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 population 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 the 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 x Mennonite pastor, a man named
Speaker 1: Chester Wenger. 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 1: Oh my, just every day three four or five people say, oh,
Speaker 1: we dislike your letter. We like your letter, we like
Speaker 1: your letter. The letter has been read more than two
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty thousand times. On Mennonite dot Org. To
Speaker 1: put that in perspective, there were only eight hundred thousand
Speaker 1: Mennonites in North America. It's been liked and shared all
Speaker 1: over Facebook hashtag Chester Wenger is a thing. I asked
Speaker 1: Wenger if he anticipated any of his words going viral.
Speaker 1: I didn't mean it. Didn't even know what viral meant.
Speaker 1: The letter went virals. What's that mean? It's like a virus.
Speaker 1: It's just read I was I was shocked. My name
Speaker 1: is Malcolm Gladwell. This is Revisionist History, my podcast about
Speaker 1: things misunderstood and overlooked. This week's episode is about Chester
Speaker 1: Wenger and about an idea called generous orthodoxy. That phrase
Speaker 1: generous orthodoxy comes from a theologian named Hans fry It's
Speaker 1: an oxymoron. Of course. To be orthodox is to be
Speaker 1: committed to tradition. To be generous, as fry De finds,
Speaker 1: it is to be open to change. But fry thought
Speaker 1: the best way to live our lives was to find
Speaker 1: the middle ground. Because orthodoxy without generosity leads to blindness,
Speaker 1: and generosity without orthodoxy is shallow and empty. One of
Speaker 1: the hardest things in the world is to find that balance,
Speaker 1: not just for those pursuing a life of faith, but
Speaker 1: for anyone interested in making their world better. I think
Speaker 1: Chester Anger shows us the way. I wanted to study Bible,
Speaker 1: and I got the first Bester of Arts, and then
Speaker 1: I got a Bachelor of Theology. I was very interested
Speaker 1: in getting all the training I could. Wenger lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: another men a night enclave in a little house just
Speaker 1: off the turnpike, where he and his wife, Sarah Jane
Speaker 1: brought up their eight children. Wenger has a barrel chest,
Speaker 1: straight back, real handshake, big head of white hair. He
Speaker 1: looks a little like a cross between Colonel Sanders and
Speaker 1: an NFL linebacker. He's ninety eight years old. This is
Speaker 1: the part of the evening that I remember the most.
Speaker 1: At the very end of several hours in his tiny
Speaker 1: living room, it nearly brought me to tears. Adversity. I
Speaker 1: thought I wanted to read from Romans. It's very familiar.
Speaker 1: For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1: It is the power of God for salvation to everyone
Speaker 1: who has faith. Notice how broad that is. Let me
Speaker 1: start with a few more words about Mennonites, because what
Speaker 1: Wanger did makes no sense unless you understand the world
Speaker 1: that he inhabits. The theologian Palm Rebecker has a lovely
Speaker 1: phrase to describe the Mennonite way. Jesus is the center
Speaker 1: of our faith. Community is the center of our lives.
Speaker 1: Reconciliation is the center of our work. It's hard to
Speaker 1: explain to an outsider how seriously the Mennonites take these
Speaker 1: three things Jesus, community, and reconciliation. They don't use the
Speaker 1: word community, for example, in the metaphorical way like most
Speaker 1: of us. Do you know, I'm a member of the
Speaker 1: journalist community. To Mennonites, community is a much more serious thing.
Speaker 1: Listen to my friend Jim Leaptisin, who's a Mennonite pastor.
Speaker 1: In my dad's church growing up, it was very strict.
Speaker 1: He told me at one point that if people didn't
Speaker 1: believe you're given ten percent year income to the church,
Speaker 1: they had the right to audit your books. And he
Speaker 1: said that without any recrimination or any condemnation, and even
Speaker 1: a bit of humor. He was like, and so my
Speaker 1: books got out twice by his good friend and neighbor
Speaker 1: up the road. How on earth? But did that conversation
Speaker 1: happen the treasurer came to him and said, we don't
Speaker 1: think you're giving enough. Absolutely, And I have a really
Speaker 1: high view of the church, and you know you speak
Speaker 1: on behalf of the church. And we've all submitted to this,
Speaker 1: so it's not like I'm submitting to something that you haven't.
