(2 of 2)
Last winter, Thurman feels, the experiment really came of age. With some misgivings he had gone to serve as visiting lecturer in philosophy and religion at the University of Iowa. When he returned he found that the congregation had stopped calling it "Fellowship Church" or "the church" and had begun to call it "our church." Says he: "Now comes the temptation to say, 'We have a very nice atmosphere here—let's freeze it.' "
No Buttons. Busy Dr. Thurman works night & day to keep it thawed out. He spends half his time in counseling, has conducted ten seven-week study groups during the past four years—mostly on mysticism as a dynamic source of action.
"Our hardest job," he says, "has been to keep our church from becoming a social whip. The radicals bear down, saying we are not in there fighting. Others want us to become an organization, a placement bureau, a mission that gets people jobs and gives away shoes." Thurman recently approved the decision of a member not to wear his Wallace button while welcoming people to church. "We are a religious group," he insists. "It is important that we give strength to people working on interracial problems, but the interracial character of our own group is becoming the least significant part of it ... We have remained a church."