Irreligion: Schweitzer and Stranahan

Many famous people visit Aspen. Some stay, some don’t. A couple of those are heroes of mine: Albert Schweitzer, who didn’t stay, and George Stranahan, who did stay. Both were brilliant, gifted, and most important, amazing altruists.

Schweitzer’s reason for coming to Aspen back in 1949 was to raise money for his medical mission in Lambaréné, Gabon (Equatorial Africa). Stranahan came for a vacation and to work on his doctoral dissertation. In Paul Andersen’s very fine four-part series on Schweitzer in the Aspen Daily News this past January, the elevation was rough on Schweitzer. Not so for Stranahan. In the short bio that Stranahan wrote for the Aspen Center for Physics it was hard for him to get any academic work done when he was so tempted by the many outdoor pursuits available in the valley — specifically fly fishing. The year was 1957 and he was already getting “hooked” on the mountains.

There might have been no big splash when Stranahan came to Aspen, but there was for Schweitzer. Schweitzer came as the keynote speaker for the Goethe Bicentennial and he was already world famous for his theological work and philanthropy. According to Google’s AI helper, it was “a seminal moment in Aspen’s history helping launch both the Aspen Music Festival and the Aspen Institute.”

I wrote my senior thesis on Schweitzer’s hugely influential work, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906). The book was a watershed moment in twentieth Christian theology that culminated in different attempts to either get rid of the miracles of Jesus by a process of “demythologization” (Rudolf Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth – 1953), or by reconceiving a “religion-less religion” with God as “the ground of all being” (John Robinson, Honest to God – 1963). Although Schweitzer took a pass on condemning those who tried to edit out the miracles in the life of Jesus, conservative theologians did not take a pass on condemning Schweitzer’s silence. However you might view Schweitzer’s opinion on the veracity of Biblical miracles, he himself walked the walk of Jesus like very few others. He could have had a very comfortable life at any theological school in the world but instead decided to pursue a medical degree so he could go live and deliver much needed healthcare in Africa and build hospitals. No, he didn’t commute back and forth from those ‘uncomfortable’ parts of Africa to the luxuries of the European elite. He stuck it out. Nine years at a stretch. You know, Africa: hot, humid, mosquitoes, exploitation, racism, etc. I remain in awe of him, not for any theological reason, but for the way he lived his life.

While Schweitzer’s brief visit marked a historical milestone in the Aspen narrative, George Stranahan’s impact has been more foundational and palpable. He visited Aspen and stayed. Something I think we who live here understand. As an heir to the Champion spark plug fortune he had options that few others have and he used it for noble causes. In fact Stranahan founded so many non-profits in the valley that its hard to list them all, such as the Aspen and Carbondale Community schools, Art Base and Third Street Center in Carbondale. His for-profit enterprises are many: these include the Woody Creek Tavern (1980), The Flying Dog Brewery (1990) and Stranahan’s Whiskey in (2004). Did I mention that his bull, Turbo, was the grand champion at the 1990 National Western Stock Show? Stranahan was something like the valley’s (good version) of Elon Musk. How does someone do all that and (according to one source) lead an expedition to the summit of K2 in 1983? It boggles the mind.

Last but not least in Stranahan’s contributions to both big and small worlds is the founding of the Aspen Center for Physics. That process started in 1959 when, while working on his Ph.D. in Physics during summers in Aspen, he decided he needed somebody to talk science with, so he proposed the idea of starting a center for physics to his friend Michael Cohen (a physicist and great rock climber – first ascents of “Cohen’s Crown” and “Cohen’s Last Problem” on the Grotto Wall in 1965) and eventually Bob Craig, director/president of the Aspen Institute. According to the New York Times (Aug. 8, 2022) Stranahan put up $38,000 of his own money. The Aspen Center for Physics (ACP) opened in 1962. The Center brings up to a thousand physicists a year to Aspen in both summer and winter to collaborate and brain storm the next breakthroughs in this oldest and most fundamental of sciences. According to the same New York Times article some 66 noble laureates have come through Aspen at the time of that writing.

As a sign of the times it is getting impossible to find affordable housing for all these physicists coming here. As stated on the ACP website, “Sharp increases in Aspen rental costs and decreases in available rental housing have forced ACP to house a growing number of physicists in Snowmass Village” — forcing them to deal with our constant traffic jams. The website continues: “Even so, the continued steep growth in housing costs is not sustainable. Without the ability to offer our participants reasonably affordable housing, ACP’s future is jeopardized. The proposed number of on-campus units (27 units with 66 beds) is driven by this reality. This plan will enable us to house most all of our participants on-campus. This housing will be solely for our short-term scientific visitors; occupancy will be about 6 months of each year. No full-time staff will live there, and these units will never be rented or sold on the open market.”

So one would think this is a slam dunk for Aspen, something we can all get behind.

While the pursuit to understand the physical world might not fall neatly under Schweitzer’s idea of “reverence for life,” both pursuits might be considered part and parcel of an appreciation for all of nature’s kinds — animate and inanimate, sentient and insentient. We all need to be reminded these “kinds” are inextricably intertwined in charity itself.

David Hale earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy, Religion and Cultural Theory from the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology. He is a Lecturer in Philosophy at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction and is a full time contractor in Snowmass.