McCormick Goat
The Incident Year


How Jesus Christ Saved Me
From Liberal Christianity


July 4, 2007


By Philip D. Ropp
   
     During the 1970's, I was a candidate for ministry in the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.. I attended Alma College, a small, liberal arts, church affiliated school, and received very good grades in my course work in religious studies.  I was well respected by the faculty and my fellow students, and continually assured that my future in the church was bright. In the beginning of this process, God was merely a concept that I took for granted.  By the end of this experience in liberal religious education, my faith had been shaken and challenged to where I was uncertain that there was any spiritual reality to life at all. 

     In the last year of my education, I found myself spiraling downward into an abyss in which my life became increasingly meaningless and sinful. Shortly after I graduated in the spring of 1977, I was willing, eager, even desperate to find any kind of reality that existed beyond the meaningless charade that my life had become.  And so, when I was offered the opportunity to explore occult spiritism, I seized this opportunity with such zeal that within a few days I had acquired a demonic entity and found myself obsessed and threatened.  At the moment at which I realized that possession was the intended and unavoidable outcome, I sought help and it was forthcoming. A friend, a Christian named Jack, who was himself struggling in much the same way as I, performed an impromptu exorcism that we would forever after refer to simply as "The Incident."  Through this Incident, we witnessed together the awesome and life changing reality of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

     When I entered college to study for the Presbyterian ministry, I did so in the hopes that studying religion would strengthen my waning faith and answer the question that haunted many others and myself: “Why?”  But just the opposite proved true.  My Bible professor was angry and still estranged from God due to the death of his father when he was 14. He taught me the Bible wasn't true. My theology professor was a Marxist who had long ago sacrificed his faith upon the altar of a worldly socialism.  He taught me God did not exist.  The man that guided my religious vocation was a churchman with a jolly façade who hid his lack of spiritual substance in the political machinery of the Presbyterian Church.  He taught me faith didn't matter.

     The more I studied about God, the less I knew of him.  The less I knew of God, the more hedonistic my behavior became.  The more hedonistic my behavior became, the farther I sank into the morass of sin.  I entered into that time that  St. John of the Cross called the “dark night of the soul.”  It is that time in which, to bring a soul to the light, God allows that soul to become immersed in utter darkness.  To draw that soul to him, God removes himself from it.  My cries to heaven echoed across a cold, empty universe, and I was lost and alone.

     There was a song back then by a group called "Rufus."  It was called Tell Me Something Good.  My own mantra became “show me something real.”  It was in the month after my graduation that I turned to the occult in the quest for anything spiritual: for something real. Then one day, at the end of a dead end road, there was a house.  In this house was something.  To tell the truth, I didn't know if it was real or not.  When I spoke to it, it seemed to answer in my head.  I asked it to come with me. And it did.

     Over the next few days, I would discover just how real this thing was.  Invisible, inaudible, yet able to demonstrate its presence in subtle ways, by day three it had become powerful, ever-present and increasingly malevolent. Fear turned to foreboding.  Foreboding turned to resignation.  Resignation meant yielding control, and yielding control brought on the conviction of complete hopelessness.  Walking across the Alma campus in a gathering physical and spiritual darkness, I saw the light coming from the snack bar at the student union.  In this light sat a friend of mine.  It was Jack!  With the last ounce of my free will, I walked in and sat down across from him. He was marginally aware that something strange had been going on with me.  And, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he suddenly knew, instinctually, what to do.

     We walked out into the night and he told me to pray.  For the first time in years, I really did.  The darkness that threatened to envelope me abated somewhat and I felt a glimmer of hope.  Across the deserted campus and to the football field we walked.  He told me to kneel, and so I did.  He laid his hands on my shoulders and prayed earnestly in the name of Jesus Christ that whatever was tormenting me should be gone. I fell forward unto all fours.  Something took control of my throat and was using my vocal chords to issue a series of bloodcurdling primal screams into the warm, spring night air.

     While this was happening, I found myself falling endlessly into a dark abyss.  As I fell, I could hear the screams coming from my own throat recede into the distance above me.  Then I saw a light that was hidden behind a cloud.  It looked very much like a thunderhead passing in front of a full moon. As it came closer, a hand extended from the cloud.  At the base of the palm, where the hand meets the wrist, was the imprint of a nail.  I reached out and took this hand and grasped it with all my strength.  When I did, my falling slowed to a stop; then I felt myself catapulted upward.  As I rose, I could hear the screams coming from my own throat grow closer.  Suddenly, I felt myself slam into my own body with a force that knocked me down face first onto the ground.  The screaming abruptly stopped.  The night was quiet, and it was gone.

     I came away from this Incident with a deep and profound knowledge of Jesus that has, from that time to this, manifested itself in a real and abiding, personal and living relationship that is the axis around which my life revolves. In the spirit filled days that followed, the Scriptures, which had, in the days prior, been merely academic subject matter, were now opened to me as the Word of God.  The New Testament, in particular, was revealed as eternal truth in such an obvious and yet profound way that I would marvel at how familiar passages suddenly were rife with meaning I had never seen before.  I would let the book fall open and thrill at the way in which the words would speak directly to my heart, and know that this was God directed.  The apostles of Christ became real to me, moreso in some ways than the living people I encountered, and I established a special identity with Paul, who was also saved out of his sin in the same kind of dramatic fashion in which I was saved out of mine. 

