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THOMAS P. HARDEMAN ministered to Churches of Christ for seventeen years and taught in Church of Christ Bible colleges for six years before leaving to serve the Unitarian-Universalist Church as lecturer and teacher for three years. He is at present deeply involved in the varied social welfare programs of his home state, Florida.

Specializing in Biblical studies at David Lipscomb College (Nashville) and Freed-Hardeman College (Henderson, Tennessee), Mr. Hardeman completed his B.S. at Murray State in Kentucky (1947). He went on to the University of Illinois, where he earned his M.A. in 1949 and his Ph.D. in 1956, both in philosophy. He has taught philosophy and religion courses at Florida Christian College (1949-52 and 1955-58), at the University of Illinois (1953-54), and at the University of Tampa (1955-61).

Concentrating on social services in recent years, he has been Project Director for the Community Service Foundation in Florida (1962-64) and is presently its vice president. He is a member of many philosophical and social welfare organizations and has served as an officer in most. He has conducted many radio and television programs based on his twin interests and continues to be busy as speaker and writer. He was consultant to the OEO Task Force for the Community Action Program in Florida in 1964.

Born In Graves County, Kentucky in 1925, Mr. Hardeman is married and the father of four children.

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For what the birth of the masses?
Or why the lives of the few?
To what run the paths of the greatest?
Whither it leads, what they do?
For what the breath that is given?
Or whence the power to fly?
For what all the glories of heaven?
Is every answer a lie?
Man born to die is a question,
Ever and always to seek
Not the mysteries of God high above him,
But the mission of man who is weak.
Is it pain? Is it joy? It is neither --
Not regret nor false bliss can repay,
But the good that man does to another
Is the end of his life every day.

(Pat Hardeman, 1946)

After two years each at David Lipscomb and Freed-Hardeman what an experience it was to confront Emerson and the professor who taught him to me. Properly schooled to combat evil, I helped secure the professor's censure for calling "sacred truths" into question. It was poetic justice that my own similar questioning led me fifteen years later through the same fires he suffered.

The professor was more easily disposed of than was Emerson, who lingered inside, caused much disquietude, and eventually outweighed earlier influences. The poem above, so indebted to Emerson, was born in Murray, Kentucky after many days and nights of youthful, enthusiastic questioning of my place in the scheme of things. it also represented the first serious grappling with two basic thrusts in my life "the mysteries of

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God high above him," and "the mission of man who is weak."

I remember so well the immediate reaction of parents and friends to these lines. "Why do you say it is not man's mission to seek the mysteries of God?" they inquired. So deeply was it ingrained in me to be "sound" that I said something like, "Well, there are many mysteries not revealed to man in the Bible. We must deal with what is revealed." But I had not meant that when I wrote the poem. Humanism, flowing from sources deep within me (in streams dammed up subsequently by many years of obsession with conceptualizing and rationalizing those very "mysteries" rejected in the poem), wrote the lines.

My graduation address at Lipscomb High School had been entitled, "The Value of Service." Although it received the compliments of the brethren at Lipscomb, it is basically a humanistic document, heavy in its emphasis on man's duty to his fellow man. Subsequently, this concern for service to others sometimes led my preaching to dwell on those practical evidences of religion which Jesus loved to stress. I shall never forget the poignancy of the occasion when one minister disposed of such a sermon by snorting, "Why, Brother X (a church cooperation partisan) could have said every word you did." He dismissed all that Jesus said! Why? Because Brother X could have said the same!

Eventually, however, I became the protagonist and apologist. Because debaters are so highly regarded in the Church of Christ, a fluent young man can easily have his head turned by praise of his cleverness in debate. Pride in the skill of forensic effort quickly dominates any effort to weigh fairly one's own position. However, the remorseless requirements of logic itself forced me to reconsider each of "our" major tenets. I was undone by the honesty of the very methods I used. I knew that propositions seeking to capture the essence of the conceptual system inherent in the verbal inspiration

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view of the Bible simply had to be consistent. The truism that if two propositions contradict, one must be false, led to my reassessment of many widely accepted views. For example, if we are truly "silent where the Bible is silent," what justification could there be for adding to the simple description of disciples meeting on the first day of the week to break bread the dictum that Christians must do it every Sunday, but never on any other day?

