Merely Reconciler walks in the light
Merely Reconciler posted an announcement on the internal University website and also as an email to the announcement email list that goes to all faculty at the University. The announcement was a “personal reflection” discouraging faculty from putting up “Safe Place” signs on their office doors.
Some faculty had put these signs up because they love sinners. Seriously! At a Christian University, you have faculty who want sinners to feel safe. What next?
Well, this announcement prompted a discussion on the college faculty email list. Perhaps I’ll offer more detail on this another time. The short version is that some faculty did not appreciate the Provost’s approach and others did.
City set on a hill
But first I want to deal with the fact that someone with access to that email list apparently sent information to a journalist at InsideHigherEd.com! This journalist then began contacting faculty and staff who were taking part in the online conversation.
There is only one sensible explanation for how this happened. To understand it, let’s look at some words of Jesus.
Matthew 5:14-16
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
and in John 3:
For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.
Even though this was the pre-resurrection Jesus, I think he may have gotten this right. In light of this, there is only one way this information could have leaked.
Someone who supported Merely Reconciler’s approach read his announcement and recognized what a good deed Merely Reconciler was doing and how glorifying it was to God.
This person contacted the journalist and this journalist began to contact other faculty who were posting. When the journalist contacted people who opposed Merely Reconciler’s approach, they hid from the light because they didn’t want their evil deeds to be exposed. But those who supported Merely Reconciler came to the light so that their deeds would be manifested as having been wrought in God.
I have this to say to those evildoers who are hiding from the light: your bunker mentality is a sign that your days are numbered. Just wait until an article on this appears in print where the whole world can read it!
Papa Bear’s role
The one thing that confused me about this for a moment was that Papa Bear actually posted a couple of messages to the discussion list first telling people not to talk to the journalist and second shaming the (apparently still unknown) person who had leaked the information. My only explanation for this is that Papa Bear is just so modest that he is uncomfortable with the world seeing the good works he is doing.
You may ask, what was Papa Bear’s good deed in all this?
Super-secret committee
Well, it turns out that our great University now has a secret, non-official committee that was formed to deal with the issue of these “Safe Place” signs. They’re not being secretive on account of their deeds being evil, but just out of modesty. I see that now.
Naturally, Papa Bear is on this committee.
The other members of the committee are Merely Reconciler’s book-writing club. You may not know about this club. This is a small group of white men whose ideas are so alike that they sometimes write each the others’ books and nobody notices. This makes for extremely reconciled committee meetings and is really the only good way to lead: get ideas from everyone who is qualified to have ideas.
Also on the committee is one black woman. I know it sounds strange but there is a really sensible reason for it. If anyone finds out that this committee exists, they can make her the spokesman.
Reconciled committee
I’ve written about reconciliation plenty of times before and we all know what it means: silence and remove all voices but the Truth so that we remaining true Christians can all get along.
That is why this committee—which, remember, is responsible for dealing with the issue of the “Safe Place” signs—didn’t consult any members of the GLBT community. This is why they didn’t consult any faculty who had a sign on their office door. That would ruin the reconciled nature of the conversation.
Papa Bear’s further contribution
While the online discussion of all this was happening, Papa Bear posted a link to this article. He said that it was relevant to our discussion.
The article is about how to give a moral education in a university. It says that the proper way to do it is something like the way Socrates did it. The article recommends taking a “dialogical, rather than didactic, approach.” Socrates is a model because
he was also willing to acknowledge that the truths for which he was willing to die might be shown to be faulty in the next dialogic encounter; that he might have missed something in the world or the argument that would force him to modify what he had come to believe with such conviction
Our patient role models
First, let’s consider how Merely Reconciler and Papa Bear model this for us.
Merely Reconciler posted his announcement in two fora. I say “fora” because he posted his announcement in two places that were just like the ancient Greek fora where open discussion occurred… well, just like those fora except that there was no way for anyone to comment on or discuss the announcements in either place he posted it. But I still say, the announcements were made in very Socratic and non-didactic fora.
When a very didactic voice from outside the cave (the journalist) started to ask questions in a very nondialogic way, Papa Bear made his announcements forbidding people from engaging in the kind of nondialogic conversation that journalist wanted to have and shaming whoever might have done it.
After a week of criticism from nondialogic faculty and support from dialogic faculty who posted comments in a discussion forum, Merely Reconciler has remained silent. Why? Because he is waiting for those faculty who criticize him to modify their opinion just the way Socrates modified his opinions when nobody answered his questions.
I’m afraid he might be waiting a long time. The nondialogic faculty seem to be able to discuss things for a long, long time.
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