Journal Article Review

OPINIONS

This point was made clear to me by Roger Scruton’s England: An Elegy. English culture and institutions, Scru- ton argues, were founded on a deep connection with geographical partic­ ularity and manifested in forms such as the horizontal idiom of English church architecture, which affirms an enchantment in the land rather than gesturing dizzyingly (and futilely) up­ ward. Islam, I was happy to discover, values this type of organic connec­ tion to place while treating patriotic attachment to the nation-state as a flawed loyalty. The Qur’an rejects nationalistic chauvinism while none­ theless recognizing that mankind is divided into “nations and tribes” for which we naturally have affection.

So, I began to see that Islam was able to appreciate the West’s good qualities. As I studied further, I saw the possibility of beneficial exchange between these historically opposed cultures. I learned how much Islamic civilization owes to Greek philoso­ phy, Roman statecraft, and now the Industrial Revolution. By coming to see Islam as a means of stabil­ ity and regeneration, I overcame the

difficulty of adopting a religion other than that of my fathers. My peers and teachers were busy desecrating the Western tradition. Islam stood a chance of preserving it.

B y this time, Islam felt more familiar to me than did the Christianity of my home. Tepid, half-believing Anglicanism—

“almost-instinct almost true,” in Philip Larkin’s words—couldn’t stop the spread of utopian progressivism on campus or London’s arid diversity. I needed a different antidote for the hedonism of my culture. By the time I went to North Africa to witness Is­ lam as a lived reality, my anxieties had dissolved. I was soon able to en­ ter the state of islam, or “submission to God,” without ceasing to be the person I had been. I did not change my name, my style of dress, or my diet (save that I now take halal beef with my eggs rather than bacon). I enjoy the Anglo-Muslim poetry and music produced by my coreligionists over the last century and a half. I am still moved by the landscapes of Con­ stable and I still feel that Shakespeare

offers among the deepest insights of any writer into the vicissitudes of the human soul. Above all, the vapid global consumer monoculture dissi­ pates when I undergo submission to the One True God. I appreciate the best of the West, not despite being a Muslim, but because of it.

I experience being Muslim and being British not as tension, but as convergence. As the Islamic scholar Umar Faruq Abd-Allah puts it, Is­ lam is the clear water of pure mono­ theism, colored by the bedrock of the native soil over which it flows. Life as a Muslim in the West does not con­ sign you to being a diasporic Arab or Desi; it need not produce awkward and anxious suspension between two civilizations. Another scholar, Timothy Winter, sums up my feelings eloquently: “[Islam] is generous and inclusive. It allows us to celebrate our particularity, the genius of our heri­ tage; within, rather than in tension with, the greater and more lasting fellowship of faith.” It is my ardent hope that the cause of God and truth will be served when others, too, come to see this. E3

The Augsburg Concession by Robert Benne

I n 1869, the faithful of what was to be the Lutheran Free Church named their seminary and col­ lege in Minneapolis after the Augsburg Confession, because they believed the Confession aligned with biblical truth. They were shaped

by a Lutheran pietism that empha­ sized conversion, service to the church, fervent evangelism abroad, and an “awakened” life of strict piety that es­ chewed the “ways of the world.”

Those pietist founders would be shocked to learn how far their college

has departed from its roots. Augs­ burg College—now Augsburg Uni­ versity—has gone from “awakened” to “woke.” It has arguably conceded more to the secular progressive agen­ da than any Lutheran college or uni­ versity in America.

A recent sign was last fall’s abrupt suspension of Phillip Adamo, an hon­ ored full professor of history who

Robert Benne is Jordan-Trexler Professor of Religion Emeritus and Research Associate at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia.

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was director of the university’s hon­ ors program and winner of its prizes for both teaching and scholarship. According to an article by Harvard Law School’s Randall Kennedy in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Adamo was teaching James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time and asked a stu­ dent to read a sentence from Baldwin that included the “N-word.” Adamo then repeated the word in an effort to elicit a discussion about its use.

Some students in the class, joined later by others among the student body, claimed to be shocked and hurt. The mere utterance of the word left them feeling unsafe. Adamo justi­ fied his action by circulating two es­ says on the politics of that freighted word. One was by Ta-Nehisi Coates, hardly a defender of white racism. The professor argued what was obvious to any fair-minded person: The word had been used in his class not to insult or hurt anyone, but to discuss and affirm Baldwin’s effort to combat its racist use in the past.

The professor tried to explain fur­ ther. Then he groveled. To no avail. The provost, backed by the president, removed Adamo from his course and from his directorship of the hon­ ors program, and suspended him indefinitely, pending the outcome of a formal review. Some faculty insisted that Adamo’s academic freedom was secondary to the acknowledge­ ment “that harm has been done to these students.” Those same faculty called on the university to “require meaningful and challenging diver­ sity, equity, and justice training for all faculty.”

In its public statement of January 28, the university said that it could not speak publicly about a personnel issue, though it did assure the public that the professor’s due process rights had been observed, even if only af­ ter he was suspended. The university added that his suspension should be seen in the context of its “ongoing in- clusivity review.” Already, some feed­ back had been procured through the

university’s “Student-Faculty Bias/ Discrimination reporting process.”

The statement continues:

A student survey was launched as part of a curricular inclusivity study. A faculty and staff work group was formed to review pro­ posed general education require­ ments to support intercultural learning. Time was dedicated on Martin Luther King Jr. Day for workshops and intercultural competence development across campus.

