A reply to clergy trustees

This year's session of the Arkansas Annual Conference begins tomorrow in Hot Springs. That means that the proposed changes to Hendrix College's charter, designed to reduce the elected Arkansas Conference clergy members on the Board of Trustees from 10 to 5, will be taken up very soon. I brought attention to this issue through this blog post on May 28th. In it, I linked to an article I wrote opposing the proposed changes in the Arkansas United Methodist, which explains why the changes are a bad idea.

Then, in this blog post a week later, I linked to a letter the clergy trustees have written in response to my article. That letter has now been published in the most recent (June 6th) issue of the Arkansas United Methodist, together with a column by the Rev. Bud Reeves, who is one of the Hendrix clergy trustees. Both those articles attempt to respond with reasons why the proposed changes should be passed by the Annual Conference.

Let me say first off that I deeply respect all the clergy men and women who serve on the Hendrix Board of Trustees. For anyone who knows these folks, a quick glance at the list is all it takes to realize that these are some of the most beloved and respected pastors in Arkansas. Their collective wisdom and pastoral experience far outstrip my own. Some of the people on the list are among my close friends and mentors. So I approach this task with more than a little bit of fear and trembling.

But regardless, I think it is important to respond once more on this blog, for those of you who are following the debate. We need to examine the method of reasoning that the clergy trustees are using. Doing so, I contend, will show that it is deeply flawed. Since the clergy trustees' letter and Rev. Bud Reeves' column cover the same ground in pretty similar ways, I will deal with the issues they raise together. I you would like to download a version of the following response in a Word document, you can do so here. Okay, on to the matter at hand...

The trustees' letter takes issue with the title of my article, which suggests that the future of the Hendrix - UMC connection is "uncertain". The clergy trustees then proceed to describe many of the good church-related activities that are going on currently at the college. I am aware of these ministry efforts, and they are encouraging to me. In fact, I believe in them so much that I have joined in them several times over the past few years, including taking leadership roles in four Hendrix mission trips, preaching at a Hendrix chapel service, meeting with the 'Future Preachers of America' ministry group, and speaking at a 'Tuesday Talks' vocational luncheon. It is nice for the clergy trustees' letter to point out this work (which is largely directed out of the chaplain's office by the Revs. Wayne Clark and J.J. Whitney), but it entirely misses the point of why I suggest that the future of the college-church relationship is uncertain in the first place. The reason the relationship is rendered uncertain is exactly because of the proposed action of the Board of Trustees, which substantively and permanently diminishes the Arkansas Conference's connection with the college.

Since the clergy trustees' letter takes issue with the title of my article, allow me to take issue with the title of theirs. The title of their letter reads, "Hendrix trustees: proposal enriches college/church relation". As justification for this claim, the text of the letter states that the revised charter will allow the college to "broaden the participation of United Methodists by drawing in lay leaders and by making space on the board for clergy representation from beyond the Arkansas Conference." The letter then goes on to do what every clergy trustee or Hendrix administration official with whom I have spoken or e-mailed has done: Situate the context for the proposed changes in the issue of Hendrix's desires for growing national prominence.

This reasoning implies two things that are simply incorrect: First, that the language of the current Hendrix charter inhibits Hendrix from drawing in 'lay leaders' and 'clergy representation from beyond the Arkansas Conference'. And secondly, that a permanent change to the charter is necessary in order to 'make room' for these supposedly underrepresented groups.

In truth, there is nothing in the Hendrix charter that keeps the college from asking nationally prominent UM clergy or laity from serving on the Board of Trustees. Ironically enough, the clergy trustees' letter itself admits that 18 of the current 30 lay trustees are United Methodists. That, in and of itself, shows that there is ample room on the Board for lay United Methodists. And if the Hendrix administration wants more, it can simply ask some when current non-UM trustees rotate off. Likewise, if the need is for more nationally-prominent UM clergy, then the Hendrix administration should simply seek some of them out.

