Our Alumni Council will meet the next two days. Their agenda calls for me to give a “Campus Update.” Ain’t goina do it. Instead I’m going to share my groping toward understanding. Here’s what I mean.
Institutions are in crisis. The presidential campaign shows how little we trust government. In religion, the significant increase of people walking away from participation in a congregation shows that some of the institutional church is floundering. And do you trust big business to do the right thing? What I’m trying to understand, and this is my job, is how does a seminary, an institution of the institutional church, stay strong and trusted for its task of getting God’s word in Jesus Christ to people and a society running to false saviors?
John Greenleaf Whitter put my perplexity this way:
A tender child of summers three
Seeking her little bed at night,
Paused on the dark stair timidly.
“O Mother, take my hand,” said she,
“And then the dark will all be light.”
We older children grope our way
From dark behind to dark before;
And only when our hands we lay
Dear Lord, in Thine, the night is day.
Reach downward to the sunless days
Wherein our guides are blind as we,
And faith is small, and hope delays;
Take Thou the hands of prayer we raise,
And let us feel the light of Thee.
I’ll skip the Minute until next Monday. God, guide us!
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