[inaudible conversations] welcome everybody. Should i wait for you . Welcome everybody to its really great to have an opportunity to host regular botox by authors that write about topics that concern and culture and politics. Its especially good when the topic is the founder of the magazine and its a pleasure tonight to introduce the biographer of the biography of John Neuhaus Randy boyagoda. Randy is an accomplished novelist and his most recent novel beggars faced which is best described as great gatsby. Its a very good read and i thoroughly enjoyed it. Tonight sam taman house has agreed to interview randy and call out aspects of the biography so its my pleasure to welcome them both. [applause] am i good . I shouts i probably dont need one of those. Randy boyagoda you are novelist writing about john neuhaus. How did you get to this topic . And when did you choose and why . I started working on this book in some ways without even realizing it in 2009 so shortly after i wrote a profile of him for a torontobased magazine called the walrus. I am from toronto and it was basically an essay that argued here is the most influential canadian born intellectual and American Life for the past 50 years that none of you have ever heard of. So i wrote this review on his life and work and i left it at that and at that point i was in the midst of a terribly unreadable second monograph and as a rescue from that i realized he really was a story about a man and his faith and his involvement in a dramatic time in American Life. I thought heres a story that needs telling. I left it at that and one night these things tend to happen with books, by both came on and over the biography and that i present preacher john neuhaus lots of people would write his biography. So i emailed George Weigel his very good friend who i knew by sheer coincidence because my wife anna went to college with his daughter gwyneth. And especially for our audience George Weigel extremely distinguished catholic intellectual. Papal biographer at best known for his book witness of hope the biography of john paul ii and for many number of books since then. So i wrote him and i just said said the authorial coast is clear is the way he put it. I wasnt dust and hoffman at the church waving at everyone to keep them away. Let me ask you something randy what was your first introduction to father neuhaus and many here know he was a lutheran pastor and had a remarkable conversion to catholicism. When we first aware of him as a young mans . I can remember the exact moment. I was at a seminary in toronto visiting this priest to who was friends with my buddy and this priest had this interest in literary matters. He said what are you doing . I said im in this theory reading a flop or in his response was why would you devote your life to a drunk . And when he finished saying that he then said what you doing in this postcolonial globalization. You should read this and he gave me a copy of something called magazine. But it demonstrated to a cradle catholic was what i thought as the unbridgeable gulf between my mothers devotional catholicism rosary beads and all the rest of it and that my intellectual globalization theory and reference to american fiction. There was nothing in between. You do one or the other but they should never meet. So when i realized it as you could be a cosmopolitan minded intellectual for a matters of faith and order and inform your life and your sense of the world around you. Now tell us who neuhaus was and how he came to occupy the place he did. You say repeatedly in the biography and im sure many of you have already read it or will be reading it. He was a fixture in the pages of the New York Times. A very distinguished New York Times editor who worked with Richard John Neuhaus. He was a dominant public figure who rosenman fell from renowned as happens often but how did he become the figure he was . Where did he started quickly a brief summary what were the steps steps of the neuhaus journey . There were two things to think about right away. One would be his primary vocation as a man of god and how do i live this out . He was hungry and he was ambitious. When was the bourne . Born in 1936 in ontario into a large lutheran family. His father was this kind of imposing rather authoritarian figure i think in a small town in the middle of canada. Who spoke german . He was a real true german lutheran. Thats right. Im a tiny bit german myself. I can say that with some authority. New house was the seventh of eight kids. The seventh of eight kids in the grew up in this very lutheran household where clinton neuhauss father when he was cutting a Roast Chicken on a sunday afternoon would refer to the end of the chicken is the popess nose as they cut it off, the tail end basically by the grew up in this world and from there he had this kind of vagabond life. He was in nebraska. He was in texas and finally he made it to seminary in st. Louis louis. Soon thereafter he discovered in intellectual life was in line with his faith commitments. This led him to discover he wanted more than just to read and write about faith. He wanted to do something about it. This is partly how a man of god ventures boldly out into the public life. The public arena of Public Square as he called it. One of his idols many times was reverend dr. Martin luther king who he absolutely adored and admired him. He knew him slightly. He patterned himself to some extent on him. He wanted to live that kind of life. Why was that happening in america in 1960 . The key here had to do with neuhaus is emerging from the 1950s into his first real call as they say in the Lutheran Church into a poor black and hispanic parish in williamsburg. So the obvious question how does a lutheran pastor and up with a majority africanamerican