     During the summer that followed, I tended to keep all of this within myself.  This new found and glorious faith was that pearl of great price, and I responded by locking it away within the deepest part of my psyche.  Early on, I went to the college library and pulled books on psychology and philosophy and realized that it is Jesus that answers all of the questions that are posed by the various disciplines that attempt to delve into the nature of human consciousness.  I now knew that theology that is not centered on the revelation of God the Father, through the person of Jesus Christ, is doomed to irrevocable error.  I understood that secular, scientific history that examines the resurrection under the premise that if it could not happen it did not happen, leads to a dead "historical" Jesus, and, in so doing, denies the living and transcendent Christ.  I am witness to this living Christ.  No amount of theological posturing or philosophical symbolizing can change this, but it is certainly effective in drawing inquiring young minds away from the eternal truth of God and sending them down the primrose path of unbelief.  And I am witness to this as well. 

     Having experienced the living Christ and knowing that the power of God was placed into his pierced hands, I quickly came to realize that religious teachers without faith lead more souls to destruction than all the armies of the world combined.  I was hideously ashamed of the role that I had played in this during my years as a student.  Like Paul at the martyrdom of Stephen, I had held the cloaks of my professors and cheered them on as they attempted to stone to death the faith of any student that dared to profess real belief in Christ. I rejoiced when I got to throw the rocks myself. Like Paul in Damascus, I had this summer to reflect and to repent; to pray and seek penance. 

     The initial reaction to the sudden presence of Jesus in my life was to question the idea of attending seminary in the fall. The inherent contradiction of a new Christian with a degree in religion and a background in ministry (I had served a local church as an interim pastor) was not lost on me, and it seemed wise to take some time and let this all sort itself out.  It was at this time that my maiden aunt, a woman of great faith herself, presented me with a volume of sermon notes that had belonged to my great uncle, Leroy, who had passed away during the previous year.  Uncle Leroy was the family eccentric; a man of true genius and nearly unfathomable talents, who had wanted merely to serve God within our native Mennonite tradition, but who had, unfortunately, struggled with insanity through most of his adult life. When finally healed, he spent his old age coming to grips with a life of unrealized potential. He wrote of countless days in the asylum in which he was sustained by the words of an old poem that went, "I like to think my Savior knows, How I missed the the path I chose."  By midsummer the Lord had, through prayer, made it clear to me that seminary was something that I needed to do, and Uncle Leroy had me convinced that I did not want to miss the path that I chose.  In the fall I was enrolled at McCormick, a liberal Presbyterian seminary on the south side of Chicago, and began what would be a short, but certainly not uneventful, career in religious academia.

     As a small town central Michigan boy, I  had been exposed to precious little in the way of homosexuality when I arrived in Chicago in the fall of 1977, and certainly none of it church related.  It took me by surprise when I realized that the roommate I had been assigned was of this persuasion.  In fact, our relationship got off to a rocky start when the first question that my new roomy asked me was what my opinion of homosexuality was.  Thinking this some kind of heterosexual posturing, I responded by joking that, as an avowed pacifist, it was the only thing I could think of that might make me resort to violence. It was when he turned his nose up and stomped out of the room in anger and disgust that I realized my faux pas.  And so it was that I was labeled a homophobe even before I was tagged with that most dreaded of all liberal labels: "fundamentalist." 

     It is not my intent to turn this witness of God's saving grace into a treatise on these labels that Christians have invented for the purpose of identifying themselves and belittling, insulting and infuriating one another.  However, for purposes of clarification, some admittedly oversimplified definitions of  the terms "liberal" and "fundamentalist" are in order at this point in these proceedings:

    A "liberal" is one that adheres to a basically Christian belief system that allows for the assimilation of modern scientific, psychological, philosophical, historical, social and cultural paradigms into a flexible theology that also is open to the influences of various non-Christian religions and secular worldviews. Typically, liberalism denies the divine inspiration of the Bible in favor of the various critical disciplines that have evolved over the past 300 years or so. The historical and human person of Jesus is seen as submerged beneath the theological construct of the Christ, an ancient eastern concept assimilated by the early church in response to the idea of  the resurrection, which is assumed to be an invention of the apostles.  Heaven, like hell, is a state of mind and satan is a metaphor for evil.  Ethics, morals and the concept of sin are relative to cultural norms, and the transcendence of God virtually nonexistent.  It is, therefore, more accurately a form of religious humanism rather than a faith system in the traditional sense.  

     A "fundamentalist" believes in the divine inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, the historical reality of the virgin birth, miracles, and the resurrection of Jesus, which is both real and physical. Jesus Christ is the lone agent for the salvation of humankind through his sacrificial death at the cross.  Just prior to the close of human history is a period of great earthly turmoil called the "Great Tribulation," in which a satanically possessed human, the "Anti-Christ," rules the earth under one government and enslaves and torments its inhabitants. Those saved in Christ are raptured to heaven, and there is great debate as to whether this is accomplished before or after this Tribulation.  Satan and the evil spiritual entities under his command are regarded as the real, intelligent adversaries of humanity, and the second coming of Christ is the climax of human history, at which time the Last Judgment sends the bodily resurrected righteous in Christ to heaven, while the devil and his minions, evil doers, and the unsaved are banished  forever to the fires of hell, which is considered a real place and in no way a metaphor.

