Present and Powerful in Life and Death

Frank William Stringfellow, who never used his first name, was born in Cranston, Rhode Island, and grew up in Northampton, Massachusetts. His parents, Frank and Margaret, had ended their studies with grammar school. His father worked as a knitter in the hosiery industry, and, during the Great Depression and after, he was often out of work. Yet, Bill wrote later, "As a child I was not really aware we were poor."

His older sister, Winifred Brown, describes him as having been "a cute little kid." His school performance was average, and he had problems with spelling. He was an active member of the debating club in high school, and his sister remembers that, while he had little interest in school athletics, he became the only male cheerleader and zealously attended games. "At the time in life when (I suppose) I should have been obsessed with football, sex, or pop music, as my peers seemed to be," Bill wrote, "I was very bothered about the identity of Jesus ..."

Such seriousness about matters of faith went unrecognized by his family. They were regular participants in the life of the local Episcopal congregation, and they knew that Bill was appropriately involved in youth activities. Bill remembered it differently. Not only did he attend programs, but "the parish premises and the rectory were places where I spent other hours—playing, doing errands and odd jobs, loitering, watching."

His parish had a succession of strong rectors, and one, whom Bill did not identify, apparently pressured him during their "sometimes esoteric religious discussions" to consider the priesthood as his vocation. In one way it made sense. It would solve the problem of how he could finance college and graduate studies. "But I was also beginning to comprehend that the Gospel was, somehow, not about religion, but reached beyond religion," he wrote. He felt pressured and acknowledged that it led to a hostility toward clergy that was long in ebbing.

A high school teacher helped him secure a scholarship at Bates College. "He blossomed in college," his sister says, and he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa society. Debate continued to be an interest and arena of accomplishment.

College days afforded a new means of pursuing an old interest, as he became immersed in the Christian student movement. "I was proving, I suppose, that one could be recognized as a Christian without being a priest ... I was becoming a professional Christian without the conventional and supposedly necessary credential of a professional Christian—ordination," Bill wrote.

He was also on the way to becoming what Fr. Daniel Berrigan described at his funeral as the "keeper of the Word of God." His long-time friend George Todd, who met him during these days, described the student movement of that period as "an incubator of biblical thinking." Bill thrived on the heady discussions of politics, biblical theology, Christian vocation, and theology of the laity. He traveled far and wide to student conferences, frequently as a Bible study leader. During one of those trips, to India, he contracted hepatitis—possibly a contributor to later health problems.

When he was 20, he was drafted into the Army during the Korean War, but Bill was sent to Germany instead. He wrote that he felt resentful of this interruption to education and career. Yet this experience also resulted in his learning the meaning of vocation.

George Todd remembers urgent letters from Germany raising questions about what it meant to be a Christian in the military. Bill also urged the student movement to initiate a study around these questions. Later he edited a collection of papers generated by these explorations.

AFTER DISCHARGE Stringfellow studied at the London School of Economics on a Rotary fellowship. The quest for the meaning of vocation continued there, not only in relation to his studies but also as he exchanged ideas with such European thinkers as Jacques Ellul. Bill's quest continued even at Harvard Law School, where he went next. Perhaps his Army experience had provided him with the meaning of vocation, but he refined it in all these other settings, probably continuing the process to the end of his life.

In A Second Birthday, Bill offered a lengthy summary of his understanding, concluding with these words: "In the Gospel, vocation means being a human being, now, and being neither more nor less than a human being now ... And, thus, each and every decision, whether it seems great or small, whether obviously or subtly a moral problem, becomes and is a vocational event, secreting, as it were, the very issue of existence."

In My People is the Enemy, he wrote, "The issue for any man, in any place, is to be the same man he is in every other place." Having decided that during his Army experience, he said, made the choice of settling in East Harlem "simple" and enabled him to cross "many boundaries."

After his own graduation from Yale Divinity School, George Todd had joined the Group Ministry of the East Harlem Protestant Parish. Stringfellow often came from Harvard to visit, and during those times together, he expressed uncertainty about what to do after law school. Todd began to suggest that he seriously consider settling in East Harlem to begin his legal practice. He was, he says, surprised when Bill agreed.

Bill and I arrived in East Harlem, where I was to be the administrator of the East Harlem Protestant Parish, about the same time. We lived on opposite sides of East 100th Street in equally vermin-infested apartments. I had not yet married, so the two bachelors often ate together. I listened raptly to his brilliant exposition of biblical themes, which were directly applicable to the struggle for survival of the poor of all races all around us.