congregation . Are there that many lutheran africanamericans . The short answer is called white flight. This is a historic lutheran parish in williamsburg that over the course of the early 20th century midcentury post where the demographic shifted significantly. The neighborhood shifted significantly. The largest Housing Project the first major Housing Project in america inspired was across the street quite literally from the project across the street from this church. There was a significant black and hispanic population just as the original white demographic of the area to. And that was german, irish . Mostly german. In the 1940s and 50s neuhaus shows up in 61. He is 25 about . More or less than he looks around nbcs incredibly impoverished place. As you say prehipster. Its not the Million Dollar lost back then. When i went to visit the church i spend 8 on a Peanut Butter sandwich on some at some hipster place. It was an amazing Peanut Butter sandwich believe you me but nevertheless he gets there sam and its a majority black parish. Its postjim crow, the Civil Rights Movement is just emerging. The freedom riders of 1961. He was coming out of a church that has a majority terms at that point a rather kind of delicate if not allergic reaction to Public Engagement especially on the race issue at that point. When you say Public Engagement you mean what . Politics and social issues . Into two kingdoms theology missouri lucentis him. It would suggest there was a kingdom of god in the kingdom of man and never the two shall meet meet. And then he gets involved or his parish life with questions of the dignity of the human person as his men lived out by a majority black population around him. He sees a need to speak to this in a greater way. Around new york segregation questions. That was his first real involvement in politics beyond the church. So these are de facto segregation issues. The Civil Rights Movement is moving out of the jim crow south and coming north and theres a different kind of racial disarmament. New house gets very interested in is a minipcs to your point he sees this example of Martin Luther king. He is already got involved with a small Lutheran Organization committing to raising civil rights questions. The key for him and this is one of the things i learned from the biography, he did a summer internship at a paris parish in detroit. One of the moments in detroit on the sunday morning at 11 00 a. M. 11 00 a. M. , Martin Luther kings most segregated hour in america. Its a great quote. The u. S. Watched in detroit in the 60s, 59 perhaps it is sunday morning right before the service would begin a series of ushers will come out on the steps of the Lutheran Church with money. And a congregant who showed up they would give the money to him to give to the black church. This is how they were at that point dealing with the question of the mixedrace congregation. Its almost a perfect demonstration of white guilt inaction. Walking money. Take a cab to the lack church. Dont come in here. We want you in church but just not here. Neuhaus reacted against this amherst himself in urban ministry and back in williamsburg in 1961 to 1960 night that involved his life in a black and hispanic parish. He grew out of that into a more national involvement. Let me ask you a really uninformed naive question to this very educated audience that they will find amusing but i dont know the answer. In this day and age in 2015 if somebody is coming to the ministry, to be ordained the missouri or whatever ministry, with ap is likely to have the range of experiences that neuhaus did . Didnt he also spent time in chicago . So he is doing detroit, chicago, st. Louis and texas nebraska and is coming to williamsburg after starting in ontario. So the actually in some ways and i dont mean to be disrespectful because theres something very worldly about all of this, he is seeing america this crucial moment. Is that now part of the journey that a religious person will take . Without speaking in global terms now i dont think so but it wasnt then either. One of the things i realized from speaking to a lot of his classmates in seminary is what really set him apart was that his travels intellectually and physically were very different than three people were emerging from smalltown german midwestern southern texas lets say life and kind of going straight into seminary. Doing your time there and you go off to a small town congregation and off you go. You would probably see that as moral majority. He set himself back apart even and because the 1950s he is reading george santa ana. He is physically and intellectually elsewhere. I would say today to your question basically what it cosmepolitan experienced be the norm for any cemetery and. Does that mean again he had the authority to be able to choose these different stations . Nobody stopped him either. You have a counterexample and it really is a counterexample. Garry wills who is a brilliant catholic intellectual born in atlanta raised in wisconsin has a seminary in st. Louis. He works for bill buckley and thats the end of the journey. He does other things but he had to be released from his vows when he decided to become a journalist instead. One doesnt have the sense from wills memoirs and he has written to memoirs a lot about his own journey that he was someone who was seeking as a journalist sought out wide diverse experiences but not necessarily as a religious man. Its interesting neuhaus got there early and you kind of suggest in the book he had almost an intuitive sense for where the cultural and Political Action was. He really could sniff out the action figure a way to get there. One of his phrases that he was obsessed about in his early writings was he was obsessed with intellectuals who could ment and market the