Debating was my undoing, or, rather, the undoing of my earlier creed. Men like Frank Pack and E. H. Ijams early kindled an interest in philosophy, leading eventually to my graduate major in that subject. I wrote to a friend that I was planning to major in philosophy "in order to contrast man's views on right and wrong with God's truth on the subject." This helps explain why my years of graduate study in philosophy, filled as they were with preaching and debating, never really allowed the great thinkers of the ages to combat my creed directly. I studied them to use them in combat. This continued until one momentous night when my favorite professor and I clashed in a friendly but deeply probing debate on the foundation of the Christian faith, the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Literate and skilled, this professor led me into an examination of the very concept of evidence for "supernatural" events. My brethren wrote high praise of my efforts, but Sara and I questioned the basic presuppositions of my arguments.

Having no definitive criteria for determining the supernaturalness of historical events, how could I be so sure that a given event was supernatural? I wondered, and I wonder, despite the arguments of A. E. Taylor, C. S. Lewis, et alia.

My creed was shaking on its foundations. Perhaps with a different field of graduate study for the previous years I would have backed away from such painful reappraisals and silenced my doubts. This may be

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sufficient cause for the warnings frequently uttered against "our" preachers becoming immersed in philosophy. Still, the training from childhood, the host of friends and relatives, the many tasks I had planned, the books I had written and would write-all these conspired to delay my departure and extend painfully my inner struggle. One does not cast off the commitment of faith and family as lightly as he sheds a coat for an hour. I shall list below some of the issues (minor by contrast with the major struggle just mentioned) involved in the dissolution of my "Church of Christ Faith."

My early and adult manhood can be divided into several periods with labels easily obtainable from those who went through similar experiences. The Lipscomb years, for example, were concerned with piety and evangelism. The Freed-Hardeman years concentrated on a doctrinal soundness based on selected "pioneers," on McGarvey, and on moral correctness consisting mainly of conformity with "brotherhood" rules of conduct. The post-Freed-Hardeman years at Murray State introduced me to part of the real world, in contrast to the monastic kind of life in the Freed-Hardeman complex (a type of life so unreal in its abhorrence of the outside world of "infidels" that the head of the school could jestingly call them "in-for-hells," and refer to sectarians as "insects").

At Murray State there were pagans, preachers, priests, and all sorts of people whom I set out to save by vanquishing them in argument. This interest diminished in direct proportion to my immersion in the delightful studies of political science, literature, and philosophy. Here I met Emerson, Plato, Aristotle, and a line of intriguing authors from St. Augustine to the more recent empiricists and rationalists. Here was Kant with whom I really did not struggle till postgraduate years. Here was Mellon, the English professor, with whom I did struggle immediately. (Straight

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from Freed-Hardeman and filled with authoritarian attitudes, I secured his demotion on grounds that his liberal views had a bad influence on students; it eases my conscience slightly to know that seeds he planted bore fruit later in my life and vindicated him completely in my own memories).

Most importantly, at Murray State, I met Sara, that beautiful Irish Catholic girl whose religious upbringing was so abhorrent, challenging, frustrating and, ultimately, deserving of warmest admiration, that I loved her at once, ridiculously rebaptized her, joyfully married her, and have been blessed by her and our four children beyond description. Together we have loved, fought, and struggled for life's meaning and purpose. Sara must have loved me far more than I knew.

Ironically, the reputation I gained as defender of the faith by attacking my English professor won me an invitation to a church near the University of Illinois, where I could preach while doing graduate work in philosophy. Those first years , during which I earned my Master's Degree, were my most partisan and argumentative years. The church wanted to reach the University with its message and our method was across-the-board attacks on everything from Disciples to Darwinism. The philosophy I was being taught was neatly compartmentalized, often utilized for my sectarian purposes, but was not contemplated. I had yet to learn that philosophy yields up its secrets only to men with time and will to contemplate.

