The Campus Minister: Rebel or Reconciler?

Colleges and universities in the Western world have always been closely connected with the Church. Many schools were Christian in inception, many continue to be Christian, at least in name, and almost all, even some avowedly secular institutions, have a peculiar specimen known as the “campus minister” lurking somewhere in the vicinity of the old chapel. In view of this, it is surprising how small a role the campus minister has played in recent disorders. He has been very little in evidence.

What should he be doing in these days of crisis? Does the Church still have a significant role to play in higher education, or has the university “come of age,” casting off the protecting arms of religion, so that the campus minister has a marginal role at most?

A conference on the campus ministry, sponsored by the Danforth Foundation and held at Lake Forest College in June, 1969, brought together more than forty campus ministers from all over the country. It soon was evident that they sharply disagreed over what the role of the campus minister should be. However, the concepts tended to fall into two categories.

The Reconciler. In this view, the goal of the campus minister is to work for true “community” among the various elements of the university. The campus minister is therefore someone who has gained the trust of all or several of these elements: students, faculty, administrators, the local community, and trustees. He must maintain communication with all the factions; he must understand and empathize. Then, when the storm breaks, the minister seeks to bring the various factions into dialogue. Because of his lines of communication, he can act as interpreter and mediator—a healer. Possibly he can bring the polarized factions into face-to-face contact, to break down the stereotypes each side has. Above all, the minister must seek to humanize those involved. He must speak the word of peace and the word of love.

Along with this view goes an emphasis on the “pastoral role” of the campus minister. In this role the minister may offer advice and pastoral counseling to all segments of the campus community, from the president down to the lowliest freshman. He tries to heal bruised egos, restore shattered pride, and inspire those in despair.

However, many campus ministers have rejected this role of reconciler for another:

The Rebel. These persons view the campus minister not as pastor or mediator but as a prophet, one who speaks out against social injustice and throws his energy into the fight for reform.

According to this view, if the minister succumbs to the temptation to play “impartial mediator,” he will only alienate himself from all factions. In the words of one participant in the campus-ministry conference, “the mediators are viewed by the students as cop-outs, by administrators as irresponsible supporters of agitation, by faculty members as vain and muddle-headed, and by the community-at-large as dupes, mollycoddlers, or even traitors.” To be impartial in such a time of moral crisis is impossible. The campus minister must involve himself in the struggle for right.

This view of the campus ministry requires a clear-cut case of right and wrong. The “rebel” minister may view his society as corrupt, controlled by amoral economic forces that do not place proper value on people. A phrase that is much bandied about is “military-industrial complex.” Present-day universities are said to function as dehumanizing agents, turning out “model sons” to take their assigned places in the over-all corrupt scheme. The campus minister has a great opportunity to lead the university into a new role, that of critic of society and liberator of men. After all, the Church has traditionally been just that: a liberating yet critical force.

Both these views face serious criticism. The reconciler is indeed likely to end up offending everyone and pleasing no one. And is it really the duty of a minister to be a pacifier, keeping everybody calm so the lid doesn’t blow off? What gives him this special talent for mediation? The missing ingredient in this view of the ministry is a dynamic, motivating force that would enable the minister to engender an atmosphere of love. To reconcile polarized groups requires more than dialogue; it requires a transformation of people.

The second view of the minister may at its worst represent typical religious fanaticism. “We are all right and you are all wrong, and you deserve to be wiped out.” Although the forces designed as “the military-industrial complex” may indeed possess disproportionate power, it is questionable whether they can completely control a society where political leaders are freely elected. And to say that our universities are turning out obedient “model sons” is preposterous; one need only look at the student movement itself. But the most crucial fault in this view is the same as the weakness of the first: there is no motivating force, no dynamic evident in the minister’s life that would move him toward the good and could also transform others. He has no more ability as a social activist than anybody else. Why couldn’t someone else accomplish this role as well or better?

Can a role for the campus minister be found that will meet these objections, while wholly retaining the positive aspects of the reconciler and rebel roles?

Before trying to answer this, we need to broaden our conception of “campus minister.” He may be a college chaplain or a representative of a denomination assigned to campus work. But it is quite possible that the truly effective campus minister will be a teacher, an administrator, a local pastor, or even a layman from a nearby church. He might even be a student; in many situations a student would be more suited to “minister” to student needs than anyone else.

This broadened view is vital for two reasons. First, the college chaplain or traditional campus minister no longer commands respect merely because he is a minister. Rather, as the “official” representative of religion, he bears on his shoulders the onus of what some believe to be the Church’s failure in areas of social responsibility, and also of bad experiences with religion that students or faculty may have had. The Church is too often seen by students as the perpetuator of social injustice, or defender of the status quo, a bastion of bigotry and middle-class intolerance. In addition, the chaplain is a “professional”; it’s his “job” to be a minister. He appears to have a vested interest in Christianity. Just as music professors try to stimulate student interest in music, so the campus minister wants students to come to chapel services, attend church, and show other signs of spiritual interest so that he will be judged a success.

