ONE GIANT STEP FOR A MAN . . .
William A. Wisdom

This is an account of the events surrounding the time that I literally walked out of the Lutheran Church—not just Trinity Lutheran Church in Manoa, Pennsylvania—but "THE CHURCH". That was in the mid-1950s, when I was about 20 years old.

My parents had been raised as Methodists, but they neither believed nor practiced any particular faith, except in the most sporadic and vaguely Protestant way. They would occasionally take my brother and me to Christmas services, but it was primarily to hear the music and see the decorations. We celebrated Thanksgiving in a purely secular way, unencumbered by any giving of thanks.

My deeper involvement with the church began around age 10 or 11. It was my own idea, prompted initially by the fact that most of the kids in my "gang" went to Trinity. Trinity was the closest Protestant Church to my home, and an easy walk. I enjoyed Daily Vacation Bible School in the summer, and later my Boy Scout troop met there.

As time went on, it was natural for me to start going to Sunday School and church, and to attend the youth meetings of Christian Endeavor (CE). Most Lutheran churches were affiliated with Luther League. I don't know why our church hooked up with CE, because it is a rather more fundamental group for young people. In any event, the CE summer camps had a rather Pentecostal flavor to them, though I didn't realize it at the time. I just enjoyed it and went along with it. Before long I was recruited into the children's choir at Trinity Lutheran.

Spending several hours a week in church and church-related activities, which I found very satisfying, I came more and more to believe the stuff. Not Luther's anti-Semitism, of course, about which we never heard a word, but the rest of it, and more.

By the time I was baptized and confirmed in the church at age 14 (my parents had overlooked the baptism part of my infancy), I was well on my way down two parallel paths — one headed for the Lutheran ministry, and the other already well-fixed in a nearly fundamentalist pattern of belief. I even followed what I considered Jesus' lead to become a conscientious objector.

At the time, I didn't have a name for my belief system. I just figured that mine was a particularly earnest form of Lutheranism. And that was OK with my parents, who looked on my religiosity as a sort of virtue that would probably keep me out of trouble (though there was very little trouble for a straight-A student in our quiet suburban neighborhood to get into).

The other path—my ministerial ambitions—made my father livid. “Why would you want to waste your life as a preacher?!”

So my father then dragged me off to several weekend sessions of vocational and aptitude testing with his company’s psychologist.

After the series of tests, the psychologist met with me and announced that it was quite clear to him what the future held for me. Expecting that he would confirm my goals, I was startled, and a little annoyed, to hear him say, "Bill, you're going to get an undergraduate degree in the humanities, and then go on for a Master's degree and a Ph.D., also in the humanities, and wind up as a professor at some university."

I simply said, "It won't happen!" I left, confident that my father had put him up to it.

Time passed. I was graduated from high school, and went to Wesleyan University, a small, men’s liberal arts college in New England, majoring in Classics. I did so because I thought that training in the language and culture of the >ancient Greeks would be a good preparation for the ministry.

More time passed in college, and the ferocity of my Christianity, as well as my determination to become a minister, softened somewhat, but they did not disappear altogether. What remained was an almost literal reading of the social and political gospel of Jesus, and my consequent conscientious objection to war.

At the time there was a draft deferment for pre-ministerial and ministerial students. I announced my ministerial intentions to my local draft board, which said that I should obtain certification from the appropriate body of the Lutheran Church in Philadelphia.

With my pastor's help, I scheduled a meeting before the church elders. I entered a large room, at one end of which was a great dark table. Behind the table sat about seven or eight very round men, each of whom seemed to have followed Luther's eating habits as well as his principles.

The "interview" to determine my suitability for the Lutheran ministry went something like this: "Well, son, the record shows that you're going to a Methodist college. That puzzles us."

"Excuse me, sir, but Wesleyan is a secular school. It might have been founded by Methodists; but it has had no ties to the Methodist Church for over a hundred years," I countered.

"Secular, eh?" said another board member. "Secular! Well, why didn't you go to one of our fine Lutheran schools, like Gettysburg or Muhlenburg?"

I replied, "I'm sure they're very good schools, sir, but Wesleyan's academics make it one of the most highly-rated colleges in the country. Both my father and I wanted me to go to the very best school I could get into."

He said, "Well, so it was your father's doing. Nothing you could do about that, I suppose."

Another board member started off in another direction. "Do they have a football team at Wesleyan?"

"Yes, sir," I answered.

Pleased with my answer, he continued, "And I suppose that you play football?"

"No, sir, I don't," I replied.

"Another board member quipped, "Well, a big tall chap like you; I'd guess that you're on the basketball team, then."

"No, sir. I don't play basketball either," I answered.

I was getting rather peeved by this line of pursuit. After a few more such questions, one of them asked with a puzzled shrill voice, "Well, what DO you do?!"

I immediately replied, "I study, sir. I learn things. I read a lot, I socialize a bit, I eat, and I sleep when I can."

They had about run out of patience, and I could tell that this "interview" was drawing toward a close. Suddenly all the men I sat in front of looked like toads!

Toad number one, at the center of the long dark table, then said, "Well, son, is there anything else that you think we ought to know?"

I had not yet said a single thing that I thought they ought to know, so I responded, "Yes. I'm a conscientious objector."

Toad number one and several of the others roared with laughter. "Oh, don't worry about that! When you get to seminary and can study with some people who've thought seriously about such things, you'll realize how silly that is! Is there anything else you'd like to say to us?"

I stood up from my chair and said, "Yes, sir. Fuck you!!" I walked out of the room and out of the Lutheran Church altogether.

I spent no time looking for another church "home". I'd had it with Lutheranism, Christianity, and organized religion. By this time I was reading Epicurus, David Hume, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, and others great Freethinkers. I determined, like them, to live an upright life with human beings, rather than grovel with toads.

NOTES:

(1) As it turned out, the psychologist was dead right: I got a B.A. in Classics, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy. I went on to teach Philosophy at Penn State and Temple University.

(2) I have since come to think that the transition from fundamentalist Christian to professional philosopher and logician was not as abrupt or unprecedented in my life as it might at first seem. I have written about this in the final section, "From Christian to Atheist to Logician," of an article which you are invited to read.

(3) You may wonder whether or not my draft board ever classified me as a conscientious objector. That, as they say, is another story—and a long one, too. That story can be found here.

Copyright © 2006, William A. Wisdom