Fred Berthold Jr. ’45

On the service game at Dartmouth

"I came to college already a licensedpreacher. My new friends thought I was nuts. I had grown up in a very conservative, almost fundamentalist, Baptist church but, as some would say, I done backslid. I thought I'd be a pastor but I ran into questions such as, 'How can we believe in the God Christianity talks about when there is so much evil in the world?'"

"I recall saying to a few classmates,'Well of course men haveone fewer rib than women. We know this from Genesis.' They told me I was nuts. Later I enjoyed teaching 'Science and Religion.' "

"As a child I was dyslexic, notmuch of a reader. I remember Professor Wheelwright calling me into his office and telling me, 'Berthold, you're ignorant!' 'I know I am,' I told him. 'That's why I'm here.' "

"The years after World War II were a very good period for the College—the returning veterans were mature and very studious. Then came the era of'the silent generation.' We couldn't get them involved with what was going on in the world."

In the late 1950s or early 1960s I went with my colleagues Charlie Wood, James Tatum and Charles Stinson to Colorado College to design a humanities course for Dartmouth. At the conclusion of out work we went to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate. I opened up my fortune cookie to read 'beware of new enterprises,' but Humanities 1 and 2 are still going."

"I fought for coeducation for 10 years beforeit happened. I thought it would be a civilizing influence to live with women every day and find out they had minds and interests."

"If those who take it literally were to follow the Bible completely, then someone like [gay] Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson would have to be killed (Leviticus 20:13). An unruly child would have to be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)."

"What we have today are born-again Christians calling secularhumanists all kinds of dirty names: atheists, subverters ofmorality. Then you have the secular humanists saying all religious people are ignorant, superstitious, wanting to establish a theocracy. In the short term I'm pessimistic that an accord can be reached. Over the long term people may realize they've got to talk with each other."

"After President John Kemeny announced there would bewomen entering, a huge crowd turned out for the next AlumniCouncil meeting. One infuriated old guy after another got up to condemn Kemeny, most of them saying, 'What will happen to our sports teams? What will happen to our football team?' As I watched one man rise on his crutch I thought, 'Oh, boy, here comes another one.' It turned out to be Myles Lane '28, one of Dartmouth's greatest athletes, and his comment changed the whole tenor of the meeting: 'Hell, you don't need 3,000 men to make a good football team. All you need is 35 good ones.' The irony, of course, is how good the women's teams are now."

"It puzzles me that there hasn't been more activism on campuswith regard to Iraq. The parallels to Vietnam seem pretty clear. Even as Dartmouth students are very interested in getting ahead and earning a lot of money, they're very aware of what's going on in the world and wanting to do something about it."

"President William Jewett Tucker's notion was that when Christians get to heaven they'll be amazed at what a small corner of the place they occupy. He believed that being 'Christian' was a matter of the way you lived, not doctrine. For him, that was a matter of compassion for others."

"President John Sloan Dickey's definition of a professor was the best I ever heard: 'one who thinks otherwise.'"

"Now I play 'Cinderella tennis.' I'm lucky to get to the ball. I've petitioned the U.S. Tennis Association for a change in the rules that would allow players over 80 to let the ball bounce twice. The USTA hasn't responded."

"In order to become as completely human as we can, we have to recognize our dependence on the world around us—and our responsibility to build what the Bible calls the kingdom of peace and justice."

CAREER: Dartmouth religion professor, 1949-1993; dean of the Tucker Foundation, 1957-1962 NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS: Author of The Fear ofGod: The Role ofAnxiety in ContemporaryThought (1959); God, Evil andHuman Learning: A Critique andRevision of the Free Will Defensein Theocracy (2004); editor, with others, of Basic Sources of the Judaeo-Christian Tradition (1958); currently writing a book about the conflict between conservative religion and secularism EDUCATION: A.B., philosophy and psychology; Ph.D., religion, University of Chicago, 1954 FAMILY: Wife Laura; children Marjorie, Daniel, Timothy and Megan; one grandchild