Speaker 1: Pushkin. I grew up in southwestern Ontario, farming country, in
Speaker 1: a place called Waterloo County. Waterloo County is home to
Speaker 1: one of the largest populations of Mennonites in the world.
Speaker 1: I grew up among Mennonites, went to school with them.
Speaker 1: They're Anabaptists, which is one of the oldest Protestant denominations.
Speaker 1: Mennonites are small in number, industrious, close knit. Came to
Speaker 1: North America after they were persecuted in Russia. The joke
Speaker 1: is they're basically Jews who farm. So I went home
Speaker 1: to see my parents not long ago, and everyone was
Speaker 1: talking about something online called an Open Letter to my
Speaker 1: beloved church. It's a long letter touching on family and
Speaker 1: devotion and faith in scripture. A Mennonite pastor wrote it, actually,
Speaker 1: I should say an ex Mennonite pastor, a man named
Speaker 1: Chester Wanger. I read the letter and I was so
Speaker 1: taken by it that I went to see him, drove
Speaker 1: four and a half hours on one cold January day.
Speaker 2: Oh my, just every day three four or five people say, oh,
Speaker 2: we just like your letter. We like your letter, we
Speaker 2: like your letter.
Speaker 1: The letter has been read more than two hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty thousand times on Mennonite dot org. To put that
Speaker 1: in perspective, there were only eight hundred thousand mena nits
Speaker 1: in North America. It's been liked and shared all over
Speaker 1: Facebook hashtag Chester Wenger is a thing. I asked Wenger
Speaker 1: if he anticipated any of his words going viral.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know it. Didn't even know what viral meant.
Speaker 2: The letter went virals. What does that mean? It's like
Speaker 2: a virus. It just read. I was shocked.
Speaker 1: My name is Malcolm Gladwell. This is Revisionist History, my
Speaker 1: podcast about things misunderstood and overlooked. This week's episode is
Speaker 1: about Chester Wenger and about an idea called generous orthodoxy.
Speaker 1: That phrase generous orthodoxy comes from a theologian named Hans Fry.
Speaker 1: It's an oxymoron.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 1: To be orthodox is to be committed to tradition. To
Speaker 1: be generous, as Frida fines, it is to be open
Speaker 1: to change. But Fri I thought the best way to
Speaker 1: live our lives was to find the middle ground. Because
Speaker 1: orthodoxy without generosity leads to blindness, and generosity without orthodoxy
Speaker 1: is shallow and empty. One of the hardest things in
Speaker 1: the world is to find that balance. Not just for
Speaker 1: those pursuing a life of faith, but for anyone interested
Speaker 1: in making their world better. I think Chester Wenger shows
Speaker 1: us the way.
Speaker 2: I wanted to study Bible, and I got the first
Speaker 2: the best of arts, and then I got a Bachelor
Speaker 2: of Theology. I was very interested in getting all the
Speaker 2: training I could.
Speaker 1: Wenger lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, another man of night Enclave,
Speaker 1: in a little house just off the turnpike, where he
Speaker 1: and his wife, Sarah Jane brought up their eight children.
Speaker 1: Wenger has a barrel chest, straight back, real handshake, big
Speaker 1: head of white hair. He looks a little like a
Speaker 1: cross between Colonel Sanders and an NFL linebacker. He's ninety
Speaker 1: eight years old. This is the part of the evening
Speaker 1: that I remember the most. The very end of several
Speaker 1: hours in his tiny living room. It nearly brought me
Speaker 1: to tears.
Speaker 2: As I thought I wanted to read from Romans. It's
Speaker 2: very familiar, for I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of
Speaker 2: Christ Jesus. It is the power of God for salvation
Speaker 2: to everyone who has faith. Notice how broad that is.
