APCU MEETING
San Antonio, Texas
March 23, 1990
John WM. Buchanan, Pastor

Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

As I read through the agenda for this meeling and noted the breadth
and depth of the speakers you will hear on the topic of the Presbyterian
Church and Higher Education, and as I read through, with great interest,
the wonderfully stimulating papers on the same topic which Oscar Remick
sent me - papers representing speeches you have heard on this topic in
years past -— it occurred to me that I have little, nothing in fact, to add
to that particular mountain of wisdom. I don't know anything about the
tapic at the philosophic level that you don't already know. I was invited
to throw out the first ball at a Cubs pame last year. IJ loved the
experience. I did not confuse myself with the starting pitcher, however.

Iam, first of all, very glad you are concerned about this topic
tT think il is an important one for all of us. I'J] steep better tonight
knowing you are losing sleep worrying about it.

I do spend a lot of my time listening to the church. So I may have
an insight or two from that perspective. But first and foremost I am a
consumer. a market. My wife and f are the parents of five. The first
graduated from the College of Wooster in 1983, The second attended
Denison. The third went to Princeton. The fourth, Franklin and Marshall.
Number five is a freshman back at Wooster, where it all began. I have
never bothered to calculate what the Federal Government, the institutions,
the kids -— by way of their own mountain of debt - and I have tied up in this
enterprise. Now there is only one, and since my station in the economy no
longer qualifies him nor me fer loans or grants, I am paying Lhe full fare.
We have an agreement in our home. Sue pays and I simply don't ask how
much. She assures me I don't want to know.

We, and they, spurned the excellent opportunity to buy the
product inexpensively (that's a very relative term by the way) in favor of
some of the most expensive, several of which are, and all were church
schools.

So, I asked Sue if it had mattered to her. We were never aware of
pushing or leaning on their choices, but no doubt we did, and IT wondered
whether the church thing mattered. She said it did indeed. She isn't sure
exactly why, but we feel better somehow, knowing Henry Copeland has Brian
for a while. Henry knows Brian's name which I think is a good thing. The
President of Franklin and Marshall didn’t know mine, nor any other students’
as far as I could tell. It has something to do with caring I suppose,
although I do nut and would not claim that Presbyterians, or Christians,
have a monopoly on that. It has something to do, obviously, with a
commitment which grows stronger all the time to a Liberal Arts education on
a moderately sized campus. But it's stiil more than that. It has
gomething te do with stewardship, I suppose: a sense that part of
what getting educated is about, is learning that we owe something back to
the nation, the race, the world, the future; some sense that service is

part of the obligation and privilege of human life. Or, if you will, that
Jesus was dead right when he said: "lose your iife and find it: save it
and lose it" - a truth we think is fairly central, basic and maybe the only
hope we have.

So then I surveyed them. Ajl five were home, by lovely happenstance,
two weekends ago, - from parenting and doctoring and selling bonds and
wriling and playing baskethall for Wooster, an exercise which had been cut
short by the Methodists at Ohio Wesleyan. (Where else in the enlire sweep
of coliege basketball] can you play against the "“Battiin Bishops?"} So I
asked them what they thought about the church connection and, as you might
have guessed, they said...

Not much, at first. None, as far as I know, ever attended a campus
worship event. The times the five of them went toa church in the respective
towns can be counted on one hand. However, the most flagrant secular
humanist of the bunch while a student, was just ordained as an Elder in her
church in Texas. Anyhow, they didn't go to chapel, didn't participate in
tradilional religious activity. They did march for hunger, organize black
and women's studies programs, hold candies for South Africa... and one of
then, the captain of his football team, prayed in the huddle... The
Running Rebels of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas no doubt do that,
however. The Princeton grad said the chapel was his favorite spot and he
used ta go there and sit and was glad it was there. And they appreciated
the courses in religion and they challenged the sister whose school
required Philosephy or Religion by saying “there's a difference, you know,
and the fact that your school doesn't know shows us something about the
quality of your depree.”

T'm not sure it's worth much, but that's how it is with one of your
best markel families.

Then I surveyed the people. <A group of officers were at a breakfast
meeting last Saturday morning and I circulated a questionnaire. Now these
are not casual Presbylterjans: these are your zealots — although
“Presbyterian zealot” is a bit of an oxymoron, These are the first team -
twenty-five of them in an urban congregation that attempts to be
intentionaliy Presbyterian.

