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| Houghton chapel mural |
In the 1960s, Stephen Paine did his best to meet the stricter elements of the church halfway, only for them to leave the denomination in 1966. Later in life, he wondered if his efforts with them "may have been a great mistake." [2] Willard Smith noted that Paine "directed the expenditure of much time and effort on this issue." [3] "As an administrative committee, we spent hundreds of hours on the jewelry and slacks issue and during some of these years we did not have even an hour to study a budget of more than two million dollars."
Here is an example of the perspective of many in that district, from a speech given by the head of its Women's Missionary Society in 1959. "We are alarmed, amazed and horrified to see how universally men and women strut around nearly nude... It is a marvel to us that God does not strike people dead with their brazen defiance of all that is decent, moral and right... the sleeves are going up and up... We are alarmed at the fancy, worldly hair-do's... If God made your hair straight He wants you to leave it that way... fancy hats... highly ornamented glasses..." [4]
In the 1964-65 year, the controversy reached its peak at Houghton. The trustees singled out certain people because they had not conformed to the rules on dress and adornment. Wives and families of employees were expected to conform too, including not being allowed to wear wedding rings, for example. Of course, this was happening at the same time that Houghton was desperately trying to hire new faculty with doctorates. One faculty person, who wore a necklace when she was hired, resigned a year later when Paine told her she couldn't wear it and teach for Houghton. Then a year after that the rules were changed, and she was rehired.
Stephen Calhoun was Academic Dean at Central Wesleyan College when I went there. Before then, he had been a chemistry professor at Houghton. He had a moment of truth while a student at Houghton that was not dissimilar to one I also had in college. He came across another Houghton student who knew the Bible better than he did, was eager to see others come to Christ, but wore make-up, jewelry, and had short hair. He realized that those externals were no clear indication of a person's spirituality. [5]
2. Those issues are thankfully now in the past. Virtually no Wesleyans consider earrings or a necklace to be a sure indication of pride. Almost no Wesleyans would consider a short-sleeve shirt or shorts to be similar to going around naked. Women in the church now wear slacks and have short hair, and it has nothing to do with their spirituality.
In the heat of the moment, it can be hard to see that these dynamics of change are almost always in play. It may not always be a matter of progress. Sometimes it's just a change of focus from one generation to the next. Should we sing worship choruses or hymns in church? The issues may change, but the relative attitudes of the players often stay the same. Even in the 300s BC, Plato complained about how the youth had lost all their virtue.
A wise old friend once wondered if each generation of the church has about the same number of quests against unrighteousness going on at any one time. But since the targets of those quests tend to change, the older generation may think the younger one is becoming less spiritual. Similarly, the younger generation may think the same of the older generation because it doesn't see the issues they see.
Then the young people who are annoyed by their "conservative" parents often grow up to be conservative parents annoyed at their "liberal" children. And the cycle goes on.
3. My sense is that, throughout its history, Houghton's leaders have generally tried to take a middle road in the church and of course a kingdom road in the world. Willard Houghton aimed to "stick to the middle of the road." In 1902, chair of the trustees wrote in relation to Wesleyan educational institutions that "it is the medium ground which contains the truth." During conflict in the 30s and 40s over Calvinism, Paine gave a chapel message urging the campus to "agree to disagree." [6] Today, President Mullen has also continually championed what she calls "the courageous middle."
4. I have actually found Houghton to be an interesting mixture of "conservative" and "liberal." For example, I have no doubt that a large percentage of Houghton voted for Trump. And I'm sure there was a significant percentage that voted for Biden. And they all seem to get along with each other.
Houghton is a hymn place. It has morning and evening prayer every day. Abortion is a very important moral issue across the campus at the same time that there is concern to be good stewards of the environment. There is concern for social justice alongside a need for personal salvation and spirituality. This year I have heard both concern for Black Lives Matter and opposition to critical race theory. In other words, Houghton is a microcosm of the church.
Getting back to the second half of Paine's presidency, Houghton had significant revivals in 1951 and 1959. In 1951, the revival started after a particularly caustic evangelist had left campus. Still, God used him. Both men and women on campus started prayer meetings first in the dorms, then they moved to the church. At 5:30 in the morning somewhere between two and five hundred students were praying. This prayer went on for the rest of the week.
Houghton continued to produce missionaries. Marion and Marilyn Birch, brother and sister, spent twenty-five years and more in Sierra Leone. She worked as a medical missionary at the Kamakwie hospital. He worked as a linguist. Warren and Ella Woolsey were also missionaries there. He founded Sierra Leone Bible College where I taught for a couple months in 1997.
Stephen Paine's own daughter Carolyn and her husband were missionaries in Vietnam. They were actually taken captive for several months in 1975. Although it was before he was a student, Bruce Hess' family was taken captive in the Philippines in Mindinao during WW2. He would go on to be a missionary for OMS in his own right.
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| John and Charles Wesley Chapel |
In 1957, the cornerstone was laid for a second building on the Quad (if you don't count Gillette), the chapel. In December of 1959, the first chapel service was held. The picture at the top of this post is the famous painting by Willard (and Aimee) Ortlip that wraps around the foyer of the chapel. It is 160 feet long and 4 feet high just under the ceiling. It covers the story of salvation history from the creation to the second coming. [7]
Not to be missed amid the death and resurrection of Christ in the mural is also the founding of Houghton College. :-)
The Ortlip Gallery in the current Center for the Arts at Houghton is a tribute to Willard and Aimee Ortlip, who taught at the college until 1958 and 1959 respectively. I believe most of the paintings in the Luckey Building are either his or her work, including the portraits of Silas Bond, Chester York, Willard Smith, and Stephen Paine.
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| Willard J. Houghton Library |
They were saved then by a torrential rain, which flushed enough stone onto the less expensive person's property. Divine intervention?
[1] In the 1940s, Baptist students outnumbered Wesleyan students by 3 or 4 to 1. Currently, Wesleyans make up about 15% of the student body at Houghton.
[2] Relayed by his wife. Wing, 478n.87.
[3] Wing 279.
[4] Wing, 275-76.
[5] Calhoun also suspected that Paine was unable to distinguish his politics from his religion. Long before abortion was an issue, in the sixties when Democrats were pushing for civil rights and the great society, Calhoun wonders if the only professor who was a Democrat on campus was in part let go by Paine on the pretext of standards because he was considered liberal for being a Democrat. Wing, 280.
[6] Wing: Houghton, 282; Jennings, 269, 282; Paine, 263.
[7] Wing, 272.
[8] He suffered a stroke while he was painting the binding of Satan, but recovered enough to sign the painting on February 5, 1960.
Previous posts in this series on the story of Houghton:
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