Speaker 1: Let me start with a few more words about Mennonites,
Speaker 1: because what Wanger did makes no sense unless you understand
Speaker 1: the world that he inhabits. The theologian Palm Rebcker has
Speaker 1: a lovely phrase to describe the Mennonite way. Jesus is
Speaker 1: the center of our faith. Community is the center of
Speaker 1: our lives. Reconciliation is the center of our work. It's
Speaker 1: hard to explain to an outsider how seriously the Mennonites
Speaker 1: take these three things Jesus, community, and reconciliation. They don't
Speaker 1: use the word community, for example, in the metaphorical way
Speaker 1: like most of us. Do you know, I'm a member
Speaker 1: of the journalist community. To Mennonite's community is a much
Speaker 1: more serious thing. Listen to my friend Jim Laptisin, who's
Speaker 1: a Mennonite pastor.
Speaker 4: In my dad's church growing up, it was very strict.
Speaker 4: He told me at one point that if people didn't
Speaker 4: believe you were a given ten percent of your income
Speaker 4: to the church, they had the right to audit your books.
Speaker 4: And he said that without any recrimination or any condemnation,
Speaker 4: and even a bit of humor. He was like, and
Speaker 4: so my books got out, and twice by his good
Speaker 4: friend and neighbor up their own.
Speaker 1: How on earth? But did that conversation happen. The treasurer
Speaker 1: came to him and said, we don't think you're giving enough.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And I have a really high view of the church,
Speaker 4: and you know you speak on behalf of the church.
Speaker 4: And we've all submitted to this, so it's not like
Speaker 4: I'm submitting to something that you haven't. So we're all
Speaker 4: in us together, yeah, and we're all trying to be
Speaker 4: as faithful as we can be.
Speaker 1: That business of auditing each other's books, that's from fifty
Speaker 1: or sixty years ago, a different era. But I think
Speaker 1: it gives you a flavor of what Mennonites mean when
Speaker 1: they say we're all in this together. When I was
Speaker 1: a kid, just after we moved to Canada from England,
Speaker 1: we heard about a barn raising not far from us.
Speaker 1: When a Mennonite farmer's barn burns down, the people from
Speaker 1: church gather as soon as they can bring food and
Speaker 1: building materials and anything else to replace what was lost,
Speaker 1: and they build a new barn. Frame it up one day,
Speaker 1: put it up the next. My parents were Presbyterians, but
Speaker 1: my father found the idea of a barn raising incredibly impressive,
Speaker 1: so he crashed it.
Speaker 5: You have to.
Speaker 1: Understand that these are what were called Old Order Mennonites,
Speaker 1: like the Amish. They drove horses and buggies and lived
Speaker 1: without electricity. My dad was a college professor in a
Speaker 1: rusty Puusia with an impenetrable English accent and a shirt
Speaker 1: and a tie. They'd never seen him or anything like
Speaker 1: him before. They just put him to work, no questions asked.
Speaker 1: We're all in this together. Eventually my parents would join
Speaker 1: the Mennonite Church, and my brother would marry a Mennonite pastor.
Speaker 1: And I suspect that sense of community is why there's
Speaker 1: something beautiful about that kind of belonging. One more Mennonite
Speaker 1: story from my friend Jim Leftisen. This might even be
Speaker 1: the quintessential Mennonite story. About a guy who buys a
Speaker 1: house from another Mennonite whom, of course, he trusted.
Speaker 4: He bought the house and find out that in fact
Speaker 4: he'd been light to so. On either side of this
Speaker 4: man two men from a Mennonite church. One of them
Speaker 4: said to him, did he tell you that the septic
Speaker 4: system was in good shape? And he said yes he did,
Speaker 4: and he said you have to fix it. He said, yeah,
Speaker 4: I have to replace it completely. Was twelve thousand dollars
Speaker 4: or something.
Speaker 1: The septic system, one of the most expensive things in
Speaker 1: a house.
Speaker 4: He said, well, here's four thousand dollars for that. What
Speaker 4: he did wasn't right, and he goes to our church
Speaker 4: and the guy on the other side said, dumb, I'll
Speaker 4: pay whatever he didn't pay, so they together covered it.
