On March 30th, 2019, a blog post entitled White Jesus at Westmont College: The Controversy was posted to the Righting America blog by William Trollinger. Trollinger is the Director at the Core Integrated Studies Program at the University of Dayton.
Read the blog post at Righting America.
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On March 27th, Will Walker - editor-in-chief of the Horizon newspaper - wrote an op-ed requesting the removal of white Jesus. Alluding to Ta-Neihisi Coats' case for reperations and its endorsement by David Brooks, Walker argues that "Westmont must make a gesture to respect the voices of those who hurt under an image of Jesus... If Westmont wishes to enact the radical love embodied in the New Testament, it will replace White Jesus with a creative and inclusive piece of art which better represents our community, both in terms of its values and its actual demographics." Walker also responds to common objections to the removal of the image and explains the image's spiritual importance. Read the full article at the Horizon website. In March 2019, the Westmont Initiative for Public Dialogue and Deliberation held a conversation about Art and Depictions of Christ on Campus. The summary of their report is attached below.
On March 8th, five Westmont professors author three articles published in the Horizon. [UPDATE 7/28/2019] Unfortunately due to the Westmont Horizon changing it's website, the links to the articles are no longer available. Instead images of the articles as they appeared in the paper are attached below. We have reached out to the Horizon to get these articles back up with little success. In the future we are committed to backing up all webpages of the Horizon at the Internet Archive so they remain accessible. Imagining Jesus Lisa DeBoer - Professor of Art Caryn Reeder - Associate Professor of New Testament Religious Studies and Co-coordinator of Gender Studies Program Click here to read at the Horizon (link broken see above) A Westmont to Belong To Alister Chapman - Professor of History Felicia Song - Associate Professor of Sociology Click here to read at the Horizon (link broken see above) Why Objections to white Jesus are only skin deep
Robert Gundry - Professor emeritus and Scholar-in-residence Click Here to read at the Horizon (link broken see above) On Wednesday, March 6th, Westmont Faculty Council hosted a faculty panel discussion in the Global Leadership Center. The event was attended by more than 230 students, staff, faculty and alumni. The event was opened by Brendan Fong, Emily Mata and Olivia Stowell who re-stated their case for the removal of white Jesus from the Voskul Prayer Chapel. Their introduction was followed by opening statements from the faculty panel. The panel featured Dr.Lisa DeBoer — Professor of Art, Dr. Telford Work — Professor of Theology, Dr. Alister Chapman — Professor of History, and Dr. Felicia Song — Associate Professor of Sociology. After the opening statements, the floor was open for questions from the attendants for the faculty panel. On March 4th, Brendan Fong and Emily Mata met with Edee Shulze (Vice President of Student Life), Stu Cleek (Dean of Students), Scott Lisea (Campus Pastor) and Jason Cha (Director of Intercultural Programs).
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