Bryan College Triangle

Jonathan Warner
Columnist

I have been at Bryan for almost four years now. There are many things I have grown to love about my school, but at the end of my time here I am frustrated.

I am tired of the rules that treat me like a child rather than an adult. I am sick of the perspective that says that our “standards” make Bryan a better or holier place.

Many of the rules at Bryan attempt to guard us from the excesses of the world, but they mostly end up creating a forbidden fruit mentality and fostering a synthetic environment. These rules have created a wall of inconsistency in our Christian witness and a barrier of understanding in our personal maturity.

If Jesus came to Bryan and turned the water into wine (John 2), what would we say? “Oh, no Jesus! We can’t have that happen here, that’s not allowed. Don’t you know that drinking leads to sin?” After all, it would be wrong for us to enjoy what creative minds throughout history have concocted into a plethora of fantastic drinks.

What if King David wanted to “dance before the Lord with all his might,” (2 Samuel 6:14) at a Bryan event? “No, David, don’t you know that’s not allowed? We can’t dance because that’s provocative or something like that. We can’t express ourselves in all the ways God intended us to because the Board won’t approve.”

Dietrich Bonheoffer, C.S. Lewis, and many of the greatest Christian theological minds of the past centuries were prolific smokers. For many people, past and present, smoking is intimately linked to reflection, fellowship, and their thought process. But oh, I forgot, that’s not allowed either. Heaven forbid that we enjoy something God created. I understand the health concerns, but simple moderation has a powerful way of tempering excess.

It’s not just the actual rules that can be upsetting. It’s the rules of perception, a mentality that echoes across campus. It’s when people at Bryan don’t take time to put themselves in other’s shoes and understand where they are at or why they express themselves the way they do. Instead, a verdict is rendered, the gavel falls, and the witness of the gospel is marred.

This is the part where I would typically try to balance my argument by listing all the things I like about Bryan, but that’s not what this article is about. I do love my school and I will forever have a special place in my heart for the dear faculty and staff that make it so wonderful. However, I hope this article spurs the process of necessary change along.

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I am trying to make a point.

Yes, rules are a necessary part of a community. I’m not saying that I want people smoking and drinking on campus, but give them the freedom to not have to look over their shoulder when they do it off campus. Because let’s face it, whether you like it or not, they do…all the time.

Dancing needs to happen and lots of it; if only for the bare fact that when students graduate from here and find themselves dancing in a secular environment they don’t look like they just discovered how to walk. I plead guilty. The least the college can do is stand out of the way.

Bryan policy should look to foster an environment of freedom that gives students the chance to make mistakes and thoughtful decisions about how they live. In order for students to truly be prepared for the real world they need to learn how to make responsible choices while they’re at Bryan. Learning to make mature choices is a process, one that doesn’t take a 4-year sabbatical and starts back up after graduation.

Bryan College, please stop acting like these rules make us a holier place. They stifle our God given freedom and individuality and create an artificiality that mares our witness and doesn’t prepare us for the real world. This column is dedicated to whoever is holding these walls (rules) up. The wall is slowly crumbling. Get out of the way if you can’t lend a hand.

Dear Readers,

Listening. It may seem like a simple task of processing what you hear, but is that really listening? People rush or wind their way through life, but in the midst of it all how often do they truly listen?

Listening involves so much more than hearing what is being said or done. It is the act of understanding what you hear. It is the precious aspect of absorbing your environment. It is the process of creating time and space for meaning. A good listener is always in demand and hard to come by.

This piece may seem a little metaphysical for a Triangle column, but please bear with me as I try to relay something I have been reflecting on lately.

Conversation is a constant part of each day, but when we speak to each other, how much do we listen? In order to truly listen we must be completely present and in the moment. It is challenging to detach ourselves from the flow of the day at a moment’s notice and focus our energy on paying attention to a conversation. The reward of making the effort to listen is that we can learn so much more about a person than what their words are saying. The context and the subtext of a conversation are always speaking.

As we move about each day, we overhear hundreds of bits and pieces of conversation, most of which we conveniently tune out without even realizing it. There is a lot of knowledge and insight to be gained about our community by tuning into those little strains of noise that glide through its air waves. Your environment is always speaking.

An underappreciated aspect of listening is the need to listen to ourselves. For most of us at Bryan, life is a rush. It is full of continual doing. In the midst of each day there are many things that our heart, mind and body are trying to tell us, but we leave no voice for them because we are not listening. Try to let your cares, burdens and doings hang for a moment in time and listen. There are many lessons to be learned in silence.

Listening is not convenient and it requires real work. It is essential to developing a sharp mind and open heart. It is a key that unlocks many doors.

A good listener is able to pick out voices and moods in a room full of people. A great listener is able to hear the proverbial pin drop. A great listener knows that listening is the challenge of a lifetime.

Jonathan Warner
Columnist 

Jesse Murray
Senior Reporter

On March 9, Pope Benedict XVI spoke with visiting U.S. bishops, encouraging them to fight against the gay marriage lobby, though it may seem counter cultural. The BBC ran a story on this as did Fox News and USA Today—however I was unable to find anything from CNN. At any rate, the pope’s outspokenness on the issue is causing waves of disapproval and a deafening outcry from American gay rights activists—and just simple USA Today readers.

Here are a few of the comments underneath the article from USA Today’s March 9 online story, or at least some paraphrasing. One reader asked if celibate men were qualified to teach on human sexuality. Another made a philosophical comparison between the Roman Catholic Church and the Taliban, suggesting that both are “stuck in the 12th century.” He said a bit more than that, but you can go read it if you’re that interested.

Another reader suggested that the Catholic Church’s credibility was akin to “a grain of sand” in size that is. Still another suggested that hate is “born and nurtured in religions.” Finally, one reader asked the question, “So when did Jesus actually say that gay marriage was a sin…” to which another promptly replied, “Romans.”