Speaker 4: He said, he goes to our church, and that isn't right.
Speaker 1: This is the world Chester Wenger in habits. He's squarely
Speaker 1: in the middle of it. Wenger's father was one of
Speaker 1: the founders of a big Mennonite seminary in Virginia. His daughter, Sarah,
Speaker 1: is the president of the Big Mennonite Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana.
Speaker 1: Wenger lived seventeen years in Ethiopia, where he helped to
Speaker 1: found and build what is now the largest Mennonite church
Speaker 1: in the world. To Deep Ties, Deep Ties, you guys
Speaker 1: are Mennonite royalty. Basically in Hans Frey's terms. Wenger is
Speaker 1: an Orthodox Manolone, a member of the Blossom Hill Congregation
Speaker 1: in Lancaster. But there's another side to him. Mennonites come
Speaker 1: in all kinds of shapes and sizes. My parents' church
Speaker 1: in Ontario was pretty liberal, full of college professors and
Speaker 1: software engineers and teachers. My mom and her best friend
Speaker 1: Lorraine were doing feminist retreats back in the seventies. But
Speaker 1: Lancaster County, where Wenger is from, is much more conservative.
Speaker 1: The Mennonites there didn't accept women as our dained ministers
Speaker 1: until a couple of years ago, and that was something
Speaker 1: that Wenger struggled with because he's not just orthodox, he's generous.
Speaker 1: He's open to the world. He spent ten years as
Speaker 1: pastor of Blossom Hill in the nineteen eighties, so when
Speaker 1: it came to the prohibition against female pastors, Wenger would
Speaker 1: do what kind of workaround. The rules said women could
Speaker 1: not be ordained as ministers, meaning they couldn't be formally
Speaker 1: recognized as church leaders, but they could still talk on
Speaker 1: Sunday morning.
Speaker 2: Right, I used women in the pulpit that weren't ordained.
Speaker 2: I preach, and then next Sunday I'd have this woman preach,
Speaker 2: and then I'd have my wife preach. I didn't want
Speaker 2: to do all the preaching.
Speaker 1: Would if no one questions your loyalty, you can get
Speaker 1: away with that kind of subversion. Chester Wenger walked that
Speaker 1: fine line orthodox but also generous. Until one day, Chester
Speaker 1: Sun Philip comes to him, and the line becomes almost
Speaker 1: impossible to walk.
Speaker 2: It all.
Speaker 6: Growing up, I had no awareness of homosexuality anywhere. I
Speaker 6: remember somewhere along the line, maybe when I was early
Speaker 6: adolescence it I talked about a cousin of mine, but
Speaker 6: I didn't know what they were.
Speaker 1: Talking about, the question of whether someone might be gay
Speaker 1: simply never occurred to him. And it goes without saying
Speaker 1: that a community that did not permit the ordination of
Speaker 1: women until quite recently did not have progressive views on homosexuality.
Speaker 1: But one day Phil pulled his father aside. What did
Speaker 1: he tell you?
Speaker 2: I don't know the words he used, but I understood
Speaker 2: that he had attraction for males instead of females.
Speaker 7: And I said, maybe you can outgrow this, and so
Speaker 7: that's where that's where we left it. And about a
Speaker 7: year later he came back and said, Dad, I haven't
Speaker 7: outgrown it. And so we had this.
Speaker 2: Awareness that he's that's who he is.
Speaker 1: So Phil goes off to college, he comes home, he
Speaker 1: brings up the subject again.
Speaker 8: And I came to him and I explained to him
Speaker 8: ten minutes before I was going to drive back to
Speaker 8: college in Virginia.
Speaker 1: That's Phil. He's in the room with me and Chester
Speaker 1: sitting across from his father.
Speaker 8: That dad, this is for real. I'm going to identify
Speaker 8: as being gay. I'm going to tell other people I'm gay.
Speaker 8: I'm going to date other guys. And you know, you're
Speaker 8: going to have to get used to this.
