Liberal arts colleges Deeper understandings


They are communities of memory and hope By James Hofrenning


and the west, the north and the south. Current memories have deep


May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13).


M


any words have been used to describe a liberal arts college. I will use only two: memory


and hope. A liberal arts college is a commu-


nity of memory. I’m not going to write about personal memories, though we may have many. Rather, I would like to focus on the memories of a community that identifies itself as a liberal arts college related to the church. In Habits of the Heart, Robert Bellah wrote: “Communities ... have a history—in an important sense they are constituted by their past—and for this reason we can speak of a ... com- munity of memory.” The primary purpose, the central


purpose, the critical purpose of a liberal arts college is to deal with memories. It exists to lift up memories, to pre- serve memories, to find memories, to interpret memories. The memories and ideas come from philosophers, poets, playwrights, historians, musi- cians, artists, theologians, scien- tists. These memories live in books, music, paintings, plays, experiments. These memories span the centuries, transcend cultures and nationalities, cross boundaries between the east


roots and long tentacles. Our mem- ory roots go back to Athens and Jerusalem, to Mecca and Macedo- nia, to Rome and Constantinople, to Geneva and Wittenberg, to Cam- bridge and Copenhagen, to Beijing and St. Petersburg, to Wounded Knee and Auschwitz, to Atlanta and Sharpsville. Memories are also crucial for the


life of faith. When the Jewish people celebrate the Passover, they are nour- ished by the memories of their deliv- erance from Egypt and recall God’s mighty acts. My wife Ing and I visited Ellis


Island, that marvelous museum of immigration. There in the graffiti were scrawled the words of a Jewish man from what was Czechoslovakia: “My mother brought her candles, the ones you use on Friday night. She brought her Bible, the things that were near and dear to us, which were not important to anybody else, but to us they brought back memories.” When the Christian community


gathers to celebrate the eucharist and take the bread and the wine, we hear the words: “This do in remembrance of me.” For the Christian, the eucha- rist is the ultimate reminder of Jesus, his life, his death and his resurrection. Why are memories so important


both for an academic community and for a community of faith? It is because we know that our


Editor’s note: This series is intended to be a public conversation among theologians of the ELCA on various themes of our faith and the challenging issues of our day. It invites readers to engage in dialogue by posting comments online at the end of each article at www.thelutheran.org.


14 www.thelutheran.org


The memories we choose to nourish or discard are crucial for us as


individuals, as liberal arts colleges and also for our civilization.


memories have power. They shape us, they nurture us and they enlighten us. Memories give us wisdom, breadth and depth, perspective. Because memories are so impor-


tant in an academic community, we enter into conversation with them. This is precisely, scholar Martin Marty says, the reason for which the Lutheran colleges and universities were designed. As we converse with these memories we critique them, analyze them, absorb them, discard them. Because the memories are so important, we constantly debate which ones should be taught and emphasized. Shall we limit ourselves to the ancient texts? Or the books of the West? The humanities or science? Which books shall be excluded, since we obviously cannot cover all of them?


Avoiding repetition The memories we choose to nourish or discard are crucial for us as individ- uals, as liberal arts colleges and also for our civilization. Two examples under- score this idea and reveal how remem- bering is crucial in avoiding repetition of sordid chapters in human history. My wife and I remember vividly


hearing an address by Elie Wiesel at Duke University, Durham, N.C., in which we came to understand his


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