On the Call to Holiness

I finished reading Pope Francis's ON THE CALL TO HOLINESS this morning. I have not liked much of what Francis has written, but this is excellent. Pam and I grew up in the Evangelical holiness movement, so we're glad to see this emphasis promulgated in Catholicism.  The link above is to a PDF of the exhortation. 

Basic Christianity Lectures - New Product Development

Dr. Stan Walters lecturing at Greenville College, 1968. The year book that
year was dedicated to him. He was the class of 1968 class sponsor.

Fifty years ago, in college, I took a course titled BASIC CHRISTIANITY. It was required of all graduating students at Greenville College (now Greenville University). G.C. was then and still is affiliated with the Free Methodist Church, an Evangelical denomination.  The course was taught by Princeton fellow,  Dr. Stanley D. Walters. At the time, our first names and initials were the only thing I had in common with this man. He was a scholar, graduated with honors from Princeton (I was lucky to get into college), he read Greek (I was struggling with English slang), he was smart, articulate, and confident (I was the campus AV geek with a ring of keys on my belt and an empty pocket protector.)

If, as an incoming freshman, you were deemed smart, Dr. Walter's class was assigned to you to take the very first semester you were at college. The slightly less than smart students took the class the second semester of their freshman year. The dumb students took the class their first semester of their sophomore year, and the dumbest (lucky-to-be-in-college) students took Walter's class their sophomore year, second semester. That's where I ended up. If I didn't pass this course I would be sent home and the school would keep my parent's money just for their trouble I gave them.

There were three text books for Walter's class, all very small paperbacks, but all written by Anglican scholars from Oxford (the one in England), not the township named Oxford in North Dakota. That the texts for a course in Basic Christianity at an Evangelical college came from Oxford scholars who were Anglican should have been a warning to Greenville's administration. It took them seven years to catch on that Walters was not your the die-hard "faith alone" Christian. In fact, Walter's perchance for Christianity required a great deal of faith and reason, and the Basic Christianity course he designed and taught provided reams of empirical evidence for the authenticity of the faith. This irritated some stalwart administrators and Board members at G.C. who believed that one needed to take Christianity on faith alone and not have to think about it.

But I wanted to think about it. I was a physics major. I liked empirical evidence.  If reason wasn't involved, if evidence wasn't involved, if it was "blind faith" then, it seemed to me, any religious belief system would have sufficed...you could make one up, put on the blinders and believe it. It wouldn't be true, but if "faith alone" was the criteria, who should care?

Thus, it was that Walter's course deeply appealed to me.  Although my liking the course and liking Walters wasn't good enough to earn me anything better than a "C." Remember, they didn't let me take the course until my 4th semester. But I was still captivated. I took voluminous notes, which I will have. I tried reading Lewis, Bruce and Stott, (the three Anglican texts) but I understood little. Yet I kept the notes.

Halfway through the next year a girl I knew from high school transferred to G.C. and we started dating. The first semester she was on campus they made her take Walter's Basic Christianity. She was one of the smart ones, although she transferred in as a sophomore. By now I was working part time at the college radio station and had a ring of keys to the audio books in the lecture halls. I got permission and started to record Walter's lectures. Put them on 4-track tapes at the slow speed. I tried to fit 8 lectures on each 7-inch reel-to-reel but screwed up and recorded over one or two, and for some reason missed a whole week of lectures. But in the end I had 40 lectures.  Last year I rebuilt the 4-track, digitized the lecture to my MacPro, and with the help of Temi.com we've completed the transcription. Now, we're turning them into a book—50 years later. Dr. Walters lives south of me 2-hours and is enjoying reading his lectures from way back when. His daughter, who has since become Catholic, and is the editor of a diocesan newspaper and website, will co-edit the book with me. We are both set on preserving her Dad's "voice" in the text. It's unique.

But that semester, in the Spring of 1968, would be Walter's last year at G.C. After 7 years the authorities finally figured out that he was turning us all into thinking Anglicans, and not devout faith alone Free Methodists. (Ironically, Walters as an ordained F.M. minister.) So, the lectures I captured were the last time he delivered the course. At the end of the semester, as sort of a lame apology for forcing him out, the powers to be let him deliver the last chapel talk of the year. I recorded that, too. It was classic Walters. You can listen to the mp3 and/or download it here. Or, here is a PDF of the printed version. It's formatted for the upcoming book, with wide outer margins. Enjoy.

Oh, and that girl that transferred to G.C. in time to take Dr. Walter's class?  She became my wife. Pam and I have been married 49 years as of August 2018.