Speaker 1: As word got out in Lancaster, the consequences were immediate.
Speaker 1: Phil had a job with the church. He lost it.
Speaker 1: He was instructed to come in and confess his sins.
Speaker 1: He refused. Chester Wanger had a position in the Midda
Speaker 1: Night administration in Lancaster at the time, and attended a
Speaker 1: local Meddonite church One Sunday morning. The pastor got up
Speaker 1: and made an announcement.
Speaker 2: He just read off in church one day that Phil
Speaker 2: Winger is no longer a member of our congregation. And
Speaker 2: we didn't know it. He didn't approach you first know
Speaker 2: that he was doing that, and Phil hadn't had contact
Speaker 2: with him either or him with Phil, and I couldn't
Speaker 2: believe it.
Speaker 8: It was illilateral and I wasn't part of the conversation,
Speaker 8: and the deed was already done, and at that point
Speaker 8: my faith had pretty much diminished. To next to nothing,
Speaker 8: and I was going to proceed with a life outside
Speaker 8: the traditional church community.
Speaker 1: Think about this through Chester Wenger's eyes. He can accept
Speaker 1: his son's sexuality, but his own church, the church to
Speaker 1: which he has been loyal all his life, that church
Speaker 1: has now cast his son out. His orthodoxy is in
Speaker 1: conflict with his generosity, and his son is caught in
Speaker 1: the middle. Can you imagine not just the pain, but
Speaker 1: the guilt. He gave his life to a church that
Speaker 1: said we're all in this together, and now that church
Speaker 1: has split his family in two.
Speaker 2: I always told Phil that your faith is most important
Speaker 2: to me. Don't give up the faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1: Phil went on to start a successful restaurant business. At
Speaker 1: one point, some years ago, he goes back to his
Speaker 1: high school reunion and there some of his old classmates
Speaker 1: confront him and tell him they would never eat at
Speaker 1: one of his restaurants. Phil tells his mother.
Speaker 2: And you told her all this, and she said to you,
Speaker 2: don't give up on Jesus.
Speaker 1: He's sitting in his chair straight back ninety eight years old,
Speaker 1: Colonel Sanders meets a linebacker, a man of God, and
Speaker 1: as Chester Wenger talks about that moment years ago, when
Speaker 1: he worried that his son's soul was in jeopardy. He
Speaker 1: starts to.
Speaker 9: Weep, and I guess there was no expression at that
Speaker 9: point particularly, But as he went to go out the door,
Speaker 9: he gave.
Speaker 3: A broad swap.
Speaker 2: Test to testified, don't give up what Jesus, and he
Speaker 2: seemed to accept it with a smile. And that test
Speaker 2: tests very deeply.
Speaker 1: At the beginning of this story, I said that balancing
Speaker 1: loyalty and conscience is just about the hardest thing to do.
Speaker 1: Let me give you another example. It's not as wrenching
Speaker 1: as Chester Wenger's story, but it gets at some of
Speaker 1: the same issues. It's from Princeton University, one of the
Speaker 1: schools that's been swept up in the recent wave of
Speaker 1: campus unrest. The controversy is over Woodrow Wilson, who was
Speaker 1: president of Princeton from nineteen oh two to nineteen ten,
Speaker 1: and of course, later went on to serve two terms
Speaker 1: as President of the United States. Princeton named one of
Speaker 1: his most prestigious graduate schools after him, the Wilson School
Speaker 1: of Public and International Affairs. Wilson did many remarkable and
Speaker 1: important things as the head of Princeton and later as
Speaker 1: president but he was a racist, and not a mild one,
Speaker 1: a kind of nasty one. So in the fall of
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, activists at the school staged a thirty two
Speaker 1: hours sitting in the office of the Princeton president. They
Speaker 1: want Wilson's name off.
Speaker 10: The graduate schoolerpetuated in ideology that has led to the
Speaker 10: continuous shut aside of black people in this country.
Speaker 3: He is a murderer. We all have nothing. This university everything.
