By Sean Bunger
Senior
In May I will (God willing) finally walk the stage and receive a fancy piece of paper saying that I am well-studied college-passing material. I will give my goodbyes to friends and faculty, and I will move on to that mysterious thing called the “real world.”
As I prepare to say my goodbyes, however, I have realized that there are many goodbyes I hadn’t realized I would need. I will have to say goodbye to an environment of Christian brothers and sisters, a family whom I can trust. I will have to give a tearful adieu to a Christian environment of academic freedom and rigor, where I can research such topics as voodoo and sexuality, ask questions like whether Satan has always been an enemy of God or whether slavery is the ideal human condition, and where I am challenged to see the weakness of my own position and the strengths of others. And I will bid a very fond farewell to the a world in which we were all for “Christ above all” and enter one primarily about “Me above all.”
But I wonder if Bryan must make those goodbyes as well. Will Bryan need to say goodbye to the safety of family, when trust is broken by secrets? Will her rigor and freedom slip when fear replaces conversation, and will “safe” questions with easy answers replace the real challenges our beliefs face? Will Christ above all remain true, if we cannot follow his greatest commandment to simply love one another?
These questions are prompted by the discussion of the statement of faith. It is not that a change or clarification could ever cause Bryan to crumble around our feet. Adding to, or affirming, Bryan’s position may seem less than ideal to me, but I don’t fear that it could shatter our relationship as a family and our safety to pursue study in any area (even if I fear it will strain it).
What engenders distrust and fear, what tears apart our family, is the secrecy and swiftness with which this change has appeared. It is only magnified because it seems incongruent with Bryan’s previous way of doing things. Bryan has given professors reign to create curriculum that allows for evolution It has allowed classes which were as friendly to evolution as to other views of creation. And then, in what seemed an overnight reversal for many in the Bryan community, we are being told that Bryan has always held to a “strong, straight view of creation,” that this clarification is simply what the college has always affirmed. We have been told that Bryan believes that holding an evolutionary perspective is completely out of line with scripture. And we cry out that if that is the case, how did these people get here? How have they been here for so long? Because now they are being hurt, and we hate that.
This discussion of clarification began just before last semester, but for many, the first they heard of it is the now infamous chapel of the great (not-really-a-)debate. At that point it was being pushed to be sent to faculty to renew their contracts. No one who knows Bryan’s professors could think that there would be no loss with this change, but no one saw fit to give them fair warning that they should seek employment elsewhere. Not until February.
This letter is not a call to leave the statement as it is. That call has sounded, and indeed, is still sounding. This letter is to ask for a greater and more Christ-like sacrifice from the leaders of Bryan College. It is a request for an apology and an offer of forgiveness. And I will apologize as well, for my apathy, for my promotion of disunity, and for my harshness when Bryan has failed my ideals in the past, to measure up to my desires above all. Because, I’m not above all, the statement’s clarification or preservation is not above all, and the opinion or criticism or anger of those who oppose it is not above all. Christ is, and he calls for love, fellowship, and forgiveness.
So as arrogant as it is, I apologize on behalf of myself and fellow students who have wronged Bryan’s leadership in the past, because we have acted poorly at times in anger and in selfishness, or even hurting with our help if I may borrow the chapel topic. I am sorry. And I ask that Bryan’s leadership would do the same, and commit themselves to honoring God not just in the actions they take, but in how they go about them so that we can learn to trust and love each other again in a way that puts Christ above our differences, our offenses, and our self-righteous anger.