Georgetown U. expels protestant organizations
Update: October 27, 2006. See updates section below.
Evangelical student organizations have had a place at many Catholic universities for decades. But for the groups at Georgetown University, a Jesuit campus, news that protestant organizations were being expelled came as a shock. And many students and leaders don’t feel like they’re getting a good explanation yet.
In mid-August, the leaders of six campus organizations received a letter (pdf format) from protestant chaplain Rev. Constance Wheeler, claiming that “restructuring” the protestant campus ministry leaves no room for “affiliated ministries,” and that such things as Bible studies, mid-week worship, retreats with Georgetown students or helping students move in are no longer permitted. The affected ministries include InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (Undergraduate), InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (Graduate), Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship, Georgetown Community Church, Crossroad Campus Christian Fellowship and Asian Baptist Student Koinonia.
Some of the groups are making plans to meet off campus. Georgetown may allow students to start their own student-led religious groups on campus. Actually, many InterVarsity chapters start this way. InterVarsity is a network of student-led ministries that affiliate with a national organization. The local student group could seek to be understood and recognized as primarily a student organization with such an affiliation to InterVarsity nationally.
While private universities have the freedom to set policies that may be more restrictive than public campuses, in this case the organizations’ leaders are surprised about what has happened. “What confuses many of us here close to the situation at Georgetown is this,” says Kevin Offner, a staff worker with InterVarsity’s Graduate and Faculty Ministries. “What have the six ejected affiliated protestant ministries done wrong that has merited their expulsion? Whenever a Georgetown administrator is asked this question, the answer is always, ‘Nothing—we’re simply restructuring.’”
Updates Section (latest on top) back to start
Update: October 27, 2006. InterVarsity President Alec Hill sends a message describing the current situation and asking for continued prayer.
Update: October 16, 2006. InterVarsity President Alec Hill sends a message encouraging persistence and humility without rancor.
Students continue to meet despite disaffiliation (InterVarsity news item).
Link to Chaplain Resigns to Protest Ministry in the Hoya, Georgetown’s student newspaper.
Link to Georgetown chaplain resigns in the Washington Times.
Update: September 27, 2006. Georgetown University officials have formed a committee to evaluate the school’s relationship with off-campus ministries but say the move will not immediately change a recent decision to bar Protestant groups from having an official presence on campus. (Washington Times article, Sept. 24)
Update: September 20, 2006. We received an update letter from Kevin Offner, who works with InterVarsity’s Graduate and Faculty Ministries at Georgetown U. and a copy of a letter from the Alliance Defense Fund, which provides legal advocacy to campus organizations.
Here are a few quotes from Kevin’s letter:
[In a letter] from Father Godfrey, he says in his second paragraph the following: “Campus Ministry’s decision does not restrict the rights of students to participate either on or off campus in the religious organizations of their choice. Students retain the right to invite religious organizations on campus for prayer and fellowship. However, at this time, these formerly affiliated groups do not function under the auspices of Campus Ministry.”
On the surface this looks like very good news. The students would indeed be glad to continue to exist and be affiliated with InterVarsity in a way that is not “under the auspices of Campus Ministry.” But in personal conversations with Fr. Godfrey, the students have been told that they may not be in any affiliation with InterVarsity any longer. So there is confusion here
Second . . . there is mention made of Georgetown’s goal of “interfaith dialogue” and of a campus that promotes “a community of interreligious engagement.” . . . I think most, if not all, of the Affiliated Ministries would greatly enjoy taking part on campus in “interfaith dialogue” . . . but to my knowledge, we have never been invited.
“To put it succinctly, writes Kevin, “do these student-led, Protestant/Catholic campus groups have the right to exist on campus at Georgetown University in some form . . . and may they, if they so choose, form some kind of affiliation with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, in the same way that the Muslim students and Jewish students are connected with national organizations?”
The InterVarsity staff at Georgetown are currently writing up a “Fact Sheet” that documents all that has happened over the past two years between campus chaplains and Affiliated Ministers.
Here is a link to the letter from the Alliance Defense Fund that helps to illuminate and expose the present situation at Georgetown. You can also read ADF’s own press release about sending the letter.
Update: August 30. On August 30, “volunteers handed out about 500 fliers to students explaining the groups’ position and had received 400 signatures on ‘letters of concern.’ The letters will be delivered to the president and the Campus Ministry.” (Full story from The Washington Post)
A right to exist?
“We aren’t bad-mouthing Catholics, other protestants or the Georgetown administration,” says Kevin. “All these organizations are requesting is the right to exist on campus. Their student leadership is all in place, having been chosen last spring, they had begun planning events, inviting speakers and planning service projects. They are hurting no one, and they are helping many. And yet they have quickly and decisively been ordered to leave campus.”
More than organizational leaders are concerned. In an email to StudentSoul.org, Kevin writes that “just yesterday [Sunday] at my church a woman came up to me, here in Washington because she is dropping her daughter (an undergraduate freshman) off at Georgetown. Her daughter is coming to Georgetown in part because she heard InterVarsity was on campus. Now she feels stuck. Why can’t her evangelical daughter be allowed to have fellowship on campus with other evangelicals?”
What do you think?
How would you approach your administration if this decision were handed down on your own campus? Kevin says of himself, “I must make sure that the manner in which I respond to all of this reflects the God whom I serve. . . . We must never be vicious, name-calling, or publicly ‘prophetic’ about another person’s motives. We must speak the truth in love, and we must speak to the facts, not innuendos.”
Read more on the debate and let us know what you think in the comments section below:
- Update: Students continue to meet despite disaffiliation (InterVarsity news item).
- Update: Georgetown sets panel to examine ministry relations from The Washington Times.
- Chaplain Resigns to Protest Ministry in the Hoya, Georgetown’s student newspaper.
- Update: Georgetown chaplain resigns from the Washington Times.
- Update: Ministry Groups’ Ejection Protested, news story from The Washington Post.
- The letter to affiliated ministries (pdf format) from Rev. Constance C. Wheeler, protestant chaplain at Georgetown University.
- Campus Ministry Removes Affiliates, news story from The Hoya, the Georgetown University campus newspaper.
- Georgetown U. Ejects Private Ministry Groups, news story from The Washington Post.
- Georgetown Rejects Evangelical Groups, news story from Inside Higher Ed.
Copyright 2006 by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA.
