Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 4, 1993 TAG: 9304020405
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
KEEPER OF HISTORY
WALKING into Alvord Beardslee's apartment is much like entering a comfortable cave packed with partially hidden treasures.An explorer has to look over and under and around to discover all that is buried here.
There are so many books. Books on the wives of Henry VIII, on the artistic images of Christ through the centuries. A whole row of dozens of versions of the Bible and other holy writings. There is history, science fiction, theology.
A row of books by authors ranging from Gore Vidal to H.P. Lovecraft crowds a small 16th century brass image of the Lord Krishna dancing precariously near the edge of a shelf.
There is the colorful painting on glass of Moses with the 10 Commandments, the stool from West Africa, the old pocket watch, the scale model of First Congregational Church of Providence, R.I.
A wooden cross wrapped in burlap is stashed behind a bookcase - a reminder of the time a colleague was threatened by some Ku Klux Klansmen who fled before getting the kerosene-soaked symbol to ignite.
There is a papier-mache mask created for some forgotten purpose years ago, a weathered clapboard from a dilapidated mill, a Zen meditation cushion.
This place is a mirror of its tenant's mind, his friends will tell you. A little cluttered, perhaps; easily enticed by new ideas; always open for sharing with friends and students and professional colleagues.
Beardslee's crisp New England accent has been rounded off just a bit by three decades in the Virginia foothills.
But the Rhode Island native's commitment to his religious principles is as sharp now as it was when he arrived on the Hollins College campus in the fall of 1959 and preached his first sermon - "Segregation is Sin."
Racial desegregation was a cause Beardslee, then 30, championed early on. Sometimes he was called a "Yankee liberal," after addressing local audiences, but "I've been generously received" most of the time, Beardslee said in a recent interview.
Over the years, his name was associated with other causes as well.
He has been an advocate for the poor and homeless, a teacher and preacher in numerous Roanoke Valley churches, and politically outspoken.
At a 1974 forum, for instance, Beardslee called Richard Nixon a mass murderer, blasphemer, liar and thief.
A true Christian "must be involved in social action, moral judgment and political service," he contended.
For Beardslee, the three of those may be combined in his 15 years of volunteer service at the state prison at Troutville.
He has taught art to prisoners, conducted weddings and funerals, discussed religion.
In 1981, he founded the World Prison Poetry Center in New Haven, Conn., and has worked with several organizations that assist prisoners and their families.
An opponent of capital punishment, Beardslee believes "we need better ways to rehabilitate prisoners."
Beardslee probably has been best known, however, for his promotion of the ecumenical movement and the ordination of women.
The son and grandson of Congregationalist ministers, Beardslee is proud to point out that the denomination - now part of the United Church of Christ - first ordained women in 1853.
When Beardslee was ordained exactly a century later, the denomination's moderator was a woman.
"But as a student once pointed out to me, simply ordaining women didn't solve all the problems," Beardslee said.
For many women who had been excluded from church leadership roles, it was a start.
About 30 Hollins graduates are now ordained ministers, though "not all of them were my students."
They are Methodists, Episcopalians, Brethren, Presbyterians, Baptists, Divine Scientists. About half a dozen are serving congregations in in the Roanoke Valley.
The Rev. Deborah Hentz Hunley, rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Roanoke, is a member of the "Alvord Beardslee fan club."
Hunley was the first woman ordained in the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia.
When she was a student at Hollins in the early 1970s, "we were required to attend chapel a certain number of times."
The first time she heard Beardslee preach "drew me back into the church . . . . I remember leaving chapel that night thinking what happened in there was amazing. What an experience."
Beardslee was "not a recruiter" for women candidates for ordination, Hunley said, but "everything he did suggested that I follow my calling" - even though at that time the Episcopal church was not ordaining women to the priesthood.
"What was so helpful was that he never imposed his view of what we should be doing. He encouraged us to figure out what God was calling us to do."
The current Hollins chaplain, the Rev. Janet Fuller Carruthers, was a student at Hollins a little later in the 1970s.
Though she never had classes under him, Fuller Carruthers recalls having long, intense discussions with Beardslee.
Many of those were on the issue of Israeli-Palestinian relations.
"I had spent all my life in the Middle East," growing up the child of Baptist missionaries, she said. Beardslee was recently back from a sabbatical year at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.