Speaker 1: So we're all in us together, yeah, and we're all
Speaker 1: trying to be as faithful as we can be. That
Speaker 1: business of auditing each other's books, that's from fifty or
Speaker 1: sixty years ago, a different era, but I think it
Speaker 1: gives you a flavor of what Mennonites mean when they
Speaker 1: say we're all in this together. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: just after we moved to Canada from England, we heard
Speaker 1: about a barn raising not far from us. When a
Speaker 1: Mennonite farmer's barn burns down, the people from church gather
Speaker 1: as soon as they can bring food and building materials
Speaker 1: and anything else to a place what was lost, and
Speaker 1: 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. You have to understand that these
Speaker 1: were what were called Old Order Mennonites, like the Amish.
Speaker 1: They drove horses and buggies and lived without electricity. My
Speaker 1: dad was a college professor in a rusty pougia with
Speaker 1: an impenetrable English accent and a shirt in a tie.
Speaker 1: They had never seen him or anything like him before.
Speaker 1: They just put him to work, no questions asked. We're
Speaker 1: all in this together. Eventually my parents would join the
Speaker 1: 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's
Speaker 1: story from my friend Jim Leptisen. This might even be
Speaker 1: the quintessential Mennonite's story. About a guy who buys a
Speaker 1: house from another Mennonite whom, of course he trusted. He
Speaker 1: bought the house and find out that in fact, he'd
Speaker 1: been liked to him. So On either side of this
Speaker 1: men were two men from a Mennonite church. One of
Speaker 1: them said to him, did he tell you that the
Speaker 1: septic system was in good shape? And he said yes
Speaker 1: he did, and he said you have to fix it.
Speaker 1: He said, yea, I have to replace it completely. Was
Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollars or something. The septic system, one of
Speaker 1: the most expensive things in a house. He said, well,
Speaker 1: here's four thousand dollars for that. What he did wasn't right,
Speaker 1: and he goes to our church. And the guy on
Speaker 1: the other side said, I'll pay whatever he didn't pay,
Speaker 1: so they together covered it. He said, he goes to
Speaker 1: our church, and that isn't right. This is the world
Speaker 1: Chester Wenger inhabits. He's squarely in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: Wenger's father was one of the founders of a big
Speaker 1: Mennonite seminary in Virginia. His daughter, Sarah, is the president
Speaker 1: of the Big Mennonite Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana. Wenger lived
Speaker 1: seventeen years in Ethiopia, where he helped to found and
Speaker 1: build what is now the largest Mennonite church in the world.
Speaker 1: To Deep Ties, Deep Tie, you guys are Mennonite royalty,
Speaker 1: basically in Hans Fries's terms. Wenger is an Orthodox Menanite,
Speaker 1: a member of the Blossom Hill Congregation in Lancaster. But
Speaker 1: there's another side to him. Mennonites come in all kinds
Speaker 1: of shapes and sizes. My parents' church in Ontario is
Speaker 1: pretty liberal full of college professors and software engineers and teachers.
Speaker 1: My mom and her best friend Lorraine were doing feminist
Speaker 1: retreats back in the seventies. But Lancaster County, where Wenger
Speaker 1: is from, is much more conservative. The Mennonites there didn't
Speaker 1: accept women as ordained ministers until a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: and that was something that Wenger struggled with because he's
Speaker 1: not just Orthodox, he's generous, he's open to the world.
Speaker 1: He spent ten years as pastor of Blossom Hill in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, so when it came to the prohibition against
Speaker 1: female pastors, Wenger would do a kind of work around.
Speaker 1: The rules said women could not be ordained as ministers,
Speaker 1: meaning they couldn't be formally recognized as church leaders, but
Speaker 1: they could still talk on Sunday morning. Right, I used
Speaker 1: women in the pulpit that weren't ordained. I preach, and
Speaker 1: then nick Sunday, I'd have this woman preach, and then
Speaker 1: I'd have my wife preach. I didn't want to do
Speaker 1: all the preaching. And if no one questions your loyalty,
Speaker 1: you can get away with that kind of subversion. Chester
Speaker 1: Wenger walked that fine line orthodox but also generous until
Speaker 1: one day Chester's son Philip comes to him and the
Speaker 1: line becomes almost impossible to walk at all. Growing up,
Speaker 1: I had no awareness of homosexuality anywhere. I remember somewhere
Speaker 1: along the line, maybe when I was early I hadn't
Speaker 1: Lescence talked about a cousin of mine, but I didn't
Speaker 1: I didn't know what they were talking about. The question
Speaker 1: of whether someone might be gay simply never occurred to him.