It was not long before Bill was in conflict with the Group Ministry, which he considered elitist and out of touch with the people they purported to serve. He resented, as I did, that we were banished from all decision-making sessions of the group, as were, he was quick to observe, the laity. He felt that due honor was withheld from the Word of God and that some of his colleagues used scripture in ideological fashion rather than truly seeking to be informed, shaped, and led by it. So with an angry letter, less than two years after coming to East Harlem, he resigned from the Group Ministry.

In the meantime, however, Bill had deeply immersed himself in the life of the community. He did not succeed in being admitted to the bar until his third try, so he could not immediately practice law. Still he helped many strategize about the resolution of their practical dilemmas, found resources to help them, developed a network of associations with the structures and sub-structures of East Harlem and other areas of the city. He wrote passionately of those days in My People is the Enemy.

IT WAS CLEAR that Bill's vocation was to be irrevocably linked with the "least of these," as Jesus described them. So his practice of law in New York was characterized by defense of the most vulnerable. Housing and welfare cases were frequent, but there were also those involving addicts, aliens, sex offenders, and thieves. He scandalized many by seeking restoration of U.S. citizenship for a man who had renounced it to join the Nazi Party in wartime Germany.

More were offended when he became a lawyer for the George Henry Foundation, whose clients, he said, "were all homosexuals in trouble with police or in some kind of trouble" related to their sexual preference. The Philadelphia Inquirer quoted him as saying, "The outcasts of society—those who live somehow on its fringe—are not usually or effectively or even honestly represented at all." He was often scathing in his denunciation of the legal profession and felt it poorly served those who needed it most.

Through the years Bill Stringfellow received much criticism for his legal practice. There were those who accused him of carelessness and inadequate preparation. He dismissed most of these charges as attacks for his "betrayal" of the guild. After all, people had certain images of proper behavior of a Harvard Law School product. His own family, always poor, could barely understand why he seemed deliberately to turn his back on the power, prestige, and wealth that should have flowed naturally to a Harvard man. A careful review of his legal contests would suggest surprising "success," for he rarely lost.

From the early days of his East Harlem experience, Bill was invited by James A. Pike, dean of the Episcopal cathedral of St. John the Divine and himself a lawyer, to become a counselor and confidant of students at Columbia University Law School. Their friendship persisted when Pike became bishop of California. The colorful and controversial bishop was, in due course, charged with heresy in the Episcopal House of Bishops and retained Stringfellow to defend him.

The friendship with Bishop Pike led to two books: The Bishop Pike Affair (about the heresy ordeal) and The Death and Life of Bishop Pike (after the bishop's death while lost in the wilderness of Judea). Both were co-authored with Anthony Towne, often referred to in Stringfellow's writings as "Poet Anthony Towne." Tony had entered Stringfellow's life in the early '60s in New York. They had met at parties. Some time after, facing eviction from his apartment, Towne had come to Attorney William Stringfellow for legal advice. Ever the hospitable person, Stringfellow ended up inviting Towne to move his few possessions to Stringfellow's West Side apartment until he could relocate.

The stay kept being extended and finally became permanent. Anthony Towne was a tall, massive, quiet, and gentle man who, in later years, kept Stringfellow alive. In the late 1960s, they moved to Block Island, Rhode Island, to a property named by Stringfellow "Eschaton." Tony tended the lawns and gardens, did the minor repairs, ran the errands, cared for the animals (varying numbers of dogs and cats), and did a thousand other things to provide a stable and secure environment for the increasingly infirm Stringfellow. At the same time, Tony wrote poetry and an essay that became the basis of a successful book—Excerpts from the Diaries of the Late God—and collaborated with Stringfellow on three books. When Stringfellow became acutely ill and nearly died, all who knew them were certain that it was Tony's constant and compassionate care that staved off premature death.

STRINGFELLOW'S HEALTH APPEARED to be good until the mid-1960s, despite the incidence of hepatitis, gall bladder surgery that had kept him from his Harvard graduation, and a few lesser episodes. A gradually debilitating back pain worsened, accompanied by severe weight loss, and for many months was poorly diagnosed and inadequately, if not improperly, treated. Finally, the "hunch" of the Block Island doctor was confirmed in more sophisticated medical settings, and life-threatening surgery was deemed essential. The night prior to surgery, several of Stringfellow's friends assembled at his bedside for a eucharistic celebration conducted by the suffragan bishop of New York, Stuart Wetmore. Few of us harbored any notions that we would see our friend alive again.

