wfn.org | Re: United Methodist Daily News note 39

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (390
notes).

Note 390 by UMNS on Oct. 16, 1997 at 16:21 Eastern (5555 characters).

TITLE:	Swomley Memoirs Tell of Human Rights Struggle

CONTACT:	Ralph E. Baker				  578(10-71B){390}
		Nashville, Tenn. (615)742-5470	Oct. 16, 1997

Memoirs tell of Swomleys life-long
struggle for others human rights

by Robert Lear*

     For 35 years the name of a United Methodist clergyman and educator has
been entwined with the international struggle for individual rights and
separation of church and state.
     From ethnic enclaves in Kansas City, Mo., to solemn halls of the U.S.
Congress and the British House of Commons; political concentration camps in
the Philippines; and the squalor of South Africa's Soweto, the Rev. John M.
Swomley has touched lives in 79 countries.  Sometimes the contacts have been 2
a.m. telephone calls or other threats to personal safety.
     In a recently published book, Swomley, now 82 and professor emeritus of
Christian Ethics at United Methodism's Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas
City, traces his conviction that "human rights, religious liberty and
political freedom are intertwined.  Each of the three is dependent on the
other two."
     Confronting Church and State - Memoirs of an Activist is published by
Humanist Press, Amherst, N.Y., in cooperation with Americans for Religious
Liberty.  The latter organization was founded in l981 and Swomley has served
as its president since l987.
     A sampling of chapter headings in the 132-page paperback gives a clue to
the scope of his interests:  "Catholicism After Vatican II"' "Abortion, Birth
Control and Population Politics"; "Threats from the l960s Far Right"; "F.B.I.
Confidential;" and "under Martial Law in the Philippines."
     In a foreword, Conservative Rabbi Morris B. Margolies of Kansas City
writes:  "Like all dissenters from the Establishment, (Swomley) has often been
reviled, threatened and calumniated.  But he has never cowered and has
never wavered."
     Growing up in a conservative church in Harrisburg, Pa., Swomley credits
attendance at a meeting in l937 of the National Council of Methodist Youth for
the change in his life.
     Urged by his pastor to attend the meeting to change the "radical" stance
of the organization, Swomley said in a telephone interview he discovered
during the meeting that "life was very different from the experiences in the
church in which I grew up."
     In his memoirs, Swomley writes that "[h]ere were young people running
their own meetings, discussing racism, pacifism, and other social issues. . .
. For the first time in my life I was confronted with the radical dimension of
the Christian faith in a group of committed young adults, and forced to
rethink everything."
     From that conference, his path led to Boston University School of
Theology, "without any thought of becoming a minister;" secretaryship of the
New England student chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the
national FOR organization and, in l960, a professor in social ethics and
philosophy at the then new Saint Paul School of Theology.
     At Boston University he developed the knack of organizing and leading
groups seeking redress for social inequities, a trait that has marked his long
career as an activist.
     Asked what he regards as his greatest impact, Swomley quickly cites his
leadership of the post-World War II campaign against universal military
conscription, and the related desegregation of the armed forces.
     Through the years various of his activities have attracted a cold
shoulder from some bishops, pastors and lay people.  There also was an F.B.I.
investigation for sedition during World War II.
     He maintained a long-running confidential relationship with William C.
Sullivan, once J. Edgar Hoover's right-hand man at the F.B.I.  They would meet
several times a year.
     "I became a controversial figure in Kansas City Methodism and almost
never was invited to speak in Methodist churches," after the early years
there, he writes.  "Fortunately I was invited more often to speak in other
churches -- Lutheran, Presbyterian, Unitarian-Universalist, United Church of
Christ, Disciples of Christ and occasionally Roman Catholic."
     At Saint Paul, however, his reception was quite different.  President Don
W. Holter "was not only a real believer in academic freedom, `but also
welcomed my strong role in social `action . . . [and] the faculty without
exception were also very supportive, even though many disagreed with some of
the positions I took."
     Among other United Methodist stances reflecting the work of Swomley are
abortion rights, birth control, the draft, tuition tax credits for religious
schools and a broad range of other topics.  As recently as the l996 General
Conference he was an informal consultant in drafting social issues statements.
     During sabbaticals from teaching at Saint Paul's, Swomley and his family
usually went to some other country for study.  Typical was the first such
trip:  "It was a series of adventures that included a meeting with the East
German Secretary of Church-State Affairs, a dialogue with Communists in
Prague, a dramatic session with a representative of the National Liberation
Front of Vietnam in their European headquarters in Prague and an address to
the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons."
     Now retired from teaching, Swomley is writing and working on his next
book covering the years from l939 to l960.

                                       #  #  # 

	* Lear is retired director of the Washington office of United Methodist News
Service living in Warnersville, Pa.

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