Next came the call to Florida Christian College. Before my decision was final there was bitter infighting among friends and relatives as to whether I should join the family forces at Freed-Hardeman (my father hoped I would not), or go with the new administration to Florida. For the next three years I talked so much, either in preaching, debating, or overload teaching tasks, that I had little time for more than routine studies. Still, through all this, I found time to edit a

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paper and write articles, mostly in apologetics, and to do an exhaustive study of Freemasonry to determine with complete authority that "a Christian" simply could not be a Mason. How "sound" we were! During this time the college, with minor exceptions, moved to the right to join the Gospel Guardian forces in antichurch-cooperation (meaning no-contribution-from-church-treasury-to-causes-lacking-specific-apostolic-example).

The Florida Christian College years (1949-52) came to an end after a beautiful midsummer night when Sara joined me for a weekend in Atlanta after two months' separation because of my evangelistic work. We talked things over carefully and decided to go back to the University of Illinois where I could complete a doctoral program in philosophy. The same church I had served earlier now had a new building near the campus and wanted me to return.

What exciting years followed! The study of philosophy and ancient history, learning to read several new languages, working in the new medium of television, more writing, establishing and teaching in the McGarvey Chair of Philosophy of Religion, debating and endless preaching. During this time Sara managed to sing, to play in the symphony, to pursue her college degree, to have a baby, and to help me immensely in everything I did.

I shall never forget the shock of having challenged my philosophy professor to name a better account of creation than the first chapter of Genesis, only to have him reply: "The first chapter of Genesis with the first and fourth days reversed." All of Milligan's Scheme of Redemption, with its sober description of a "luminiferous ether" activated on the fourth day, plus all of Rimmer's instances of light independent of the sun, seemed weak by comparison -- and still do.

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this time with a difference. My contract was with two schools, FCC and the University of Tampa. The contract was symbolic of the widening schism in my own interests; it foreshadowed the break that had finally to come. Teaching philosophy at the University of Tampa half the week, teaching philosophy and apologetics at FCC the other half, and preaching in Jacksonville on weekends to a church whose leadership was just breaking away from FCC, was quite a life. The church in Jacksonville was "soft," Tampa University was "worldly," and to cap it all, my Ph.D. in philosophy had made me suspect at FCC.

By the year 1957, I loved the world. Whether loving the world in the "Demas" sense, or in the spirit of John 3: 16 (as I believed), my involvement with the world outside the "Church of Christ" was so complete that I moved in the fall, by mutual agreement with FCC, to exclusive teaching at Tampa University. A simply incredible church quarrel led to the formation of a new congregation of which I became minister. This church met first in my home because the split with the other church occurred just after my being put to bed for six weeks with what was believed to be a heart attack. When I was able to preach again, another building was ready. But I was not the same. Those weeks in bed, which I had intended to spend in reading, were spent instead in thinking and rethinking.

My felt obligation to the world was very real and somehow I had to solve the problem of whether this obligation could be discharged through the "Church of Christ." Within a year after getting up it was apparent to me that it could not.

It is certainly of little significance to anyone else, but for the sake of those who have asked me, I wish I were acute enough in self-analysis to say just how much the frustration of my felt obligation had to do with my questioning the whole of traditional theism. At any rate, the doubts became overwhelming.

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In order to fulfill several desires' I became minister of a Unitarian Fellowship. Here my questioning was welcomed and heartily shared, though the degree of social commitment of the members was disappointing to me. In every sermon I made serious effort to explore ethical and religious alternatives in a way I never could before. These years were happy and fruitful, even when filled with the controversy that a vocal liberal invariably encountered in a southern city. My wife and I were pleased to note our children's growth in independence of thought and feeling in those characterforming years. Stimuli for this independence came both from the Liberal Religious Youth of the Unitarian Fellowship, and from their participation with their parents in the defense of several causes we felt to be involved in our obligation to society.

