Where I'm Coming From With All This

by Evan Donovan

On the comments of Ryan Davidson's blog, Lauri Moyle, a former Bagpipe writer, makes a good point. There are things that could be improved about student publications. However, they could best be improved by people at the college taking an advisory role to Senate and to student publications, not by taking control of them. To take control, however well it's done, defeats the purpose of a student publication - which is put out by students so that students can try things out, make mistakes, and learn from them.

So this section can be a place for discussion about what student publications have done well, as well as areas where growth is needed. I would imagine most people would agree with Lauri that the yearbook has had serious problems in recent years (in part, due to lack of participation by the student body). The Thorn apparently went overbudget last year (I was not aware of that).

On the other hand, when I worked for the Bagpipe, I believe that in our serious issues (not the Windbag) we tried to be judicious and fair to the administration - insofar as they were willing to share their side of the story with us. We may have been working with some preconceived biases when we did the Wallace Anderson series, but, as Lauri said, we did try to separate editorial and news content. Unlike some prominent Christian publications, we still believed journalistic objectivity was an ideal, even if an unattainable one.

I remember the first time I interviewed Wallace Anderson. He had just came on and his role was at that time fairly narrowly defined. His main task was increasing student enrollment. I appreciated the passion he brought to the job, but had some concerns as to whether he really understood what had made Covenant a unique and appealing institution to many of my peers.

I could have gone to Grove City or Messiah or any number of Christian colleges in PA and received a good education. I chose Covenant instead. I did this not primarily because Covenant was Reformed, although that was a factor, but because Covenant felt more like a community than an institution. I knew people who had graduated from there and they always spoke of its culture positively.

When I started considering Covenant seriously, I was even more excited about it, not because of CCM concerts during preview weekend, but because of the evident passion and personal concern that drove professors like Dr. Fikkert, who met with us SeeWees the first night. The faculty is the college's greatest resource. I fear that some of the administration's recent actions, including the one currently under discussion, risk alienating them, and thus making them less effective in fulfilling their mission.

Lately, I've been reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Steven Covey. Cheesy I know, but I think there's some truth in what he says. His concept of the "Emotional Bank Account" means that people will not follow you unless they trust you, and they will not trust you unless you communicate openly with them.

Asserting control over the campus newspaper does not foster openness. In this age, when our national leaders justify all their actions by claims to "executive privilege" and the PCA General Assembly approves study committee reports without doing exegesis first, it may seem "everyone else is doing it." But that doesn't make it right.

As Christians, we are called to a higher standard. The Scripture says that "Those who are called by God come to the light, that it may seen that their deeds are done of God." We, of all people, should not be afraid of dialogue.

Now it's quite possible that the administration is not afraid of dialogue. Rather, they are afraid that we will not engage in dialogue with them, having already prejudged their case.

My belief in the Gospel obligates me to repent when I have wronged, in word, deed, and thought. I admit that I have both said and thought things about the administration - Wallace Anderson and Brad Voyles in particular - that were sinful. They were sinful, though, not because Christians are not allowed to criticize other Christians, but because of the way in which I was voicing criticism.

Cynicism is a work of the Devil, and we must reject it wholeheartedly. The grace of the Gospel enables us to hope all things and endure all things - to be wise as serpents, yet innocent as doves.

My father once gave an excellent explanation of what it means to speak the truth in love, as we are called to do. He said the truth is like a train, and love like a bridge. The truth can only be conveyed to another person if the bridge is strong enough to bear it. Both parties in this discussion must work to build the bridge of love, and in this way, to communicate the truth of our concerns to each other.

To use another cliched phrase from The Seven Habits, we need to "think Win-Win." What would it look like for all parties in this situation to get what they want?

If we are to shift our paradigm in this way, we must start by communicating to each other our concern - that we love Covenant College and want it to succeed. Then we must discuss with each other what Covenant College means to us. Most conflicts arise from unarticulated desires and presuppositions.

Once we have had this conversation - building the bridge of love - we need to speak the truth to each other. What is it that we want for Covenant's future, and how has our past experience led us to want these things?

This is where things can get dicey, which is why we need to be able to mirror what the other person is saying. In my opinion, the tactics Ryan evidenced in his email are totally ineffective. They might work in a courtroom, if you were on the right side of the law.

However, as the articles I linked in the sidebar show, we don't have a case, according to the current interpretation of 1st Amendment as it applies to colleges. And more importantly, Christians are called not to take their differences to court, for in doing so they risk putting the Gospel to open shame. The Gospel is a message of forgiveness and understanding, of considering the other person above yourself. Assertions of power show a lack of faith in God's economy (His plan for the world), as if life were really a zero-sum game.

That said, meekness does not mean letting people walk all over you. We need to show that the administration's current course of action is not in their own best interest. To do so, we need to assert our own stance as convincingly as we can, while showing that we understand their concerns better than they do themselves.  If we convince them that we are acting in good faith, I trust they will do the same.

Despite all that has happened, I am optimistic about the future of Covenant College. God has blessed the school richly in its first 50 years, and I trust that He will continue to do so. The people currently at the helm of the school want to remain faithful to the Gospel - that much they have made clear. And, for all that I detest limitations on speech, open apostasy would be worse. Let us hope that Covenant can continue to be a space for both orthodoxy and liberty - for "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." We are called to travel a narrow way, but as long as we keep our eyes on Christ, we will not fail to either side.