Speaker 1: And it goes without saying that a community that did
Speaker 1: not permit the ordination of women until quite recently did
Speaker 1: not have progressive views on homosexuality. But one day Phil
Speaker 1: pulled his father aside. What did he tell you? I
Speaker 1: don't know the words he used, but I understood that
Speaker 1: he had attraction for males and females, and I said,
Speaker 1: maybe you can outgrow this. And so that's where that's
Speaker 1: where we left it. And about a year later he
Speaker 1: came back and he said, Dad, I haven't outgrown it.
Speaker 1: And so we had this awareness that he's that's who
Speaker 1: he is. So Phil goes off to college, he comes home,
Speaker 1: he brings up the subject again, and I came to
Speaker 1: him and I explained to him ten minutes before I
Speaker 1: was going to drive back to college in Virginia. That's Phil.
Speaker 1: He's in the room with me and Chester sitting across
Speaker 1: from his father. That dad, this is for real. I'm
Speaker 1: going to identify as being gay. I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: other people I'm gay. I'm going to date other guys.
Speaker 1: And you know, you're going to have to get used
Speaker 1: to this. As word got out in Lancaster, the consequences
Speaker 1: were immediate. Phil had a job with the church. He
Speaker 1: lost it. He was instructed to come in and confess
Speaker 1: his sins. He refused. Chester Wanger had a position in
Speaker 1: the Medanite administration in Lancaster at the time, and attended
Speaker 1: a local Menonite church one Sunday morning. The pastor got
Speaker 1: up and made an announcement. He just read off in
Speaker 1: church one day that Phil Winger is no longer a
Speaker 1: member of our coregation. And we didn't know it. He
Speaker 1: didn't approach you first. We didn't know that he was
Speaker 1: doing that. And Phil hadn't had contact with him either
Speaker 1: or him with Phil, and I couldn't believe it. It
Speaker 1: was unilateral and I wasn't part of the conversation, and
Speaker 1: the deed was already done. And at that point my
Speaker 1: faith had pretty much diminished to next to nothing, and
Speaker 1: I was going to proceed with a life outside the
Speaker 1: traditional church community. Think about this through Chester Wenger's eyes.
Speaker 1: He can accept his son's sexuality, but his own church,
Speaker 1: the church to which he has been loyal all his life,
Speaker 1: that church has now cast his son out. His orthodoxy
Speaker 1: is in conflict with his generosity, and his son is
Speaker 1: caught in the middle. Can you imagine not just the pain,
Speaker 1: but the guilt. He gave his life to a church
Speaker 1: that said we're all in this together, and now that
Speaker 1: church has split his family in two. I always told
Speaker 1: Phil that your faith is most important to me, that
Speaker 1: don't give up the faith of Jesus. Phil went on
Speaker 1: to start a successful restaurant business. At one point, some
Speaker 1: years ago, he goes back to his high school reunion
Speaker 1: and there some of his old classmates confront him and
Speaker 1: tell him they would never eat at one of his restaurants.
Speaker 1: Phil tells his mother, and you told her all this,
Speaker 1: and she said to you, 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 weep, and I guess there was no expression
Speaker 1: at that point particularly, But as he went to go
Speaker 1: at the door, he gave a broad swah, touched her
Speaker 1: hardest spot. Don't give up on Jesus. He seemed to
Speaker 1: accept it, and with a smile that tucht us 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 o 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 president.
Speaker 1: 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 stage a thirty two
Speaker 1: hours sitting in the office of the Princeton president. They
Speaker 1: want Wilson's name off the graduate school, perpetuated in ideology
Speaker 1: that has led to the continual China side of black
Speaker 1: people in this country. He is a murmur We owe
Speaker 1: him nothing. This university all name. Jacob Smith, one of
Speaker 1: my producers talked to one of the protesters, a sophomore
Speaker 1: named will Glory tan John. The promise of Princeton, she argues,
Speaker 1: is that all its students will feel at home. This
Speaker 1: campus is for you. But everywhere she goes, she sees
Speaker 1: pictures of Wilson. Everywhere, in the most random places. There
Speaker 1: are rooms that have just all these huge photos of
Speaker 1: this white man peering down on you. Right. So when
Speaker 1: you see these kind of things, you really feel like,
Speaker 1: was this university meant for me? Or is it still
Speaker 1: really meant for white men? Now? I happen to agree
Speaker 1: with tan John. How do you think Princeton became one
Speaker 1: of the wealthiest universities in the world. The place is
Speaker 1: ground zero for rich white guys. Just walk around campus.
