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Methodist Affiliation Meaningless at Southwestern University 6/28/2002 Methodist Affiliation Meaningless at Southwestern University Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas-an affiliate of the United Methodist (UM) Church-invited an open lesbian and radical feminist, bell hooks, to give the commencement address at its graduation exercises last month. (Ms. hooks prefers to ignore capitalization as an apparent protest against patriarchal convention. However, for the sake of clarity, this article will use customary capitalization practices). Southwestern thus joins the many colleges and universities that have set aside their Christian roots and values in order to embrace a secularist worldview. As C&F Report reported in previous issues, commencement addresses by the presidents of America's two oldest universities-Harvard and William and Mary-specifically rejected the institution's foundational Christian faith as fundamentally relevant to the pursuit of knowledge. Praise for Bell Hooks The radical, dissident voices among you have learned here at Southwestern how to form communities of resistance that have helped you find your way in the midst of life-threatening conservatism, loneliness, and the powerful forces of everyday fascism which use the politics of exclusion and ostracism to maintain the status quo. Every terrorist regime in the world uses isolation to break people's spirits. Indeed our nation's call for violence in the aftermath of 9/11 was an expression of widespread hopelessness. …Yet as that violence wreaked havoc in our own hearts and in the lives of our loved ones and fellow citizens, many Americans experienced for the first time a moment of clarity when they knew without a doubt that to choose life, we must stand against violence. … That moment of collective clarity was soon obscured by the imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal hunger to show the planet our nation's force, to show that this nation would commit absolute acts of violence that will wipe out whole nations and worlds. All over the world, young males and females, schooled in the art of patriarchal thinking, are building an identity on a foundation that sees the will to do violence as the essential way to assert being. We cannot then, turn away from violence without challenging and changing patriarchy, without bringing an end to sexist exploitation and oppression that teaches boys and men contempt for life, rooted in support of dominance and submission, coercion and manipulation, is the appropriate way to express masculine identity. Ours has been and mostly remains a society which encourages us to look to the future, to put our hopes and dreams on what may happen tomorrow, to work for progress and advancement, all future-oriented goals. Every imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal nation on the planet teaches it citizens to care more for tomorrow than today. …To live fixated on the future is to engage in psychological denial. It is a form of psychic violence that prepares us to accept the violence needed to ensure the maintenance of imperialist, future-oriented society. Southwestern's Homosexuality-Friendly campus Diversity, Paganism and Feminism Southwestern University is accredited by the UM University Senate, which is part of the General Board of Education of Higher Education and Ministry. As an accredited institution, graduates of Southwestern can be accepted into one of the UM Church's 13 seminaries as candidates for the ordained ministry. The guidelines for accreditation include the requirement that “students be exposed to a broad theological reflection,” meaning that schools with an exclusive Christian or Methodist perspective are disqualified. As a consequence, in 1998 the University Senate withdrew the accreditation of Boston's renowned Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, one of America's leading evangelical seminaries. |
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