North Adams Transcript: “‘Haystack 5′ inspired movement” [2006-07-24]
North Adams Transcript (MA)
July 24, 2006 Section: Local
‘Haystack 5′ inspired movement
By Stephen Dravis, Transcript Correspondent
Monday, July 24 WILLIAMSTOWN — Many things about the Williams College campus would be unrecognizable to the five students at the original 1806 Haystack prayer meeting. But the multi-faith nature of the Haystack bicentennial conference would make perfect sense to the “Haystack 5.”
Prayer meeting in 1806
The missionary movement inspired by that meeting 200 years ago has been embraced by various Christian denominations, and several of them will be reflected in a three-day bicentennial celebration Sept. 22-24 at the college.
The program includes clerics and scholars from multiple denominations, and the tone will be set in a keynote address by Gambian-born, London-educated Lamin Sennah, who specializes in Christianity, Islam and “inter-religious” dialogue at Yale, according to a brochure publicizing the conference.
The idea of Christian fellowship without sectarian walls would be familiar to early 19th-century Williams students Byram Green, Harvey Loomis, Samuel J. Mills, James Richards an Francis L. Robbins.
“The original five were ecumenical from the beginning,” Williams chaplain the Rev. Richard Spalding said. “I don’t think denominations really had the same force in American society then that they do today.
“The United Church of Christ (the Congregtionalists) and the American Baptist Church are two of the denominations that each claim a couple of the guys, so they represented at least those two traditions.”
And Williams represents no specific tradition. It never has.
“Williams is a nonsectarian school and never had a specific affiliation,” Spalding said. “It’s one of the older schools in the nation that doesn’t. Many of the schools in New England were founded to educate clergy and so forth.”
Spalding, a Presbyterian, is organizing the bicentennial conference along with the Rev. Carrie Bail, pastor at Williamstown’s First Congregational Church.
Spalding said he hopes the discussions and prayer services in September will appeal to today’s Williams student body, which includes Catholics and Protes-tants, Jews and Muslims, Hindus and atheists.
“I’m sure you’ll find some other clergy who have been involved with (Haystack) who would say, ‘No, no, no. It’s very important that it be a Christian path,’ ” Bail said. “I’m not one of those.
“I think I’m born of the ecumenical and interfaith movement in such a way that says, if people are coming at this from another point of view, if they’re already Muslims or they’re already Buddhists or whatever they are, that’s fine as long as they’re practicing a walk of faith that helps them be of service to the world.”
Missionary service can take many forms. Sometimes it is not religious at all, Spalding said.
“At Williams in particular but at many schools as well, the student body is composed of citizens from all over the world and from many backgrounds within the U.S.,” he said. “Certainly, there are some students for whom the evangelical legacy of the Haystack meeting is extremely important.
“One of the things I’m doing here at Williams and the college is doing in general to acknowledge the Haystack legacy is to honor and embrace the many, many students, the countless students who left Williams and gone out into the world … to make it a better place.”
(c) 2006 North Adams Transcript.