I am Pepperdine, and I believe in the beautiful fullness of human experience. I find the University’s recent statement of faith troubling in its hubris: its presumption that one institution’s particular theological interpretation can define the boundaries of God’s creation, prescribe the terms of human relationships and identities, and claim authority over the extraordinary diversity of human experience across cultures and throughout history. As a professor, scholar, parent, and someone who has traveled widely and lived around the world, I have come to appreciate how much I still have to learn. The more I encounter the world and its peoples, the more profoundly I recognize the limits of my own understanding and the extraordinary breadth of human experience. I feel the weight and wonder of knowing that I could never encounter, let alone fully comprehend, all of the Creator’s creations. That recognition calls me toward humility, curiosity, and grace, not certainty and exclusion.
My family’s history with Pepperdine spans generations, from my grandfather, the Rev. Dr. Laurence C. Keene, a Pepperdine alumnus and professor emeritus who devoted more than 40 years to teaching at the University, to my own experience as a third-generation alumnus and former Seaver College professor. Over 10 members of my family have called Pepperdine home and hold degrees as proud Waves. I was raised by parents whose lives were dedicated to Christian service and the care of others, and I come from several generations of family deeply rooted in the Churches of Christ and its traditions of ministry, teaching, and service. I grew up understanding faith as a calling to cultivate a servant’s heart, practice humility, extend compassion, and put love of neighbor into action. These are the Christian values and traditions that shaped my family, informed my education, and continue to guide my understanding of what a faith-centered university should aspire to be.
I believe that human sexuality, gender, love, kinship, and life ways have always exceeded narrow definitions. Across cultures and throughout history, Indigenous peoples and communities worldwide have recognized and embraced diverse gender identities and relationships. These histories are integral to human identity. I believe that science, activism, and justice movements are continually helping us to better understand the seemingly limitless spectrum of who we are and who we can be. I believe honoring them requires intellectual honesty, cultural humility, and a willingness to listen to the wisdom of communities whose knowledge and traditions have too often been suppressed or erased.
I believe that the University’s assertions about gender and human sexuality cannot be separated from the long history of patriarchal institutions claiming authority over women’s bodies, relationships, identities, and lives. The insistence on defining humanity through a rigid male/female binary and prescribing a singular framework for marriage and sexuality diminishes the complexity of human experience while perpetuating traditions of gender inequality. Women are not defined by their relationships to men, nor should anyone’s dignity, identity, or belonging be contingent upon conformity to prescribed gender roles or sexual norms. These theological questions have real consequences for the lives, safety, freedom, and flourishing of members of our community.
I know, too, that Christianity itself has deep, diverse, and richly interconnected roots. The Abrahamic traditions encompass millennia of interpretation, encounter, debate, spiritual practice, and cultural exchange. Christianity has never been a monolith, nor has the history of biblical interpretation been singular or static. The great tree of these traditions has grown through countless branches of theological reflection, lived experience, and encounters with the world. To acknowledge this complexity deepens our faith and requires us to take history seriously.
As a Christian, I believe that the pursuit of truth is inseparable from intellectual curiosity, that faith and scholarship flourish in conversation, and that humility requires us to recognize the limits of our own understanding. I believe that the love of God and the love of our neighbors call us toward compassion, justice, mercy, and radical hospitality. I believe that every person bears inherent dignity and deserves to live without fear of exclusion, erasure, or condemnation.
My grandfather, the Rev. Dr. Laurence C. Keene, a Pepperdine alumnus and professor emeritus who taught at the University for more than 40 years, from the Los Angeles campus to Malibu, often observed that, “Most people have a fifth-grade understanding of the Bible, which is fine as long as you’re in the fifth grade.” I carry his words with me as a reminder that a lifetime of faith and scholarship should deepen our curiosity, expand our understanding, and cultivate humility. We should never mistake the limits of our own understanding for the limits of scripture, let alone the limits of God’s love.
As a third-generation Pepperdine alumnus, a former Seaver College professor, and a lifelong member of this community, I believe in the university that first inspired me to embrace the courage and calling of teaching. I believe in an institution where faith invites inquiry rather than forecloses it, where scholarship is pursued with integrity, where difference is met with generosity and grace, and where the full humanity of every member of our community is honored.
I am Pepperdine, and I believe that the richness of God’s creation exceeds our definitions, that the histories of faith are deeper and more expansive than any single statement can contain, and that love, humility, and the pursuit of truth must remain at the heart of our shared life. I believe in a Pepperdine that makes room for all of us.
–Dr. Bryan C. Keene (they/elle/iel)
Seaver ‘06; former adjunct professor of Art History and Humanities, Seaver College, 2011-2019
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Contact Dr. Bryan C. Keene via email: bryan.bryank@gmail.com