Speaker 1: Jacob Smith, one of my producers, talked to one of
Speaker 1: the protesters, a sophomore named will Glory Tanjohn. The promise
Speaker 1: of Princeton, she argues, is that all its students will
Speaker 1: feel at home. This campus is for you. But everywhere
Speaker 1: she goes, she sees pictures of Wilson.
Speaker 10: Everywhere in the most random places, there are rooms that
Speaker 10: have just all these huge photos of this white man
Speaker 10: peering down on you. Right, So when you see these
Speaker 10: kind of things, you really feel like, what was this
Speaker 10: university meant for me? Or is it still really meant
Speaker 10: for white men?
Speaker 1: Now? I happen to agree with Tanjohn. How do you
Speaker 1: think Princeton became one of the wealthiest universities in the world.
Speaker 1: The place is ground zero for rich white guys. Just
Speaker 1: walk around campus. There's the carl Icon Laboratory. That's Carl Icon,
Speaker 1: rich white male, corporate raider billionaire. There's the Frick Chemistry Laboratory.
Speaker 1: That's Henry Clay Frick, white male robber baron. The Firestone
Speaker 1: Library that's the rich white guy who started Firestone Tires.
Speaker 1: The Bezos Center for Neural Circuit Dynamics, you know, the
Speaker 1: rich white guy who founded Amazon. Look over there, it's
Speaker 1: the Lewis Center for the Arts. That's Peter Lewis, the
Speaker 1: white guy who started Progressive Insurance. The John Scully Center
Speaker 1: for the Neuroscience of Mind and Behavior. Scully a rich
Speaker 1: white guy. Not to be confused, by the way, with
Speaker 1: the other John Scully, a rich white guy who used
Speaker 1: to run Apple. This is the even richer John Scully
Speaker 1: who manages billions of dollars on Wall Street. Do I
Speaker 1: need to go on Rockefeller Hall, richest white guy ever.
Speaker 1: Of course, there's also Emma B. Bloomberg Hall. Emma Bloomberg
Speaker 1: not a white guy, except wait, she's the daughter of
Speaker 1: Michael Bloomberg. Super super like forty three billion dollar rich
Speaker 1: white guy. They don't hide their identities at Princeton. They
Speaker 1: put their identities on every single building on campus. A
Speaker 1: few weeks after the students sit in, there was a
Speaker 1: town hall meeting on the Princeton campus to discuss whether
Speaker 1: or not to change the name of the Wilson School.
Speaker 10: I really hope that people really think about why we
Speaker 10: are so tied to this name, like what really changes
Speaker 10: if we change the name.
Speaker 1: It was held at the Richardson Auditorium, lots of dark
Speaker 1: wood in stone tapestries on the wall. By the way,
Speaker 1: a building named in honor of David B. Richardson, class
Speaker 1: of thirty three, usefully described in the Princeton promotional literature
Speaker 1: as a quote lifelong enthusiast of classical music and a
Speaker 1: successful lawyer and investor. Another rich white guy. Think about it,
Speaker 1: Princeton literally could not find a single place to discuss
Speaker 1: the troubled legacy of a rich white guy that was
Speaker 1: not named after a rich white guy. Here's the first
Speaker 1: guy who gets up to speak.
Speaker 11: I'm Harvey Rothberg, class of the great class of nineteen
Speaker 11: forty nine. I absolutely believe that the name of Woodrow
Speaker 11: Wilson should be preserved at the head of the School
Speaker 11: of Public and International Affairs.
Speaker 1: Rothberg says it's important that everyone know who Wilson was
Speaker 1: and what the man did.
Speaker 11: There could be a memorial plaque, engraved in bronze and
Speaker 11: so on, which would detail in a short paragraph his
Speaker 11: great achievements as president of this university, and in a
Speaker 11: second paragraph his great achievements as president of the United
Speaker 11: States and on the international scene as well. But there
Speaker 11: could also be a final paragraph, a short one, which
Speaker 11: would say something like Wilson's prejudiced views on racial matters
Speaker 11: were undoubtedly influenced and shaped by his background and his
Speaker 11: growing up in the post bellum South.
