Friday, September 29, 2006

To Blog or not to Blog

Ben, I took off a couple of my more incendiary posts.

I started off blogging on this topic as a distant observer, an observer from afar. Slowly I found myself drawing data from quarters far and near, much of it without my solicitation. I found myself impassioned.

Then I posted to attempt to draw out something from the silence of the EXCO. I thought that we might get them to move. That also proved not to be the case.

Two comments. First I am still willing to believe that the chair, Jim Smith, and the vice chair, Dan Johnson, are good people. Is it possible that they themselves are not even the key drivers behind their own positions?

Second, I post this comment from a high level Asbury faculty, fairly well demonstrating that charges of accreditation crisis relative to the UM church are unfounded:

"Hi, Ken,

Asbury Theological Seminary has not been put on notice with the University Senate or the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of The United Methodist Church.
Our relationship with the University Senate over the past several years has never been better -- with cordial and hospitable visits from denominational officials to the Seminary and from Seminary administration to denominational offices. Maxie Dunnam has been serving on the University Senate, as has Dr. Hugo Magallanes, Assistant Provost -- Florida Campus. The ExL Program has been named "the gold standard" by the University Senate. President Greenway has had very positive relations with our friends in Nashville, as has one of our board members, Dr. Wade Paschal. Etc. etc.

On the particular issues you raise or that might be raised, the regular faculty of Asbury Theological Seminary is ca. 65 per cent United Methodist and the student body is ca. 60 per cent United Methodist; we are in the top ten per cent of all seminaries in the US with regard to the number of racial-ethnic professors on our regular faculty and in the last 15+ years the Seminary has had a solid record of hiring women faculty. Etc. etc.

Our relationship with the University Senate has been so strong that we have had conversations with the Senate about Asbury Seminary's being placed in a separate category --- not an official UM school obviously, but, among non-UM seminaries, practically in a category of its own on account of the number of UM students at the Seminary and its deliberate cultivation of a Wesleyan-methodist ethos. In fact, President Greenway and Provost Arnold had been invited to address the presidents and deans of the official UM seminaries later this academic year on the particular topic of nurturing a Wesleyan ethos in seminary education.

What is also important to stress -- and you have already been stressing it -- is that President Greenway has been furthering our good relations with the UM's at the same time that he has worked deliberately and diligently to connect with friends among the Free Methodists and Wesleyans, as well as other ecclesial traditions in the Wesleyan family. President Greenway has been clear in his representation of the Seminary's theological ethos as encompassing all three terms --- "Wesleyan," "holiness," and "evangelical."

Bottom line: I don't know whether there are any WMD's. I do know that this isn't one.

11 comments:

Expax said...

Thank you Ken. Your edits have substantially improved the quality of this blog. It has not only shifted but has become a fine place for releasing constructive information to the general public in the midst of the turmoil. I applaud you for this. Thank you for contributing to the community in charity.

Ken Schenck said...

This was perhaps my last post for now in the Alumni Coffee House:

"One last thing. No one at Asbury would dare name their names. But since I have a good job, we should get out in the open the names of the notorious "gang of four" that everyone knows about but is afraid to mention. Along with Greenway and Smith, the board must consider the role Paul Baddour, Bill Johnson, John McNairy, and Ira Galloway have played in these unfolding events. We must all examine our hearts, no matter who we are--God exempts no one. And we must all be examined by God and the church.

I am watching and praying for you all, including all the names above. I bear hatred toward none of you. God's peace be with Asbury's spirit.

Scott D. Hendricks said...

LOL . . . to that last line.

Expax said...

Kara I do agree quite strongly for you. What Ken has done through his editorial process is still remaining a voice. There are many of us who are being a voice. Here are some of my thoughts on important things to remember:

#01 We are individuals of extradonary potential and of great power. With this comes that we may ever so become abusers. That is something we must not become. With our power we must wield it wisely.

#02 We are individuals who are and will ever remain in community. We are members of the community of humanity. We are members of the kingdom of God. We are members of many things. Some of us are even members of the Asbury community whether we are students, alum, or profs. But there are things to remember. We could abuse our power, but no. For you see we live in and must promote the good of the community. We may resist things we disagree with, even be quite loud about it, but to revolt is to destroy or splinter the community. Community is essential. It is vital. To poison the community is indeed our very own suicide.

