ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND THE THEOLOGICAL TASK

Charles Courtney
Professor of Philosophy of Religion
Drew University

By founding and sustaining dozens of institutions of higher education in the United States, the United Methodist Church and its predecessors have contributed significantly to the lives of its members, to itself as an institution, and to the wider society. Over the years the UMC has developed agencies and policies to further and protect the integrity of its considerable investment in higher education. The question to be examined in this brief essay is whether Petition #2 On Doctrinal Integrity of the Good News Legislative Agenda for General Conference 2004¹ is consistent with the Church’s historic stance regarding higher education and will lead to future advances.

The petition proposes to amend the paragraph in the section on The University Senate concerning Institutional Affiliation. ¶1416.4 now reads as follows: “To qualify for affiliation with The United Methodist Church, institutions must maintain appropriate academic accreditation.” One part of the petition would add the sentence, “In addition, all persons hired by the institutions after January 1, 2005, for tenured and tenure-track faculty positions must affirm their agreement with classical Christian theology, as expressed in the ancient ecumenical creeds.”

Although the petition would require persons to make a theological affirmation, the implication is that institutions must require that their faculty members do so. Such a requirement does not square with good practice in higher education in the United States. Whereas the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, formulated jointly by the American Association of University Professors and the Association of American Colleges and Universities, allowed for “limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution,” an Interpretative Comment in 1970 stated that “Most church-related institutions no longer need or desire the departure from the principle of academic freedom implied in the 1940 Statement, and we do not now endorse such a departure.” Adoption of the petition might compromise the accreditation of United Methodist affiliated institutions. For example, the North Central Association may well ask why appointment to teach chemistry or mathematics at Simpson College should require agreement with a theological creed. ¶1416.4 as now stated is in the Discipline to assure that UMC-related institutions meet the prevailing academic standards. Daniel Maguire, professor of religious ethics at Roman Catholic Marquette University, says that, “The American university, whether church-related or not, is first of all a state-chartered institution of higher education with avowed commitment to unfettered academic freedom of inquiry. All other aspects of a university are adjectival.”²

In fact, the Discipline, in other paragraphs, makes some very strong statements about the proper “adjectival” relation of the Church to institutions of higher education. ¶1410.1, on the Duties and Responsibilities of the Division of Higher Education, states, “Higher education is a significant part of our Wesleyan heritage, our present task, and our future responsibility. The Church continues its historic mission of uniting knowledge and vital piety by maintaining educational institutions and a campus ministry, and through them an intellectual, spiritual, and material ministry to all persons within the academic community without respect to sex, race, creed, or national origin.” Sub-paragraph 4 on principal objectives of the division speaks in (c) of “educational institutions and campus ministry units as invaluable assets in the ongoing life of the Church.” Another objective (f) is “to foster within educational institutions the highest educational standards, effective programs of Church relationships, the soundest business practices, the finest ethical and moral principles, and especially Christian ideals; to help people experience release from enslavement, fear, and violence; and to help people live in love.” The clearest statement of the proper adjectival presence of the Church in the educational institution in found in objective (d): “To promote a campus Christian movement and a concerned Christian ministry of the educational community; to witness in the campus community to the mission, message, and life of Jesus Christ; to deepen, enrich, and mature the Christian faith of college and university students, faculty, and staff through commitment to Jesus Christ and the Church and to assist them in their service and leadership to the world, in and through the Church.” All of these things are affirmed without any specific reference to doctrine or creed. Beyond that, it would not be in the spirit of John Wesley to make doctrinal agreement a condition of a relationship. Professor Maguire quotes John Henry Cardinal Newman’s statement that “the true university is a place where many minds compete freely together.”³ A Church-related college or university is a place where such freedom should be cultivated, protected, and celebrated. Moreover, I can easily imagine that a competent, talented, and dedicated Roman Catholic or Jewish sociologist would happily teach in Emory and Henry College to the benefit of both parties.

Adoption of the proposed petition would give doctrine an un-Wesleyan prominence, would create unity at the price of much division and great loss, and would be an obstacle rather than an aid in helping people “live in love.”