Speaker 1: Then another alum gets up and he agrees.
Speaker 11: He's a giant.
Speaker 5: You can't just take his name off of schools or colleges.
Speaker 5: We have to keep them. All people are flawed.
Speaker 1: He also likes the plack idea. But this speaker has
Speaker 1: a quibble with a short paragraph about prejudice.
Speaker 5: I think it can't just say Wilson was influenced by
Speaker 5: the prevailing more a's of the time, because a man
Speaker 5: of his stature should have seen beyond that. And I
Speaker 5: think some of the platforms to acknowledge that real harm
Speaker 5: was caused to real people.
Speaker 1: This is what the protesters are up against. I mean,
Speaker 1: can you believe these guys. When Wilson took office as president,
Speaker 1: the Federal Civil Service was one of the only institutions
Speaker 1: in Washington that was integrated. Blacks had jobs next to whites.
Speaker 1: One of the first things Wilson does is reverse that policy.
Speaker 1: Lots of black federal workers get fired, and it becomes
Speaker 1: really hard for educated African Americans to get a job
Speaker 1: in Washington. And when a delegation of black professionals comes
Speaker 1: to him to complain, you know what he says to them.
Speaker 1: Segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit and ought
Speaker 1: to be so regarded by you, gentlemen. This is the
Speaker 1: guy Princeton venerates. And the thing that the first two
Speaker 1: speakers are arguing about is the wording of the last
Speaker 1: paragraph of the plaque. They want to put up the
Speaker 1: plaque as if the whole controversy were really just an
Speaker 1: exercise in improving signage. For goodness sake, take the man's
Speaker 1: name down. If you don't want to change the schools stationary,
Speaker 1: just choose another Wilson. There are lots of Wilson's out
Speaker 1: there who don't hate black people. Jackie Rita Russell flip
Speaker 1: rebel Owen, how about the Owen Wilson School of Public
Speaker 1: and International Affairs. But the only way people like this
Speaker 1: are going to listen to the protesters is if they
Speaker 1: think the protesters care about Princeton, care about Princeton the
Speaker 1: way it is. They'll accept generosity only if it comes
Speaker 1: with some orthodoxy. They want some acknowledgment that the protesters
Speaker 1: appreciate what they've been given, some concession that the rich
Speaker 1: white guys who make them so uncomfortable also made it
Speaker 1: possible for them to attend a school that looks like Versailles,
Speaker 1: if Versailles, by some accident of history, had been built
Speaker 1: not outside of Paris, but between Trenton and Newark, New Jersey.
Speaker 1: But instead, what do they hear?
Speaker 3: This university owes us everything.
Speaker 12: I walked around on this campus understanding that this was
Speaker 12: built on the backs of my people, and I owe
Speaker 12: none of you guys anything.
Speaker 3: We owe white people nothing, and not for the for
Speaker 3: the evilness and.
Speaker 12: A white hatred in this country, we would not have
Speaker 12: to be fighting for our rights.
Speaker 3: All of this is mine. My people built this place.
Speaker 1: She's angry, she's passionate. Maybe right now she regrets her
Speaker 1: choice of words when I was an angry young student
Speaker 1: a generation ago. I ended up regretting my words. But
Speaker 1: I went to school before every emotional outburst got immortalized
Speaker 1: on YouTube, and those words are what every crotchety old
Speaker 1: Princeton alum heard when they went online. All of this
Speaker 1: is mine. How do you think they felt when they
Speaker 1: heard that or some version of this.
Speaker 10: I don't feel welcomes when you walk on this campus
Speaker 10: and you see the name of POJOA. Wilson on the
Speaker 10: graduate building, right will.