     While the liberal-fundamentalist dichotomy has its roots in the 19th century, it came to full fruition in the Presbyterian Church during the early decades of the last century.  During these troubled years, Princeton Theological Seminary, the flagship of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. seminaries, and an institution that traced its conservative heritage back to the staunch Calvinism of Jonathan Edwards, emerged as the dominant liberal voice within the Presbyterian tradition when conservative, "fundamentalist" theologian J. Gersham Machen was driven from his post as professor of New Testament by liberal "modernists" in 1929.  This caused a split in the church that resulted in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. "liberalizing" Princeton and, in turn, the balance of the church.  Machen and his fellow exiles formed Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929 and, in 1936, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.  Turmoil within American Presbyterianism continued through the balance of the 20th century.  The PCUSA became the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. through a merger with the smaller United Presbyterian Church of North America in 1958.  The name reverted back to Presbyterian Church U.S.A. through yet another merger, this time with the southern based  Presbyterian Church in the United States in 1983.  In 1981, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church was formed by conservatives in yet another split resulting from this ongoing liberalization of the church.  Regardless, at Princeton, McCormick, or any other liberal UPCUSA or PCUSA seminary, there was and is no greater insult than "fundamentalist."  It is considered a synonym for "ignoramus."

     While the terms "liberal" and "fundamentalist" are defined in the most skeletal way above, these definitions do not even begin to scratch the surface of the basis of the debate that rages between these two points of view.  And the liberal versus fundamentalist debate is only one of many dynamics causing dissent and controversey and turmoil within and between the churches and the larger Christian community.  That being said, it is interesting to note how seminarians, that is those being trained for Christian ministry, actually understand little of the meaning of either term, especially when one considers how instrumental both have been in driving Christians apart. 

     We were welcomed to McCormick Theological Seminary with a reception that also served as orientation for the new students.  The "campus" was one building and the student body for all three class levels was, as I recall, about 80 students.  On the front lawn was the chrome sculpture of a ram that reminded me of "Baphomet," the satanic goat of Masonic lore.  Inside was a female student who was serving as greeter and handing out stick-on "Hello, My Name Is:" tags so that we might properly identify each other.  Her own name tag had a number of "smiley faces" on it, and she had decorated them with different looks, including one with hair and beard that looked like a smiley Jesus.  The Dean of Students, Dr. Lewis Mudge, gave a witty address that informed us that, since McCormick Theological Seminary was named for Cyrus McCormick, we were not to fear the grim reaper, but rather the international harvester.  It was obvious from the groans and rolled eyes of the upperclassmen that Dr. Mudge had not updated this opening day material in some time. 
 
     When I arrived at McCormick, the debate about ordaining homosexuals did catch me by surprise.  At this point in time in the late 1970's, the liberal church was encouraging a "don't ask-don't tell" policy and the militant gays were already arguing for open affirmation of the homosexual lifestyle and ordination of openly gay pastors. Liberal as my undergraduate education had been, this issue had gone unaddressed. Someone had to define the word "homophobe" for me, as I'd never heard the term before; this was still cutting edge academic language in 1977.

     Other than this, however, I was fully aware as to what it was going to mean to share my witness of a real and ongoing personal relationship with Jesus Christ within this kind of openly hostile environment. In actuality, I didn't have to do much of anything, as my roommate made a point of sharing his opinion of me with anyone that would listen. This meant that I was routinely regarded as a homophobic, Bible banging, religious fanatic, and this in turn resulted in little if any meaningful social contact. In the conversations I did have, I found that the more I stressed the point of my personal relationship with Jesus, the more this reinforced these preconceptions about me, and the more antagonistic would be the response I would encounter. Regardless of the actual definition of the term, I was immediately labeled a "fundamentalist," and it was automatically assumed that I carried all of the baggage the term seemingly implied.  Beyond this, I was informed that to believe such a thing was an indication of mental illness, and this was stressed to me with emotions that ran the gamut from anger, to amusement, to pity. When I would respond by claiming that I not only talked to Jesus, but received answers as well, it usually ended the conversation with abrupt exasperation. Ironically enough, I now found myself on the receiving end of the same kind of harassment and abuse that I had heaped upon others during my undergraduate years.  Worst of all was the silence:  The averted eyes, empty smiles, and no attempt to communicate; to understand or to care.  I felt nearly invisible.  I was friendless and alone; an outcast.  I had found penance.

     And so it was that the halcyon days of the summer of 1977 gave way to the misery of an autumn of irony in which I found myself ostracized among the students of the Presbyterian Church for claiming that real, personal relationship with the Lord that all ostensibly claim as the motivation for entering study for Christian ministry. 

     Towards the end of September, the guys that lived across the hall, the quiet one and the boisterous one, decided to throw a Saturday night party.  The quiet one came over to invite the roommate, and I answered the door.  After I assured him that I would pass the invitation along, he told me that I was welcome to attend as well.  For reasons that now escape me, I actually did decide to go across the hall for awhile.  This was only marginally awkward, as I stood around the fringe of the noise and mayhem nursing a lukewarm can of beer that someone had shoved into my hand. The quiet one came up behind me and asked, "How's it going?"

     I shrugged, "It's going, I guess."