The other part of the petition would add to ¶1416.4 this sentence: “Furthermore, all persons hired by the institutions after January 1, 2005, for teaching positions within the theology department must affirm their agreement with United Methodist doctrine, as defined by the Doctrinal Standards (¶103).” It might be thought that the objections to a doctrinal requirement for higher education generally would fall away and not apply to the teaching of theology. To the contrary, I submit that they apply even more pointedly. If the Church holds that freedom of inquiry and reflection is important for history and biology, it is all the more important for theology which deals directly with matters of faith and ultimate significance. The Discipline’s section on Our Theological Task (¶104) defines theology as “our effort to reflect upon God’s gracious action in our lives.” It continues, “The theological task, though related to the Church’s doctrinal expressions, serves a different purpose.” Rather than being ends in themselves, doctrinal affirmations “assist us in the discernment of Christian truth in ever-changing contexts.” “Our theological task includes the testing, renewal, elaboration, and application of our doctrinal perspective . . . [and] is both critical and constructive.” Is theology, then, the end and doctrine the means? Not at all. “Our theological task is essentially practical. . . . We finally measure the truth of such [theological] statements in relation to their practical significance. Our interest is to incorporate the promises and demands of the gospel into our daily lives.”

Following Wesley’s belief that “the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason” (italics added), ¶104 presents the elements of the “quadrilateral” as collectively the source and criteria for doing theology. Primacy is given to Scripture, but each of the four is to be utilized fully.

The “rationale” for the petition holds that “affirming classical Christian or United Methodist doctrine” provides a foundation for theological teaching. In contrast, the Discipline orders things differently by stating that “doctrine arises out of the life of the Church—its faith, its worship, its discipline, its conflicts, its challenges from the world it would serve.” The goal is “through the power of the Holy Spirit to understand the love of God given in Jesus Christ . . . to spread this love abroad.”

Can the theological task be pursued without disagreement, without conflict? No. Professor Maguire quotes the Papal encyclical Gaudium et Spes, which says that theologians “should always try to enlighten one another through honest discussion, preserving mutual charity and caring above all for the common good.”⁴ Maguire also quotes Avery Cardinal Dulles who said that the Second Vatican Council (1963-65) “implicitly taught the legitimacy and even the value of dissent.”⁵

Given that there will be theological disagreements, the question is how to address them. Professor Maguire, who refused to ask his bishop for a mandate to continue teaching in a Catholic university, contends that the disagreements should be worked out among trained professional theologians. Correcting should be done by peers. Theologians should not be judged by non-theologians. Maguire’s position seems to me to be in the spirit of the UMC Discipline.

The petition to General Conference 2004, however, does not. By requiring a formal statement of agreement with the Doctrinal Standards the petition would stifle reflection and debate and create a climate of anxiety. Moreover, all the theological work would still have to be done. That is, the Doctrinal Standards, once affirmed, would need to be interpreted. If there would be a range of possible interpretations, the question is who would draw the boundaries. The impression given by the set of petitions in the Good News Legislative Agenda is that the petitioners are eager to turn theological disagreements into judicial cases. Once again, for me, the specter arises of a drive toward unity and purity that ends in bitter division and loss.

Perhaps I can best indicate my position on the proposed petition in the following way. I am a non-theologian United Methodist layperson serving in the theology department of a UM theological school. I could honestly subscribe to the Doctrinal Standards, but since I regard a doctrinal affirmation as a testimony not a test, I would, if asked, refuse to make the avowal proposed by the petition. My reasons would be that doing so would (1) give non-Wesleyan prominence to doctrine, (2) thwart the theological work that is important to the Church, and (3) divert disciples of Jesus Christ from spreading the love of God.

See more: Letter to Archbishop Weakland -- Daniel Maguire, Theology Department, Marquette University

¹ www.goodnewsmag.org/petitions/petitions

² Daniel C. Maguire, “Academic Freedom and the Vatican’s Ex Corde Ecclesiae,” Academe 88 (May-June 2002): 50.

³ Maguire, “Academic Freedom,” 50. (Italics in original.)

⁴ Maguire, “ Academic Freedom,” 47.

⁵ Maguire, “Academic Freedom,” 48.