"Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation"
posted by Tim Nafziger on 01/25/10 at 05:02 PMBlest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
- Francis Scott Key, Star Spangled Banner, 1814
Last week my alma mater, Goshen (Ind.) College, announced that it would begin playing the Star Spangled Banner at sporting events. Their press release frames the decision as an exciting new theological and socio-political adventure for the college. Make sure to read the press release especially the quotes from GC president James Brenneman and the GC presidential council.
I should say up front that this issue is fairly new to me. I wasn't much of an athlete, so the playing of the national anthem was not an issue for me growing up. For a thoughtful perspective on GC's decision from someone who has thought about this all their life, read a Open Letter to GC from Britt Kaufmann, longtime Mennonite athlete, coach and GC alum.
I'm mainly interested in this decision because of the way it was rolled out as part of a broader vision emerging from GC President James Brenneman. See his recent sermon Brenneman calls for new 'school of thought' at Goshen of positive engagement in the world.
What right has one to prophesy, without accepting responsibility for decision-making, management and accountability? - J. Lawrence Burkholder as quoted by James Brenneman
Based on the GC press release, the message seems to be, through the text and accompanying photos, that Brenneman hopes to take GC in the path inspired by ethicist and former GC president J. Lawrence Burkholder. That is the Mennonite tradition of institution building and a focus on working from within the system. In the anthem release, Brenneman calls this approach that of the "loyal opposition."
Wikipedia defines "loyal opposition" as dissent "while maintaining loyalty to the source of the government's power." In the United Kingdom, where the term was coined, that meant the Queen. When Brenneman uses this term, what source of the U.S. government power is he pledging loyalty to? The largest military in the world? It's economic hegemony?
To understand where Brenneman is headed requires a closer look at J. Lawrence Burkholder. Burkholder's vision flows out of a focus on the "sea of moral ambiguity" as Perry Bush describes it in his article "The Political Education of Vietnam Christian Service, 1954-1975". Bush references the story I often heard Burkholder tell of the time while working in China when he forced frantic refugees off a plane while the pilot held a gun to their heads so that the plane could take off. For Burkholder, this story was the starting point for an Anabaptist ethical framework based on political compromise and accomodation rather then sectarian idealism.
I respect Burkholder's critique of idealism and his recognition of the need to engage with moral ambiguity. Unfortunately, there seems to be a pattern of leaders of Mennonite institutions citing Burkholder's work as they move their organizations towards the mainstream and away from distintive Anabaptist ways of being. In a chapter in Building Communities of Compassion: Mennonite Mutual Aid in Theory and Practice, GC Professor Keith Graber Miller writes about how former Mennonite Mutual Aid president Howard Brenneman met regularly with Burkholder for breakfast as he gradually took MMA from being a mutual aid organization to being just another insurance and investment firm with Mennonites as a target market. For more on this see Peacewashing MMA.
Brenneman's distinctive take on the Burkholderian path is to compromise and accomodate while in the name of prophetic critique. The GC press release quotes the President's council saying that playing the anthem will "opens up new possibilities for members of the Goshen College community to publicly offer prophetic critique." That's some serious Mennonite doublespeak, unless the GC administration has in mind some sort of court prophet role along the lines of Jim Wallis. Aside from Nathan, there aren't a whole lot of positive biblical models for this. In fairness to Brenneman he does mention the need for "dissent standing outside the systems of the world" but he uses the loaded term "naysayers" to describe this school of thought.
Rather then trying to frame this decision as a new socio-theological adventure, I think they would be better off if they just acknowledged that this decision reflects the increasing number of non-Mennonite students at the college and specifically the fact that the athletic teams (aside from soccer) are mostly non-Mennonite. Simply saying that a majority of athletes want this change and that this decision reflects their wishes (as I have heard may be the case) would be a much less disturbing approach.
Tim Nafziger is a activist, writer, organizer and web developer. He lives in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago with his wife Charletta where he attends Living Water Community Church. Recently, he helped to start the Young Anabaptist Radicals blog. For more about his life, read his first blog post.
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Tim, I am really glad you wrote this piece, I saw the press release in the Mennonite and you did a great job of articulating my incomplete thoughts. This is yet another example of the insightful well-written posts that you come up with and I hope the Mennonite recognizes the important work you are doing :)
Choosing to play "Oh God of all the Nations" would have allowed everyone at the game to express their love of country. It is well known, has an evocative tune to which many hymns have been set, and relativizes love of country under the Lordship of God over all the creation. Program notes could explain this. Perhaps GC will move to this as its next step.
Thanks for articulating your concern, and mine, so well. I wonder why not something like "America the Beautiful"? No piece celebrating "bombs bursting in air" should ever become ritualized at a peace-promoting college.
If you listen carefully it seems there is another motive lurking in the background. This interview between the public figure that "outed" Goshen as Anabaptist raises the question of federal funding of the college. I think Brenneman and company realized that the cost of bad PR could ultimately include serious questions about federal funding. Is anyone ready to tell Anabaptist institutions that they shouldn't accept the tax dollars extracted by the government at the threat of force? (http://townhall.com/MediaPlayer/AudioPlayer.aspx?ContentGuid=f3333d13-1689-4b17-9edb-8c4061c4c188) Even Brenneman argued against this decision just over a year ago (http://record.goshen.edu/2009/11/8187-jim-brenneman-on-why-gc-doesnt-play-the-national-anthem-at-sports-games). Burkholder is convenient cover for more foreplay with our DC-based Empire.
Tim, thanks for your post. This should be on the front page of the Mennonite. As a convert to the Mennonite Church, I am saddened by the consistent, gradual selling out of everything I thought Anabaptist-Mennonites were about: mutual aid, peace, community and discipleship. And this at the exact moment so many have looked to the Mennonite church as a beacon of hope in a Christianity sold out to the Empire long, long ago. And now here we go too...I am just wondering when some of us should jump the ship and start a new thing, because the Mennonite Church needs reformation, badly. And not in the direction Brennaman wants to take us, that is for sure. That is not reformation at all.
When Brenneman/Burkholder talk about the need to engage the world, I get it. What I don’t get is how GC’s national anthem decision embodies such engagement. To me, it smacks more of acquiescence, an absence of engagement. I don’t see how the passive act of playing a song that the rest of the world thinks is perfectly normal to play before a basketball game will in any way spark the sort of “new possibilities” for “prophetic critique” on “issues of deepest moral conviction” that the President’s Council anticipates. It seems to me that the real engagement opportunity of this whole controversy came with the controversy itself. When GC’s lack of national anthem prompted the Mike Gallagher Show and local newspapers to ask GC’s Dean of Students for explanations, that was a unique moment to engage the community. That’s the moment to say who we are, what we stand for—not just what we stand against, as Brenneman alleges. (Examples: we are for the troops staying home to raise their kids, we are for war taxes being diverted to create jobs in Elkhart, etc.) Yet, through the recent national anthem decision, GC seems to shy away from this opportunity, to opt for appeasement of, not engagement of, anthem seekers. In so doing, GC sadly does more to end the conversation with the non-Menno world than to foster it.
Goshen has made a terrible decision. There is a petition to try to help reverse it: Resistance to the National Anthem at Goshen College: http://www.jesusradicals.com/anarchism/resistance-to-the-national-anthem-at-goshen-college-2/