The Methodists, The Bishops, And The Library

Having spent almost 30 years on the Southern Methodist University faculty, I think I have a pretty good understanding of how fitting the place is for a Presidential Library that will honor George W. Bush. Mr. and Mrs. Bush are loyal Texans and professing Methodists; many of SMU's wealthiest and most prominent trustees and donors have been affiliated with Bush-style politics for a long time; and the two most prestigious universities in the state already have presidential libraries on their own campuses, leaving no room in those inns for this next one. Unless zoning restrictions, faculty truculence, or ecclesiastical meddling messes it up, this is a done deal.

And maybe that will be all right. With the Federal Archives people running the library, it should be possible for scholars to access enough relevant documents to figure out just how things were done in the Bush II years after all. There is a problem, though, not with the envisioned library, or perhaps even with an attached museum, but with a proposed Institute that will be dedicated to the enshrinement of neo-conservative agendas for as long as it takes Jesus to come back.

But maybe even that will be all right, too. For one thing, if the Institute can hogtie enough neo-conservative ideologues to begin substituting careful deliberation for hasty action on their part over the next few years, confined to a think tank rather than running amok at the Defense Department, the next administration or two may yet be able to dig us out of the morass into which their predecessor plunged us. And for another, if Institute doors are kept open wide enough, we might get a close enough look at these guys to understand and even appreciate them better. Right now, neo-cons are looking for all the world like people with an anti-social personality disorder.

As a former prof once in cahoots with several current members of SMU's theology community, I also think I have a pretty good understanding of how unfitting a Methodist-connected campus may be for a Bush Public Policy Institute. Through its General Conference, the denomination has issued several statements on war and peace that no reasonable person could read as in any way supportive of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Over 100 Methodist bishops have flatly declared the war itself unjust and immoral. Does anyone seriously believe that a Bush Institute, down the road from a neo-con United Methodist mega-church and across the street from SMU's football stadium, would consider the bishops' position in any other terms than fringy?

A big issue for the 10 bishops now mucking around with the internal decision-making processes of the University is that Methodism's social policy pronouncements do not (and should not) carry the force normative doctrine. They cannot properly be appealed to as a set of constraints on what is to be taught, thought, and acted upon by the SMU community. Religiously affiliated colleges and universities that go gentle into that dark night of accepting unquestioningly the theological pronouncements of their sponsoring institutions are rarely if ever the better for it.

The really big issue for academic types is that the freedom to pursue the truth --- what SMU's very motto is all about --- requires you to mix it up with people you believe, often without warrant, too ignorant to be worthy of your attention, and with people who look upon you as a specimen they wish were on neither their campus nor their planet. Knocking over the sticky wickets through which genuine dialogue needs to flow, in the interest of ideological or doctrinal purity, is the surest way I know for a university to lose its soul, surer even than paying its football players under the table.

It is difficult, though, for unfettered inquiry to proceed unless all parties to the venture remain committed to seeing it through, no matter where it may lead. To say the least, the leadership style that the proposed Bush Institute will commemorate is not one that can breathe on its own for very long in SMU's classrooms, even if in the Institute's own hallways it may come as a welcome gust of refreshing air. And so, sad to say, the best course of action for both the Institute and the University may well be to build a high wall of separation from joint appointments and joint sponsorships. That would free SMU from at least some of the embarrassment of having to show up at the parties of its crazy neighbors next door. But it would also deprive the institution of an opportunity to convince Institute donors to put their money where the University's mouth is, in support of a genuinely cooperative enterprise that will permit looking at the Bush legacy from all sides.

Teddy

I almost missed it. My focus had been on the deaths of Saddam Hussein and Gerald Ford, and on keeping my hostility in check over being forced to confront their two stories side by side on the same newspaper pages. Mr. Ford deserved better. Then, on my way from first page highlights to back pages commentaries, I came across another story whose significance should not be lost on any of us.

On January 2, Teddy Kolleck died in Jerusalem, at the ripe old age of 95. He has been off our radar long enough to be remembered by many only vaguely, and by many more not at all. And that itself is a great loss, to Israelis, Americans, Muslims, and to everyone everywhere who still believes that religious faith can be a source of peace and not enmity on the planet. For almost three decades as its mayor, Teddy --- he wanted everybody to call him that --- lifted up nobly as well as feistily a vision of the city of Jerusalem as a sacred space for three religions, and not just one, and worked tirelessly with Jewish, Christian, and Muslim leaders to make his vision a reality for all the time to come. He was intolerant of religious intolerance, aggressive against religious zealotry, hilarious in the presence of religious hyper-solemnity, and ever the pragmatist in his efforts to convince members of warring religious traditions that suffering one another peaceably is the most practical way of avoiding assured mutual destruction.

I first met Teddy in Jerusalem just after the signing by Menachim Begin and Anwar Sadat of the now forgotten Camp David peace accords. Optimism was running high in the city over the prospects of stabilizing Arab-Jewish relations for generations to come. Old fears and paranoia would soon rear their ugly heads across the country again, but for the moment at least, Teddy was at his speechifying best, mesmerizing audiences with a grand vision of "his" city's respecting and affirming its place not only in the history of Judaism, but in the lives of Christians and Muslims as well. Places in the city special to each of the three faiths, he insisted, must be held sacred, along with believers' right of access to them.

As I waited to thank him for one particularly rousing speech, Teddy caught my eye and motioned me over to him. He told about recent encounters with some "Bible Belt" American Christians that worried him greatly, revolving around what was for both of us the very strange notion that when all the world's Jews finally returned to their homeland, the Messiah would return to usher in God's long promised Kingdom. The problem for Teddy was that to these Christians --- who were (and still are) making up a lot of the Christian tourist trade to the Holy Land --- it will be Jesus Christ who shows up, and that only followers of him will be ushered in to the new order. Jews and Muslims need not apply. He seemed much relieved when I told him that I regarded this view to be as whacked-out as he did. But I also had to say to him that the brand of Zionism with which some of his own colleagues had been assaulting me posed just as much a threat to his three-faiths-one-homeland vision as the truncated forms of millennialism many of my fellow Christians were serving up in the very next room. I continue to cherish his reply: "I gotta go straighten my guys out! Can you take care of yours?"

In the twelfth century, Bernard of Cluny articulated a magnificent vision of Jerusalem as a city glowing with radiant, golden light, jubilant with song, a home to angels, martyrs, and all of God's elect, whose pastures, decked in a glorious sheen, promise a kind of rest that will take them beyond all earthly toil and struggle. Tucked neatly into the middle of his great poem were these words: "Strive, man to win that glory; Toil, man to gain that light." Before Teddy and I concluded our chat that morning, I shared with him this Christian hymn and wondered whether he might think of it, as I did, as capable of reaching out to Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. He thought for a moment, both of us fully aware that the context for this hymn was the Christian Crusades against the infidels in the Holy Land and Holy City. Then he uttered a Hebrew phrase which he quickly translated for me: "If only..."

One way to grieve Teddy Kolleck's passing is to keep holding that "if only" close to our own hearts for as long as there is any strength left in us.