Here is my account of that day …

http://newcombat.net/Conversation/2006/10/08/brother-robert-smith/

.. and others across three weeks of celebrations of sorts that took place out in California — at St Mary’s and at Mont LaSalle, the seat of BR’s order — around and following his death.

The difference between studying about God and being with God makes a lot of sense. And I can understand why theology might induce impatience, particularly if the theologian’s own being with God is dubious. You may know that it is a kind of stock characterization to say that, in the Christian East, the “theologian” is not the rational discourser about God, but the one who talks with God, the one who prays. This view of theology is worth keeping in mind, even if the contrast between East and West in this regard is sometimes overdrawn.

I didn’t attend many services at St. Anne’s, but I often would stop by there, and found it a peaceful and prayerful place. I’m grateful to them for keeping their doors open.

Thanks for stopping by and commenting on the blog.

Peter

Forgive me for taking a few days to get back to you. You ask a very good question. It would probably be true to say that the meaning of “non-denominational,” in current-day American speech, varies according to context. If one talks about a “nondenominational Bible study,” then, in most cases, one refers to something having a generally Christian content. If one talks about a “non-denominational chapel,” as may be found in some airports and hospitals, and on some university campuses, then the religious meaning is rather broader; such places are used not only for Christian prayer, but by other religions as well. If one speaks of a “non-denominational college,” then the basic meaning is that the college professes no formal religious affiliation. A lack of formal religious affiliation does not in itself necessarily imply hostility towards religion on the part of a college or university; on the other hand, it doesn’t automatically exclude such hostility, either. Hostility is, in any case, a subtle thing; sometimes people see it where it doesn’t exist; sometimes it exists where people do not see it; sometimes people bring it into existence by the act of looking for it. Probably nowhere in America would an academic institution — at least, a “non-denominational” one — openly exclude someone for holding to Christian beliefs — that would constitute “discrimination,” which is the great academic sin; on the other hand, it is unfortunately not uncommon in American academic circles for Christians to be pegged by professors or by colleagues as unimaginative, intolerant, uncooperative, etc., sometimes prior to their ever having said or done anything to merit such a judgment.

St. John’s College is, undoubtedly, a place where many secularists and atheists feel quite at home. It is also, curiously, a place where some people find Christian faith who didn’t have it before. Students at the college spend more time reading classic works of Christian theology than they would at almost any standard American undergraduate college, more, indeed, than at many church-affiliated institutions; they are obliged to read and discuss, not only much of the Bible, but also St. Augustine, St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, Pascal, Kierkegaard, and many other writers who address issues of faith. (Luther, I should note, was taken off the reading list in Santa Fe in recent years, to make room for Maimonides; that situation has changed recently, and a Calvin reading has been added.) They also read people like Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and many others whose attitude towards faith, and towards Christian faith in particular, is unrelentingly negative and critical. Some people would question why Christians would want to expose themselves or their children to anti-Christian literature, and to an environment where their deepest beliefs are almost inevitably going to be subjected to serious and sustained questioning. A brief answer would be: So as not to live in an intellectual ghetto. Much of the rationale of St. John’s College, I think, is to be a republic in miniature, where the underlying questions that shape one’s experience as a citizen in a democracy become explicit, and where one learns to discuss these questions in a civil and intelligent manner along with people with whom, very often, one has the most profound disagreements. At least, ideally, that is what happens. In practice, experience varies; conversations are not always civil and intelligent, and the moral life on campus sometimes is pretty dismal. But, on the whole, I think the college does accomplish, to a remarkable extent, what it sets out to do, which is to produce free men and women out of children, using books and a balance. That is the basic reason why anyone, Christian or otherwise, would want to go there.

Peter

St. John’s College is nondenominational, and apparently always has been. It was started in 1696 as “King William’s School”; when the American Revolution had brought the British royal house into disfavor in America, the school’s name was changed to its present one. There is much disagreement among historians of the college as to why the name “St. John’s College” was chosen, and which St. John in particular is its patron saint (my friend Johny Blood has often argued for St. John the Dwarf, perhaps in view of the college’s diminutive size). The likeliest explanation seems to be that the name, along with certain things in the college’s insignia, indicates an eighteenth-century connection between the college and Freemasonry. Medieval masons organized themselves into guilds, and celebrated June 24th, the feast of St. John the Evangelist, as their patronal feast day. Eighteenth-century Freemasons regarded this practice as part of their heritage, and called their meetings “St. John’s lodges.” It may be that some of those who reestablished the college, in the aftermath of the Revolution, had Masonic leanings.

I would only add that such an historical connection with Freemasonry, if indeed it is real, has essentially no relevance for the education the college currently seeks to give. The college’s Great Books program, sometimes still called the “New Program,” dates back to 1937. The founders of the New Program, Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan, had no previous connection with the college, but were essentially sent there from the University of Chicago as part of an educational experiment. So far as I know, neither of them were Masons. That the education at St. John’s College has an interesting ideological history is I think true; but nothing I have read or seen leads me to think that Freemasonry has ever played a significant part in determining the contours of that education, or that it does so at the present time. The college is, by and large, what it claims to be: nondenominational.

Probably this was a longer answer than you were looking for.

Peter

When I told Winfree I was thinking of becoming a Catholic, he told me I knew nothing about the Reformation. I also had had the question in seminar, when we started to read Luther, what position was arguing against, since our Aquinas readings had been about law and justice, not about anything like the issues that Luther was raising. With these two stimuli I started trying to learn the questions about justification. Talking to Mr. Littleton I soon realized that I was also asking about my own justification and salvation. He somehow broke through theological intellectualization to the heart of the matter.

I never did write my senior thesis, which I was trying to write about justification. The scope of what I wanted to do in the paper was just too large. But the attempt was valuable to me nevertheless. And the conversations with Mr. Littleton were ever memorable.

I don’t think SJC can ever be the same without Winfree and Michael Littleton. I asked at the parent orientation (my youngest is a freshman there right now) whether they were doing anything to find tutors like this. I specifically mentioned Winfree’s New Testament class, which I went to both years. (He alternated Romans and the Gospel of John.) It concerns me that students there now who want to be serious Protestants have no one to guide them. Outside people come in and use very narrowminded evangelical Protestant study bibles and teach in a very non St. John’s way, which I believe makes these students choose between Christ and an honest intellect. Michael Littleton understood such students and helped them find a way which allowed both.

A little note: When St. John’s went to a new computerized library system, they removed the old hand signed cards only as people took the books out of the library.A few years ago, I went up to the religion section and with permission, took the cards left in some of the books there. I chose those that had my name in them and the names of friends. Pheme Perkin’s name (writes on scripture) is on just about everything there. I found my name, Derek Cross (now Fr. Cross of the Toronto Oratory), Winfree, Michael Littleton, Mr. Sparrow, Prudence Davis (now Mother Zoe, abbess of a Benedictine convent in England) …and I am almost certain I saw your name on some of them. I didn’t know you, but when I heard your name it rang a bell…I think it is because of those cards. I will have to go look. I think it is a shame they got rid of them. The young person at the desk said something about “confidentiality.” I am not sure why one would want to keep confidential what books one was reading in the SJC library. And it was such a beautiful sign of continuity and connection between generations of St. Johnnies.
Susan Peterson