A second and very important reason for the broadened concept is the increased emphasis on the ministry of the layman throughout the Church. Many denominations are discovering that God can speak and work through the man who is not in “full-time Christian service” but is nevertheless committed to Jesus Christ. A layman may have special talents and gifts that the pastor does not have, and this is fully in accord with the Apostle Paul’s teaching on the gifts of the Spirit. Any committed Christian who has some connection with the university, whether as teacher, janitor, student, or neighbor, may be a campus minister.

The campus minister is, very simply, God’s man on campus. This is obvious; yet often we overlook the simple and obvious in our mad scramble to get things done. Anyone on a campus who has committed his life to God, who calls himself Christ’s man, is God’s representative to that campus.

When I was so bold as to suggest this idea to a group of campus ministers, the response was negative. “That concept is meaningless today, irrelevant,” was the reaction. Of course, we must discover what it means to be God’s man on campus; the concept must be given content. But it is obvious that a minister who rejects the idea of “God’s man” lacks a vital relationship with a God who is alive and has revealed himself to men.

What can we say about God’s man on campus?

1. He believes in a God who is really there. He has no patience with God-words that refer to nothing and are meaningless symbols. His God is a personal God who created the world and controls history. God must often be pictured and symbolized, but behind the symbols there is a reality.

2. His God is revealed in Jesus Christ and in the Holy Scriptures. His God is no vague “Absolute,” nor is He the sum total of what he considers to be “good,” nor is God the rationalization for his social or political views. His conception of God, imperfect though it may be, is formed from God’s revelation in the Bible, particularly the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.

3. He has a living, personal relationship with this God. Not only does he believe in God as revealed in Jesus Christ; he has committed his life to God, and lives in dependence on God as his Father. This dependence (faith) gives him a true humility, involving a recognition of his own weakness and fallibility, and an openness to new ideas and to truth wherever it be found.

4. His identity and sense of personal worth are founded on this relationship. Because God has accepted this man completely and removed his guilt, he is truly free to accept criticism, both internal and external. His God is aware of all his deficiencies and yet still loves him and values him enough to die for him. Because of this personal strength, he does not have to find another race to be “superior” to. God’s man is also free to act, knowing that if he fails or blunders, he is still loved and valued by the God who is the source of all value.

5. Because of this inner strength, and because of his love for God, he can truly love his neighbor. God’s man on campus has the two prerequisites for social action: motivation and strength. He is motivated by God’s love for him, made visible in Christ; he wants to express this love concretely as God has commanded him to do. And he has the emotional strength to act as he believes God wants him to. He can make himself “vulnerable” because his personality is securely anchored in Christ.

6. His commitment to God means that no other human loyalties can be absolute. No person, school, nation, or church organization has his ultimate obedience. He has no vested interest in maintaining any institution or status quo, and is loyal to such things only insofar as they serve the purposes of the Lord of history.

If such a man as this can be found, he will truly be a minister of the Gospel: the good news of God’s love and healing. The roles of rebel and reconciler, inadequate in themselves as descriptions of a campus minister, take on new life when viewed as aspects of the responsibilities of God’s man.

God’s man on campus will speak—and act—against what is unjust. In the spirit of the Old Testament prophets he will denounce a society that spends billions for a senseless war and allows children to starve in its own cities. He will help the university to function, not as defender of the status quo, but as the source of ideas for a better world.

God’s man on campus values people above all else. He therefore will be a leader in suggesting and supporting reforms to humanize our universities—such things, perhaps, as black-studies programs, active recruitment and compensatory education for minority groups, curriculum reform, or de-emphasis on grades, especially as a measure of personal achievement.

It is the duty of God’s man to fight for the right, and not try for an insipid “neutrality” in a time of moral crisis. Yet it is also his duty to be a reconciler. Because his God is pure love, he must speak the word of love. Because he serves the God of peace, he must speak the word of peace. This means that though he must attack evil institutions and even evil actions of people, he must never attack people. Even his angriest denunciations must be made in love. He must weep for those he prophesies against, as Jeremiah did.

He need not be neutral to obtain the trust of various segments of the campus. If he is honest, if he maintains his integrity, if his commitment to God is evident in his life, he will have the respect even of those who violently disagree with him. He can maintain lines of communication and make his voice heard because it is clear to all that his motives are unselfish. He is not his own man; he is God’s man.

The actions of God’s man must be based on the principles he discovers in the Bible, combined with an intimate knowledge of the situation. He must pray that God’s Spirit will lead him to the right decision, but recognize his own fallibility in interpreting the leading of the Spirit.

God’s man on campus is neither a rebel nor a reconciler primarily, but he is both insofar as these roles are part of his duty toward God and man.

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