"I learned a lot from him and I hope he learned some from me," Fuller Carruthers said.
Though Beardslee retired from the full-time chaplaincy in 1977, he continues to be a welcomed spiritual influence on campus, Fuller Carruthers said.
"His ministry role has never changed. He continues to be sage and prophet."
Still, some students have found Beardslee to be "frustratingly non-directive" as a teacher. "He doesn't teach or preach the way many expect him to," Fuller Carruthers said.
Instead of simply providing his own answers, she said, he challenges students to rethink assumptions and come to their own conclusions.
Beardslee also has been particularly successful at passing on his own "appreciation for other religious expression and ritual," Fuller Carruthers said.
Though he never earned a doctorate, Beardslee has studied in such diverse places as the University of Strasbourg, Hebrew Union College, and Yale University Divinity School. He has worked with students on trips to Asia, Africa and Israel.
He frequently has been called on to explain Buddhism, Islam and other religions to Christian congregations. He has long championed the cause of religious tolerance and ecumenical cooperation.
"We call him Rabbi Beardslee," joked Rabbi Frank Muller, spiritual leader of the Temple Emanuel congregation of Reform Judaism in Roanoke.
That's because Beardslee is a frequent visitor in the congregation.
Beardslee is a "very erudite scholar . . . Of all the people I know, there are few I look to with more respect for their ideas and idealism," Muller said.
Beardslee has long been active in the Roanoke Valley Ministers Conference and was instrumental in its expanding ecumenism. It now includes Catholics and Jews as well as its Protestant founders.
But Beardslee worries that the ecumenical movement - which encourages the cooperation and tolerance of all religious groups - is becoming "less and less popular."
At the minister's conference, for example, "every time we opened the door [to additional member groups], we got smaller and smaller."
Now there are specialized ministers' conferences for several groups, some divided by race and others by theological persuasion, diminishing the size and influence of the ecumenical organization.
So it turned out that after 33 years of ministry at Hollins, Beardslee's concerns at the end of his tenure were much the same as at the beginning.
In fact, at his last formal sermon in the duPont Chapel about a month ago, he re-used that first sermon on "Segregation is Sin" and expanded it to assert that "Truth is Plural."
He is an avowedly liberal Christian who believes in the resurrection of Jesus, but who believes that "Buddhists can also be led by the Holy Spirit."
He reveres the history and traditions of the church, but believes Jesus may have been married.
Beardslee, a lifelong bachelor, retires in June to Connecticut, where his sisters live and his church membership has always remained. He says he hopes to finally get around to writing some of the books he's intended to write in these last 30 years.
And he hopes to edit the 1834-1880 journals of one of his great-great grandfathers.
But some of his friends aren't so sure he'll have time. They say he's bound to be busy studying, learning, challenging, teaching, helping.
\ A tribute to Beardslee\
A symposium on "Sexuality: What Is Its Source" is being held as a special tribute to the Rev. Alvord Beardslee beginning today on the Hollins College campus.
Beardslee is retiring at the end of the year as the Camp Younts Professor of Bible, Theology or Ethics at the college.
Speakers will include several for students of Beardslee's.
The symposium opens today at 1:30 p.m. with a welcome by Hollins College President Jane Maragaret O'Brien. All sessions are in the duPoint Chapel.
Workshops include:\ \ Today 3 p.m.: "Sexuality and Spirituality in China and Japan." 4:15 p.m.: "Engage Her First in Conversation: the Jewish Way of Making the Sexual Spiritual." 7:30 p.m.: Violation and Vindication, or Why the Nakedness of Jesus is Different from the Nakedness of Madonna."\ \ Monday 3:15 p.m.: "Entreat Me Not To Leave Thee: The Spirituality of Friendship" and "Eros, Logos and Kairos: Sexuality and the Fullness of Love." 4:30 p.m.: "Sexuality and Spirituality in Islamic Traditions." 7 p.m.: "Alice's Secret" and "Sex and Spirit: That's What Friends Are For."\ \ Tuesday 3:15 p.m.: "Handle With Care" 4:30 p.m.: "In the Spirit: Surviving Sex Abuses." 7 p.m.: "Sleeping Single in a Double Bed" and "Spirituality: What Difference Does It Make To You?"
Keywords:
PROFILE