Group Dynamics and Role Playing

During the past decade group dynamics and role playing have commanded significant attention and consideration as techniques or methods of relating the Christian faith and practice to the lives of the members of several Protestant denominational churches. How widely the aforementioned have been utilized in these churches I do not know. I am keenly aware that group dynamics and role playing have played a considerable role in the thought and planning of the Department of Christian Education of the National Council of the Episcopal Church, my church. This, in turn, has had an impact on local parish churches throughout the Nation, although to what extent I am not prepared to say. I have observed the utilization of role playing in a number of Episcopal churches to interpret and clarify the relationship of the religion of the child, or adult to the everyday living situations in which he finds himself.

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Social Education and Action

My personal employment of Sociodrama has been in the area of what we in the Episcopal Church call Christian Social Relations and what is known in some other Protestant circles as Social Education and Action. My post as Associate Director of the City Mission Society of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark involves my working with the one hundred and fifty Episcopal churches in northern New Jersey in relating their members to the social, economic, political and international problems which confront them and human society. I make use of Sociodrama in the discussions and planning of our clergymen and laymen in the realm of social action to enable them to deal more effectively with social situations and issues.

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The 'Caravan'

Yearly, a caravan consisting of clergymen and laymen from the churches of my Diocese visits the New Jersey State legislative assembly in Trenton to lobby for humanitarian legislation. Our group which averages about two hundred in number is personally greeted by Governor Robert E. Meyner, and our Suffragan Bishop, The Rt. Rev. Donald MacAdie, usually addresses the legislative assembly and members of the Caravan discuss with their respective legislative representatives such issues as minimum wages, the plight of the migratory workers in New Jersey, the abolition of capital punishment, racial discrimination in employment and housing, the rehabilitation of the handicapped, medical service for the medically indigent, etc.

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'Caravan' Member Preparation

I employ Sociodrama to prepare some of the members of the Caravan to effectively relate themselves and their goals to their respective representatives in the legislative assembly. Such situations as coping with the very cordial, hail fellow well met, but charmingly evasive representative; the representative who indicates that other people with opposite or different points of view on bill under discussion also have talked with him; what is he going to do; the representative who says, "you elected me, why don't you let me do the deciding on how I will vote on this issue"; the legislator who hasn't even heard of the bill before the assembly which the Caravan member is presenting to him (these are only parttime legislators, having business and professional responsibilities and they can hardly be familiar with every bill of legislation facing the assembly); or the representative who candidly remarks that the Church should stay out of politics; the representative who joshingly asks, "what makes you an authority on this matter"; the representative who tells you that he is all for the bill you are supporting but has been quoted differently by the press; the representative who frankly states his opposition to the bill being supported by Caravan member; the representative who hasn't quite decided where he stands on certain issues; a lobbyist for the opposition who overhears the discussion between a member of the Caravan and his representative and interrupts the proceedings; how to get representatives on the floor before the assembly session officially convenes after they hear that two hundred Church people, the majority of whom are women, are waiting to interrogate them, etc., are enacted or previewed in Sociodrama sessions.

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Racial Integration

Another area of church social concern in which I have used Sociodrama has been that of racial integration. Through the processes of Sociodrama, Church members are oriented as to how to welcome a negro into the fellowship of the local Church when many in the congregation are either openly or silently opposed to such integration; how to encourage the negro to return after he has been cooly treated; how to be at ease with the negro, not offending him through unintended patronization or unnatural cordiality, how to enlist the support of others in the congregation to welcome the negro and to take a stand in his behalf; how to discuss the difficulties pertaining to making the negro a part of the fellowship with the minister of the Church, etc. Conversely, through Sociodrama, I have attempted to prepare negroes desiring to enter the fellowship of a white congregation to cope with such problems as an initial cool reception; some icy-stares; perhaps an unkind remark whether intended or not intended to be overheard; the awkward greeting of some who desire to make them welcome or have mixed feelings about this matter; how to react to those who don't like racial integration in their Church but are resigned to its inevitability; how to deal with the problems of acceptance their children or teen-age youngsters bring to them; how to gradually grow in the fellowship of the Church; how to move in white social circles outside of the Church now opened to them through acceptance in the fellowship of the white congregation and how to introduce fellow negroes into the fellowship of the white congregation. I would like to add that I have employed Sociodrama with negro church members in orienting them as to helpful procedures in procuring adequate housing in a white neighborhood or community and with white church members as a means of aiding them to assist negroes to obtain ample and wholesome living quarters in white communities or neighborhoods where only such dwellings are usually found.

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Civil Liberties

A third area in which I have utilized Sociodrama to further the cause of social concern in the Church is related to Civil Liberties. Rightly or wrongly, I have advocated the abolition of the House Unamerican Activities Committee in my preaching and other communication with Church congregations or Church groups in my Diocese. Sociodrama is enlisted to aid a willing adherent or convert to this point of view to gain support for it among Church members and Church groups. The problem is explored in Sociodrama as to how to deal with the good soul in a Church group, where the abolition of the House Unamerican Activities Committee is being proposed, who indicates that "she is horrified to hear you present such a resolution because only people who have been duped by the Communist conspiracy in America, or are fellow travellers, if not outright Communists would make such a proposal." Also, I have made use of Sociodrama to help the Church member who was promoting her conviction regarding to upholding of the constitutional right of freedom of speech through maintaining that George Rockwell, the self-styled Hitler, had a right to speak in New York in the summer of 1960, although she didn't agree with anything he had to say in his hatred campaign against Jews, Negroes, and Masons. Likewise I have availed myself of the resources of Sociodrama to assist a Church group to understand the philosophy of the Fifth Amendment and the justification in a number of instances for persons having invoked it.

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Christian Social Relations

There are other areas of Christian Social Relations in which I have used Sociodrama to an advantage which I will not elaborate upon in this paper. However, I will briefly mention them as follows: Orienting volunteers to visit the sick and the imprisoned in hospitals, nursing homes and Prisons; orienting refugee resettlement committees in churches which are resettling refugee families from behind the Iron Curtain as to procedure from the communication by letter with the refugee family before it arrives in this country and seeing it settled in work, home and community; orienting Church members who are enlisting support in their respective parishes for the United Nations, the State of Israel and negotiations involving the United States, Great Britain and Soviet Russia toward a realistic and practical agreement for the cessation of the testing of nuclear weapons. Again, I utilize Sociodrama in helping Church members to relate themselves to such community relations problems as bettering the living conditions in public institutions for the sick, aged, children and imprisoned; obtaining better housing, employment and recreational facilities for the aged; problems of juvenile needs and delinquency; obtaining community resources for the rehabilitation of the physically and mentally handicapped and prisoners; and lobbying with the town or city council for more adequate aid for the needy who have to depend upon the public welfare assistance for their support.

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Need for Further Development

While I am aware that Sociodrama has been used by other institutions and agencies to deal with some, if not all, of the aforementioned social issues, its exploitation by the church lends added significance due to the Christian imperative and theological implications regarding the responsibility of those in the Church for the social and economic problems of mankind. I have found the techniques of the role reversal and doubles most helpful. While Sociodrama doesn't really lend itself to all sorts and conditions of Church settings, I have found that those groups and individuals with the Church who have responded to its resources have profited immensely thereby. There is a great need for further development in this area. I am grateful to Sociodrama for its splendid contribution to my work in the service of my Lord. There is hardy anything profound about this presentation, but I believe it reveals potential for further communication.

(All attitudes taken regarding social issues in this article are indicative only of the authors personal viewpoint and do not necessarily represent the position of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark.)

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