Bethel, to fulfill goals,
must 'redefine the ideal'

As students at a Christian college, we are in a strange position.  We are on both sides of a generation gap.  Our Christian values are with one of the most conservative of religious groups, and our social values are with one of the most rebellious of generations.  To the members of both groups, we must seem like a contradiction in terms.

We grew up in fundamentalist churches.  But for many of the members of those churches, Christianity has come to be tied to a set of social values which have nothing at all to do with Christianity.  Christianity implies capitalism, Christianity implies Americanism, Christianity implies not smoking, implies beardlessness and crewcuts, and not playing cards and not going to the movies, and much more.  Those people look at the young person who has rejected one or more of those social values and identify him as somehow "unchristian."  So we have a church with a gospel that we want and a code that we don't want.

On the other hand, we have the kids we grew up with, who at the same time can hold unbounded hope for the future and no hope at all.  It is a generation of idealism, rebelling against prejudice, with a great concern for helping other people.  They, too, have seen our church, and they have seen how closely it has been allied to that very set of values that they are rebelling against.

And they have rejected it; rejected it so strongly that they seek to destroy it with the rest of the "system."  So we have our generation, with an openness and an idealism that we want and a rejection of Christianity that we don't want.

"You can't be Christians and do those things and dress that way.  You are radicals."

"You can't be a real person and cater to the establishment like that.  God is irrelevant and you are reactionaries."

Radicals . . . reactionaries.  It's tough being both at the same time.  And so we come to Bethel, looking for a way to become "turned on" Christians.  But Bethel frustrates us, because we can tell as soon as we get on campus what we are "expected" to be, and we do not want to be that.

Those expectations are not written out; there is no bureau for imposing them and no police force for enforcing them.  But they are very evident.  It is that image that someone from Hamline sees as the "typical Bethel student."  It is that typical student that few of us think we are and few of us want to be.

But you do not play your stereo loud enough to offend that student.  You do not write Clarion articles which would displease that student.  You do not grow a beard; that student might stumble.  These things are small--like bees, and like bees they are irritating.

That student, because the rules are made with him in mind, becomes identified as the ideal, an ideal which is defined in many different ways.  But that ideal is not practical, and it is not desirable--and it does not fit the actual norm.  Because we are not that student, we feel less at home here.

If Bethel is to become an exciting place to live and to learn, that ideal must be redefined to allow more variation.  Redefining the ideal can mean a lot of things.  It means movies on campus; it means allowing cards in the dorms; it means relaxing women's hours.

But more than anything else it means a continuing dialogue between the administration and the students, a dialogue which can best be carried on by the Senate and the Association President.

C.M.