FREDERIC C. WOOD, JR.
1933 - 1970
The Reverend Frederic C. Wood, Jr., former chaplain and associate
professor of religion at Vassar College, died of acute leukemia
on October 16, 1970 in Sanibel, Florida. Mr. Wood was thirty-
seven years old. He is survived by his wife, the former Jane
Louise Barber, and by three daughters, Jennifer, Elizabeth, and
Barbara.
Mr. Wood joined the Vassar faculty in 1967 after three years as
an assistant professor and chaplain at Goucher College. Born
in New Rochelle, New York, he received a B.A. degree from Cornell
University in 1954 after graduation from Deerfield Academy. From
1954 to 1957 he was a Naval intelligence officer and Russian crypto-
linguist with the National Security Agency. In 1960, he received
a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Virginia Theological Seminary.
In 1961, he received a Master of Sacred Theology degree from Union
Theological Seminary in New York, and three years later he earned
a Doctor of Theology degree from the same institution.
Before moving to Goucher College, he served as an assfiiant chaplain
at Cornell and with Episcopal churches in New York and Richmond,
Virginia. A specialist on the inter-relationships of psychiatry
and religion, Mr. Wood lectured frequently before various civic
and professional groups. His articles appeared in numerous jour-
nals, including "Theology Today," "The Episcopalian," and "Pastoral
Theology." He was the author of two books: Sex and the New Morality
(1968) and Living in the Now (1970). I
Mr. Wood welcomed the contemporary movement toward what he liked
to call a religionless Christianity, toward the living of a faith
stripped of antiquated dogmas and rituals. In a journal that he
kept during the early months of leukemia, he wrote, "I have never
been religious. My illness has not changed that. But at the same
time, my thoughts and feelings have been profoundly theological.
I have been dealing with ultimate things - the meaning of life and
death and the question of what is ultimately important (which is
the question of God)."
He knew that his understanding of biblical faith often was mis-
interpreted, that some thought he sacrificed his Judeo-Christian
roots in order to be contemporary while others thought he sacri-
ficed relevance in order to maintain a particular tradition. He
responded that the style of life described in Living in the Now
FREDERIC C. WOOD, JR. - continued
"is for me both relevant and traditional. It is the faith delivered
to me as I perceive it in my time.... My wife and I often ponder
that in over fifteen years of married life we have each radically
changed. And yet we also know that we are the same people we were
when we married. This is, I think, the same paradox. It illus-
trates why flexibility in the forms of religious beliefs (in the
name of their Spirit) is such an important dimension of my theology."
Mr. Wood chose to live on the periphery of the institutional church
because "this is the only position from which I can exercise the
ministry I feel called to exercise." The role of college chaplain
appealed to him because the student of today is less concerned
with "playing church on campus" than with "becoming a fuller person,
with discovering his identity in an anonymous society, and with
hamering out values which are relevant to the moral dilemmas which
he faces."
Mr. Wood saw the task of the man of faith anywhere as witnessing
to the values to which he is committed. The college chaplain, in
particular, must be counted on the side of humanity against all
those forces which tend to depersonalize the academic community.
He also must "prick (its) social conscience in regard to the larger
community which surrounds it." At Goucher and at Vassar, Mr. Wood
gave himself early and fully to various civil rights projects and
to leadership in the questioning of American policy in Viet Nam.
In the fall of 1969 he co-sponsored a faculty caucus which might
have become an effective force had he been able to continue his
leadership.
Because his views often spoke to the prevailing mood among faculty
and students, he sometimes was surprised and amused by the contro-
versy they aroused beyond the campus. But his response to those
who attacked his views was often far more sympathetic than those
who supported him realized. He understood the pain and the perils
of social change as well as its necessity. In a sermon delivered
early in 1968, he welcomed the new mood among students of criticiz—
ing our laws and social order. But he added, "at the same time, I
welcome it with ambivalent feelings. I suppose that is because I
am still essentially a conservative where law and order are con-
cerned. As a member of the much-maligned establishment - the same
establishment of private secondary schools, WASPish upbringing,
and ivy league colleges which has spawned many of you - I have
some fundamental instincts of uneasiness at the prospect of any
weakening of law and order. And I would think that those instincts
are appropriate to others who do not share my background, since it
has been my observation that the dissolution of law and order is
finally more damaging to the disestablished and powerless than to
FREDERIC C. WOOD, JR. - continued
the established and powerful."
Mr. Wood's way with faculty and administrators, from whom he
expected more and often discovered less, was equally direct.
On October 31st and November 31st, 1969, this faculty debated
the demands of the black students‘ sit-in. Already feverish
from the leukemia that had not yet been discovered, Mr. Wood
defended his unpopular cause, the ideal of integration, with
an eloquence and lucidity which continue to haunt some of us.
He never abandoned his conviction that only integration could
bring about a true equality and meeting of black and white
people. He was no utopian, but he had a vision of the way we
must go. When he believed we were deviating from it, he could
not keep silent.
We miss that courage and that candor. We should be worried by
his "suspicion that the wise men may not come to the academy
any more." In Mr. Wood's words, "Just (like) the Church, so
too our educational institutions, in our busy-ness, worldliness,
and self-promotion may have no place for the wise men any more.
It may be that we need a revolution in both the Church and the
academy - revolution, in the best sense of that word, as referring
not to violence or naked power-plays, but to change - a fundamental
change in our understanding of what we are doing. Then the wise
men may once again come, and offer their gifts and do their thing.
Then we may teach one another to be more fully human."
Respectfully submitted,
John Glasse
Clyde Griffen
David Schalk