What Was It about Calvin College That Failed Us 30 Years Ago?

I wonder why so many of us go our separate ways after college and have little interest in those that preceded or followed us; then I think again, do I really have any interest in those that preceded or followed me? Some that were a year or two ahead or behind that I got to know, perhaps, but other than that, not really. And they don't care about my class, which I think, as they certainly do about their own, was special.

There's also a part of me that doesn't want to go back. Why should I? It was awkward. Major life events often are. If I could be sure that most of my old friends had weathered well and dispensed with most of the nonsense a religious school inculcates, I might be more inclined to do reunions and such, but alas, that is not the case. Most of them raised families in the same traditions and the cycle is repeating itself.

And so today there is open debate about homosexuality at Calvin. I applaud The Chimes for presenting both sides, even though I think there is only one that has merit. What surprises me is that the same people now lending their voice to intolerance stood up 30 years ago against apartheid, which was a system of legal discrimination in South Africa, a former Dutch colony with ties to the Dutch Reformed Church and Christian Reformed Church.

What was it about Calvin that failed us 30 years ago that we can repeat the same mistake?

I'm ashamed sometimes to be a graduate of Calvin, not for the professors or students (most of them), they were wonderful and I remember them fondly, but for what Calvin could be, and is not.

I'm more than ashamed. I'm disgusted.

Disgusted because Calvin didn't fail us. We are Calvin and we failed ourselves.

(It takes balls to publicly discuss fringe behaviors. I have a good friend who stood up in church once and asked for prayer for pedophiles. He is most certainly not one, but apparently felt a burden that he wished to lighten with the prayers of fellow believers. Good for him. Good for bringing other believers to God with an uncomfortable challenge, and good for him for bearing the opened eyes and stares of those who at that moment  wondered why.

I am not  defending pedophilia or equating it with homosexuality; I unequivocally condemn it; I offer it only as a helpful aside to understanding one man's courage.

And if you're in or entering or just leaving Calvin College now, trust me, you'll be asking the same question 30 years from now, it'll just be a different issue. Who knows, maybe it'll be the personhood of clones.

I have more to say on this; actually may be helpful for those on the fence about homosexuality; encountered some helpful insight from a minister some years back, I'll have to look it up.)