Looking back over the skirmishes of those years. I see how the spirit and tactics of my earlier religious debates were now employed in such causes as promoting internationalism (especially the U. N.) against the isolationists of our community, upholding constitutional rights by work for the American Civil Liberties Union and against the John Birchers and assorted reactionaries. What I had yet to learn was the way communities can be moved by working with, rather than against, their leaders. This came to me gradually in the throes of constant controversy. The art of political compromise is not easily learned by a staunch idealist. But it can be learned.

In 1957 my public defense of the United Nations against the American coalition of Patriotic Societies, headed by an arch segregationist gubernatorial candidate, led to a weekly TV program, "Your United Nations." During the two years or more that I did this show, I was in a running battle with the Birch forces that were ultimately to pressure the Tampa University administration into denying me tenure, and eventually banning me from the campus. The controversy

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spread over many states and resulted in my basic decision not to go North, but to stay right here in the South where I felt an obligation regardless of the particular work I might have to do to earn a living.

Separation from the University coincided with my decision to leave the ministry. Something new emerged--a human being without title of preacher or professor, just a citizen with a family to feed and to enjoy. The problem of feeding was solved admirably by an immediate offer from a wonderful Rabbi who asked me to join his real estate firm. No one was ever kinder or more generous than he was to me. The new world of business was fascinating, hard, intensely competitive, and profitable. Working day and night to sell property, I was allowed several weeks off to run for political office -- really the best way to learn politics. I have never regretted running or losing, though it is terribly expensive.

Then it happened. The real beginning of a new career. Community Service Foundation, searching for a Project Director, offered the position to me. Their work had been mainly in beginning self-help programs for underprivileged southern Negroes. I had been involved in enough causes, I thought, so I visited the President to get the job for a friend. He turned down the friend, and I turned him down again. But I could not put it out of my mind. I sat alone through the night in a hotel room wrestling with the decision. After all, I had for the first time in my life a job whose rewards were directly proportioned to the kind of ability and energy used in it. Finally, I made the choice for this new work -- this new kind of ministry. Sara calls it "doing the Lord's work." And how we have worked Starting and coordinating for a year an after-school and Saturday enrichment program that enrolls over 2,500 Negro children (now an official program of the school system) ; training several VISTA groups for

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their work in the War on Poverty; setting up a statewide program to benefit the wretched migrant farm laborers in Florida -- and so on, and on -- doing the Lord's work.

I have no recommendations as to what course others should follow who may be troubled as I was. I know only that I am experiencing a fulfillment of the old idealisms, uncluttered now by quarrels over dogma or ritual. I no longer feel the need to prove the rightness of these actions. Time, experience, and the judgment of God and men will do that. But, knowing how many have wondered, I made the promise in this essay that I would list some of the barriers to my remaining in the Church of Christ. Here they are:

The only-true-church issue. I once reviewed a book, Christianity Rightly So Called, in which the author had defined the essentials of true Christianity in such terms as to include Christians in all conservative denominations. This list of essentials was too broad, I argued. The Bible, not conservative Protestant churches, defines the essentials.

But that argument cuts equally well against the "Church of Christ." Which branch of this post-Campbell body is the true church: the anti-Sunday School branch? the Nashville branch? No one has written anything like a "scriptural" justification for the view that all these comprise the true "Church of Christ" and that some number of them are "erring brethren." Nor does it seem likely. Still, that view prevails--or did among many "church members" several years ago. The movement begun by Jesus has had a complex and checkered history. It now strikes me as pure presumption for any man to try to say where the "true" church stops and "false" ones begin, although God knows I have been guilty of it often enough.

The binding of apostolic examples. The "true church" issue is vitally connected with the question of "binding apostolic examples." Early I learned that the

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binding obligations of "true" Christians are (a) direct commands, (b) apostolic examples, and (c) necessary inferences. The commands did not bother me too much except for certain ones like the holy kiss and the injunction to anoint the sick with oil, both of which (along with several others) my church conveniently dismissed. More recently, as part of the cooperation controversy, I was bothered by the "Do good to all men" imperative addressed to the Galatian churches but interpreted with all sorts of restrictions by anticooperation brethren.