Ten or more hours of surgery, however, prolonged Bill Stringfellow's life for many years. Removal of most of his pancreas resulted in wildly erratic diabetes as well as the need to ingest daily dozens of enzyme pills. He ate constantly thereafter, probably several thousands of calories each day, but could barely maintain a weight just below 100 pounds. Increasingly he was subjected to all the ills associated with diabetes, including eye, circulatory, and kidney problems. When he died the many obituaries were more specific than usual in identifying the cause as a "metabolic disorder."

Stringfellow fiercely resented the ravages of disease upon his body. He fought them zealously and insisted on maintaining a travel, lecture, and writing schedule that defied their power—successfully for much of the time. He wrote movingly of these matters both in A Second Birthday and A Simplicity of Faith.

Bill's travels took him all over the nation and to many parts of the world. He was long a popular speaker on college and seminary campuses and at church gatherings. His trenchant critique of American society, politics, and religion infuriated some, made most squirm uncomfortably, and assured at least a few that the Word of God was still present and powerful in this nation and the world. The title of one of his most powerful books, Dissenter in a Great Society, provided an appropriate epitaph.

Not all his travels had such serious purpose. One year he and Tony had traveled with the circus "for a season," with Bill acting as "resident theologian." Stringfellow's fascination with the circus was lifelong. His sister says that he played with circus miniatures from an early age, and the family often wondered if he might not run away from home to join the circus. Through the years he acquired a number of godchildren—including my daughter—and considered it a primary responsibility to take them often to the circus. He once responded to Jim Wallis' question about how often he attended, "Not often, about 20 times a year."

This interest in the circus was hardly frivolous. "The circus," he would say, "is very theological." It evoked all sorts of images of the eschaton for him in its acts that defy death's power. "The circus is eschatological parable and social parody: it signals a transcendence of the power of death, which exposes this world as it truly is while it pioneers the Kingdom," he wrote in A Simplicity of Faith.

MANY BELIEVE THAT William Stringfellow was this generation's most brilliant and significant theologian. He was disparaged by some because, by his own admission, he was minimally "schooled." He made wry remarks from time to time about malicious reference to the "boy theologian" or to the ironic emphasis that would be put on the first word of a more common description, "lay theologian." He was clearly pleased when Karl Barth, on his only visit to the United States, singled Stringfellow out as the "man America should listen to." He pretended no competence as a theologian, but rather described himself as "trying to live as a Biblical person and understand the nation and the world in a Biblical way."

So, constantly thumbing through tattered New Testament and Psalter, Bill produced a steady stream of eloquent lectures, articles, and books addressing issues of nation and world in the light of the biblical witness. His last book, The Politics of Spirituality, published a few months prior to his death, reaffirmed his belief in the "grace of the Word of God which transcends the injustice of the present age and agitates the resilience of those who struggle to expose and rebuke injustice."

Certainly Bill Stringfellow was one of those persons. "He took up causes that no one else wanted to touch, whether it was housing or racism or the plight of women in the church," Daniel Berrigan said at his funeral. His espousal of the ordination of women by the Episcopal Church was, perhaps, one of the more bittersweet experiences of his life. He was counsel to the 11 women who were first "irregularly" ordained in Philadelphia in 1974, through the period when much of the leadership of the church declared their priestly orders invalid. In addition, he defended male priests who were brought to ecclesiastical trial for inviting women priests to celebrate the Eucharist in their parishes.

Two years of lobbying produced at the 1976 General Convention a grudging recognition of the women priests but with the requirement that they be "conditionally reordained." After meeting with the women, Stringfellow confronted the bishops. "The women priests will not be reordained, conditionally or otherwise," he thundered. So the bishops reversed their action and voted unanimously to allow the already ordained women simply to be "recognized" by their own bishops and, thus, by the entire church. Bill Stringfellow paid a high personal price for this victory. The episode, along with others such as his defense of Bishop Pike, left within the church a residue of bitterness and hostility toward Bill that shadowed him the rest of his life.

THE MOST "NOTORIOUS" event of Bill's life was unquestionably his part in providing shelter to Daniel Berrigan when he was a "fugitive from justice." The frailty of his body made it difficult for Stringfellow to involve himself in resistance to the participation of the United States in the Vietnam War, as he would have desired. Still he wrote and spoke vigorously against it, and he often served as adviser to those facing criminal proceedings for their resistance efforts. One such person was his long-time friend, Daniel Berrigan—Roman Catholic priest, Jesuit, poet and writer, troubler of the governmental-industrial-military establishment of the United States.

