“Together we will break through the traditional barriers between liberals and conservatives, strengthening the best in both, calling each of us to creative change.” —Howard Butt Jr.
In 1978, President Gerald Ford and Howard Butt Jr. invited people around the country to an event hosted by the H. E. Butt Foundation in Los Angeles, California. The Congress of the Laity, they promised, would focus on “Divine Creation: Human Creativity.” In many ways, it was the culmination of decades of similar (but smaller) events hosted by the Foundation for business leaders through a men’s ministry called the Laymen’s Leadership Institutes, which featured prominent speakers like Dick Van Dyck, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and many others.
The Congress of the Laity gathered leaders from various religious denominations, different cultures, and political affiliations. Together, they sought common ground to address the problems of the society of the time—bridging across political and theological divides. Howard Butt Jr. was clear about his goal for the event in the invitation: “Together we will break through the traditional barriers between liberals and conservatives, strengthening the best in both, calling each of us to creative change.”
At the time, the Congress of the Laity was featured in mainstream media from multiple New York Times articles to an episode on ABC’s Directions.
Today, the H. E. Butt Foundation still looks back to the wisdom of this event as a guidepost for our work.
ABC News hosted a discussion of the event in their “Directions” segment just before the 1978 North American Congress of the Laity. The segment highlighted Dr. Martin Marty, Dr. Peter Berger, and Michael Novak. Note that this video was posted when the H. E. Butt Foundation briefly operated under the name “Foundations for Laity Renewal.” The short clip below features Peter Berger, and the full segment is available here.
In the proclamation for the gathering, Howard Butt Jr. wrote, “The contemporary world cries out for creative, competent, moral leadership. In response, we are calling together men and women of prominence and influence—from government and business, from science and the arts, from the professions, from sports and entertainment and from family life—who are open to the leadership of Jesus Christ.
“Together we will break through the traditional barriers between liberals and conservatives, strengthening the best in both, calling each of us to creative change. We will examine the tension between secular leadership and Christian discipleship, explore the interactions between Christianity and our culture, discover the intellectual, psychological and artistic implications of faith, and build bridges of mutual support.
“‘To whom much is given, much is required.’ Now is the time. And we are the people.”
The event was hosted regionally by Claremont School of Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, and St. John’s School of Theology.
“Creative leadership looks to living examples,” asserted conference materials, citing Proverbs 29:2. “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. But when the wicked rule, the people groan.” The event promised speakers “from key vantage points in society” who would “stimulate, challenge, and inspire” guests to be creative Christian leaders.
The Role of the Organization
“…each of us [is] a special instrument fashioned by the Lord for his purposes, finding the purpose and making each of us effective in contribution and service. This is the challenge, the promise, the excitement ahead of us in making our organizations perform—perform as instruments of creation, of creativity, of service, and of excellence.”
Creativity and Community—The Lay Responsibility
“It is the gift of speech—the wonder of the word—which lifts each of us out of isolation. Through sound and picture and symbol—through the arts—we grow in understanding of truth and beauty, of ourselves, and of others. We need to see that the ability to communicate is a precious gift from God and that with it and through it we build a truly human community.”
Human and Divine Rights
“…we have to remember—that we find freedom not in courts of law or in international declarations. We find freedom in our relations with our Creator and by the instrumentality of the Incarnation and the Gospels it recorded.”
Christianity and the Arts
“Theology at its heart is an art … This Christian view helps to explain man’s urge to create. God is the supreme artist and creator. In a mysterious way, man retains some of God’s image despite the fall. Man is a subcreator under God. Is it any wonder that man has a creative impulse? We are to engage in a positive calling to create on a finite level as God creates on an infinite level.”
Public Morality and Enduring Principles
“… I am convinced that in this country there is a longing for something Zacchaeus. Many of us are trying to see Jesus, but cannot see him for the darkness, or hear him for the noise.”
After each Keynote address, the keynote speaker engaged the same ideas more conversationally in panel sessions, and respected theologians provided scriptural inquiry into the topic.
Creativity and Transcendence
“So in Jesus Christ, we see transcendence taking on legs, taking on a heart, taking on humanity. Isn’t that ‘good news’? God was not afraid to come into the fragments. God in Christ came to restore harmony. The early Christians proclaimed to the world: ‘The lost transcendent dimension has been restored!’”
The Immanent Christ and Human Creativity
“Christ, the ‘immanent’ Christ, is never directly seen in that world but always indirectly, through the sign of his Cross. Whether as the token of an
ended day or the sign of one newly begun, with the spectacles and vision that Paul provides, you will see your work in a new light because see him in new ways and places—if, that is, the Spirit has convinced you that in him all things hold together.”
Taking on the Human Condition
“‘Creativity’ is a word in our age that has come to be abused so that its original strength, the fire of the concept, has been banked and, like so many other profound words, it has been homogenized, made shallow, and trivialized to some extent by being overused. It is to return to a sense of the word’s vibrance, to acknowledge personal commitment to its values in the Gospels, and to understand the meaning of recreating the face of the earth that we think together here.”
“Because no leader, especially in a democratic society, should go unquestioned,” a panel of authorities engaged each keynote speaker in public dialog. The panels were intended to “highlight the tension divine law brings to practical experience” as well as to “share in depth the speaker’s ideological base, struggles, and solutions.”
The H. E. Butt Foundation anthologized the addresses given at the Congress of Laity. At the Edge of Hope contains full transcripts of the content as well as commentary. Howard Butt Jr. wrote the introduction, “Incandescent Paradox”, in which he synthesizes his thoughts on the laity and its role in society.
“Conservative ‘otherworldly’ hope and liberal ‘this worldly’ hope are dangled like competing Pearls of great price before the laity today. What tragedy when they really form a single unified Reality. Transcendence and immanence as they effect Christian discipleship are inseparably linked, and that is the first thing to say in any book on the laity as a dynamic force for Christ and the church. Everything is hopeless but God. Everything is hopeful because of God.”
The logo for the event, created by artist-in-residence Richard L. Casey, is still used today as the Laity Lodge logo. It also served as inspiration to develop a suite of Foundation logos in 2015.
