Rough Injustice

Several weeks ago, the Executive Board of General Theological Seminary fired eight members of the teaching staff, patently construing their legal work stoppage as “resignation.” Since then the leadership of the Episcopal Church has opted not to intervene (although GTS operates “under the superintendence and control of the General Convention”), and the full Board of Trustees yesterday evidently voted to affirm the dismissal of the eight staff who were exercising their right to seek redress of grievances.

Tom Ferguson of Bexley/Seabury has commented on this in extenso, and I agree with him whole-heartedly. I’d like to add my tuppence on several dimensions of the situation.

As Tom points out, there must be no mistaking what the General Executive Board and Trustees have done: they have publicly and unreservedly acted against the basics of labour law and (specifically) the definitions of academic governance, asserting their lordly prerogative to fire tenured members of the faculty without observing legal process. Even if they imagine they know loopholes through which they might be able to slime their way through this without juridical penalty, the explicit facts remain that the Trustees have taken the teachers’ statement that “We did not resign” and have responded “We accept your resignations.”

This fact alone should depress anyone who cares about labour justice, the Episcopal Church, truthfulness, the integrity of the General trustees, or anything other than investment opportunities in Manhattan real estate. Such as, for instance, the Gospel.

Several things follow from this naked, undisputed fact.

First, if I were a bishop or a Commission on Ministry, there is no way on earth I would let a prospective seminarian near General Seminary. At a moment when the Board most needs a full, active, enthusiastic enrolment, they have sent the message that theirs is a toxic environment in which those who hold power cannot be trusted. If their leadership takes “we do not resign” to mean “we resigned,” what student could trust them when they say “this is confidential” (already one of the background issues in the conflict) or even “this is a fact.”

Second, the Trustees of the seminary seem to have acted to kill the seminary with whose well-being they have been entrusted. Seminary education costs students and dioceses a lot of money; who would gamble such stakes on General’s future? What clear-sighted observer can disagree with Stanley Hauerwas when he says “in some ways what has happened is the death toll of General Seminary” (apart from Stanley’s use of “toll” when he probably wanted “knell”). I’ll bet that the space formerly occupied by General would make a swell headquarters for the Episcopal Church, though, enabling them to sell the skyscraper at 815 Second Avenue.

Third, the administrative style on display in this tragedy coheres with the way leaders in the Episcopal Church have operated with increasing frequency over the past few decades. Everything must reflect orderly “process” when it serves power’s interests, when the outcome is assured, but if “process” would allow the possibility that the wrong people might be allowed a persuasive voice or permitted to initiate a change of direction, then executive action is required! “The task of filling up the blanks I’d rather leave to you” — but the contorted use of terms such as “resign,” “renounce,” “abandon” and so on has become standard operating procedure, now more vividly displayed because the targets of such Humpty-Dumptian tactics are not isolated individuals without leverage, or ideologically unwelcome Others, but insiders who have been front-and-centre stars of the Episcopal Church’s self-representation as a haven for progressive, intellectual Christians.

Fourth, this manner of behaviour (it has been said before, but mostly by those outsiders and loners) partakes in no way of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Perhaps the best one can do is hand-waving about “stewardship,” but it’s a pretty sad statement when the Board opts to exercise benevolent stewardship of the seminary by taking actions that evidently will lead to its demise. Everything Jesus taught militates against this manner of behaviour. The Board willingly, knowingly, went there.

Fifth, this course adopted by the flagship seminary of the Episcopal Church drags all its lofty principles and manifestos into the muck. If General were located in a romantically exotic “foreign” locale, the plight of its academic staff would be just the sort of cause the Episcopal Church would ordinarily take up with fervour; anyone can perceive the self-serving duplicity of supposedly pro-labour, anti-oppression gestures that the church’s privileged leadership might make hereafter. Solidarity with unjustly treated persons is all well and good, so long as privilege still holds its perks.

I’m a contributor to the GTS 8 fundraising support site; I just made my donation, later than I might have, but I wanted to wait until the initial rush was over and till the Board had met and acted. You might also want to offer a hand to people against whom the fickle scythe of passive coercion has turned, who have been turned out of their posts for daring to organise and strike, for presuming to question their executive (surely not their “leader”). If you’re an Episcopalian, you might bear in mind that General Convention is coming up.

3 thoughts on “Rough Injustice

  1. Thank you, AKMA for your usual good sense, gift of clear thinking, and for expressing what so many of us would say. What a sorry episode in the life of what once was a great seminary, but now, seems likely to be just a ruin.

  2. It seems to this observer that the elephant in the room here (and one hardly commented on anywhere) is that TEC cannot afford to sustain 10 seminaries, especially after driving out and suing many of the largest churches they once had.

    Sustaining ten seminaries is something that large, healthy, old-line denominations used to do, of course. But TEC isn’t healthy anymore; it’s sick and limping along. Time to regroup and reassess resources. The writing is on the wall.

  3. In your observation about the rhetoric of “process,” you’ve put your finger on a problem that stretches far beyond the bounds of one seminary, or indeed of the Episcopal Church. Thank you for putting the problem so trenchantly.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *