Houghton Update

October 2, 2007, 2:10 pm; posted by
Filed under Articles, Steve  | 7 Comments

On the heels of my post earlier today about the Houghton chapel scanner incident, I have some more information from those involved.

They started with a blog over here, but apparently changed their minds about the “Retardo” moniker, and went with this name instead. Good call.

It’s just a bunch of silliness really, a lot of words that don’t mean much.

And now we look to you, as it is for you that we draw our breath and speak these words; here to uphold the good gifts of life beyond all pithy complaints, we labor to support and proclaim again to Houghton the things it has forgotten. For we have too often traded the good things of our faith for earthly comfort. After peeking through the broken doors of our cages, we have cowered in fear at the prospect of leaving them, preferring the familiarity of our own cowardice to freedom.

“Uphold the good gifts of life beyond all pithy complaints”?
“Labor to support and proclaim again to Houghton the things it has forgotten”?

That’s some wild prose right there. Let’s just say I feel vindicated in that moralizing/navel-gazing/”deep question” prediction I made 12 hours ago in my first post.

From our experience with boredom and apathy, we realized that people would need something more than just another voice to confuse them. They would need something much more personal, more active, and preferably more interesting. Viola! The revolution was born.

Glockenspiel! The revolution can’t spell Voila!

Now that we have introduced ourselves, I am sure that you are puzzled as to how and what we expect to do. To be honest, we don’t really worry about that; time and the hearts of man hold many things that no person can foresee and we don’t pretend to. However, it is our solemn belief that by simply being who we are before God and refusing to let apathy and cowardice take that away from us, we are able to empower you and to serve you. Viva La Revolucion!

This is the worst part — they don’t even pretend to have a reason for existing beyond the fact that they exist. “Time and the hearts of men” may hold many things, but an explanation of how this stunt empowered or served anyone apparently isn’t one of them.

From a later post:

The point of the revolution is that Houghton’s problem is an internal problem within us students; the Houghton administration will never be able to fulfill your desires in an academic institution, and we need to change ourselves rather than to change the school (of course, if we were to change ourselves, we also would have succeeded in changing the school).

O….kay…. So, let me get this straight.

1) Houghton’s problem is an “internal problem within students.”
2) Students need to change themselves rather than the school.

Clearly the most important thing to change about themselves is:
3) That the school asks them to scan an ID card at chapel.

Oh, and the best way to show everyone how they all need to change is:
4) To use exciting Spanish words about revolution and take stuff from people.

Keep riding, Quixote.


Comments

7 Comments to “Houghton Update”

  1. Josh J on October 2nd, 2007 4:47 pm

    Let’s not sell them short here. Perhaps “Viola!” was merely a cue for dramatic string music.

    This really is some of the most self important writing I’ve encountered in some time. I almost think there actually is a point in there somewhere, but the posing and preening will distract everyone, including the authors, from ever discovering it.

    Viola!

  2. Aarong on October 2nd, 2007 4:52 pm

    I had a friend of the family named Viola. We used to go swimming in her pool during the summer. She was a wonderful woman, as most woman named Viola tend to be.

    And Asbury College had something much like this a couple of years back. I must commend you on your use of Quixote in all of this. I find that the most enlightening part of all of this as I am taken back to that story itself. Remember the cartoon?

    But Viola… she was a really nice, sweet woman.

  3. David on October 2nd, 2007 6:05 pm

    Sister Viola led worship in the Southern Pentecostal church I used to attend. She was the type of lady that if you mentioned sickness, discouragement or anything else negative she would grab your arm and violently shake you while shouting “I REBUKE THAT BROTHER!!! IN THE NAAAAMMMEEEE OF JESUS!!!!”

  4. MC-B on October 2nd, 2007 8:19 pm

    Ha.. self-important moralizing without substance isn’t limited to Houghton, or even to Christian campuses (though the individual brand of moralizing is different). Just last week I had to sit through a student government meeting wherein we gave club status to SOUL (Society of United Laurentians), whose goal is to bring all of the diverse groups on campus together as one. I had to jump out of the way of all the senators heaping praise on this new club, whose main goals for the semester include a terrible remake of that high school holiday tradition of sending a flower to your sweetheart on Valentine’s Day for a nominal fee. Viva la diversity!

  5. Mike on October 3rd, 2007 6:49 am

    Wow. just wow. Hadn’t gotten to this until now.

    By the way, compulsory worship DOES draw us closer to God, though I was in general agreement with the revolutionaries when I was in college (and still actually agree with them that the scanner system is a bit strange).

    Worship shouldn’t only reflect how we feel about God, it should also shape how we feel about God. Taking on a rigorous course of worship has the ability to shape our hearts, and so we choose (when we enter a Christian college) to take on such a course of worship in order that we’ll come out different people than when we came in. Worked for me.

    And the people who should be most interested in protecting the revolutionaries’ anonymity? Their writing professors. Yeesh.

  6. steve C on October 3rd, 2007 7:54 am

    Something like this happened at Eastern Nazarene a few years back but it involved most of the student body refusing to go to chapel because they were to hung over… Oh I guess that wasn’t the same at all

  7. Last One, I Promise : Bweinh! on October 10th, 2007 2:22 pm

    […] I just can’t resist, I’m sorry. Part of it is that I find the issue interesting, but more than that, I just want to help these people get better. And honestly, I’m slightly annoyed that they refuse to approve the comment where I linked to this site. The previous articles are here and here. […]

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