Concern for the American Negro provoked some thirty graduate students from the Uni-versity of Michigan to partici-pate in an intense, all-day dis-cussion of integration last Sat-urday, September 21, at a re-treat near Ann Arbor. The par-ticipants were members of the Campus Chapel in Ann Arbor, which is sponsored by the Christian Reformed Churches of Michigan.

The Reverend Mr. Lewis Smedes, associate professor of Bible at Calvin and president of the Grand Rapids chapter of the Urban League, piloted the inquiry with two talks: ``Does Christianity Have the Answer?'' and, ``Does Christianity Have the Power?'' In these talks he made explicit the attitude which he believes Christians must take toward the Negroes today.

Mr. Smedes was not so much concerned with the narrow question of whether Christian-ity alone has the solution. Rath-er, he accepted the possibility that the answer might be one which the Christian arrives at ``from some rational or moral insight common to right think-ing people''.

Mr. Smedes' concern was with the attitude of white man to black, the present goals of the Negro, and methods used for obtaining these goals. He em-phasized that the Negro, as a man made in the image of God, has claim on the Christian's re-spect, fellowship, and love. This love is a reconciling love that unites the Negro and white man, not on ability or worthiness but on the basis of Christian love seek-ing out the estranged.

The goal of the Negro today, Smedes stated, is first of all a legal one: elimination of dis-crimination and segregation. The second goal is what Smedes calls the creation of ``commun-ity'', in which the Negro is free to achieve his own moral and spiritual goals.

Discrimination Necessary

Some discrimination is neces-sary, unavoidable, and respon-sible, Mr. Smedes continued. The choosing of friends and lovers is an example of this dis-crimination. The other kind of discrimination is morally repre-hensible: ``A discrimination, by silent agreement or overt plan, which prevents a person for ir-relevant reasons from exercis-ing his freedom of choice . . . from developing himself as a person . . . from fulfilling polit-ical choices given to others . . . from earning a livelihood is immoral.'' Such discrimina-tion sets up the discriminator as possessing divine powers of choice, involves him in sinful pretentions, and warps his sense of humaneness, Mr. Smedes said.

The question which logically followed from such a statement was: does the abolishment of discrimination obligate the white man to be a friend, lover, or neighbor of the black man? Mr. Smedes' answer was: ``A Person's capabilities for friend-ship, sexual therefore not morally binding, to insist that every man include a Negro among his friends, make him (her) a lover or a neighbor. But it would mean that the Negro is not a priori disqualified from being any of these.''

In summary of what the Christian's attitude should be toward Negro goals, Mr. Smedes said that we must support the elimination of discrimination and segregation, because only then can a situation be created in which love can be exercised. If the Christian supports Negro goals, he must face practical considerations, such as decrease in the value of his property, danger to his person, and the chance of inter-marriage that accompany desegregation.

Discussion of methods for ob-taining the Negro objectives followed. Mr. Smedes said that society cannot create a new heart in men by passing laws. Law and police power, however, are needed to create a situation in which the reconciling power of love is possible. The Chris-tian must support and urge legal force to eliminate segre-gation. The Christian must even consider the possibility that if a law is unjust, it may have to be broken, though openly and without intent to avoid observa-tion, and with the intent of bringing justice.

Finally, Mr. Smedes refuted the cliche that the solution to the Negro problem is simply regeneration of the Negro. Spir-itual rebirth is of course the answer to the eternal destiny of the individual Negro, he said, but it does not give him a job, take away the shame of segre-gation, or mechanically over-come despair and bitterness.

``Christians have an answer to the Negro's problem,'' Mr. Smedes said, ending his first talk. ``At times, the Christian answer corresponds to insights of common morality and phil-osophical ideals as do the Ten Commandments. At the highest point, it calls for more than the common or legal answer: it calls for reconciliation and community.''

Scores The Church

Smedes began his second talk, ``Does Christianity Have the Power'', by saying that the American Christian Churches have used their power so little to help the Negro that the black man has ceased to expect much from them. Mr. Smedes quoted Martin Luther King as saying, ``In deep disappointment I have wept over the complacency of the church...the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.''

Perhaps King has no eye for the working of the Spirit within the church, Mr. Smedes commented, but he is certainly justified in wondering why so little power comes out of the church when our land is in such tur-moil.

Mr. Smedes concluded the talks by elaborating on what the church should be saying to the Negro and doing for him. First, the Church must warn him of the temptation to self-righteousness as he crusades for his freedom. Second, the Negro, even after a full legal integra-tion is accomplished, will have to be helped to love those who inevitably will obey the legal integration laws, but not the spirit of these laws. Third, the Church must have the power of sympathetic understanding of the Negro's feelings of discon-tent and resentment. Finally, Smedes said, the Church must embrace the Holy Spirit's power more fully. This power must not be confined to the inward workings of our private souls, but it must involve us in help-ing man wherever he lives and whatever color his skin.