Dear Editor,
“The Problem isn’t Bryan, it’s you.” Healthy? I think not.
As a freshman and a sophomore, I was bewildered that a religion, a God would defend the attitude, “if you don’t like it, you shouldn’t be here, after all you chose to be here and in doing so, you chose to abide by the rules.”
Some at Bryan might not mean for it, or even be aware it can be taken this way, but the rules here have successfully misrepresented Christianity. Fact. I can only call it a misrepresentation after taking four years to learn that Christianity could not be further from the environment that has been created here.
In an attempt to highlight the unworldly bubble environment that exists here on the hill, I pierced my ear (in 2008, it was against school rules for males to have piercings). I do not like earrings; I have no desire for accessorizing an outfit with a diamond stud. This was a challenge.
It was a challenge to the institution, a challenge for the day we live in, a challenge to a rule representing an approach that somehow by filtering the do’s and don’t of individuals, that will lead to a more spiritually alive campus with students solely focused on what is important.
In principle, my being here agrees to living by these rules. Yet, I did not agree to mindlessly sit in classes, soak up the environment day in and day out and question nothing. This I did not agree to. Nor should anyone.
Simply put, how can Bryan ever broaden the horizons of potential students, and those lives that need saving, when it stands firm in a redundant collection of useless legalism?
Never have I seen so many people wear “masks,” put on at the start of a day, to protect them as they walk through the triangle, for if someone dare ask them how things are, they can confidently respond with a false smile when answering, “Good… everything’s good.” No, it isn’t.
Attempts at change, at improving the community at large, gets shot down for fear that any change will take away from the untouchable, perfect environment that already exists. But here at Bryan College things are not good. In fact, they are far from good.
Why do we feel the need to only be good! Take the mask off. Walk down the corridors of Mercer, challenge the problems, and question the rules. The rules that stand firm to challenge, accept. Do not simply follow the yellow brick road and have your college experience spoon fed to you. Mature and come of age in a sound Christian environment, but learn how to tackle the issues of the world, not become experts at avoiding them at all costs, thinking you are doomed should you ever be exposed.
These Bryan College eyes that you are wearing are not real. They will get you nowhere when you step off this hill. You will spread the gospel to no one while going about your business as far from James 4:12 as you currently stand.
Friends back home looked at the website noticed the motto “Christ Above All;” of course they did, and of course they should. It is everywhere, as it should be. But what it shouldn’t be is devalued and undermined on a daily basis throughout life on this campus. If we claim to have this approach, why is this so poorly represented in everything that makes up the institution?
Don’t confuse this message as a stab at trivial rules and regulations. As a senior, I’m over it. I laugh at the aggravation that these rules cause; it takes up so much of our time and emotion, provoking petty arguments and distracting us from the bigger picture: “Christ Above All.”
For someone to find truth in something as a result of it being portrayed inconsistently and incorrectly, to then have to decipher that in all actuality those claiming the name are further proof of the utterly flawed nature of humanity, is surely a backward process.
A special few have spent the last four years ministering to those who had no previous knowledge of Christianity, righting the wrongs created by our institution. For them I am eternally grateful.
To those of you who have questioned why myself, and those similar to me (an athlete, a foreigner, a non-believer or worse, all three at once) even bother to come to a place like this, for it is not where “we” belong, for “we” are the minority: guess what you will become the day you graduate and set foot into the big wide real world?
William Jennings Bryan said, “Never be afraid to stand with the minority when the minority is right.”
I politely ask that you stop standing in the way of our school’s namesake and I, and truly begin to put “Christ Above All.”
“Destiny is no matter of chance,” Bryan also said. “It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
You have passed up an opportunity to lead by example, to practice what you preach, and to share the love that has previously and is continually, shown to you.
Yes, iron sharpens iron, but for what purpose is the iron being sharpened if it is never put to any use?
– Senior Harry Sherwood