How might universities that are
affiliated with a Christian organization, or “Church,” apply the values enunciated
and illustrated in the gospels in ways that distinguish such schools as specifically
Christian? Do academic administrators at colleges and universities that are
formally affiliated with Christianity apply the preachments by Jesus in the New
Testament, let alone ask the question? At most, the question, when asked, is
usually answered in terms of increasing financial aid, but in the gospels Jesus
is not oriented to programs, but instead to interpersonal relations, specially
as bear on the marginalized or outsiders in general—the proverbial last being
first and most people who regard themselves as first, as last. How might faculty
members who delimit their application of academic colleagues to scholar
who are on the same faculty, hence at the same college or university? An unlikely
example of a Christian values being applied by a professor at Yale, a
university whose privileging of exclusivity and thus exclusion is well ensconced
(and known) can be contrasted with the organizational culture at the Roman
Catholic Church’s official university in the United States. Any cleric
administrators at the Vatican who regard the Protestant denominations, or sects,
as instances of compromised Christianity might want to take note of the contrast
between the Catholic University of America and Yale.
The full essay is at "Higher Education."
