Need more transparency
by Steve Dintaman, Klaipeda, Lithuania
As I read Alan Stucky's "A Modest Proposal for our Colleges" (June), I wasn't quite sure what the real message was. He suggests that "everyone in Mennonite Church USA" should agree that all our colleges "are genuinely attempting to be faithful Christian institutions." Furthermore, we should be "actively working to dispel all stereotypes and rumors."
The idea that seems to underlie his whole article is that those people who are critical of our colleges—or who wonder about how genuinely Christian they are—are operating on the basis of "stereotypes and rumors," and that if we just spoke accurately and truthfully, the whole situation would clear up. It seems like the real message he is sending is, "Our colleges are doing a great job; those people who question their Christian faithfulness are simply perpetuating stereotypes and passing along rumors." That doesn't seem like a good way to start a constructive discussion about Mennonite colleges.
Our Mennonite college leaders have for years been saying publicly that our critics have got it all wrong, while personally and internally they struggle with what to do about teachers whose Christian orthodoxy they know to be questionable. I think a more profitable way to start a genuinely open discussion about our Mennonite colleges would be for our college leaders to be more transparent about controversial interpretations of Christian faith and practice on our campuses, and for them to say that the critical voices they are hearing will be honored and heard, not dismissed as rumormongers.
Associated Issue: Free to serve - June 2010
Associated Article: A modest proposal for our colleges
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I think that Alan is looking at this particularly from the angle of GC/MC mistrust and broad stereotyping of "other" Mennonite colleges (versus one's alma mater), whereas Steve's looking from a neutral standpoint at Mennonite colleges in general. I think you each make good points based on your particular perspective. One point of challenge to Steve though: to call a person's Christian orthodoxy "questionable" seems inevitably subjective. Maybe there should be hospitable room for faculty and staff that are on the fringes of mainstream Mennonite thought within an institution that is still "genuinely attempting to be [faithfully Christian.]"