metaphors that shaped public consciousness. Clearly he wanted to be one of these guys but he complained about everyone else he could do that. Visibility was to identify at any given moment, lets say the antiwar movement. The antivietnam war movement is where he will emerge. He taught himself okay there is significant antivietnam war foe meant in the American Life and a large part of this is being taken on at the campuses and the secular hardline left in emerging but what if you are person of faith who is against this war . There is no context for you to speak out about this. This led to his cofounding against the war in vietnam. That was his realizing no one is speaking about this order in religious terms. Heres a way for me to get involved in public life to make a firstperson demonstration of what it means to be against the war out of your theological principles. That is what he could do better than anyone else. That was the moment he became a i didnt know the great journalist plesea gray had written a series in the new yorker divine dissent disobedience where she was looking at clerics and the different antiwar, different style of antiwar protests. Neuhaus at this point is on the left create. Who else was in there with him . Kaufman would have been there and Abraham Heschel an important figure for neuhaus. Harvey cox was there. And the berrigan boys but they ran into trouble with their new york cardinal whose name suddenly has escaped me. How can that be the case . Spelman. You have got the right audience here. [laughter] let me ask you a question and this was something we are talking about before. We just mentioned brought up name checked as you said some very big public figures. If you were around in the 1960s and 70s you knew who all these people were. And you heard what they had to say about American Life. They were on the covers of magazines and you call up neuhausen to get your quote. Bill coffin and bill buckley about the vietnam war at yale in 1967. Heschel Martin Luther king a giant. What do we have today . Is there anything like it . We dont mean powerful influential religious people in politics but intellectuals writers and thinkers who are dominating with neuhaus called the Public Square. Do we have any version of that today and if so what is it like and if not what happened . You are right. Theres a whole mission coming out of neuhaus to provide exactly that kind of distinctive voice. So my Catholic Guild requires me as i make contact with the editor to say you can point to first things is one place. This is a great moment. We should captured on tape. When i was shown the masthead and a major contributors, the major figures involved and how many do you recognize . Its not as many as in earlier times. Its really a change in the culture. That tiresome phrase that political culture. When did that change happen and what is it about . Its about American Life where you can have people very capable very in depth and persuasive when they are speaking to people who believe the same way they do and vote the same way they do. What could neuhaus do that very few could . He could speak beyond a conservative christian audience in terms informed by his conservative Christian Formation but he could speak and a perfect example of this would be the economist debate that i mentioned late in the book where he gets a from the economist magazine involved in American Public life. In new york city a great majority do people put their hands and said there should be no involvement trade by the end of the debate guess what . They are all persuaded otherwise. Not because any of them were necessarily concerned about teen agreement with catholics on those matters so to your question we can point to different voices i think that havent authority that is a different Institutional Authority. Ross phelbeck of the New York Times in many ways and we know from the book he was informed very much by neuhaus. This one just many viewers and listeners here where ross bell fit ross bell fit the gifted oped columnist in the New York Times. I spent a month going to neuhaus papers. How do we know he had a healthy ego . He printed every single email he ever wrote. Presuming someone would go through them at some point so my fingers were destroyed. One of the things i found it was interesting was the man named charlesand even right for do a great columnist for the times but wheres his Institutional Authority coming from . Your Institutional Authority comes would be hardpressed to find a religious Institutional Authority. Minister. There was no one today that are just in the rick warren approach to evangelical christianity buddy. You describe a lot of name of the phrase religion in way he structured those questions. Finding his voice in his terms. When did he find it . Book to friendship with berger and phrase the. What Public Square . By the public when that in the he hasbeen called the we all oppose moments where a he wasnt anticommunist in the 70s but he realized his friends on the left were not willing publicly to come out out against the marxist informed government. You will remember in the late 1940s when the satellite countries were really in the grip of the soviet union. It was often religious people clerics, cardinal ment cente. Thats a powerful strain of the early conservative movement was formed in reaction to that. I think Phyllis Schlafly came out of that movement and it also had to do with the kind of more on religion that came from the Congress Regime and one more question is i think we can and with it because its so important and than that we will take questions and that is the conversion his deciding to become a catholic which very much pleased the vatican. And it was a friend of cardinal oconnor. A close friend of cardinal oconnor. Was he one of thes