CU Personnel Lifestyle Statement Review
Cornerstone University’s Personnel Lifestyle Statement provides a key framework in its relationship with its faculty and staff members. For fifteen months, the university has been reviewing this statement.
The purpose of the review is to consider what kind of lifestyle statement best positions the university to fulfill its mission: “To enable individuals to apply unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world.” The university has always maintained a personnel lifestyle statement (as well as a doctrinal statement), and has periodically revised it, so this recent work is nothing new.
This review has so far produced a new lifestyle statement draft articulating the university’s Christian character and philosophy. This draft calls personnel to the Scripture’s highest standards of holiness and spiritual discernment in living for God in a changing culture. It affirms the Bible’s moral principles, and it calls upon employees to think of others in all of their decisions and actions.
The new draft provides a backdrop for the discussion, referenced in a February 22nd article in The Grand Rapids Press, the university is encouraging among its trustees, faculty and staff members, and alumni board in the next few months. While no changes in student policies are being considered, students will be involved so their views may be heard. The university is also welcoming public feedback, which may be provided via my website at http://www.rexmrogers.com
The focus of this review is not a matter of specific activities per se. But the university’s lifestyle limitations on use of alcohol or tobacco or involvement in gambling have been made available for honest and prayerful evaluation. Allowing discussion of these issues reinforces the integrity of the review. It means everyone can think together about what it really means to live the Christian life in the new millennium.
Ultimately, whatever statement is adopted is a decision of the Board of Trustees, but as President I play a role. This discussion is particularly engaging for me because it involves subjects I have spent a lot of time thinking and writing about in my two books, Christian Liberty: Living for God in a Changing Culture, and Gambling: Don’t Bet On It. In the liberty book I discuss “convictions,” beliefs based upon the moral absolutes of Scripture (don’t lie, steal, etc.) and “preferences,” choices God leaves to individuals (food, hobbies, politics, professions, etc.).
In the liberty book I indicate that I do not believe use of alcohol or tobacco in moderation is intrinsically evil, in other words, a sin. But I also believe these commodities are dangerous for many and deadly for some, and I do not drink. In the gambling book I argue that gambling, though not explicitly condemned, nevertheless violates certain doctrines of Scripture. Not every Christian agrees with my perspective of alcohol/tobacco or of gambling, so while I am free to believe, even to advocate, I still must recognize others’ liberty to choose.
I also believe that it is entirely appropriate for a Christian university (or any organization) to determine what “preferences” it wishes to embrace—beyond its doctrinal convictions. Historically, such preferences have run the gamut of virtually every conceivable issue from length of hair to music styles to movies to art to dance to fashions, and more. While institutions can act prudishly in applying their preferences, the mere existence of such preferences does not ipso facto mean an institution is acting inappropriately. Institutions that establish preferences can simply be distinctive, and this can be a very good thing.
West Point, Notre Dame, Stanford, and Brigham Young all have preferences. So do McDonald’s, Google, and the Bush White House. Even the NBA has a new dress code. They just call their preferences “policies.”
On occasion, Christian institutions have set aside certain preferences. This act is not in itself a signal a college or university is losing its faith. What matters is how each generation of faculty and staff members take Christ into culture. This is one reason I value a review. Cornerstone’s personnel are talented, thoughtful, and dedicated Christian professionals. Their counsel will be spiritually wise.
Cornerstone University, along with its divisions Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, WCSG and WAY-FM, challenges students and radio listeners to ask how they should live in light of a biblically Christian worldview. The university’s lifestyle statement review is asking the same question of the university at a policy level.
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Originally published as "Lifestyle Statement Is Cornerstone University's Philosophy," The Grand Rapids Press, (March 4, 2006), p. A11.
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