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August 19
George Houser and Richard McBrien
David Barnhart
August 19, 2025
Doorway of the Church of the Annunciation, 2019. Own photo.
Today marks the death, in 2015, of George Houser, a white Methodist minister and civil rights activist who, with James Farmer and Bernice Fisher, founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). He and Bayard Rustin planned a bus trip to test new integration laws, a forerunner of the Freedom Rides of 1961. Even before that, he was a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for a year for his theological convictions against war. After the civil rights movement, George House became an activist to free African countries from apartheid, American and European colonialism.
Today is the birthday, in 1936, of Richard McBrien, a Roman Catholic priest and professor whose historical-critical view of the Bible and church history and his support of Vatican II made him many enemies among conservative Catholics. He acknowledged the diversity of theological views among Roman Catholics and pointed out the ethical inconsistency of being anti-abortion but pro-war. He was falsely accused of plagiarism and managed to fend off attempts to have him both fired and excommunicated. He died in 2015.
Reflection:
In an interview with the New York Times, George Houser recited a stanza from the hymn “Lead, Kindly Light”:
“Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene — one step enough for me.
“I believe that. I believe one step is enough and you take it, as long as you have faith you’re doing the right thing to begin with.”
Richard McBrien contrasted some problems with political theology and our work for social justice in his major work, Catholicism:
Christian faith in the reality of Providence is not in doubt. Christian understanding of Providence is another matter entirely. Once again, we are confronted with the relationship of nature and grace. Some Catholic solutions have tended to overemphasize divine power at the apparent expense of human responsibility and freedom. We become mere actors in a play written wholly by God, with an ending already precisely determined regardless of our flubbing our lines and missing our cues. We need not trouble ourselves, therefore, about this world’s injustices. God will take care of everything in the end.
At the other extreme, some solutions have tried so hard to uphold the enduring value of human effort that God becomes little more than a play’s producer, backing it with money and influence but depending utterly upon the ability of the actors, director, designers, stagecrew, and the like for its eventual success. Thus, if we do not overcome injustice in the world by our political efforts, the injustice will simply swallow us up in the end, and history will have failed.
Prayer: God, help us to put one foot in front of the other, trusting that you are bending the moral arc of the universe toward justice. Help us to pray as if it all depends on you, and work as if it all depends on us. Amen.