Keeper of the Word

William Stringfellow died on March 2, 1985. Many of us have missed him greatly ever since. For the circle of those who were blessed to be his friends, the memory of Bill still burns very bright indeed. Yet, since Stringfellow's death the traces of his thought and work have steadily diminished.

All of his books are out of print. Perhaps because he was a theologian who never had an academic base and continually cast a biblical searchlight on the state of the church, references to William Stringfellow in our seminaries and religious institutions have gradually disappeared. Because he was a lawyer who rejected all the traditional paths and tested the law by conscience, Stringfellow is not revered by most in his profession. Because he was such an articulate political dissenter and resister, the establishments of politics were very eager to forget him as well.

Bill Stringfellow had a way of being very timely and contextual in his theological and political insights. At first glance, his historical relevance can make his book's references to Vietnam, civil rights, Watergate, Richard Nixon, the ordination of women, and nuclear technology seem outdated. But true prophecy, in the biblical tradition, is always marked by historical specificity. That, indeed, is its offense. Prophecy-in-general is never threatening.

For all the prophetic timeliness in his own day, William Stringfellow's radical fidelity to the Word of God and articulation of "biblical politics" seem to be more and more timely for ours as well. Stringfellow was a forerunner to the kind of prophetic spirituality that seems now to be bringing people together from many corners of the church's life.

WHILE neglected since his death, Bill Stringfellow's legacy lives on. I continue to run into those who were deeply influenced by his life and work, literally all over the world. For some of us, there still has been no greater theological influence.

But it may be that the neglect of Stringfellow is coming to an end. A kind of Stringfellow "renaissance" seems to be under way.

One evidence of it was a recent retreat at the Kirkridge Retreat Center in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains. It was the first gathering to celebrate and explore the legacy of Bill Stringfellow since his death.

More than 100 people showed up and filled the place to overflowing. Daniel Berrigan led morning Bible studies that allowed the text to open up our historical circumstances--as was the Stringfellow practice. Other sessions on political discernment, the principalities and powers, dissent and resistance, law and conscience, and biography as theology caused us to remember Stringfellow and to explore our own contemporary situation (the former would have made him a little nervous, the latter Bill would have insisted upon).

The stories overflowed from Stringfellow's early days in the Christian Student Movement, at Harvard Law School, in the pioneering East Harlem Protestant parish and the New York years, in the Episcopal Church, and on his beloved Block Island. We told our own stories, and out of all the stories the meaning of the gospel always seemed to emerge.

Our reflection was again interrupted by history, as good biblical reflections are always open to be. We heard the news Sunday morning that Bill Clinton had bombed Baghdad overnight. He was trying to send a message to Saddam Hussein who was said to have tried to assassinate George Bush. As always, the children and civilians got the worst end of it. But what's the loss of a few lives when the political rulers are trying to send messages to each other; not to mention making up for youthful anti-war protests, eagerly hoping to please the military, and desperately seeking to improve the public opinion polls?

We all suspected what Bill Stringfellow might have said. But it's no more popular now to suggest that politics be informed by moral conscience than it was when he wrote all those books.

We need to hear William Stringfellow's voice again. And we soon will. A new anthology of Stringfellow's collected works will be out from Eerdmans in 1994, plans are afoot for re-releasing some of the old titles, and a biography is in the works.

But for all the talk of powers run amuck, corporatized greed, and war-making states--there was much talk of the resurrection this weekend. I think that would have been the thing which would have most pleased the one whom many of us regard as a keeper of the Word.

Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.