Recently I’ve been trying to get a handle on the spiritual history1 of UW-Madison, with the help of these resources from Upper House, a Christian study center on campus.
It is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a fascinating and complex story. I’m no historian, so I’ll leave the detailed work to the professionals, but in view of the purpose of this newsletter — namely, to update readers on my work on campus — I’ve offered some of my reflections from Upper House’s audio tour below.
Inhabiting the space
One of the first things that struck me about UW-Madison’s spiritual history is the choice to encourage churches (and other religious communities) to construct buildings near campus in order to promote moral and spiritual formation. This was an innovative way to embody the ideal of non-sectarianism; whereas other universities might choose to build a generalized chapel (‘to an unknown god,’ if you will), UW-Madison allowed various traditions to inhabit the University’s orbit. As the campus expanded, this means that several prominent buildings expressly devoted to religious purposes, especially those built in the early 20th century, are now nestled in the heart of campus — a poignant reminder of both the University’s religious history and the relation between faith and learning.
As I get my footing in campus ministry, I’m encouraged by this architectural witness. My hope is to inhabit university spaces in a manner analogous to these buildings; offering a place of refuge, a word of encouragement, the hope of the gospel in the midst of the vibrant (and busy) life of the university.
Faith, learning, and social responsibility
Many of UW-Madison’s early presidents and administrators were trained clergy, often in the liberal Protestant tradition. They promoted the social gospel (especially advocating for such movements as temperance, de-segregation, and civil rights) that was often married to deep piety.2 This meant, for many of them, that the ideal of a public university in relation to religious faith was not characterized by hermetic isolation. Rather, religious faith of many kinds was viewed as an essential aspect of students’ humanity, inextricable from their experience as students. What mattered for many of these university leaders was not complete secularism but non-sectarianism; a refusal to endorse a specific kind of religious faith (Christian or otherwise) while insisting on their place in the university.3
As a Christian Reformed campus minister, there are aspects of this vision from which I must demur (see note 2). Nevertheless, the Reformed tradition has much to say about the relation between faith and learning, and the ways in which Christian faith naturally works good in the world (cf. James 2 and Ephesians 2). God is the Author of truth, and part of our responsibility as faithful agents in God’s kingdom is to learn and grow in our understanding of the world of the Maker, so that we might more faithfully honor and praise him. In this way, we are able to endorse the words on the plaque on Bascom Hall (pictured above) because we confess the full meaning of the plaque on South Hall (pictured below).
In addition, it is no secret that universities are places where zeal for causes is common. Christian moral theology does not prohibit our participation in many of these causes, but in fact gives a logic to that participation that is often unwittingly borrowed by secular advocates.4 I am far from a proponent of the ‘social gospel’ (not least because that movement has ceased to exist for a century!), but the Reformed tradition has a long tradition of working for the good of the polis.
Religious history in contemporary perspective
UW-Madison has, in various ways, obscured its religious history. This is certainly understandable; some prior university leaders were perhaps not acting in good faith when they sought to make religious faith a larger part of university life, and the ideals of a secular public research university have changed. It is no longer possible, one might argue, for such a university to hold non-sectarianism and secularism together. One must either have religion on campus and be sectarian, or eschew religion altogether.
UW-Madison has gone with the latter (at least with respect to its official communications and public relations), and as this choice was put into practice over the decades, several things changed. Chapels that formerly existed in student dormitories are no longer. Music Hall is no longer a place where baccalaureate sermons are heard. And (relevant in view of this newsletter’s title) the school’s motto, Numen Lumen, is no longer translated as “God is our light”.
To be clear, I say none of this with a bemoaning tone. Certainly, it is disappointing to see a rich history obscured for all sorts of reasons (some of them nobler than others), but it would be useless to bemoan a secular university’s secularism. Rather, in learning of the storied interactions between religious institutions and the university, I’m able to attend more carefully to the ways the place is forming students now. (As Churchill said in 1943: We shape our buildings, and afterwards they shape us.)
One last related point: this place is a place God loves. The testimony of the Hebrew Bible, as well as its fulfillment in Jesus, points to a God who cares not just for his creation in general, but for places in all their quiddity (cf. Deut. 1:8, John 14:3). As such, the campus of UW-Madison, with all its historical twists and turns — including a declining religious commitment among the faculty and student body — is nevertheless beloved of God. And if I am to care for the people here, I must learn to love it as he does.
Postscript: I am too often a perfectionist in writing, but here I’m choosing not to edit these posts too scrupulously (or I would send far fewer than I hope to). Please forgive any typos and attribute any factual errors to my own ignorance or too-quick editorial.
Post-Postscript: If you’re interested in supporting my work on campus, here’s a link to donate.
By ‘spiritual history,’ I mean the ways in which the University has interacted with local religious communities, as well as its own philosophy about how a public university should relate to matters of faith.
In saying this, I want to be clear: many of these presidents and provosts held doctrinal positions with which I would, quite strongly, disagree (such as unitarianism or low Christology). Moreover, I would differ from their precise mixture of piety toward God and social and moral responsibility. Where we overlap most often is in the belief that faith in God and just action (not to mention rigorous academic inquiry) are not mutually exclusive.
Interested readers can consult Hummel’s essay for more details; what I’ve written in this paragraph certainly doesn’t apply to every university president or administrator. Some were vehemently opposed to religion’s peaceful coexistence on campus, and even those who advocated for its importance downplayed its actual function on campus (e.g. by ceasing to make chapel mandatory, and eventually erasing chapels from the university’s architecture).
See Tom Holland’s Dominion, or Glen Scrivener’s The Air We Breathe.
My wife Pam (a Grand Rapids native and Calvin alum) attended Geneva, played piano, and was secretary during her two periods in Madison (1980-82; 1986-96), and I attended Geneva with her regularly for most of my grad school days in Madison in the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. This was when Geneva was co-located with Madison Campus Ministry in Pres House; I was a student member of the MCM Board. (I'm a Presbyterian and son of a PCUSA minister.) Best wishes to you as you settle in Madison.
Love the name of your newsletter! It's a nice reclaiming of a spirit mostly banished from the UW campus. The "God, our light" translation had not yet been retranslated out of existence when I was there. But, looking around and surveying the campus culture in the 1980s and 1990s, I decided that what "Numen Lumen" really meant in practice was, "Bud Light."