A group of Asbury students is seeking changes in chapel, which prompted them to write and release a petition.
The petition, titled “To Preserve the Integrity of Asbury’s Spiritual Community,” was written by junior Lucas Wyland and senior Jesse Green as a response to statements about race relations and Breonna Taylor made in chapel and in an email sent by the Executive Cabinet.
“The pattern of politically biased messages that have been used in chapel services prompted our writing and releasing of the petition,” Wyland said. “This petition is important because chapel is important, spiritual vitality is important and community is important. These things are at the core of what Asbury represents and need to be valued above all political leanings. If we want to come together in unity as a school we must do so in our most commonly shared and most deeply valued attribute, our Christianity.”
Wyland and Green’s petition was shared on social media, where it gained 200 signatures. However, some Asbury students on Twitter disagreed with Wyland and Green’s views, so a counter petition soon appeared.
The counter, written by senior Regan O’Brien and another student, is titled “Shut up racists at Asbury,” and was also shared on social media.
“I wrote the counter petition because I was angry that my fellow students even made the original petition,” said O’Brien. “Politics have always been in chapel since I have been a student and I am sure way before. The example that this group of students used for why politics should not be in chapel was clearly more than a political issue.”
The claim against the original petition was that Wyland and Green’s petition had racist undertones, but Wyland stated that this is not their intent.
“I’d really like to clarify about a common misconception we’ve had to our movement. It seems several people that either through preconceived biases about us as young conservative people or through not reading our letter closely enough have decided that we don’t want to talk about social issues such as racial equality,” said Wyland. “This couldn’t be farther from the truth. We support chapel messages such as Dr. Brown’s address to the students that deals with social issues because Dr. Brown looks at those issues through a spiritual lens rather than a political one. Social issues are important to talk about in chapel but need to be kept in the scope of Christianity rather than politics. Political conversations are important to have but they need to be kept out of chapel and reserved for a place where each person has an equal chance to represent him/herself and attendance is not required. That is what we are pushing for with this petition.”
Dr. Brown is encouraging students to have respectful conversations about what is currently happening in our world, and is willing to engage in these conversations with students.
“As I understand it, the petition was created to bring a concern to the President’s attention,” said Brown. “Whether a few people sign a petition, or hundreds, Asbury University leaders are always happy to meet with students who are concerned about the academic or spiritual integrity of our school. Put differently, if students have a concern, we want to discuss it in as healthy and Christ-like of a manner as possible.”
