Dillenberger Calls for Divinity Liberalism

The first definition of the position of the Divinity School since President Pusey's 1953 convocation address was made unofficially Monday night by John P. Dillenberger, recently appointed associate professor of Theology.

In an address at an alumni dinner at which Pusey was present, Dillenberger strongly advocated a liberal approach in the make-up of the school. He asserted that it "should never reflect a single theological outlook."

No "Official Representation"

One of five new senior faculty members, Dillenberger saw the school as "a forum in which all religious groups will have an opportunity for legitimate expression and which excludes domination by any group."

Dillenberger stressed that the Divinity School has no creedal requirements; it is "non-sectarian in the exclusion of official partisanship for the tenets of any particular religious group within the Protestant framework.

At the same time, however, he observed that the Divinity School is not interfaith in the usual sense of the term. "We do not think of our faculty as requiring official representation of Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Hindu or Buddhist groups." Students should nevertheless be cognizant of the traditions of these religions, he said.

Late in the 19th century, Dillenberger pointed out, President Eliot installed non-Unitarian professors in order to broaden the scholarly character of the school.

"And today," he added, "President Pusey is calling for scholarship which relates the Christian movement afresh to the life and currents of our time."

"Flexibility of Mind"

"Professors here must exercise a responsibility not for what men think but how they think." The student body, he felt, should be comprised of both liberals and conservatives, though he warned that neither extreme should be dogmatic.

"It is my hope," he said, "that we shall always have liberals and conservatives as part of the Harvard student body, but not dogmatic liberals or dogmatic conservatives."

"Flexibility of mind and openness of spirit ought to be requirements even of a man of strong convictions. The time has come for us to strengthen the abiding liberal spirit which resists all dogmatism," he concluded.

The new professor said that ministers aware of all aspects of religious thought are needed "to challenge and direct the amorphous 'new piety' of our time, and to give some structure to the new self-consciousness which is apparent in much of Protestantism."