{"id":51563,"date":"2018-02-03T21:07:55","date_gmt":"2018-02-03T21:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/president\/?p=51563"},"modified":"2018-09-14T19:51:37","modified_gmt":"2018-09-14T19:51:37","slug":"sort-republican-banquet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/president\/2018\/02\/03\/sort-republican-banquet\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sort of Republican Banquet"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had the great privilege earlier this month of celebrating the 90th<\/sup> birthday of Martin Marty and the 20th<\/sup> anniversary of the Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion (at the University of Chicago Divinity School) by presenting the following paper at a conference to mark the occasions.\u00a0 You will recognize the themes here and I hope also see how Marty\u2019s work has influenced my life in higher education.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u201cGod is good,\u201d murmured the Imam as he stepped to the microphone, to which we people of diverse faiths and experiences responded in our hearts, \u201cYes, God is good, and this is not what our God intends for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The occasion was a neighborhood meeting in 2008 following the murder of Ahmednur Ali, one of our Augsburg students \u2013 a young Somali-American who broke up a fight while he was tutoring children at the local community center and was gunned down outside the center.\u00a0 The meeting was to address safety concerns in the aftermath of the shooting, and we all experienced first-hand the wrenching emotional impact of this shooting on our lives together.\u00a0 Though we intended to talk about more security cameras and heightened safety patrols, instead we listened to urgent longing for community.\u00a0 Instead of hearts breaking apart, the Imam broke our hearts open to a new path forward.\u00a0 In that spirit, our community came together to rededicate itself to the well-being of our neighbors \u2013 yes, to more security cameras and personnel, but even more urgently to finding common purpose in the health, safety and well-being of our neighbors and neighborhood.<\/p>\n

It is what has happened on our campus and in our neighborhood since this incident in 2008 that I want to describe briefly this afternoon, and in particular how Marty shaped my response to this event and gave me direction that orients my leadership at Augsburg University and in the world.<\/p>\n

First, a brief autobiographical note that informs my contribution to this occasion.\u00a0 I am an unusual Marty student (aren\u2019t we all!).\u00a0 I am not a historian of any stripe. I began at the Divinity School in 1978, first as a master\u2019s student and then as a doctoral candidate in Ethics and Society.\u00a0 After finishing my doctoral exams, I was distracted by the opportunity to take on an administrative post in the development office at the University \u2013 a move that led me eventually through a succession of roles at the University and the Art Institute of Chicago, and further away from finishing a dissertation in ethics.\u00a0 It was upon my return to the Divinity School in 1991 as the associate dean that then Dean Clark Gilpin challenged me to complete my doctoral studies \u2013 something about modeling good graduate student behavior, I believe was his point.\u00a0 Given the time that had passed, none of my ethics faculty mentors were still at the Divinity School, so Dean Gilpin offered the most helpful advice I\u2019ve perhaps ever received. Find someone who will help you finish. That is how it came to be that I am one of the 128 advisees on that card in Marty\u2019s wallet! And I stand as just one example \u2013 as this afternoon\u2019s program illustrates \u2013 of the diverse students Marty attracts and mentors and the influence they have across the academy, the church and the world.<\/p>\n

I had the same experience many of you in this room enjoyed with Marty \u2013 summers on the porch in Riverside, thoughtful guidance on all things related to dissertation writing, provocative challenges to thesis and exposition \u2013 but our conversations weren\u2019t about American religious history, instead they veered to the role of professions and institutions in American public life, in fact to our shared commitment to understanding how faith informs our roles in democracy. In that way, Marty helped me understand how my academic pursuits set a foundation for leadership in higher education and beyond \u2013 and my path forward has never been the same.<\/p>\n

I am a social ethicist now in my 16th<\/sup> year as a university president, and I know that my calling as a leader in higher education has been shaped by several fundamental themes in Marty\u2019s life and work \u2013 themes that I believe are at the heart of the Marty Center\u2019s mission and programs.\u00a0 Allow me to name three \u201ccompass points,\u201d if you will, in Marty\u2019s work that are relevant to my story.<\/p>\n