In much the same way, there is no reason that a change in the charter is necessary for Hendrix's rise in national prominence. The real problem behind this aspect of the debate is the subtle suggestion that we are dealing with a zero-sum game. That is, the clergy trustees are suggesting that a growth in national prominence (coupled with a large number of national figures on the Board) requires a diminishing of the Arkansas Conference presence. There is no reason why this should be the case. If the idea is for there to be a true enrichment of the college-church relationship, then the best way to do it is to maintain the current strength of the Arkansas Conference relationship while finding creative ways to add trustees from other areas of the country.

A change of the magnitude to the Hendrix charter we are being asked to consider requires that a compelling case be made to the Annual Conference for that change. We have seen no such compelling case.

Since the Arkansans who are delegates to the Arkansas Conference are going to have to grapple with an argument by 10 Arkansas clergy trustees, who will try to convince them why 5 of those same trustees shouldn't exist, let me close with some thoughts on the importance of the relationship between the Arkansas Conference and Hendrix College.

Consider how our lives are only meaningful insofar as they arise out of a story, which we are given and in which we live. We don't just hatch out of eggs, ready and able to take on the world from our births. We are the products of families and communities and traditions, and we do not have the freedom to divorce ourselves from those sources of our identity. We can try to do so, but the result will leave us with lives that are morally unintelligible and based on the arbitrary of emotive choice. We Christians, of all people, should realize this. We are the ones who have been grafted like a wild olive shoot onto the tree of Israel, who "now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root" (Romans 11:17). The branch forgets its rootedness in the tree at its peril.

Hendrix's connections to the United Methodist Church of Arkansas (and its predecessors) are not generalized and conceptual; they are historical and concrete. Many of us have heard the stories of Captain W.W. Martin's role in bringing the college to Conway and his financial subsidies that kept the doors open in difficult times. We all know the high number of clergy who have served as college presidents. We can look back in the college's history and see how much investment the People called Methodists in Arkansas have made to Hendrix, allowing it to grow into the great college it is today. This is the story that Hendrix arises out of, and it is what gives the college its identity.

In addition, in the opening section of the Hendrix charter, we see that historical and concrete connection through the express purpose of the college's existence. Article 1, Section 3 states, "The purpose of the corporation shall be (1) to own and operate a co-educational college at Conway, Arkansas, and such other schools, academies, and colleges at Conway or elsewhere as may be deemed advisable; and (2) to carry out the plans, past and future, of the Conferences of the United Methodist Church in Arkansas for the development of Christian education through this institution." That statement strikes me as remarkable. Hendrix College has a two-fold purpose etched into its very charter, and that purpose is to be a college and to be related to the UMC in Arkansas for the purpose of Christian education. In that sense, the argument about Hendrix's growing national prominence is contrary to the college's very purpose for existence if such prominence comes at the expense of its Arkansas church ties.

I am a strong proponent of increasing Hendrix's national prominence, so long as that growth does not come at the expense to the Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church. The reason I am compelled to oppose the proposed charter revisions is that they would, in a real and concrete sense, diminish that connection. But then again, I don't think this is an either/or issue. I think it should be entirely possible to grow in national prominence and grow in the sense of the Arkansas Conference connection. The key issue is how we go about doing both.

I admit that there is a certain oddity to being a clergy person opposing a course of action that all the clergy people on the Hendrix Board of Trustees support. You might ask, "Don't they know better what path Hendrix should take?" And here I think it is important to note the reason that the Hendrix Board of Trustees has to take proposed charter revisions before the Annual Conference in the first place. The constitution of Hendrix's governance is set up so that the church has some guiding oversight to major projects or changes the college wants to make. The presence of clergy trustees is one aspect of that oversight. But the requirement to take proposed revisions to the Annual Conference is another. As a member of the Annual Conference and an alumnus of the college, I think it is both appropriate and helpful for us to consider a perspective different from one that would substantively and permanently reduce the Arkansas Conference - Hendrix College connection. When delegates to the Annual Conference prepare to vote on this issue, I hope they'll consider what the long history between the college and the church in Arkansas means and how voting 'yes' to the proposed revisions would affect that relationship in the future.