In this situation let us the church and the community of Asbury be a model of the Holy Trinity. Ever are we individuals of great, yet ever are we submitting ourselves onto each other in perfect charity and love. Think on it. Empowered to empower. Loved to love.

Anonymous said...

I have followed this blog with interest and only happened on it through links from other places.

Two things in this post, its comments and a previous post stand out to me.

1) First, justkara's comment that the silence works for those already in power. I wholeheartedly agree.

2) Second, the notion that the students should quietly go about their business of learning--let the so called "adults" of board, administration and, to a lesser extent, faculty, sort out this crisis--seems to lack a sense of history.

I think it was a previous post in which an involved faculty member felt the need to bolster credibility by assuring the readers (presumably including some of those in "power" at ATS) that he was encouraging students to just pray--not get involved through protest or the like. This paternalistic attitude is not really surprising--it is quite common. However, considering the history of Asbury, it is disappointing.

In fairness to the author, I am sure he is quite sincere and also probably feeling a need to protect his own credibility--which might be lost if he was perceived as fomenting unrest among the students. This is a practical concern for anyone with some power--fomenting rebellion so to speak is always perceived as poor form--even if it might be the only way to tip the scales against those who have even more power. I think most of us recognize the call to just "pray" over these kinds of events as primarily a euphemistic request that the students sheath the only weapon of real power they possess, keep quiet, and let the "real" powers solve this their own way.

This is disappointing because I have grown up hearing stories of the Asbury revival in 1970. A number of my friends participated in it, either directly as students or indirectly after the student groups from Asbury traveled to other campuses around the country. As I understand the event through their stories, the revival took place when student after student came forward during chapel to share their testimonies--it was that simple and that powerful--and it lasted for days and days. While the chapel was faculty led, ultimately the revival was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit through the words and actions of the students.

If this is such a watershed moment in the history of the Asbury community as most think it to be, I would think that more student involvement rather than less would be appropriate. I think students should be encouraged to speak rather than muzzled with a spiritually pat answer of "please pray." If their speech coalesces around a protest or boycott of classes, then so be it. Of all student bodies in the world, the students in the Asbury community have shown a remarkable ability to be Spirit led--maybe even more so than their "adult" overseers. I think this is a thought worth considering.

Ken Schenck said...

Anon, I do not see myself going silent on this issue myself. But I felt like I had "carpet bombed" the Alumni Coffee House this week. I think it is wise for me to back off for a short space, give those in power a space to reflect and repent if that is appropriate. I plan to work a little behind the scenes this week. And I will summarize from my perspective what I believe the board must do when the moment of decision comes.

I am still hoping that we can persuade rather than force. I am wanting to believe that these are good men who've made some poor decisions and who, in Drury's words, are better than they have acted.

Anonymous said...

Ken - do you have a confidential email address?

Ken Schenck said...

If you mean one that will not be accessible to anyone at Asbury, there is

ken.schenck@indwes.edu

or, alternatively,

host@kenschenck.com

This latter one I can make confidential from Indiana Wesleyan, but have not done so because I have never had any reason to believe my email at IWU would be watched.

David Drury said...

Thanks, Ken, for allowing a forum here for some of those students from my class to keep track of the issues in this conflict.

One student posted in our bulliten board that "the situation at Asbury is really unfortunate but it sure does offer us an opportunity to observe the issues we're studying."

I agree wholeheartedly and that's why I wanted to give them the option of engaging here on the subject.

Have a great semester!

-David

Ken Schenck said...

Hey, I wanted to make it clear that I didn't take off my last post and the previous one because of Mike M. very helpfully sharing what some well connected UM people are saying about Asbury. I took it off because of things I had posted.

Apparently some important non-Asbury UM people are talking about Asbury's accreditation. Joel Green assures us above that this is not in danger. I'll just leave it at that.

But I will say that the UM church would be shooting itself in the foot if it denied Asbury or CTS accreditation. It's no secret that the UM church has a massive shortage of pastors, that the average age of a UM member is over 60, and that its total number of members is decreasing by the 10,000 on a regular basis. Meanwhile, Asbury is the single largest producer of UM pastors out there.

So it would be self-destructive for the UM church to do something like this. But then again, whether you're talking of a college, a church, a political party, people at the top of the ladder often seem to cut off the ladder beneath them because those below them are unworthy. :-)

Ken Schenck said...

Thanks Mike! Wise words!