By Bill Leonard
Sometimes universities confront historic moments when their identity is put to the test, occasions that challenge a school’s public character, and require it to reexamine its mission in the world.
The appointment of Imam Khalid Griggs as an associate chaplain at Wake Forest University has created one of those moments. The decision sparked a small firestorm of criticism, with opponents demanding that the action be rescinded, often under threats of financial loss to the university and its programs.
No matter that Chaplain Griggs is a respected religious leader in Winston-Salem, where the Community Mosque he serves offers a variety of humanitarian services to Muslims and non-Muslims, many of whom live well below the poverty line. The congregation hosted a special service that drew Muslims, Christians, Jews and representatives of other religions on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy.
Critics see his appointment as an early sign of Muslim efforts to insinuate themselves into national institutions on the way to religio-political hegemony. One letter cited by the campus newspaper warned of “stealth jihadists posing as assistant chaplains.”
For many observers, this action seems if anything a bit late in the day. Multiple universities including peer schools like Furman and Richmond have had Muslim chaplains for years. But controversies regarding Muslims linger in the American public square, exacerbated by Middle Eastern wars, threats of terrorism and complicated international animosities.
These tensions provide a significant challenge, offering Wake Forest an opportunity “to rise up and to live out the greatness of its creed” (in M.L. King’s words) centered in the university’s motto of pro humanitate.
Griggs’ employment is not about Muslim hegemony or syncretistic campus religion — our theological differences are significant, best discussed and debated with respect. It is really about voice, listening to each other, welcoming diversity of viewpoints, and making a place for Muslims and others of varying religious views.
These disputes are nothing new. Oberlin College, born of abolitionism and evangelicalism in 1833, was the first school to permit blacks and women to study the liberal arts, theology included, with white males — scandalous action at the time.
In 1855, Kentucky’s Berea College admitted blacks and women with an added, controversial, mandate to welcome students from the hills and hollows of Appalachia.
Decades ago, Catholic Notre Dame hired evangelical scholars and administrators, a shocking ecumenical rarity, not without significant debate.
Half a century ago, Wake Forest and Winston Salem State undergraduates united in lunch counter sit-ins that helped break the back of segregation in the Piedmont region.
Those events, born of traumatic transitions in the culture, were exceedingly provocative when they occurred. Now they are celebrated as signs of historic insight and prophetic heroism.
For Wake Forest University, this is another of those times. When the school’s founders chose pro humanitate as its 19th century motto, they opened the door to multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-religious constituencies, even though it took over a century to admit women and African-Americans. Given that hesitancy, Wake Forest should not delay in welcoming a Muslim chaplain.
The presence of a Muslim chaplain at WFU does not threaten Christianity. If anything it strengthens it with dialogue and pastoral responsibility. The old Baptist preachers might have said it this way: “Jesus ain’t scared of Muslims!”
Better said perhaps is that Muslim students, no less than their Methodist, Baptist, Campus Crusade and Catholic counterparts, need the “care of souls” that a chaplain can provide. To recruit them to Wake Forest is to necessitate a chaplain to nurture their spiritual wellbeing.
If Wake Forest needs a historical reference point for welcoming the imam, it can appeal to its earlier Baptist lineage and an audacious freedom charted 400 years ago.
After all, it was American Baptist founder Roger Williams who asserted in 1644 that non-Christians could indeed be good citizens. Asking “whether or no such as may hold forth other worships or religions, Jews, Turks, [Muslims] or anti-Christians, may not be peaceable and quiet subjects, loving and helpful neighbours,” he concluded: “It is clear they may.”
Williams’ Baptist sojourn was short lived but his legacy remained in the likes of John Clarke, Obadiah Holmes and John Leland, the latter insisting that “all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.”
When the New England religious establishment exiled Williams into the “howling wilderness” of 1636, he purchased land from the Native Americans, founding Providence and with it the colony of Rhode Island, the first American commonwealth to offer complete liberty to persons of differing religions or no religion at all. Reflecting on that effort Williams wrote: “I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed of conscience. I then communicated my said purchase to loving friends … who desired to take shelter here with me.”
So welcome to the pro humanitate “shelter” of Wake Forest University, Khalid. If folks object, blame the Baptists. You and your conscience will be home free.