The apostolic examples, however, were troublesome. Not until my 15th year as a minister, after attending innumerable lectureships, did I hear a young speaker at the Florida Christian College lectureship say in a discussion of how to justify the binding of examples: "We begin by assuming that Acts 20: 7 is binding, and all others we bind are derived from that assumption." How true that is! How little anyone said against it. How many have privately admitted it and expressed the hope that somehow, somewhere, somebody would find justification for what "we" had bound on the "church" for so long. Could it be, for example, that esteeming "one day above another" really is for the individual conscience to decide?

The necessary inference position is even worse. The trivial instances usually adduced do not really support the practical requirements of "our" positions. For instance, is it really a "necessary inference" that because Paul commanded collections to be taken on the first day of the week he also included communion in that command and limited it to the first day? Logicians would be highly dubious of the "necessity" of this inference. An inference is "necessary" only if, by asserting the premises and denying the conclusion, one is involved in self-contradiction. In this case, that does not happen.

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subject, a question began to burn in me: if one combines the scriptural account of "the living bread," which is Christ's flesh, with the accounts of the last supper, are not the differences in representation, consubstantiation, and transubstantiation at least trivia and at most different ways of commemorating Christ's sacrifice? The charge of cannibalism often made against transubstantiation on the grounds that a communicant actually eats flesh rests on a crude ignorance of the doctrine. If Christ is "present" in some way in the bread and/or wine, he is remembered and his sacrifice becomes more meaningful. Whatever others may think, my own hope is to see Protestants and Catholics taking communion together-each interpreting Christ' "presence" as his perspective dictates.

Casuistical Morals. I was indoctrinated at an early age against drinking, gambling, dancing, "mixed' swimming, Sunday (and at some periods all) movies, and women's (and at times all) smoking. I was disturbed when occasionally I allowed the facts of Biblical remarks on dancing to upset my church's dogma against it. The trouble really began when our eight-year-old daughter was bitterly denounced, along with her parents, for enrolling with neighborhood girls in a ballet class. Nothing seemed amiss in her behavior. No scripture or moral principles I could find made it suspect.

Then our love of activity with our children caused us to subscribe to family rates at the local community swimming pool next door to Florida Christian College. What was a delightful family experience became a scandal when pictured by the puritanical. Again, no scriptural or moral principles condemned our action.

Along with the controversies touched off by what we knew to be innocent behavior went an intensive study of Christian ethics and morals in the light of a fresh examination of the New Testament. The results were revolutionary. Paul had asked, "Why should I be

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judged by another man's conscience?" Yet this same chapter was used in the Church of Christ to argue the necessity of being judged by any and everyone's conscience. Paul's assertion that "nothing is of itself unclean" had been forgotten in a puritanical assault on everything that somebody did not like.

Truly disturbing to us was that good friends in "The Church" agreed with us privately, but implored us not to do the things in question "lest you destroy your effectiveness in The Church." The rightness of the actions when done in moderation and with respect for the rights of others implied to us the freedom to do them. It still does. If "The Church" would not tolerate us when we were doing something right, then the necessity of our tolerating "The Church" became questionable.

The Church of Christ seems unwilling to allow individual members to use their own consciences in deciding whether to dance, drink or gamble in moderation. The dogmatism in these matters stems, it seems to me, from the assumption that God has spoken in clear sentences and that he has given infallible understanding of His will. In reality each person, especially ministers and elders, becomes a miniature Pope, with ex cathedra utterances on any matter that either God or the "pioneers" has vouchsafed to him. Safeguarding the system of doctrine becomes much more important than reflecting Christ's regard for people and their needs.

POSTSCRIPT

My aversion to traditional theism has somewhat abated. I am intensely interested and excited by the fresh ecumenical winds blowing across today's churches. May they not diminish! Let us hope that when Christians finally get together they do not ignore those Jewish thinkers who are finding new appreciation for the person and work of Jesus. A warm cooperation among all segments of our Judeo-Christian

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