The Professor's Pitfalls

However, certain pitfalls await any clergyman, regardless of stature, who steps into active direction of a secular institution. Since he will be a Protestant, he must realize that many Catholic and Jewish students will have already pitched one strike past him. Thus, he will have to do more than smother the natural desire of any clergyman to propagate the creed he has been trained in. He must go out of his way to assure that any "religious guidance" he dispenses represents the lowest common denominator of credo--in fact, no more than the same social gospel PBH has represented in the past.

More specifically, he should not recommend slipping another clergyman into the post of PBH Secretary. For the Secretary bears the brunt of contact with both students seeking a non-denominational program and multi-religious community groups asking PBH's services. And if the Professor has a bit of difficuty shucking his sectarianism, a young and relatively inexperienced Secretary will find it almost impossible. Unless he is a layman, the PBH hierarchy will be steeped in the same aura of cloth and collars as Dwight Hall at Yale, where Catholic and Jewish participation is minimized and social service work does not rank with PBH's program.