I guess I just find all of this sadly amusing. All of the back and forth has created such an environment as to forever douse any possibility of understanding or helpful dialogue. But what is helpful dialogue? I’ll admit the purpose of this article is not to offer any one answer to this issue, but rather to sit down in the filth that is the universal church’s relationship with the rest of the world and admit that it stinks and there’s only so much we unhappy few can do about it.

Call it sin or call it the institution’s lack of ability to embrace the modern culture, the fact of the matter is that everyone is wearing ear muffs and can only hear muffled and distorted sounds coming from the other side. Take it from someone who worked at a purging machine in an air-conditioning factory—I was required to wear ear muffs, which made it impossible to hear anyone else speaking—so I just spent the summer working on my JFK impersonation.

Having said that, if the Church could just understand that __(LOUD NOISES)__, and if everyone else could just see that __(LOUDER NOISES)__–the gospel would once again become relevant and there would be peace on earth. But this is to over-simplify the issue at hand.

The Roman Catholic Church is quickly losing its hold on its own flock—not that it’s ever had a tight grasp since the 16th century. Roman Catholicism is, indeed, losing members daily to nominalism (as is Protestantism and every other ‘ism’ you can think of). But the RCC’s stance on contraceptives has long been a hot-button issue, and 21st century catholic youth are not in full support of the church’s position. Even with gay marriage, the pope might have the backing of the clergy majority, but the tide of commoners is swiftly rising against him. How long will the RCC be able to keep its head above water in the days of culture shock and shift?

Is the Roman church’s fervent appeal for tradition and morality killing it? Perhaps. Am I pro-gay marriage? It doesn’t matter either way—not that I’m culturally oblivious, but I don’t think it exists.

Every good idea is stolen from someone else, and this is no different. Mark Regnerus (who has recently become a member of the Roman Catholic Church) spoke a little bit about this in chapel a while back. His argument was along these lines: perhaps marriage is a separate institution altogether, distinct from the state and the Church. It is a spiritual establishment, a bequest that, by its nature, can only be bestowed within a Godly context. If this is, indeed, the case (and I’m convinced), then neither the state nor the Church has more authority to join two persons in holy matrimony than the Office of Student Life… and I think the Church understands this (or should)—and that is why everyone should relax. Marriage transcends social characterizations.

I would ask the same question of Kim Kardashian’s marriage. How long did that last—72 days? The Titanic was number one in the box office for 33 days longer—which begs the question, was this a true marriage or simply a man and woman being granted certain benefits from the State, lasting as long as they were sexually and emotionally interested in each other? You get my point? This is not marriage. Marriage is a sacred thing that should, perhaps, be protected and recognized by the Church (and the State); however, these institutions have no authority to grant marriage or to define it. The institution of marriage predates both the Church and the State. In fact, the holy mystery of marriage, in large part, defines the Church itself.

In my humble opinion, the pope and the RCC might do well to tone down the rhetoric, knowing fully that I have their back. And regarding contraception, well… perhaps it’s time for a little concession. It’s been almost 14 years since the last papal bull. That’s all I’ve got.

So let the state join whomever the state would join, and by the same right, we must let individual churches join whosoever they will upon their own convictions. We can rest in knowing that the authority to grant marriage lies solely within the Trinity.

So then, let us spend our time loving them all— not condoning but extending grace as often as we have been given it, remembering with Paul that: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.”

Alex Green
Assistant Online Editor

I’m just a guy writing a column. I get asked frequently if I am a student here and have paid every rate for food in the cafeteria and Lion’s Den. I almost got a staff discount once, too.

The truth is that I arrived at Bryan as a student last semester, but I have been at and around this school since I was a kid. My parents often drove my sister and I around the campus on our autumn Sunday afternoon cruises.

After some post-graduate adventures, I have landed here and am here to stay – hopefully until graduation. These are my thoughts on a place that I love not only as a student but as a piece of my home, Dayton. I’m not always right, but I am the one writing the column. Enjoy.

Mr. Palmer recently showed his Communication Ethics and Issues class a video about the Light’s Golden Jubilee, an extravaganza celebrated in October 1929 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the electric light bulb – thank you, Mr. Palmer; that is good stuff.

The jubilee was centered around the person of Thomas A. Edison, great American inventor and father of the electric light bulb. At a certain moment during the festival, Americans coast-to-coast were asked to switch off their lights in recognition of Edison, a giant among giants by the Dearborn, Mich., party.

The men who had come to acknowledge this titan of his times included President Herbert Hoover, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, industrialists John D. Rockefeller Jr. and J.P. Morgan and Edison’s admirer and auto revolutionist Henry Ford.

Today, I reluctantly acknowledge that giants are extinct. We Americans look back with swelling pride and awe at those figures of our past because they are like fossils, uncovered in the now bleak and deserted forests of the past. We reconstruct their impact and influence and put them on display in our museums. Read full story »

Reporter Shane Vicry talks about the cold, hard reality of having a football team here at Bryan / Photo by Maddie Doucet

Shane Vicry
Triangle Reporter

In August at the Rhea Students Appreciation and Orientation Dinner hosted in Latimer for incoming freshman from RCHS and their parents, President Livesay made one of the biggest and most stunning announcements in Bryan college history.

Following guest speaker and former Rhea County football coach Micah Ruehling, Dr. Livesay moved towards the microphone with a pep in his step. Grinning from ear to ear, the president had the look of a man swelling with pride for what he was about to reveal. The room was abuzz as the first few words fell from Livesay’s lips.

“I have a huge announcement for you all this evening; one only a handful of people are even aware of.”

Curiosity abounded, but no one in attendance could have imagined the magnitude of what came next. Read full story »