     "You know," he said, "I was a lot like you when I first got here."

      "You mean you were a believing Christian?" I asked, sounding more obnoxious than I actually intended.

      "I  still am," he said calmly. "But in a different way.  I had a very conservative upbringing, and the way they do things here was sure different than what I expected it to be, and I had a lot of trouble adjusting during my first year. I almost quit. But by the second year, I began to see the wisdom behind it, and I began to come around and to see their point of view.  I finally realized that the problems I had with the church weren't theirs, they were really mine. And it became all right to be here, and I'm really good with it now."
 
     This little talk and the emotionless way it was presented reminded me of the speech King Donovan makes to Kevin McCarthy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, when McCarthy confronts him with the accusation that he's become one of the "pod people."  Jack Finney's chilling little story of a silent invasion from outer space in the form of mysterious pods that grow to become the dispassionate replacements for human beings is usually interpreted as a satire of the communist paranoia wrought by the McCarthyism of the 1950's.  I suddenly realized that it worked even better as an allegory to the rise of liberalism within Christianity, and I began to wonder if this wasn't the real message that Finney was trying to get across.  If it was, he certainly had my attention, for I surely knew what it felt like to be Dr. Miles Bennell, McCarthy's character in the film.  McCormick Theological Seminary was just a Christian Santa Mira, and I was the last one awake. I imagined myself wild eyed and insane on the Dan Ryan, dodging traffic as I screamed, "You fools! You're in danger!"   

     If there was a bright spot in all of this, it was a visit from a friend at Alma that took place towards the middle of October.  The religion department at Alma College was small and close, and when Margie, a female sophomore student in the department, called to say that she was in town for an anthropology field trip and had a freshman friend along with her, I jumped at the chance to head to the Loop for an evening.  I took the girls to dinner at Diana's, a legendary Greek restaurant on Halstead, and discovered, much to my delight, that Margie's friend, Jean, was a sweet and pretty blond girl with big dimples and a beautiful smile, and we spent the evening talking and looking at each other, with Margie reminding us occasionally that she was still there. It was a lovely evening, and when it ended at the observation deck of the Sears Tower, I agreed to meet them at the Art Institute of Chicago Museum so I could see Jean one more time before they returned to Alma.

     I just caught the last southbound train and was uneasy over the fact that there was almost no one else onboard.  At one of the stops around 35th Street, a college age white male got on alone and sat down in back of me.  I struck up a conversation with him and asked if I could sit next to him.  I explained to him that in the part of Chicago that we were passing through, it might be a good idea if it looked like we were traveling together instead of alone.  Sometimes there's safety in even small numbers.  He agreed and I sat down next to him, found out his name was Ron, and listened to his story.  Seems this young man was a student  at the University of Wisconsin and was headed to Florida because his father had just passed away.  He was traveling in a panic and short of cash, and someone had given him the rather questionable advice of taking the bus from the south side of Chicago to save money.  The bus station was at 95th Street, which was nearly no man's land in the daytime. I told him that he certainly didn't want to head down there at this time of night. 

     When he explained that out of desperation he had gone to a Catholic Church and had pounded on the door of the rectory until the priest had yelled that he was going to call the police, I realized that the Lord had assigned this lost sheep to me for the night, and I invited him to spend the night at my apartment.  "All I've got is floor," I explained, "But it beats jail -- or worse."  He agreed, and after connecting with the bus at 55th, we made it back to the apartment without incident.  As we were trudging up the stairs, I tried to gingerly explain that my roommate was, well, gay.  The kid stopped dead in his tracks. "Oh, man, you're not taking me up here to get weird or anything, are you?"  he asked.  I explained that it was  the roommate that was gay, and that he was rather excitable, and that it might be awkward when we went in.  I told him to just be prepared.

     Well, this was certainly prophetic on my part.  No sooner were we through the door than the roommate wanted to know who my friend was and why I hadn't told him I was bringing some over so late at night. "His name is Ron," I said firmly. "He's somebody I met on the El.  He needs a place to stay for the night, and I told him that he could crash here."
 
     This resulted in a barrage of rhetorical questions that centered around what an idiot I was; "Why would you do such a thing as this with out consulting with me first?  How do you know the story he's told you is true?  Don't you understand that you just can't pick the trash up off of the streets and bring it home with you?  How do you know he won't just kill us in our sleep?"

     That was the queue I needed.  "How ironic," I said, "He was wondering what you might do to him in his sleep."

     Well, that did it.  Nose in the air, stomp, stomp, stomp he went into his own room and slammed the door so hard the windows rattled.  As we heard him barricading the door with his furniture, the absurdity of it all struck us, and we started laughing.  "Wow!" said Ron, "You said your roommate was gay, but you didn't tell me he was such a bitch!"  

     The rest of the night passed without incident and in the morning we figured out that my charge needed $20 more to buy a bus ticket that would get him to his destination in Florida.  As we stood in line at the bank, I realized that my window of opportunity to catch the bus and get back downtown to see Jean was passing.  "Oh well," I sighed to myself, "I guess it just wasn't meant to be."  I gave the young man the $20, he thanked me profusely, and, with a heavy heart, I put him on the city bus with directions to the Greyhound station.  Being a Good Samaritan is harder than it looks.

