Christian Universities: Academic Mission or Denominational Representation?

Challenges at Seattle Pacific and Calvin

When I started teaching at Olivet Nazarene University in the early 1980s, a colleague and I were interested in exploring what made Christian Colleges distinct (an interest that I maintain four decades later). As part of that research, I came across a history of a sister denominational institution. Its founding documents said the institution existed “for the proclamation of the doctrine of entire sanctification¹.” I remember asking my colleague how a university mission could be based on a theological position.

The question is even more puzzling to me today.

Seattle Pacific University and Calvin University have been in the news in recent months due to conflicts over LGBTQ+ engagement. In both schools advocates among the student body, faculty, and staff have called for increased inclusion. In both cases, the sponsoring denomination has taken a hard line stance.

Students at Seattle Pacific have been engaged in a collective action in the president’s office for several weeks even though the spring term has ended. The students have started a GoFundMe campaign to support legal costs of an anticipated lawsuit against the SPU board of trustees for “harming the institution”. Back in April, nearly three-quarters of the SPU faculty approved a motion of no-confidence in the board, calling for a change to the university’s statement on human sexuality. Students favoring LGBTQ+ inclusion broad rainbow flags to commencement and handed them to the president as they crossed the stage.

The Free Methodist Church reiterated its traditional position that says sex can only be appropriate in a marriage relationship involving one man and one woman. Leaders further stated that any university that varied from the FMC position would cease to be an FMC sponsored school. The expectation, then, is that there is no way to change the university statement because it differs from the denominational position.

Calvin University has had an interesting path on LGBTQ+ inclusion. Two years ago, the student body elected their first openly gay student body president. In spite of this openness on the part of students, the institution has tried to hold to a traditional line. A staff member left the institution after her same-sex relationship became public. A social work professor, who had previously been denied tenure due to his LGBTQ+ advocacy but remained employed on short term contracts, was not renewed after he performed the former staff member’s marriage ceremony.

In June, the Christian Reformed Church of North America endorsed a traditionalist view of human sexuality. More importantly, they elevated this position to “confessional status”. The student newspaper did an excellent job of explaining the implications this new status would have.

If Synod 2022 declares the CRC stance on human sexuality already confessional, it could retroactively signify agreement with a stance against same-sex marriage. A strong contingent of Calvin’s faculty affirms same-sex marriage. Others who signed the letter side with the CRC stance but see confessional status as a step too far.

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All of this brings me back to my question from the early 1980s. What does it mean for an institution of higher education to hold to a denominational position? This becomes especially problematic in light of changes in student demographics in recent decades. Many students at Christian Universities are non-denominational (or think they are). Others have come to the Christian University from denominations that have been LGBTQ+ affirming for years. A small minority are from the sponsoring denomination and a subset of those are gay.

What does a university do with such diversity of students? The students want to discuss LGBTQ+ acceptance, may define themselves as allies, and have little tolerance for university positions they see as intolerant.

I’d suggest that the answer is to lean into the university’s academic mission. A couple of months ago, I read a wonderful new book by Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner² called “The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be”. There’s a lot in this book worthy of further examination and I’ll likely come back to it in future newsletters. For now, I want to lift out passages from late in the book where they are giving advice to colleges based upon their decade-long research.

Having a mission that is academic, that you embody, and that you live up to is not easy. It is perhaps least problematic in religious institutions, where most members of the campus endorse a particular spiritual mission…But as times change and the population becomes increasingly heterogeneous, one cannot count on students and other constituencies knowing the meaning (or perhaps even the name) of the creed. (254)

But left to its own devices, the mission [of a university] can come to seem an occasion for lip service, if not increasingly vestigial. And so, we emphatically embrace a practice that we term intertwining. Since, as we have argued, the only major legitimate purpose of an avowedly nonvocational college is an academic one, any additional mission needs to be carefully and thoroughly intertwined with the academic mission. (255-256) 

The academic mission of a Christian University must be central to its work and must be in alignment with other aspects of institutional life. Students and faculty are quick to pick up when things are in misalignment. When students say that Christian institutions should be compassionate and exhibit grace, they are calling out the ways that the denominational position is out of alignment with their educational experience.

Consider how the Seattle Pacific faculty addressed their concerns to the Board of Trustees in advance of the Spring Board Meeting. This is a section of the resolution sent to the Board after months seeking a “third way” forward.

[As] an institution of Christian higher learning, SPU has a mission and purpose distinct from that of a Christian church; i.e., while churches may commit to a side or “stand” in theological debates for the sake of providing moral clarity to their congregants, a Christian university must train its students in a process of critical inquiry, continually questioning and probing our way towards truth, remaining committed to Christian faith while avoiding the sectarianism that has divided the Christian community[.]

The academic mission of the Christian University is centered on how students are transformed by their education and incorporate a broader understanding of faith and vocation into the broader culture beyond the university. Issues of LGBTQ+ inclusion aren’t doctrinal statements to be debated and affirmed. They are part and parcel of the work Christian universities do. As the SPU students observe, to treat it as otherwise is to do real damage to their educational experience.

Denominations treat these positions on traditional sexuality as abstract positions to be defended in light of cultural change. They want to support the idea of traditional marriage as a means of showing fidelity.

Christian universities pursue a different vision of fidelity — that of being faithful to their students. Their lives matter and demand to be taken seriously. In a newsletter after the CRCNA decision, my friend Kristin Kobes Du Mez wrote the following.

This week has been filled with conversations among members of the CRC and Calvin faculty, staff, and students. Beautiful and heavy conversations. I’ve wept with parents of LGBTQ kids who are heartbroken and distraught that there is no place for them in our church. I’ve thought of the Calvin history student who was queer, who took her own life two years ago. I think of her often, and of others I can name, and for whom I fear. I’ve checked in with colleagues to see who is staying (for now) and who is planning to go. I’ve listened to current students discuss the possibilities of getting out of their leases for the coming year so they can transfer.

Wendy Fischer and Howard Gardner argue that the transformational mission of college is key to its separation from a vocational institution. It is also key to its identity as a faith based community of scholars (faculty and students both). To require it to be an outpost³of the denomination’s positions is to do damage to that mission.

1. a key doctrine of the Church of the Nazarene.

2. I’ve been a fan of Howard Gardner’s for decades. His research on multiple intelligences and “good work” is excellent.

3. I should point out that denominations have a much harder time holding their local congregations to denominational stances than their colleges because they are so diffuse.