Lawson Stone has provided the best potential rebuttal to the "We Wonder" series of the majority of the tenured faculty. Here are his wonderings in response to theirs:
I wonder how everyone knows for sure that the president has not been invited to the meeting, and to preparatory meetings prior to October 17, which any thoughtful person surely knows will be held.
I'd be glad to hear that he was. My hunch is that there have been preparatory meetings all right, but not with Greenway or many beyond the power core of the board. By the way, I've noticed that Maxie Dunnam has started reading posts in the Alumni Coffee House. Wonder if he's warming up for an interim presidency that Smith thinks is already a done deal?
I wonder what role the president's attorney plays in complicating the Board's attempt to hear from the President at the meeting? I wonder what demands the president's attorney has made as conditions to the president's potential acceptance of the Board's invitation, should it occur?
I wonder how much the "We Wonder" group knows, and from whom they know it? What if the Board has in fact asked the president to be present? What if the the president and his lawyer scuttle the process and thus confirm the "We Wonder" group's suspicions? What if they all know about that?
I like Lawson. But you won't convince me easily that individuals like Larry Wood or Cathy Stonehouse are anything but pure of heart. They're just not the kind of political types who would deliberately mislead in this way. If there's a conspiracy, then someone has to be manipulating most of the people on this list, and "pure of heart" in this case doesn't mean stupid or gullible.
I don't know how the "We Wonder" group knows what they claim to know. I don't know enough to call anyone to join me in any action. I only have fragments and speculations, because the people I know don't violate their confidences in the interest of their faction's program or power.
I wonder if anyone calling loudly and long has a weekly, intimate, mentoring meeting with the president, and has done so for a long time? Why have they not disclosed their bias and the potential source of their information?
Peter Kerr got a little testy with Lawson yesterday, but I know that more than one person agrees with Peter on this claim: that Lawson seems to know some confidential stuff too. Of course the more we know, the better we can understand what's really going on here. I don't begrudge anyone knowledge that can help us get at the truth here.
I still wonder what's really going on here. My intuitions tell me this is not really about the presidency at all, but is somehow about weakening a board that has exercised a good bit of oversight at the point of the school's founding values and mission.
Perhaps there is some truth to this but in a slightly different way. We have a very strong part of the board with a very strong vision for what Asbury should be. It makes sense to think that they do not think Greenway fits as well with that vision and thus think that getting rid of Greenway is key to movement toward that vision.
But ultimately such a core does not get to decide by themselves what the seminary will be. It is officially the board as a whole that decides this in conjunction with the faculty.
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James, while I think most of the faculty signing these questions will stay, I also strongly suspect that some of them will go if the board does not self-discipline at all but simply lets the maneuverings of the chair and others go unchecked business as usual.
I think I am picking up on some subsidiary dynamics here also. Certainly Greenway was no liberal by any means, but I wonder (and this is pure speculation) if there is a postmodern boogie man here too. At the Truth Conference the Wesleyan Church put on here at IWU this past summer, we were allowed to see a book by Greenway and several of those signing the Wonder Documents. The book was on ministering in a postmodern age.
I wonder (someone help me here) if some of these people think they are fighting the seminary going in a postmodern direction? I've been noticing this boogie man of postmodernism popping up here and there a lot in multiple and unrelated locations.
Maybe there is something to this, then, as a part of the mix. I'm sure there are a lot of intangibles involved here that may add up to make the difference between 1) he didn't come back to the meeting, let's overlook that and get this train back on the track and 2) that's it, he's insubordinate and toast.
I think there are legitimate fears among orthodox Christians about some of the more virulent forms of post-modernism. But what I think I am seeing in a lot of places is a failure to recognize the limits of modernism rather than a more justified caution in relation to the extreme postmodernists.
Glad to know Colorado went well. I know Brian Russell was there and he is gold (Wesleyan, you know :-).
Understanding post-modern theology is one thing. Pushing it on students is another. I know a couple of students who consistently felt like they were lepers because they refused to embrace every moment of Kingdom, Church, and World.