     The educational part of the McCormick Experience had it's own surprises.  I plodded through classes that were basically repeats of my undergraduate studies, some with lower expectations and some that taught outright apostasy.  I took a class on Paul in which the teacher made the claim that Paul did not condemn homosexuality.  I questioned this assertion, pointed to Romans 1: 26-27 and read, "Therefore God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another.  Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity."  I was told by the professor that I did not understand that Paul was a victim of his parochial Jewish upbringing and was reacting to an archaic worldview.  Paul, with the advantage of a modern education, would certainly understand the difference between sin and alternative lifestyle.  Further, I was told that I had taken Paul's words out of context by not continuing to read verse 28, "And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what was improper."  The sin, I was informed, was not homosexuality but that of not acknowledging God.  Perhaps, he suggested, I was not acknowledging and affirming God's love for those that were different than I was. When I responded with words to the effect of, "You've got to be kidding," the class turned on me enmasse and the rest of the period was spent in attack upon my perceived bigotry.  I was called "homophobe," "fundamentalist," and "biblical literalist," among other things.  When a fellow male student stridently informed me that my remarks showed me to be the same kind of closeted and frustrated homosexual that Paul himself was, the professor let this ride. I felt anger rising, but kept quiet and accepted the abuse. "Penance," I told myself, "Penance."

     During the summer past, I had found it helpful to write down the details surrounding the dramatic Incident in which Christ had first revealed himself to me, and this resulted in a crude manuscript of about 60 pages.  Early on in the McCormick Experience, I decided to share my witness with my roommate, and when he became particularly difficult to talk to, I suggested that he read the manuscript.  I was suspicious of the way in which he relished this idea, but handed it over to him anyway.  It was shortly after the above berating in the Paul class that I walked into the McCormick student lounge to see my roommate reading my manuscript to a half dozen of our classmates seated around him at a large table.  He was at the point in the story where I am screaming with a primordial intensity, and he was reading in a mocking and highly animated and theatrical style in which he had mussed his hair, crossed his eyes, and was extending and retracting his tongue with each scream.  His audience found this hysterically funny, and all were laughing with wild abandon when I walked through the door and stared at them.  This resulted in a minute or so of awkward silence, as I proceeded to sit down and tried to read.  Soon enough the individuals at the large table were nudging each other and whispering and giggling like school girls.

     At this point, our homiletics professor walked into the room with a two male students in tow who were sporting the countenance of a couple of whipped puppies.  He sat them down and fetched each a cup of coffee.  One of the two picked up the conversation already in progress by complaining that he did not understand why they were in trouble.  These young men were upperclassmen and were serving as interim pastors at a suburban church. It seems one of them had given a sermon in which he had denied the virgin birth and resurrection from the pulpit, and neither could see the impropriety of this. "Look," said the professor, "You and I are educated and sophisticated men and we know that virgins can't give birth and bodies don't rise from the dead.  But you can't take the miracles away from the masses. You have to be gentle and sympathetic and encouraging in the pulpit, and edify and educate when the right situation presents itself." 

     While the puppies were nodding and agreeing with this sound advice, I'd had all I could take and got up and left in disgust. To my surprise the professor, apparently sensing my discomfort, followed me to the elevator, shoved the closing door open and pushed his way aboard. After a moment of silence, with all the pastoral concern that he could muster, he looked me squarely in the eye and asked, "How are you doing?"
    
     "I'm fine," I replied, "The question is how are you?"

     Bringing his fist up victoriously in front of his face and grinning enthusiastically he answered, "Still fighting the good fight!" 

     Thankfully, the elevator door opened and I headed as quickly as I could to the exit.

     It was at about this time, perhaps midway through the semester, that I received a note informing me that I was to meet with my adviser.  He was Edward F. "Ted" Campbell, an Old Testament scholar of some renown, and someone whose work I had admired in my undergraduate days.  I had a deep and particular affection for Old Testament studies, and by my junior year was much enamored of the idea of a career in scholarship.  Campbell's tenure at McCormick was one of the prime motivating factors in my decision to pursue postgraduate education there, and I had requested him as my adviser when I applied for admission.  

     When I arrived at his office, Dr. Campbell was quite cordial and we exchanged the usual pleasantries. He explained that it was high time that we got together and discussed my academic plans, and he asked me to sit down.  Very tactfully, he asked if I was enjoying my classes and if I was having any trouble adjusting to seminary life.  I told him that I was somewhat disappointed in the level of instruction I had encountered so far, and had found my classes less challenging than my course work at Alma had been.  He reassured me that the reason for this was the fact that most seminarians came to their first year of school with little or no background in religious studies, and that he was sure that I would be sufficiently challenged once I got past the lower level courses.  Getting to the point, he informed me that there was some concern among the faculty and my fellow students pertaining to my socialization and class participation. 

     Now, McCormick had a social atmosphere that was smiley faces, back slapping and the affirmation of everyone for everything (with the exception of traditional, believing Christianity).  I had always found this "hale fellow well met" kind of thing saccharin and disingenuous, and my attitude had not been improved by the past few weeks at the seminary.  As for my class participation, I believe the example above illustrates the issues here.  I  told Dr. Campbell, without going into detail, that I had experienced a genuine conversion since graduating from college, and that I was, frankly, somewhat taken aback by the insincerity and lack of faith that I'd encountered in the student body and even among the faculty.  He informed me that he was sure that this was largely a matter of misperception on my part, and told me that I had to be mature enough to realize that faith manifested itself in different ways in different people.  He asked how I was dealing with all of this.  I told him that I had been reading Kierkegaard and Isaiah.

