Gene Nichols is relatively new to the Presidency to the College of William and Mary, arriving in July of 2005. He recently announced that the cross would be removed from the Wren Chapel at W&M to make that building more “inclusive” although people could request the cross be replaced for special occasions. Following quite a bit of controversy Nichol modified his decree by announcing that the cross would be put in place on Sundays.
According to Nichols “Over the past eighteen months, a number of members of our community have indicated to me that the display of a cross—in the heart of our most important and defining building—is at odds with our role as a public institution. They did not say, of course, that the cross is an offensive or antagonistic symbol. They often understand that to Christians, like me, the cross conveys an inspiring message of sacrifice, redemption and love. Rather, they have suggested that the presence of such a powerful religious symbol—in a place so central to our efforts—sends a message that the Chapel belongs more fully to some of us than to others. That there are, at the College, insiders and outsiders. Those for whom our most revered space is keenly inviting and those whose presence is only tolerated.”
This is a curious view of W&M. Is the Wren Chapel the most revered space on campus? Is it so central to their efforts? As a neighbor to W&M, the Chapel is a well known historical building and a reminder of W&M's historical heritage. And it was built as a Chapel by the most noted architect England produced.
This is a rather strange view of the symbols of Christianity. Unlike some other religions, Christianity is openly inclusive. Christian churches are open to all, and people of all faiths are welcome to enter to observe, participate or join. Rather than “tolerate” non-Christians, Jesus told his followers to spread his story. That is the meaning of evangelism. To take one other major religion as an example, Islam does not tolerate the presence of unbelievers. Should you try to join the annual Hajj – or pilgrimage to Mecca, you would be blocked from doing so.
Nichol continues: “Nor are such sentiments merely fanciful. I have been saddened to learn of potential students and their families who have been escorted into the Chapel on campus tours and chosen to depart immediately thereafter. And to read of a Jewish student, required to participate in an honor council program in the Chapel during his first week of classes, vowing never to return to the Wren. Or to hear of students, whose a capella groups are invited to perform there, being discomfited by the display of the cross. Or of students being told in times of tragedy of the special opening of the Chapel for solace—to discover that it was only available as a Christian space. Or to hear from a campus counselor that Muslim students don’t take advantage of the Chapel in times of spiritual or emotional crisis. Or to learn of the concerns of parents, immensely proud for the celebration of a senior’s initiation into Phi Beta Kappa, but unable to understand why, at a public university, the ceremony should occur in the presence of a cross.”
Read carefully the examples given here. In each case, the issue was internal to the individual. It was the person who expressed antagonism to the cross, not the cross that was objectively antagonistic to the person. Cases like this make me wonder why there is this newfound antagonism to the symbol of Christianity in the United States.
Antagonism to Christianity and its symbols is not new. When Islam conquered Constantinople, they converted St. Sophia, one of the holiest sites of Christendom, into a mosque in 1453 and into a museum in 1935. After the Communist Revolution in Russia, The new government took St. Basil’s cathedral in the Kremlin and “…In 1918 the communist authorities shot the church's senior priest, Ioann Vostorgov, confiscated its property, melted down its bells and closed the cathedral down.”
During the French Revolution, anticlericalism was the order of the day and on 1793 the churches of Paris were closed and the public reading of the Bible forbidden. In these temples, a prostitute, Désirée Candéille, was installed as the Goddess of Reason after being paraded naked through the streets of Paris.
Make no mistake; the removal of the cross from the Wren Chapel was an act of de-consecration. And so public an act is a message to Christians: “You are not welcome here. Your symbols are not welcome. You are the people who divide the community and the symbols of your presence must be erased.”
That this should take place now in the politically correct and aggressively secular atmosphere of the academy is surprising only when we ask the question: what took them so long?
For those who sympathize with Gene Nichol (and I have a certain amount of sympathy for him) it is clear that it takes a person with a great strength of character and leadership to resist the forces of secularism. So Nichols has decide to invest the “Wren Temple of Reason” at William & Mary with a Christian symbol on Sundays, while de-consecrating the temple on the other six days.
I wish he would not.
Perhaps we should be grateful for his removing the cross. It may not be appropriate to have the symbol of our faith exhibited to people who are offended by it. By its weekly travels from the altar to its hiding place, it has become a symbol of a kind of Christianity that Hegel described as “conceptual.” It has become the symbol of the kind of Christianity that has destroyed the faith of most of the nations of Europe.
Please Mr. Nichol. Put the cross away. The Wren Temple of Reason is what William & Mary deserve.
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