From what I understand, the board has been clear over the last couple of years that they want to renew the seminary's commitment to an evangelical/Wesleyan position.
I get the feeling that there are some faculty that would love to see adherents to a "Wesleyan orthodoxy" take a hike. This is no clearer to me than in the fact that not all tenured professors were asked to sign the "we wonder" statements.
OK, now we're getting more dots. I don't personally see Greenway as much of a postmodernist. But could it be that he protected some at the seminary from individuals on the board?
I hear Ira Galloway is quite a bull when it comes to "liberalism" in the Methodist Church.
Thoughts?
As an alum (M.Div '99) I've been watching this unfold via this blog. I keep telling myself I need to activate my lifeshare account so I can get this info a little more firsthand. I hope this crisis does not take the inevitable pessimistic route we fear it will.
But that's not why I'm finally choosing to post. Matthew mentions a couple of students who felt like PoMo Theology was pushed on them. Something very serious must have changed in the atmosphere at ATS if that is the case. When I see names like Larry Wood, Allen Coppedge, Bob Muholland, and Jerry Walls on the list of "wonderers" I can assure you that a commitment to orthodoxy and Wesleyan Holiness is as strong as ever. This doesn't even include the number of people on that list and not on that list that I know would have to undergo some sort of brain transfusion before we would see otherwise. I mention these four because they were the voice of opposition when us pre-post-moderns would speak. And it was always done in the right spirit.
Of course, Jerry Walls was always a fireball ;-)
From what I understand, Greenway is pretty evangelical. I allow that my understanding might be a misunderstanding, however, Ken, you might have connected another dot.
Ira Galloway is a Confessing Movement big wig. I don't know how that plays into his role as a BoT member, though.
I graduated from ATS in 2005. I know that then, PoMo theology was on the upswing at ATS. I personally liked it. However, the question was always how Wesleyan orthodoxy fit with this. Nobody signing that statement would contend Wesleyan theology. THey may argue over what it means to be a Wesleyan, but holding to it is important.
I know that in the past year there have been some battles fought at ATS over the nature of truth and what kind of claims we can make (this I know from keeping in touch with some profs). This was a bit divisive at times on campus and quite contentious. Sides were drawn, names were called, etc. etc. I'm not sure how Greenway fell or what he supported.
However, in looking at the list of profs who signed the "We Wonder" statements, profs from both sides are on the list and are supporting Greenway.
Part of the beauty of ATS was that there was serious theological reflection because there is so much room in Wesleyan theology for movement in one's theology. Wesleyan theology allows for a whole range of beliefs. I hope that the BoT has not lost sight of that.
Also, just to follow up on Matt's comment about folks like Coppedge, I agree: those you mentioned are staunch holiness people. I tie this to my statement about the statement in another comment thread that "not all tenured faculty" were invited to sign onto the "We wonder" statements.
Not knowing who wasn't invited to sign, I speculate that those who weren't invited were apart of the 13% (16%? I can't remember) who didn't vote with the majority. The professors Matt mentioned, seeing a good evangelical man apparently wronged, voted with the majority in their faculty meeting and thus were invited to sign on.
If there is agenda, those Matt mentioned may be unaware of it.
Or I've seen too much X-Files just like a particular faculty member ;-)
I'm not sure why Greenway was discharged. But from MY perspective Asbury was WAY too into higher criticism than I was comfortable with in 1992-95. When we start saying that the "story" is an "inspired" story what we have is no longer biblical infallibility and inerrancy but neo-orthodoxy.
I disagree, Rev. Ray. I am thankful that I had professors at Asbury who were really interested in seeking out the truth rather than finding ways to make the evidence fit their preconceived notions.
I might take the opportunity, however, since I'm posting this comment, to say that I have not substantially changed my perspective on these events three years on. Asbury did go through a rather rough patch immediately after Greenway was dismissed. But it has since hired a new President and seems to be out of its problems.
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