     Ted Campbell sat back in his chair looking serious and nearly stern. "I see," he said.  After a few moments of thoughtful reflection he added, "There is a group of students here that have the same concerns that you do.  There are a few from McCormick and some from the Lutheran seminary and some of the other schools (McCormick was part of a consortium of divinity schools located around the University of Chicago). "They meet privately, off campus," he said, "And I'm sure they'd be happy to have you join them.  I can give you the name of a student to contact." 

     I had heard some strange things since I had been a seminarian, but this tested my credulity.  "Are you telling me that the believing Christians here have formed some sort of 'underground?'  That they meet in secret?"

     "Well," he said, "I don't know as I would put it quite like that, but yes, I guess that's what I'm saying." 

     I told him that I would have to give it some prayer and some thought, and he encouraged me to do so.  I was told to stay in touch and that should I have any need to talk his door would be open.

     As I walked back to the apartment I shared with my emotionally high-strung and semi unhinged roommate, the penitential humility that had been my primary emotion began to give way to a seething and righteous anger. The realization that it was not only me but Christ himself that was being mocked and ostracized at this institution dedicated to the nurturing of souls for Christian ministry finally inspired me to draw my sword (or in this case pen). I declared a war of words on this apostasy.

     In the remaining weeks of my time at McCormick, I sat at my typewriter and pounded out 90 pages of divinely inspired vitriol that detailed every aspect of my displeasure with the Presbyterian Church and liberal Christianity in general.  I stopped going to class and became a recluse.  I would leave my task on those evenings when my roommate would invite his friends over, who were some of the most bizarre people I'd ever seen.  They would sit in the kitchen and consume bottles of wine and squeal and shriek with laughter.  I would walk down to 53rd Street, go see a movie or hang out with the street people.  If the gay drunks were gone when I got back, it would mean that I could expect my roommate to stagger in during the early morning hours.  After one ugly incident in which he came into my room drunk and berated me in such a way that I actually feared for my personal safety, I slept with a heavy steel table leg clutched in my hand.  On the weekends when his friends would come in from out of town, I would buy a train ticket and head back home for a couple of days.  Other times I would take five one dollar bills and go down to the Loop early on Sunday morning and hand them out to winos and engage them in conversation.  I asked one bleary-eyed man once what it was that the church could do for him and his answer was, "Just leave me alone."  I could identify with this.  In the afternoon, I would go out to O'Hare and hang around with the Hare Krishnas, who were very friendly, interesting to talk to, and knew more of Christ than the good folk at the seminary.  I also got a couple of beautiful books out of the deal, one a work on Krishna and the other a beautiful copy of the Bhagavad Gita.  I think it's a shame that they're banned from the airports now-a-days.

     I finished my tome as the Thanksgiving break approached, and realized with some joy and a large amount of relief that this ordeal was nearing an end.  The work had evolved into a series of about eight essays that dealt with the different aspects of the apostasy of the church. Some of the titles were "The Census of Babylon," "Gentlemen, All is Not Well," "The Abuse of Scripture," and "This God of Theirs."  I adopted Uncle Leroy's rhythmic, 19th century style, and it funneled my righteous anger perfectly onto the paper, giving it an authoritative and nearly prophetic tone. The emotion that went into these pieces was such that when I was finished so was my big old Underwood manual typewriter, as it was unable to bear up under the pounding I gave its keys. I went over to the library and photocopied and collated my work into three copies: one for Lew Mudge, one for Ted Campbell, and one for me.  I went back to the apartment and carefully hid the copies as insurance against my roommate turning this into another production of his theater of the absurd.

     I had booked a late afternoon flight out of O'Hare on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  Shortly after noon, I went over to the McCormick building, which was virtually deserted, and slid a copy of the essays under the doors of Dean Mudge and Dr. Campbell.  I attached a cover sheet on the one that went under Mudge's door that read simply, "Please Accept In Lieu of Class Work."  I toyed with the idea of actually nailing a copy to one of the front doors of the seminary, but the doors were antique oak and beautiful, and I couldn't bear the thought of damaging them.  This was too Lutheran anyway.  I made it to the airport well in advance of my flight and got to spend some time with the Krishnas.  The two young men that I usually talked to were there, and when I told them that this would be the last time I would see them, one produced the volume on Krishna and presented to me as a parting gift, even refusing the donation I offered.  We bowed to each other and I was on my way home.  Some times the best Christians you meet aren't Christians at all.

     When I walked off the plane and into the terminal, my mother, father and two sisters were waiting for me.  While I had not made much of what was going on with me at seminary, it was no secret that I was "having some trouble adapting" as my mother would put it.  I decided it wasn't a good idea to bring up the fact that I had burned my bridges with McCormick when the essays had gone under the doors, so I made sure that the conversation in the car on the way home stayed focused on other topics.  When I was asked how my first term was going, I answered that I'd had the chance to do a lot of interesting writing and let it go at that.

