Joseph A. Sittler Award

2010 Recipient – Ron Rude

 

Joseph A. Sittler taught theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School and Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago from 1943 until 1973. His numerous books include The Structure of Christian Ethics (1958), The Care of the Earth (1964), The Anguish of Preaching (1967), Essays on Nature and Grace (1972), Grace Notes and Other Fragments (1981).

 

During June 12-17, 1977, Professor Sittler spent a week at Valparaiso University with Lutheran campus pastors giving lectures and engaging in conversation. That experience was recorded and is published in a book called Running with the Hounds. The whole book is online here.

 

On page 142, Sittler presents this charge to campus ministers:

 

"I won't talk of your responsibility in terms of how you do your job, which I could not talk about with any knowledge. Rather, in your responsibility to the Church, I think you do not speak back to the church enough, or clearly enough, out of your extraordinary experience. The Church has a hard head. And the heads that must be penetrated are often far distant from where you work. But make no mistake; the Church does hear you when you scream, if you do. They do hear you when you protest or when you with the sensitivity born of your position, say that the way the Church is doing this or this or this is not the way in which the future is opening up for the coming generations of the Church.

 

"I think you are in a position to be loving and constructive critics of Mother Church. and I think your criticism must not be exhausted by mutual sessions among yourselves, but carefully articulated and made available to the decision making levels of the Church. All kinds of things which you see to be of significance for the future, I think, you do not produce enough in clear writing and get into the right hands. It does not mean you have to write scholarly things; you seldom have the time to develop that. But you have perceptive things to say, and you should not waste them just on one another, you ought to send them upstairs.

 

"So I am hopeful that either through some corporate organ you develop or through your individual effort in writing—I am a great believer in the written text; it can be referred back to, and it will not go away like the evanescence of spoken words—I trust you will become more articulate, perceptive, and ardent constructive critics in the Church. The Church, despite her bland appearance of confidence, is a deeply troubled Mother. And I think she is prepared to hear her children. Each of you must do this in your own way, but I suggest you do it."

 

Since then, the Joseph A. Sittler Award has been given by colleagues to one of their own who live out, especially through writing, Sittler’s challenge.