I’d like you to take a journey with me, into an imaginary land of adventure. Close your eyes — yes, have your roommate or prospective lover read the rest to you — and envision a place where there is no such thing as convo credit. Nowhere can there be seen crowds of apathetic students waiting in line with their ID cards, and no signs advertising ambiguously-titled events. Not a single transcript features a letter grade for occasionally attending (and texting during) these events.
Does this land sound familiar? Because to me, it sounds like the whole rest of the world.
Uniqueness is in itself not good or bad. Pepperdine has many rare qualities that I like. For example, it offers a surfing class, Project Serve is a common spring break option and our mascot is a liquid.
Similarly singular, the convocation requirement is the result of Pepperdine’s desire to harmonize Christian values with a degree of pluralism and liberality. Abilene Christian University and Harding University (other Church of Christ-associated schools) both require students to attend chapel every day. Wheaton and Westmont (both non-denominational Christian schools) require it three times a week. Meanwhile, secular schools obviously don’t require any kind of chapel, allegedly pursuing only academic rigor and economic viability.
So, Pepperdine’s unique compromise between the two styles is convocation. It’s this thing that you have to attend about once a week to get an A, the ultimate significance of which is debated, and there are all these different events that you choose from, you just have to make sure you bring your ID to be scanned, and if it’s a popular one you better get there early, maybe even get a ticket. Sometimes they’re super religious, sometimes they’re more like counseling, sometimes they’re more like an academic assembly and sometimes they’re more like foreign language practice. Some are short, some are long and more or less demanding. But at least you’re getting convo credit.
Why are we requiring religious engagement? Is a student expected to gain from any form of spiritual exposure, to soak it up like a sponge? When we require religion, even the vague religion often featured in convos, we distort it with logistical and political complications. In addition, requiring religion patronizes it. It says that we don’t think people value their soul enough to bother with spirituality, so we force them to bother. But the result is less that they bother and more that they pretend to bother.
Some convos are worthwhile. In fact, one alumnus told me that he attended way more convos than were required because he liked them so much. At one point he asked the convocation office if he could sell his convocation credits to other students. (The idea of modern-day indulgences apparently wasn’t a hit).
However, I find that most students see convocations as something to “get out of the way.” After a friend of mine spoke at a convo recently, she told me, “Well, it was fine. I do always forget how difficult convo audiences are,” describing the students as “dead.”
This is not even to address the audience behavior on a Wednesday morning, which subjects guest speakers to talking, background noise and general rudeness. Sure, it’s decreased since Pepperdine started using its convocation workers to tell off fellow students who are disruptive. But what a shame that is. Young adults shouldn’t require babysitting.
In other campus gatherings, I have witnessed my fellow students being not only respectful but also responsive to speakers. What makes the difference is the right to choose. Students, like most people, thrive and learn when they have made a conscious decision to engage. In contrast, the response to mild coercion is mild rebellion. Thus, the convocation requirement trains our students to engage in faith matters with apathy. The best way to enrich our spiritual life at Pepperdine, including convo-like activity, would be to abolish its requirement.
By subjecting our spiritual events to the same demands that we subject other on-campus events to — the challenge of attracting people and reaching them in a meaningful way — we would fuel discourse about the meaning of faith. If we arose to that challenge, we could become the kind of Christian university that truly sustains a thriving spiritual environment organically, without reliance on confusing and degrading institutional demands.
God gives us free will to accept or reject Him. The most profound thing about following God is our choice to have faith when all empirical evidence suggests that we don’t have to. Why does it seem like our faith-based administration is ignoring God’s example? If we are to produce a community that deeply experiences God, we must not dull his glory with our rules.