     Back at my parent's home in Alma, I decided that it was best to broach the subject of the end of my pastoral aspirations and get it over with, as this would certainly be inappropriate conversation at the Thanksgiving table.  When I  matter of factly told my folks that I'd decided to leave the seminary, my sisters took this as their queue to disappear from the scene while, I'm sure, stationing themselves within listening range so as not to miss any of the fireworks. 

     As I had expected, my dad maintained a stoic silence, which was about all he could do in the face of my mother going apoplectic.  I received the usual lecture that accompanied any major change in my life; about how I was flushing away my hopes and my future.  Then it was about all of those that would have to deal with their own disappointment and bitter hurt at my rash and callous decision. And what of the utter despair of those children at church that looked up to me and pinned all their hopes for their own future aspirations on my example. This eventually degenerated into the horrendous humiliation and embarrassment that I was causing her personally because, as usual, I had selfishly failed to take anyone else's feelings into consideration but my own, especially hers. I realized that I really had achieved some measure of maturity by the fact that I didn't become angry and turn this into anything uglier. As soon as this initial venting subsided, my dad suggested that it was a good idea to sleep on it and let the chips fall where they may in the days ahead.

     The next morning, while my mother was absorbed in preparing dinner and fuming to herself, my dad told me he needed help with something out in the garage.  This was his code for wanting to talk to me.  The house was my mother's domain, but the garage was my father's, and he conducted all of his business here. While my mother had done all the talking the night before, the old man decided maybe it would be a good idea to do some listening, and so I poured out the story of my seminary experience, as related here.  While I knew he would be more understanding than my mother, I didn't expect him to see the humor in all of this that had, so far, escaped me.  He was still laughing at the essays under the doors and the fact that I had sought Christian fellowship amongst the winos and Hare Krishnas when I asked him if he was disappointed in me.  "Disappointed?" he asked. "Oh, hell no!  If I'd been you, I would have told them to shove it up their ass when they gave me the queer roommate!" 

     "So," he asked, "How are you going to get your belongings back from Chicago."

     "Well," I answered, "With everything else I've had on my mind, I haven't been able to figure that part out yet."

     "Why don't you take your car down to Chicago and get your belongings and bring them back here?"

     Now, I owned a car, of sorts, but it needed work and I'd left it behind rather than trying to deal with the madness and expense of having an automobile in the city.  I'd sold my 1971 Triumph Spitfire during the summer as part of my effort to simplify and spiritualize my life, and because I needed the money to pay for the "McCormick Experience."  My father was a retired master mechanic, had owned an auto repair business, and had restored and sold high end used cars.  This meant that I'd had the benefit of owning nice cars at a young age, but the one I currently had was a 1966 Buick Skylark that had been taken in as a trade when I sold my 1971 Mustang Fastback 2+2.  The paint on the Buick was faded, there was rust along the bottom of the rear quarters, and the rear differential was failing due to the abusive habits of the previous owner.  It made a "schuff, schuff, schuff" sound as it went down the road.

     "Man!" I protested, "The rear end in that Buick is pretty rough. I don't know that it would go all the way to Chicago and back."

     My dad looked at me as if I was an idiot and said, "Well, then, why don't we put a rear end in it before you go, and then you'll have a car, and you can go get your things and get on with your life." And just like that my old man put me back into the driver's seat of my own life.

     The day after Thanksgiving, he called his junkyard connections, located a good used rear end for the Buick, and he and I spent Thanksgiving weekend swapping rear axle assemblies.  First thing Monday morning I was on the road to Chicago and by mid afternoon I had all my stuff loaded into the Buick and was on my way back home.  My roommate was at class and came back to find that I had moved out and was gone for good.  I left enough money to cover what should have been my half of the bills, and a phone number where I could be reached if this was insufficient.  I did get a call a week or so later, and he accused me of skipping out and sticking him with more than his share of the expenses. I informed him that if that had been my intention, I wouldn't have left him any cash or a contact number. I sent him a check for the amount he demanded and figured that if it was more than I owed it was a good investment if it meant severing all ties and putting an end to the McCormick Experience. As the old Skylark purred easily up through southwestern Michigan towards home, I heartily praised God for his Glory and for my freedom.

     The last official contact that I had from McCormick was a hand written note from Dean Mudge explaining that no credit would be extended for the essays, and suggesting that it might be a good idea if I got some psychological counseling.  He ended on a very upbeat note and wished me a happy and prosperous future in whatever I decided to do with my life.  For over twenty years after this, I would regularly receive pleas for money during fund raising drives, and newsletters inviting me to class reunions and updating me on the wonderful things accomplished in the church and academic careers of my former classmates. 

     During these days, my parents owned a mobile home south of Fort Myers, Florida and spent the winters there.   My dad began to lobby for the cause of me spending the winter down there with them.  Work was plentiful, the opportunities unlimited, and the weather was beautiful. He was persuasive salesman. My mother, once she had overcome the initial shock of me leaving seminary, decided that, for once, my dad was right, and this would be just the ticket for me.  I could take some time, sort things out, and decide in which direction I would point my life.  I had to admit that I didn't have any better options, and it didn't take much to outstrip the potential that Alma offered over the winter.  And so, by the second week in December, I had the '66 packed and was cruising towards Florida.

