When Student Housing Is Named After a Segregationist
My seminary studies is on the list of some of the most formative times in my life. It was there that I not only had the privilege of studying the Bible and the tools to interpret and apply it aright, but I also found myself in the position of speaking as a representative of the seminary.
Indeed, with a quick search in the video archives on Westminster Seminary California’s website, you can see that I was featured in a promotional video for the seminary and was asked to speak on behalf of my class for our graduation reception. Though I considered myself of no real interest during my time at the seminary, others found my story and experience captivating enough to capture on video!
I owe much to the seminary in terms of where I am today. It was through a (required!) summer pastoral internship for my seminary that I was asked to preach at an all Black Reformed church and had a life-changing experience. It was then that I began to ask questions about why our churches were so culturally, racially, and ethnically homogenous and White. It was through a practical theology course with one of my favorite professors that I began to think about racial justice and equity as necessary outflows of gospel fidelity. It was through conversations with other seminarians — both alumni and current — that I came to see that Reformed theology had the ability to be deployed to give Christian hope in the face of systemic injustices.
It has been several years since I graduated from Westminster Seminary California with my Master of Divinity. Though I’ve gone on to use my seminary degree to write on a variety of issues including social justice, racial justice, and Christian engagement in society, I’ve had friends and acquaintances associated with the seminary to keep me connected as an alumnus.
Recently, I had an opportunity to visit my alma mater in person. During my final year of studies, they had begun a massive building project to expand the seminary campus and add buildings for student housing. Seeing the finished project was fascinating, to say the least.
Yet, I was deeply saddened to see that the leadership at the seminary had very recently decided to dedicate one of these new buildings to J. Gresham Machen, a man who in 1913 publicly protested against the integration of a Black student in the dorms of Princeton Seminary.
In Machen’s own words: “…any time a room is vacant [the colored man] may move over here. If I am to make any objection, now is the time to make it.”
It’s perhaps beyond ironic and maybe even distasteful or unwise that they would dedicate a building for student housing in the name of a figure who wanted to block non-White students from living in dorms. Although it is entirely possible that the leadership was unaware of these facts about Machen when they dedicated this building, they are at a point now where they have to wisely and thoughtfully consider whether this recent dedication of a student housing building is beneficial, not only for the seminary’s reputation, but for outreach to Christians of color who may be familiar with this dark segregationist history.
In other secular institutions, like Princeton University, actions have been made to take down monuments and rename buildings that commemorated figures of the past who promoted racist, White supremacist, and/or segregationist policies. Students at several institutions have publicized the institutional skeletons in the closet that showed deep connections to slaveholding pursestrings. In the Christian academic world, students at Fuller Theological Seminary began protests to publicize how deep White supremacy still reigns in Christian schools, and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has recently published a report delineating the racism that was a part of both the establishment of the seminary and its actions up to the Civil Rights movement.
I’m not sure what steps need to be made at my alma mater, but there are several models that have already paved the way for starting institutional change. At the very least, however, I am hopeful that even this building dedication can be turned for good. My hope and prayer is that the J. Gresham Machen student housing building would be the most diverse and equitable one on campus. I’m hopeful that the students who see that plaque every day would truly learn to be honest about our history, learn from our institutional sins and mistakes, and make it their lifelong goal to proactively fight against racism and White supremacy in the church.
Only time will tell what Westminster Seminary California will do. I pray that the leadership would fight against the temptation to take the easy route — to simply gloss it over, pretend it never happened, and hunker down until institutional and public amnesia about Machen’s views makes its way through. The leadership of the seminary has an opportunity to lead the path in humility — to visibly show what it means that “He must increase and I must decrease.” May God grant them grace to make such steps in faithfulness to Christ.