Speaker 1: Glory Tanjohn complaining about the privileged white guys peering down
Speaker 1: on her. But she chose to go to Princeton Ground
Speaker 1: zero for the privileged white guy. It's not like the
Speaker 1: school covered over the names on those buildings when she
Speaker 1: came for her campus visit. She's basically saying that the
Speaker 1: school I chose to attend, the school that makes no
Speaker 1: attempt to hide what it is and what it stands for,
Speaker 1: is not I suddenly realize a place that makes me
Speaker 1: feel comfortable, and so I want to change it. These
Speaker 1: are not arguments that are going to convince anyone. I
Speaker 1: don't need to tell you what happens after a decent
Speaker 1: interval A few months later, the Wilson Legacy Review Committee
Speaker 1: comes out with the university's decision. The head of the
Speaker 1: committee says, at the end of the day, what we
Speaker 1: learned was that Wilson was a complicated and flawed individual.
Speaker 1: But when you look at the pluses and minuses, we
Speaker 1: didn't feel that the minuses were enough to eliminate his
Speaker 1: name a whitewash. Here's what the protesters should have done. Instead,
Speaker 1: they should have said, Wilson's name makes us so uncomfortable
Speaker 1: that we're not coming back next semester unless you change it,
Speaker 1: and we're going to tell other perspective Princeton students, minority
Speaker 1: and otherwise to do the same. Instead of talking about
Speaker 1: what they were owed by Princeton, they should have talked
Speaker 1: about what they were willing to give up for Princeton.
Speaker 1: I am willing to give up my position at the
Speaker 1: New Jersey Versailles in order to make the school a
Speaker 1: better place. That's how much I care about Princeton. Generosity
Speaker 1: mixed with orthodoxy, Now would that have worked idea? But
Speaker 1: the best and brightest standing up and saying I'm giving
Speaker 1: up my place at one of the world's great universities
Speaker 1: in order to save it from itself. Certainly has a
Speaker 1: better shot than a sleepover in the president's office. Yes,
Speaker 1: it would have been a costly strategy. It would have
Speaker 1: required a real sacrifice. That's why generous orthodoxy is so hard.
Speaker 1: When he was twenty nine, Phil Wenger fell in love
Speaker 1: with a man named Steve. They'd been together ever since.
Speaker 1: Then about ten years ago, Gene Robinson became the first
Speaker 1: openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, and Phil and
Speaker 1: Steve found themselves a new spiritual home.
Speaker 8: I was confirmed and joined the Episcopal Church, and I
Speaker 8: invited mom and dad to come and participate in that,
Speaker 8: and a couple of other siblings came, and after I
Speaker 8: rejoined the church, my father could hardly stop weeping his
Speaker 8: tears of joy.
Speaker 1: When a state at Pennsylvania legalized gay marriage in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: Phil and Steve raced down to the courthouse to apply
Speaker 1: for their marriage license. They were a second in.
Speaker 8: Line, and the couple in front of us offered to
Speaker 8: let us go first, but we let them go first
Speaker 8: because we knew each other.
Speaker 1: Then they had a big party at the Hamilton Club
Speaker 1: in downtown Lancaster as they waited for their marriage certificate.
Speaker 1: Invited four hundred people. Phil's rector from the Saint James
Speaker 1: Episcopal Church, performed a ceremony. Phil had his father say
Speaker 1: a blessing at the end.
Speaker 8: But afterward he shared with me that he sort of
Speaker 8: was a little bit envious that I had not asked
Speaker 8: him to actually marry us. So as soon as we
Speaker 8: got the wedding certificate, and as soon as I knew
Speaker 8: we were going to get married, I went to Dad.
Speaker 8: I said, would you be willing to do this officially,
Speaker 8: sign our wedding certificate, our marriagetif and would you be
Speaker 8: willing to do the vows with the two of us?
Speaker 1: They gathered in Phil's backyard, Phil Steve, two witnesses, Chester
Speaker 1: and his wife Sarah Jane. I asked Chester Wenger about
Speaker 1: that day, why would it matter to him that someone
Speaker 1: else would officiate at his son's wedding.