     The months in Fort Myers were good.  It was quiet and warm and I had lots of time for prayer and meditation.  I got a job as night auditor at the Nautilus Inn in Cape Coral, and once I settled into this, I found myself with many long, quiet and peaceful hours to spend alone with my Savior, and this became a cherished time of healing and I grew strong again in mind and spirit.  The Lord became my teacher and I became an adept spiritual warrior, learning to deflect the temptations of the flesh and gaining in confidence daily.

     The Buick had proved to be such a sound automobile mechanically that my dad decided it should look as good as it ran.  He began restoring the body, working in the driveway in the Florida sun, and whistling happily as the project came together nicely.  Meanwhile, I helped where and when I could and drove his '74 Malibu to work at night while my car was laid up. I was making good money and contributing my share and more to the household expenses while spending little, causing no trouble, and socking away cash for the future. This made my mom happy with me on all counts, and we all got along particularly well. 

     When the Buick was prepped and primered, we went to the local Earl Schieb in Fort Myers.  The old man had been crafty enough to stop in here several times already and check out the finished cars waiting to be picked up.  "This kid can paint," he told me. "We'll get you a good paint job here."  We walked up to the counter at about closing time and my dad asked to see the painter.  A tall, skinny guy in coveralls and about my age walked out and asked what we wanted. "I want you to paint a car for me," dad said.  We were told to see the girl at the counter.  My dad held out a twenty dollar bill and said, "President Jackson says I should talk to you."  

     The president got this young man's attention and the old man made the following deal:  The car was already prepped and he'd buy the paint.  Earl Schieb's would get their $79.95, mask the glass, and the kid would primer coat and paint the car using the provided, high quality materials.  If it was a nice job, President Jackson would again express his own personal thanks.

     When we went to pick the finished car up, the proud painter came bouncing out of the shop to show it off.  He did indeed do nice work, and the Buick sat sporting many coats of beautiful and shiny sky blue lacquer.  My dad was so impressed that the young man got a special commendation from President Grant and everyone was happy.  I spent most of the next day polishing the Buick's factory chrome wheels and trim, and detailing the white vinyl top until it was snow white and looked like new.  Shallow perhaps, but I will admit that the comments of "Wow! Nice car!" that I got while filling up at the Sunoco station did bolster my self esteem, and until the day he died I was never able to adequately express to my dad what it had meant that he had spent this winter dusting me off and putting me back up on my feet.

     Towards the end of March, The Nautilus Inn was sold to a group of New York Italians that resembled the cast of one of those "B" grade God Father knock offs that were so popular back then.  I took this as the sign I'd been waiting for that it was time to pull up stakes and head back to Michigan.  During these months in Florida, I had thought long and often of the girl I'd spent that beautiful evening with at Diana's, and as the dust of the seminary ordeal settled, I began to look at my preoccupation with McCormick as the cause of lost opportunity.  I didn't have the courage to call or write, and I had convinced myself by now that she was probably in a serious relationship with someone else, and had forgotten all about me.  I knew that she was too young for me and that there were a thousand other reasons why it would never work, but, still, I had to know for sure and the only way to do that was to go in person and find her.  Then, at the worst, I would know that if Bogey always had Paris, then at least I would always have Chicago.

     I pointed the Buick north and, as usual, it ran flawlessly.  I made it as far as Troy, Ohio before the taillights of the cars in front of me and the lines on the highway began to run together.  I grabbed a motel room and slept for four or five hours, and then it was back on the road and finally back to my parents house in Alma.  It was late afternoon by the time I got the house up and running and myself settled in, and I was exhausted from the road.  The emotional enormity of what I was about to do settled in, and I had a prayer session with the Lord that was as intense as any I've ever had.  I was alone and lonely, and I felt that if I was to continue on from this point to whatever God had in his plan for me, I was not going to be able to do it in this state of mind.  And I told him so in no uncertain terms.

     The sleep I desperately needed came fast and hard, and I was out for nearly twelve hours.  I woke up excited, dressed and headed for Alma College, telling myself that I would certainly run into some old friends, and that I could maybe check on the social status of Jean in this way without hideously embarrassing myself too much.  However, when I walked past the window of the student union, there she was.  I mustered my courage and resolve and went in and stood across the table from her.  She looked up and gave me the same sweet smile I remembered from Chicago.  I asked if I could sit down.  "Sure!" she said.  And we've been together ever since.

     As our relationship began to bloom, the big hurdle for me was telling Jean about the Incident with the demon.  Since the days at McCormick when this story routinely resulted in the listener inquiring about my mental stability, I had become rather gun-shy about sharing it, and only did so in circumstances where the Lord would nudge me into knowing that it was warranted. This was most certainly one of these warranted circumstances and, by providence I'm sure, Jack showed up at precisely this moment and we told her the story that we called "The Incident" together.  Much to my relief and delight, Jean not only accepted the truth and validity of the story, but took it as an opportunity to share her own faith.  She was entering into the same difficulties with her college religious studies that ultimately resulted in my trip to the football field in the year previous.  And so, she could actually relate to this in a way others could not, and it served to make our relationship deeper and stronger.

     By mid May, 1978 as the first anniversary of  The Incident came to pass, I found myself with my soul mate, as we enjoyed a love that seemed to blossom with the spring. What a difference a year can make.  From this glorious beginning we would build a life and a family together and, in the end, we would learn in strange and unexpected ways that the love of God and the saving power of Jesus Christ conquers all.