Queslion one: How many colleges/universities are related to the
Presbyterian Church U.S.A?

One said lwo

Five said twenty

One said one hundred

One said one hundred-fifty

Only one cut of twenty-five came within twenty of knowing. No big deal,

Question two: Name several -

Eight couldn't name one

Two named Knox, a logical choice - but wrong,

Six numed Princeton

Franklin and Marshall got a vote - for me, I suppose. But so
did Notre Dame,

A few of the twenty-five knew a few of the schools.

No one named Lake Forest, in a suburb of Chicago.

Question three: If you were helping a student decide, would the
Presbyterian relationship matter? -

One half said no
Only four said yes.

Question four: Expectations of a church school? -
They varied, but a few common ones included:

Excellence - high demand - liberal aris - values -
Someone said decent foatball - reverence for life -
diversity - freedom.

My final research was dene Tuesday night. I was at a dinner meeting
and my partner was the retired chairman of the English Department at the
University of Chicago. He is Jewish, I believe. I asked what he thought
iis response was quick and strong. "I love them. Church schools do it
best. You'd think we'd be suspicious of places like Hope and Calvin - not
at all. Those kids know how to work.”

Tor myself - some random reflections:

One. The relationship between church and colleges is part af the
heritage, part of who we are. We are a church which started colleges
wherever it went for God's glory and for the world's betterment. We are
colleges started by churches. It's not good to deny one's roots — so it
seems to me. The past, in this case particularly, is worth affirming,
simply for integrity's sake and identity.

Two, Ours has always been a faith seeking understanding. “Truth is
in order to goodness.” I never felt I knew what that meant, hut it has
something to do with the goodness of truth and the goodness of God and
therefore the holiness of truth and the truth of the holy. God is
glorified when truth is pursued anywhere ~ but I am personally grateful
that it gets said publicly and institutionally... by colieges whose
catalogs read, "related lo... or formerly related or founded by, ar in the
tradition of “the Presbyterian Church”...

My commitment to the Liberal Arts is strong, but I feel better about
even the Liberal Arts when the context intentionally affirms the
transcendent and therefore provides perspeclive which serves ali of us —
even those who choose not to believe it — best.

Three. Simply by existing as church related institutions of higher
education, you keep alive an aspect of this culture ~ this civilization
which is in danger, not se much from its intellectual foes as fram the
great trivialization of religion - namely the ability, as Nathan Pusey I
believe once put it to say “God” without embarrassment or hesitation.

four. We need to be able to express that part of the Christian
tradition about which we have developed some expertise ~ namely the
celebration of the free pursuit of truth, the dignity of the individual,
the diversity of the world, the hopefulness of the human enterprise...
If it isn't done by throwing a few doliars into your tilis, I devoutly
hope you will help us identify how better to do it -

New minority schools?
Scholarships?
Endowed chairs of theology and culture?

Finally, Oscar said something about our reflecting generally on the
church's fulure, Onee again there are people whose vision is far sharper
and more global than mine. We are, of course, restructuring and in
transition, which is a little like saying we are stiJi alive. But, in
fact, it appears that it will be a while before we can step transisting and
restructuring and engaging in reunion and get back to our part of the
educational covenant. Sea, it occurs to me - and this is only mine - that
you might want to give us a while, say twenty-five years, before you do
something precipitous. As my wife tells me when I try to lose weight
overnight, it took twenty years going on.

The people — know best care about higher education.

ft is my distinct impression that while they might not how know many
and who you are, they clearly value the connection. [Ft is important to
them that their church relate to institutions of higher education.

The General Assemblies may not have money to give, but many of thase
individual Presbyterians do - and who you are will make a difference - when
they decide to which institutions of higher education they give it.

Thank you for inviting me to be here. I'm glad you're struggling
with the issue and marshalling such impressive resources with which to do
your struggting. It is a tough one, and if I have been a little Jess than
definitive about the precise issue of the relationship of the colleges to
the church, please know that | love knowing you're in business. 1 love
reading the List.

Agnes Scott,
Alma,
Arkansas,

all the way to
Whitworth,
Wilson, and

Wooster.

Regardless of how you resolve it, I'm proud of that list and of my
church's invoivement in it - and of you. God bless you.