Religious Colleges Aren’t the Church

A Lutheran bishop resigns after going against church policy by ordaining a noncelibate lesbian. Yet he remains on the faculty of a Lutheran college. How can that be? Is there a disconnect between these two arms of one mainstream Protestant religion?

The Rev. Paul W. Egertson resigned as bishop of the 140-congregation Southern California West Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. His resignation was requested by the presiding bishop of the 5.2-million-member church after he participated in the ordination of a St. Paul, Minn., woman who has been in an eight-year relationship with another woman.

Like the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has confined ordination to people who are married or celibate and has refused to ordain gay men or lesbians unwilling to commit to a life of abstinence.

Egertson has been a member of the religion faculty at California Lutheran University since 1986 and will continue in a part-time capacity after leaving the bishop’s office July 31. Yet now I am asked: Is this what you teach at CLU? Is this what the university believes?

For a religious denomination that has its roots in the fearless intellectual and spiritual discourse of the German university and that has challenged the authority of the papacy itself, religious or theological controversy should be a familiar experience. When the Augustinian monk Martin Luther posted his 95 theses for debate on the church door in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1517, he ignited a Reformation that continues to reverberate today. Unfortunately, colleges and universities, private as well as public, have generally abandoned the field of religious debate.

Most of the finest liberal arts colleges and universities of the nation, starting with Harvard, were founded by church groups and were sites of vigorous theological and moral debate before gradually sloughing off their religious affiliations. This has been largely true in Southern California as well. Our largest private university, the University of Southern California, sent its school of theology to Claremont and cut its ties with the Methodist Church long ago. A number of outstanding institutions, however, have sustained their vital relationships with the Catholic, Jewish and Protestant religions and continue to wrestle with issues affecting their parent bodies and society at large.

In a region as diverse and “post-denominational” as Southern California, the identity of church-related colleges and universities demands continuous explanation, both internally and to the outside world. Among the Protestant affiliates, the “evangelical” institutions have an easier task with their typically stronger religious requirements for faculty and clear intent to “teach religion” to students.

The “mainline” Protestant colleges and universities, like mine, face a more complicated task because of the greater openness and heterodoxy of our communities. Together, these institutions provide exceptional opportunities for intellectual achievement, the development of morality and faith and the realization of one’s vocation.

So what should we expect concerning our church-related colleges and universities?

* That interested people will appreciate there are many ways of being authentically “church-related.”

* That church-related colleges and universities clearly and honestly articulate just how doctrinal, critical, exclusive or inclusive they are.

* That the theological and social positions of the parent church be made known to members of the community.

* Within these contexts, that the most rigorous, bold and unfettered debate be encouraged in all matters of faith and reason.

The deepest issues of mind and soul are too important to be left to either church or university alone. Church-related colleges and universities are not the church. But they provide extraordinary forums for nailing theses to the wall and using both faith and reason to interpret not only written texts but also the physical and human world that is revealed to us daily in all its beauty and complexity.