Speaker 2: He told me that the mayor offered to marry him.
Speaker 2: I was his father, and I was an ordained clergy
Speaker 2: in our church. And I didn't say a word. I
Speaker 2: just waited quietly, and when he asked, I said sure.
Speaker 2: So I was I appreciate that he let me do that,
Speaker 2: and signed the certificate.
Speaker 1: With that act, Chester Wenger made his family whole. He
Speaker 1: welcomed his son back into the fold of family and
Speaker 1: religious community. But he knew what that meant. It meant
Speaker 1: that he had broken the rules of his own church,
Speaker 1: which do not acknowledge same sex marriages. There was no
Speaker 1: work around this time, like when he had women preach
Speaker 1: in the pulpit of Blossom Hill.
Speaker 2: They had to discipline, and so they lifted my credentials.
Speaker 1: He was no longer I'm at a night pastor. You've
Speaker 1: had credentials as a clergyman for se many years, since
Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight. How did it feel to be stripped
Speaker 1: of them?
Speaker 2: It didn't make any difference to me, because I'm the
Speaker 2: same person I am. I'm respected in my congregation. I
Speaker 2: don't intend to marry anybody else. I don't intend to
Speaker 2: be an authority for anyone. I just have a heritage
Speaker 2: life that I've lived. So they took away something that
Speaker 2: I'll never use anyway.
Speaker 8: I did think you might want to marry one of
Speaker 8: your great grandchildren someday.
Speaker 1: He laughs. But of course it made a difference to him.
Speaker 1: It made all the difference in the world. He gave
Speaker 1: up his profession, his position within the church, his identity,
Speaker 1: so he could officiate at the marriage of his son.
Speaker 1: He sacrificed, He gave something up because his son had
Speaker 1: been excluded from the world of church and family for
Speaker 1: a Mennonite, the most grievous kind of harm.
Speaker 2: And he's my child, He's my son, precious, precious child.
Speaker 1: Then Chesterwenger wrote his letter, an open letter to the
Speaker 1: Mennonite Church, the letter that went viral, written by the
Speaker 1: man who wasn't even sure what viral meant. It's a
Speaker 1: long letter, but here are the two sentences that struck
Speaker 1: me the most. When my wife and I read the
Speaker 1: Bible with today's fractured, anxious church in mind, we ask,
Speaker 1: what is Jesus calling us to do with those sons
Speaker 1: and daughters who among the most despised people in the world,
Speaker 1: in all races and communities. What would Jesus do with
Speaker 1: our sons and daughters who are bullied, homeless, sexually abused,
Speaker 1: and driven to suicide at far higher rates than our
Speaker 1: heterosexual children. That's generous, Chester Wenger, open to seeing the
Speaker 1: world in new ways, but there's no anger in his letter.
Speaker 1: Alongside the generosity is orthodoxy respect for the body. He
Speaker 1: is trying to heal. He goes on to say that
Speaker 1: he reported his transgression to the church leadership himself. He
Speaker 1: told them what he had done, and they responded, and
Speaker 1: these are his words with grace filled pastoral listening. And
Speaker 1: then he writes, I am at peace with their decision
Speaker 1: and understand their need to take this action. Chester Wenger
Speaker 1: is going to win. Maybe not right away, but he'll
Speaker 1: win because he makes plain not just how beautiful, generous
Speaker 1: orthodox he is, but how powerful, which is something that
Speaker 1: everyone who stands up in protest needs to remember. You
Speaker 1: must respect the body you are trying to heal.
Speaker 11: Are you going to.
Speaker 1: Read something to his Chester adverse?
Speaker 2: I thought I wanted to read from Romans. It's very familiar.
Speaker 2: For I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ Jesus.
Speaker 2: It is the power of God for salvation to everyone
Speaker 2: who has faith. The Gospel is open. I just think
Speaker 2: that's so precious.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Revisionist History. If you like what
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Speaker 1: I'm Malcolm Gladwell.