Speaker 1: There's the carl Icon Laboratory. That's Carl Icon, rich white male,
Speaker 1: corporate raid billionaire. There's the Frick Chemistry Laboratory. That's Henry
Speaker 1: Clay Frick, white male robber baron. The Firestone Library that's
Speaker 1: the rich white guy who started Firestone Tires. The Bezos
Speaker 1: Center for Neural Circuit Dynamics, you know, the rich white
Speaker 1: guy who founded Amazon. Look over there, it's the Lewis
Speaker 1: Center for the Arts. That's Peter Lewis, the white guy
Speaker 1: who started Progressive Insurance. The John Scully Center for the
Speaker 1: Neuroscience of Mind and Behavior. Scully a rich white guy.
Speaker 1: Not to be confused, by the way, with the other
Speaker 1: John Scully, a rich white guy who used to run Apple.
Speaker 1: This is the even richer John Scully, who manages billions
Speaker 1: of dollars on Wall Street. Do I need to go
Speaker 1: on Rockefeller Hall, richest white guy ever. Of course, there's
Speaker 1: also Emma B. Bloomberg Hall. Emma Bloomberg not a white guy,
Speaker 1: except wait, she's the daughter of Michael Bloomberg. Super super
Speaker 1: like forty three billion dollars, rich white guy. They don't
Speaker 1: hide their identities at Princeton. They put their identities on
Speaker 1: every single building on campus. A few weeks after the
Speaker 1: students sit in, there was a town hall meeting on
Speaker 1: the Princeton campus to discuss whether or not to change
Speaker 1: the name of the Wilson School. I really hope that
Speaker 1: people really think about why we are so tied to
Speaker 1: this name, like what really changes if we change the name.
Speaker 1: It was held at the Richardson Auditorium, lots of dark
Speaker 1: and stone tapestries on the wall. By the way, a
Speaker 1: building named in honor of David B. Richardson, class of
Speaker 1: thirty three, usefully described in the Princeton promotional literature as
Speaker 1: a quote lifelong enthusiast of classical music and a successful
Speaker 1: 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. I'm Harvey Rothburg, class
Speaker 1: of the Great Class of nineteen forty nine. I absolutely
Speaker 1: believe that the name of Woodrow Wilson should be preserved
Speaker 1: at the head of the School 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. There could be a memorial plaque,
Speaker 1: engraved in bronze and so on, which would detail in
Speaker 1: a short paragraph his great achievements as president of this university,
Speaker 1: and in a second paragraph his great achievements as president
Speaker 1: of the United States and on the international scene as well.
Speaker 1: But there could also be a final paragraph, short one
Speaker 1: which would say something like Wilson's prejudiced views on racial
Speaker 1: matters were undoubtedly influenced and shaped by his background and
Speaker 1: his growing up in the postbellum South. Then another alum
Speaker 1: gets up and he agrees he's a giant. You can't
Speaker 1: just take his name off of schools or colleges. We
Speaker 1: have to keep them. All people are flawed. He also
Speaker 1: likes to black idea. But this speaker has a quibble
Speaker 1: with a short paragraph about prejudice. I think it can't
Speaker 1: just say Wilson was influenced by the prevailing war aids
Speaker 1: of the time, because a man of his stature should
Speaker 1: have seen beyond that. And I think somehow the podcasts
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that real harm 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 school's stationary,
Speaker 1: just choose another Wilson. There are lots of Wilson's out there.
Speaker 1: Who don't hate black people. Jackie Rita Russell, flip rebel Owen,
Speaker 1: how about the Owen Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Speaker 1: But the only way people like this are going to
Speaker 1: listen to the protesters is if they think the protesters
Speaker 1: care about Princeton, care about Princeton the way it is.
Speaker 1: They'll accept generosity only if it comes with some orthodoxy.
Speaker 1: They want some acknowledgement that the protesters appreciate what they've
Speaker 1: been given, some concession that the rich white guys who
Speaker 1: make them so uncomfortable also made it possible for them
Speaker 1: to attend a school that looks like Versailles, if versai
Speaker 1: by some accident of history, had been built not outside
Speaker 1: of Paris, but between Trenton and Newark, New Jersey. But instead,
Speaker 1: what do they hear? This university owes everything. I walk
Speaker 1: around this campus understanding that this was built on the
Speaker 1: backs of white people, and I owe none. If you
Speaker 1: guys anything, we all white people nothing, and not for
Speaker 1: the evilness and a white hatred in this country, we
Speaker 1: would not have to be fighting for our rights. All
Speaker 1: of this is mine. My people built this place. She's angry,
Speaker 1: she's passionate, Maybe right, now she regrets her choice of words.