In 1979, Marty penned an essay in The Journal of Religion<\/em> entitled \u201cA sort of republican banquet.\u201d Borrowing William James\u2019s concept of the republican banquet table, Marty offers a masterful overview of the dynamic ways in which faith and religion have played critical roles in the history of our republic. From the deism of the founders to DeTocqueville\u2019s mid-19th<\/sup> century curiosity about how diverse faith communities tolerated each other to John Dewey\u2019s \u201ccommon faith,\u201d Robert Bellah\u2019s \u201ccivil religion\u201d and Peter Berger\u2019s \u201ccanopy of the sacred,\u201d Marty suggests that the willingness (or not) of diverse faiths to come to the banquet table, share their particularities, engage in conversation and seek common purpose has been one of the markers of the well-being of our republic.\u00a0 Stopping short of a normative claim, Marty concludes that \u201csightings\u201d \u2013 or perhaps more fittingly, \u201cseatings\u201d – of the faithful at the banquet table are worthy of our abiding attention.<\/p>\n

Hold that image for now \u2013 \u201ca sort of republican banquet table.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then to Marty\u2019s 1997 book, The One and the Many: America\u2019s Struggle for the Common Good<\/em>, in which he seeks to name the threads of diverse myths, symbols and stories that enable us to craft a robust and vital body politic \u2013 not with some grand narrative of oneness or community, but with \u201cassociations\u201d that come together in pursuit of, and grounded by, cohesive affections and sentiments. Imagine the common good pursued through an \u201cassociation of associations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another image to hold \u2013 \u201can association of associations.\u201d<\/p>\n

And finally to a more recent book, Building Cultures of Trust<\/em>, Marty\u2019s 2010 expansive argument for the need to restore trust in our institutions and systems \u2013 trust that makes possible the sort of common work that undergirds healthy communities and organizations and societies.\u00a0 Here he both names the risks associated with building and restoring trust \u2013 risks many of us as leaders and citizens have experienced \u2013 while at the same time pointing to the need to build and rebuild trust from the bottom up, on the ground in everyday public life.<\/p>\n

A final image \u2013 \u201ccultures of trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

A sort of republican banquet table; an association of associations; and cultures of trust. I believe it is at the intersection of these themes that robust democratic engagement happens.\u00a0 People of faith come to the banquet table, able and willing to share their diverse and particular stories when there is trust that deeply held beliefs will be taken seriously and that there is a foundation for moving forward together.<\/p>\n

Now back to my story. Augsburg University, one of the 26 colleges and universities of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is located in a Minneapolis neighborhood that comprises the most diverse zip code between Chicago and Los Angeles, where most of our neighbors are Somali-Americans, the largest Somali community outside of Mogadishu.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago, someone broke the commandment, \u201cYou shall not murder,\u201d and now I know why God gave Moses the great gift of these commandments. Offered in a specific context to the Israelites, God spoke these commandments directly to God\u2019s people so that they might know that they were chosen, that God loved them, that God wanted them to flourish.\u00a0 And in following the commandments, the Israelites would live into God\u2019s will, God\u2019s reign, God\u2019s intentions for God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n

With a nod to my own faith tradition, Martin Luther also is helpful here in his explanation of the sixth commandment, \u201cYou shall not murder,\u201d when he says: This means that \u201cwe are to fear and love God so that we do not hurt our neighbor in any way.\u201d\u00a0 Simple and yet so remarkably helpful.\u00a0 To kill someone is about much more than the sinful act of murder \u2013 the law covers the murderer \u2013 it is about our neighbors and our neighborhood.\u00a0 It is about the pain and fear and injustice \u2013 it also is about the compassion and consolation and remembering.\u00a0 It is about God in our midst, allowing us to go on, keeping us strong even when we don\u2019t believe we can go on because we are sad and desperate and frightened.\u00a0 The commandments are about a loving God with us. A remarkable gift.<\/p>\n

And it is God\u2019s gift that I was firmly focused on as I led a mourning community in the midst of an anxious and frightened neighborhood.\u00a0 Someone broke a commandment and now we lived in the aftermath.\u00a0 It is clear to me that God does not give us commandments primarily to convict the sinner \u2013 we all get that, we\u2019re broken, we don\u2019t live up to the rules, we struggle to hold it all together.\u00a0 God gives us commandments so that we might know the sort of lives God intends for us to live together.<\/p>\n

What this has meant for Augsburg and our neighborhood during these past ten years is an agenda of work and conversation \u2013 I\u2019m drawn to mid-20th<\/sup> century Roman Catholic political philosopher John Courtney Murray\u2019s reminder that the Latin root of conversation means both to talk together and to live together \u2013 an agenda we pursue together at the republican banquet table, sharing our diverse stories as we associate, and building trust as we build a healthier, more just, more equitable and compassionate neighborhood.<\/p>\n

And it happens in very practical, concrete, even mundane and ordinary ways \u2013 though often with extraordinary impact.\u00a0 Four quick themes of our interfaith work and lives\u2026<\/p>\n