
	And now, oh God, we pray.	29:38
	Attend us with thy mercy, fill us with thy spirit	29:43
	and hold us in thy hand to both now and forever.	29:51

Item Info

Title:

Warren Carr - "Crying over Spilled Wine" (August 15, 1965)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4xg9kc33

Date:

August 15, 1965

Speaker:

Carr, Warren

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0301
ref5807_03m
uachapelsermaud
duke:628034
dcrau002300
ark:/87924/r4xg9kc33
9d55eacf-7719-4654-91ca-96ee3dc6e4ed

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Warren Carr - "Crying over Spilled Wine" (August 15, 1965)

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