Quoting Augsburg President Paul C. Pribbenow, the statement concludes:

“We know that the work of foster­ ing an inclusive learning environ­ ment is ongoing, and we are fully committed to it. We are grateful to the students, faculty, and staff who have spoken courageously to raise campus awareness, who have engaged in actively listening to the issues being expressed, and who have called for changes that advance our equity work.”

A ll this self-flagellation about the lack of diversity and in­ clusion is amazing, since the university has devoted itself passion­

ately to precisely those goals. On its website it proudly lists its honors and awards, the largest category being “Diversity and Inclusion.” Here, we learn that Augsburg is ranked highly by LGBTQ, disability, and Indige- I nous-American advocacy groups. In 2015, the magazine INSIGHT Into Diversity presented Augsburg with its Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award.

Augsburg has put real effort into diversity, with the result that 47 per­ cent of its undergraduates are “stu­ dents of color.” Concerning religious diversity, the website offers: “Al­ though 15.5 percent of its students are Lutheran, 10.2 percent represent the Catholic church, 25.4 percent

represent other denominations, and 10.8 percent represent other reli­ gions.” That is a surprisingly low percentage of Lutherans, in light of the Lutheran-rich population of the Twin Cities and Minnesota, and in light of the history of the school itself. Augsburg could not be charged with fostering Lutheran hegemony.

True to the diversity-and-inclusion model, Augsburg does not discrimi­ nate on the basis of religion, which means it cannot legally maintain a critical mass of Lutheran faculty, even if it wanted to. In addition to the usual categories of non-discrimination, Augsburg adds “gender identity” and “gender expression.” Consistent with those categories, “Augsburg changed the name of its program from Wom­ en’s Studies to Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies in order to reflect the ways that the field has become more inclusive in its approach to analyzing gender and sexuality.” The program focuses on intersectionality and promotes activism. It has twenty- seven faculty contributors from many departments in the university.

The campus ministry website an­ nounces that its pastors, “steeped in the Lutheran tradition,” will cel­ ebrate “same-gender marriages,” even though the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has progressed only as far as “blessing same-sex unions.” Augsburg is ahead of its church, much like the ninety-three Methodist schools that recently lec­ tured the United Methodist Church about its failure to evolve on issues of marriage and sexuality.

Augsburg has a Women’s Re­ source Center whose website includes links to emergency contraceptive resources (morning-after pills), “coming out” centers, and seven Planned Parenthood clinics, among others. The website does not men­ tion the crisis pregnancy centers in the Twin Cities. The Center also lists the counseling services of Pro-Choice Resources, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Planned Parenthood. A

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OPINIONS

link to agencies supporting women in “considering all their choices” leads nowhere.

Given the university’s relentless focus on sexual and racial inclusion, it is not surprising that the hypersen­ sitivity associated with identity poli­ tics arose to censure Professor Adamo and provoke an anguished search for even more vigorous and pervasive strategies of inclusion. As the hyper­ sensitivity increases, open and hon­ est discussion of racial and sexual issues becomes almost impossible, as Adamo found out. Such touchiness intimidates those who dissent from politically correct orthodoxies. Of course, the principal dissenters are those Christians who hold to ortho­ dox teachings on marriage and sexual ethics, including abortion. Other dis­ senters might stand for a more com­ plex interpretation of minorities than the imputation of sheer victimhood.

I am not surprised that Augsburg has conceded so much to progres­ sive orthodoxy. My earlier engage­

ment with the school involved some strong hints of its later direction. In 2001, I wrote a book on Christian higher education titled Quality with Soul: How Six Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith with Their

Religious Traditions. I wrote on two Lutheran schools: Valparaiso Uni­ versity and St. Olaf College. Shortly after the book’s publication, I was invited to undertake a similar analy­ sis of Augsburg. The school had won a Lilly vocation grant, and the ad­ ministration wanted to see how that grant was being used to strengthen the school’s Lutheran identity. I spent a few days at Augsburg interviewing faculty, administrators, board mem­ bers, and students. All seemed to be going well.

The final session was an interview with a large room full of students. I expected it would be unproductive. My hosts had (predictably) arranged for me to be ushered around campus by students who were real partisans of the administration, and I thought the same thing might happen at this meeting. Was I surprised! The stu­ dents rose up in righteous anger, com­ plaining that classroom discussions of hot-button issues were squelched by Augsburg faculty. One student com­ plained that conservative views on homosexuality, gun rights, the Iraq War, and global warming could not even be mentioned in most classes, let alone defended. I’ll never forget what another student said: “All the issues that are under debate in society are

already settled here. The faculty will hear nothing that violates what they think is a consensus.” I realized then that a good deal of political correct­ ness was already in place among the Augsburg faculty. I dutifully wrote up my analysis and returned to Augs­ burg to present it to the faculty and administration. After I finished the section on student discontent, several faculty members lambasted the stu­ dents. “They must have conspired to complain,” one charged. The faculty were not happy with my report.

My guess is that the university has since recruited a student body in which the conservative cohort has been replaced or silenced by an activ­ ist progressive one. That progressive cohort puts pressure on the faculty and administration, and together they are painfully searching for that elusive goal of perfect diversity and inclusion. The faculty and admin­ istrators desired a “woke soul” for the university, and the students are obliging. This is not to say that there are not islands of sanity and good Lutheran teaching and learning at the university, as I found years ago when I undertook my initial analysis of Augsburg. I am sure some of them are still there, but they no longer de­ fine the university. E3

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