Christina Littlefield
“Free your mind, and the rest will follow.”
I don’t usually make a habit of quoting from En Vogue, but this time the girls have the right idea.
In the past few weeks, the Graphic has printed several controversial stories, such as junior Liorah Stuchiner’s decision to pose nude in Playboy, the university’s decision to discontinue selling condoms in the Student Health Center and multiple letters to the editor dealing with the Bible’s view of homosexuality.
All of these articles raise important questions about how Pepperdine should address these issues as a Christian university.
I applaud the professors and students who have written into the Graphic to continue these discussions. It is not going against my Christian faith to discuss issues such as safe sex or homosexuality. Rather, it is because of this faith that I should constantly seek the truth on these issues. Open conversations stretch your mind and challenge your faith, and both are strengthened by the exercise.
Brigham Young student Corey Wride seems to disagree with this idea that the free exchange of ideas is what makes Pepperdine distinctly Christian and a distinctly first-class university. Wride, a candidate for the Graziadio Business School, wrote a letter to the editor this week saying that he had chosen not to attend Pepperdine after reading the March 14 issue of the Graphic. Quotes from a few students in favor of Stuchiner’s nude pictorial, as well as Dr. Randall Maddox’s opinion piece in support of accepting homosexuality convinced Wride “that the school’s Christian commitment seems to lag behind its academic achievements.”
First, that Wride would judge my university’s faith commitment on a few people, including one who would pose in Playboy magazine, dumbfounds me. Stuchiner is as representative of Pepperdine University as Mickey Mouse is representative of the Communist Party. Would you judge Beethoven or Mozart by one note of one symphony? Similarly, you cannot assess the faith commitment of a university on just a few people’s expressions.
If Wride had looked a little deeper on his visit or even read more than one issue of the Graphic, he would have seen that Pepperdine’s roots to its Christian heritage are deep and strong, and ever growing. The Graziadio School in particular is ranked No. 1 internationally for teaching ethics.
Wride also could have read in the March 14 issue about how the university body rallied around one another with the loss of Amy Ecker and to pray for Lindsey Lott. The way we bond together, more than anything, proves that our faith commitment is more than the cross on our front lawn.
For the record, I was as annoyed at the people who said Stuchiner’s posing was cool as Wride was. But one of the greatest things about Pepperdine is that people are free to make their own choices. I disagree with many of the opinions recently expressed in the Graphic, but I respect the right of those opinions to be represented.
We are not robots who all think alike, but rather a diverse body encompassing diverse political and religious ideologies. By freeing our minds to other ideas, truth follows.
But I doubt they listen to En Vogue over at BYU.
March 28, 2002