Berrigan had been arrested in 1968 for destroying draft records in Catonsville, Maryland. When all appeals had been exhausted, he had gone into hiding. For some weeks he infuriated the frustrated authorities by sudden public appearances first here then there, only to disappear again. Finally, an informant led as many as 100 FBI agents to Eschaton, where Berrigan was a guest. No attempt had been made to hide his presence; he had acted in the same manner as he had on previous visits.

Following his apprehension, however, both Stringfellow and Towne were indicted for "harboring a fugitive." Both were fearful. Bill worried that he might not survive imprisonment, given the fragile state of his health and the demanding regimen of nutrition and medication he had to follow. At their urgent request, I agreed to assume the responsibility of organizing a defense committee to provide all kinds of support through this ordeal. One day while we conferred about confidential details of this effort on the telephone, we became conscious of strange clicking noises. I wondered if the line were tapped and if we ought not to communicate in some other fashion. Stringfellow responded, "Let them hear the truth for a change!"

In due course, the charges were dismissed. There was no evidence of "harboring," which presupposed concealment. Subsequently, Stringfellow and Towne described this ordeal in Suspect Tenderness.

By now both had achieved acceptance and trust among Block Islanders. They both loved the island intensely and fiercely resented the predatory incursion of "developers" whom they believed would destroy its character.

Tony taught creative writing to islanders. Bill became active in Democratic politics. He served one term as second warden of the island. A try to become first warden narrowly failed as a result of absentee ballots.

Bill made abundantly clear that he was not pursuing a "career" in politics. "I realized ... in London, that there is no option in this world of abstention from politics: everyone everywhere is involved, whether intentionally and intelligently, or by default or some moral equivalent of it," he wrote in A Simplicity of Faith.

Bill had decided not to expend his life on any career, because that did not square with his decision to be a biblical person. Although perhaps every day of his adult life he made endless lists of things to do, Bill Stringfellow resisted having an agenda for his life.

IN 1980 TONY TOWNE died suddenly. Bill was devastated. Perhaps the acute stress occasioned by this episode triggered a stroke and other new ills. His friends worried that he might not be able to adjust to the new realities. He surprised us by learning to drive at 50-plus years old, and by recovering sufficient physical function and stamina to continue on at least a modified schedule of public lectures, the occasional practice of law, and the production of new volumes of commentary on the life of the world in the light of the Word of God.

Still his physical course was irreversibly downward. Poor circulation in his legs threatened amputation and led him to choose exotic and controversial treatment. His diabetes was increasingly out of control, and he began to be subject to diabetic comas. One such episode came toward the end of a visit to my home a few weeks before he died. Not having seen him for a year or two, I was shocked by his appearance. He looked like someone near death, and each day he seemed to fade a bit before my eyes. One day when I saw him, my mind screamed, "He looks like one of the starving children of Africa." There were days when he had trouble collecting his thoughts and even speaking, and I feared another stroke.

After treatment for the diabetic coma, however, Bill's mind, at least, was as keen as ever. He railed against the disciplines of the hospital and demanded early discharge in order to return to Block Island to battle against a plan—which he saw as sinfully wasteful—to build a new Episcopal church. He was rehospitalized soon after for internal bleeding. He died March 2, 1985.

I KNEW BILL STRINGFELLOW for nearly 30 years, and I knew more about him than many. Yet I barely knew the man. Others shared that feeling. "He was a very private person," George Todd commented. Bill's sister told of looking at him and wondering, "Where did you come from?"

For all his privacy and distance, however, he could be very personal and present. "He was like a [monastic] abbot to many," George Todd described it. "He often inquired about the state of my soul. I was always surprised by the grace that another human being would take me that seriously."

To us, to many, Bill Stringfellow responded from a deep life grounded in the Word of God. So if there is any question of from whence he came, there is none about where he has gone.

He taught a course on "principalities and powers" for my students last January. One day someone asked him about the Judgment to come.

"I rather think we have been through it already," Bill responded.

"Then," the questioner persisted, "you do not fear the Judgment?"

"No," was his reply.

Rest in peace, Bill.

Melvin E. Schoonover was an American Baptist minister and directed an ecumenical theological education program in Miami, Florida when this article appeared.