Speaker 1: When I was an angry young student of Generation ago,
Speaker 1: I ended up regretting my words. But I went to
Speaker 1: school before every emotional outbursts got immortalized on YouTube. And
Speaker 1: those words are what every crotchety old Princeton alum heard
Speaker 1: when they went online. All of this is mine. How
Speaker 1: do you think they felt when they heard that or
Speaker 1: some version of this. I don't feel welcomes When you
Speaker 1: walk on this campus and you see the name of
Speaker 1: Ujo Wilson on the graduate building, right will Glory Tanjong
Speaker 1: complaining about the privileged white guys peering down on her,
Speaker 1: But she chose to go to Princeton Ground zero for
Speaker 1: the privileged white guy. It's not like the school covered
Speaker 1: over the names on those buildings when she came for
Speaker 1: her campus visit. She's basically saying that the school I
Speaker 1: chose to attend, the school that makes no attempt to
Speaker 1: hide what it is and what it stands for, is
Speaker 1: not I suddenly realize a place that makes me feel comfortable,
Speaker 1: and so I want to change it. These are not
Speaker 1: arguments that are going to convince anyone. I don't need
Speaker 1: to tell you what happens after a decent interval. A
Speaker 1: few months later, the Wilson Legacy Review Committee comes out
Speaker 1: with the university's decision. Head of the committee says, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, what we learned was that
Speaker 1: Wilson was a complicated and flawed individual. But when you
Speaker 1: look at the pluses andes, we didn't feel that the
Speaker 1: mines were enough to eliminate his name a whitewash. Here's
Speaker 1: what the protesters should have done instead. They should have said,
Speaker 1: Wilson's name makes us so uncomfortable that we're not coming
Speaker 1: back next semester unless you change it, and we're going
Speaker 1: to tell other prospective Princeton students, minority and otherwise to
Speaker 1: do the same. Instead of talking about what they were
Speaker 1: owed by Princeton, they should have talked about what they
Speaker 1: were willing to give up for Princeton. I am willing
Speaker 1: to give up my position at the New Jersey Versailles
Speaker 1: in order to make the school a better place. That's
Speaker 1: how much I care about Princeton. Generosity mixed with orthodoxy,
Speaker 1: Now would that have worked? Idea? But the best and
Speaker 1: brightest standing up and saying I'm giving up my place
Speaker 1: at one of the world's great universities in order to
Speaker 1: save it from itself. Certainly has a better shot than
Speaker 1: a sleepover in the president's office. Yes, it would have
Speaker 1: been a costly strategy. It would have required a real sacrifice.
Speaker 1: That's why generous orthodoxy is so hard. When he was
Speaker 1: twenty nine, Phil Wenger fell in love with a man
Speaker 1: named Steve. They have been together ever since. Then, about
Speaker 1: ten years ago, Jean Robinson became the first openly gay
Speaker 1: bishop in the Episcopal Church, and Phil and Steve found
Speaker 1: themselves a new spiritual home. I was confirmed and joined
Speaker 1: the Episcopal Church, and I invited mom and dad to
Speaker 1: come and participate in that service, and a couple of
Speaker 1: other siblings game. And after I rejoined the church, my
Speaker 1: father could hardly stop weeping his tears of joy. When
Speaker 1: 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 line,
Speaker 1: and the couple in front of us offered to let
Speaker 1: us go first, but we let them go first because
Speaker 1: we knew each other. Then they had a big party
Speaker 1: at the Hamilton Club in downtown Lancaster as they waited
Speaker 1: for their marriage certificate invited four hundred people. Phil's rector
Speaker 1: from the Saint James Episcopal Church performed a ceremony. Phil
Speaker 1: had his father say a blessing at the end, but
Speaker 1: afterward he shared with me that he sort of was
Speaker 1: a little bit envious that I had not asked him
Speaker 1: to actually marry us. So as soon as we got
Speaker 1: the wedding certificate, and as soon as I knew we
Speaker 1: were going to get married, I went to Dad. I said,
Speaker 1: would you be willing to do this officially sign our
Speaker 1: wedding certificate, our marriage certiget, and would you be willing
Speaker 1: to do the vows with the told us. They gathered
Speaker 1: in Phil's backyard, Phil Steve, two witnesses, Chester and his
Speaker 1: wife Sarah Jane. I asked Chester Wenger about that day.
Speaker 1: Why would it matter to him that someone else would
Speaker 1: officiate at his son's wedding. He told me that the
Speaker 1: mayor offered to marry him. Well, I was his father,
Speaker 1: and I was an ordained clergy in our church, and
Speaker 1: I didn't say a word. He just waited quietly, and
Speaker 1: when he asked, I said sure, So I was I
Speaker 1: appreciated he let me do that and sign a 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: from the pulpit of Blossom Hill. They had to discipline,
Speaker 1: and so they lifted my credentials. He was no longer
Speaker 1: I met a night pastor. You've had credentials as a
Speaker 1: clergyman for how many years? Since nineteen forty eight? How
Speaker 1: did it feel to be stripped of them? It didn't
Speaker 1: make any difference to me, because I'm the same person
Speaker 1: I am. I'm respected in my congregation. I don't intend
Speaker 1: to marry anybody else. I don't intend to be an
Speaker 1: authority for anyone. I just have a heritage life that
Speaker 1: I've lived. So they took away something that I'll never
Speaker 1: use anyway. I did think you might want to marry
Speaker 1: one of your great grandchildren someday, he laughs. But of
Speaker 1: course it made a difference to him. It made all
Speaker 1: the difference in the world. He gave up his profession
Speaker 1: his position within the church, his identity, so he could
Speaker 1: officiate at the marriage of his son. He sacrificed, He
Speaker 1: gave something up because his son had been excluded from
Speaker 1: the world of church and family for a Mennonite, the
Speaker 1: most grievous kind of harm. And he's my child, He's
Speaker 1: my son, precious, precious child. Then Chesterwenger wrote his letter,
Speaker 1: an open letter to the Mennonite Church, the letter that
Speaker 1: went viral, written by the man who wasn't even sure
Speaker 1: what viral meant. It's a long letter, but here are
Speaker 1: the two sentences that struck me the most. When my
Speaker 1: wife and I read the Bible with today's fractured, anxious
Speaker 1: church in mind, we ask, what is Jesus calling us
Speaker 1: to do with those sons and daughters who are among
Speaker 1: the most despised people in the world, in all races
Speaker 1: and communities. What would Jesus do with our sons and
Speaker 1: daughters who are bullied, homeless, sexually abused, and driven to
Speaker 1: suicide at far higher rates than our heterosexual children. That's generous,
Speaker 1: Chester Wenger, open to seeing the world in new ways,
Speaker 1: but there's no anger in his letter. Alongside the generosity
Speaker 1: is Orthodoxy respect for the body he is trying to heal.
Speaker 1: He goes on to say that he reported his transgression
Speaker 1: to the church leadership himself. He told them what he
Speaker 1: had done, and they responded, and these are his words
Speaker 1: with grace filled pastoral listening. And then he writes, I
Speaker 1: am at peace with their decision and understand their need
Speaker 1: to take this action. Chester Wenger is going to win.
Speaker 1: Maybe not right away, but he'll win because he makes
Speaker 1: plain not just how beautiful, generous orthodox he is, but
Speaker 1: how powerful, which is something that everyone who stands up
Speaker 1: in protest needs to remember. You must respect the body
Speaker 1: you are trying to heal. Are you going to read
Speaker 1: something to his chest adversity? I thought I wanted to
Speaker 1: read from Romans. It's very familiar. For I'm not ashamed
Speaker 1: of the Gospel of Christ Jesus. It is the power
Speaker 1: of God for salvation to everyone who has faith. The
Speaker 1: Gospel is open. I just think that's so precious. You've
Speaker 1: been listening to Revisionist History. If you like what you've heard,
Speaker 1: do us a favor and rate us on iTunes. It helps.
Speaker 1: You can get more information about this in other episodes
Speaker 1: at Revisionist history dot com or on your favorite podcast
Speaker 1: app our show is produced by mil La Belle, Roxanne
Speaker 1: Scott and Jacob Smith. Our editor is Julia Barton. Music
Speaker 1: is composed by Luis Gera and Taka Yasuzala. Flan Williams
Speaker 1: is our engineer and our fact checker is Michelle Saraca.
Speaker 1: Penalty management team Laura Mayer, Andy Bowers and Jacob Weisberg.
Speaker 1: I'm Malcolm Gladwell.