Conclusion

[p. 167] In his important book, New Perspectives for the YMCA (1964), Paul Limbert raised a key question: what distinctive contribution should the YMCA as a lay Christian movement make, as he put it, to both “the growth of persons and the building of a better world?”¹ What, in other words, should be the YMCA’s personal or individual role and work, and what should be its public role and work? This is a timeless question. It can never be answered once and for all, for it has no single unchanging or uncontested answer. Whenever and wherever it has been asked, it has sparked debate—at times somewhat subtle or muted, at times quite heated and sharp.

Despite its image of homogeneity, over the years the YMCA has attracted and involved people with significantly different values, convictions, beliefs, and perspectives on matters related to both personal and public life. For example, YMCA members and participants have expressed remarkably different ideas of what it means to be a Christian, and of what “Christian” values and principles are, each of which carry different implications for personal and public work. Participants and members have also expressed radically different understandings of what democracy is, and therefore, what the role of citizens and their voluntary associations ought to be in the shaping of public life. The historic debates in the YMCA between followers of private and public Protestantism and between a liberal Protestantism and a more radical Social Gospel highlight these differences.

Despite real differences in perspectives and values, persons involved in the YMCA have found common ground in a shared commitment to join with others in the search for ways to connect spiritual work related to the “growth of persons” with civic work related to the building of a better world. As a democratic voluntary association in that sphere of freedom called civil society, as a movement, the YMCA has been a powerful force for the integration of spiritual and civic development, of spiritual and civic values and aims. In both local and national settings, the pursuit of this integration has been the YMCA’s most important work. I believe [p. 168] that it has always offered, and will continue to offer, the richest promise of association for its members and participants.

The sketch of the history of the YMCA at the University of Illinois that I have provided in these pages illustrates the different ways this work has been understood and pursued over time in a specific association. The story is one of long stability followed by dramatic change. In its early years (1873-1916), the University YMCA’s work was focused on the strengthening of personal religious faith in students, of helping them to achieve a “symmetry of character” with a balance of spiritual, moral, and intellectual dimensions. But this work was not understood as being merely personal or private. Following the views of David Kinley and John R. Mott, the founders and early developers of the University YMCA believed that this personal work had important public significance. The Association grounded its work both in Kinley’s argument that the development of individual moral and religious character would lead to the solving of public problems through increased “brotherly love,” and in Mott’s conviction that since college students were the future leaders of the nation, there was “no more important work on earth than influencing students.”

Throughout most of its middle years (1916-1958), the University YMCA held on to the core view of its work developed in its early years, while it deepened its commitment to influencing the life of the university and expanded its focus to include faculty members. Under Henry Wilson’s leadership, it explicitly aimed at making spiritual values significant in the development of citizenship through friendly relations work with international students, boys’ work, the provision of various services, and religious forums and discussion groups. It developed a view of its role on campus as a “spiritual power house,” a “generating center for great action and good causes,” and constructed a magnificent building in 1937-38 to support it.

The first twenty-five years after the Second World War brought both change and continuity to the way in which the University YMCA understood and pursued the connection of personal and public aims in its mission and work. During the years between Henry Wilson’s death in 1946 and the adoption of a new mission [p. 169] in 1961, the Association developed a more explicitly political view of its role and work at the same time that it maintained its Christian purpose and identity and its primary focus on personal development. After 1961, the Association broadened its religious grounding by embracing religious pluralism. Through forums and discussions that explored the role of religious values and principles in personal and public life, it sought in the 1960s to become the intellectual religious center of the campus. Yet it continued to hold fast to its strong personal development focus, to which Fred Miller, John Price and Ed Nestingen were especially devoted.

The 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s saw the near abandonment of the Association’s historical focus on the development of the religious faith and character of individual students. The primary focus on religion gave way to a focus on politics and social change. Instead of religion, first social service, and then social action and social justice, became the key words used to describe the Association’s mission and work. Despite these changes, the pursuit of connectedness and wholeness—including the integration of spiritual and civic values and aims—was continued. While the balance shifted more towards public engagement than personal development, both were still pursued.

Key Challenges

Along with other YMCAs, the University YMCA has faced two key challenges in its pursuit of a wholeness which integrates spiritual and civic aims and values. Because these challenges are still with us, and because they are likely to remain with us always, they deserve careful attention. We must try to understand their history as well as their current shape.

1. Religion-in-General, Spirituality-in-General, Citizenship-in-General

The first challenge is to be found in the pressures YMCAs have faced to remain vague or broadly general in the religious, spiritual, and civic values and ideas they embrace and promote. While the YMCA was originally a passionate movement grounded in an intense commitment to the development and spread of “evangelical” [p. 170] Christianity, even limiting full membership to those who could prove that they were active followers of such a faith, over time it gradually became more and more open and vague about exactly what religious values and beliefs it stood for. It eventually came to embrace what Paul Limbert called “religion-in-general” (in our time, which is less friendly to religion, we might call this “spirituality-in-general”).² In essence, “religion-in-general” is simply a vague belief that religion in the broad sense is a “good thing.” Along with much of the rest of American society, the YMCA has adopted, in the words of President Eisenhower, a “very fervent faith in a very vague religion.”³ Today, while the YMCA in the United States is still described and promoted at the national level as an organization that seeks to “put Christian principles into practice,” there is little active attempt to study and debate what these principles are and what they imply. Explicit attention to Christianity (or to religion of any kind) in YMCA programs and activities is almost nonexistent. Additionally, no specific Christian or religious motivations or commitments are required or expected of anyone involved in any aspect of the YMCA’s work, including staff.

There is a similar embrace of what might be called “citizenship-in-general” in the YMCA. This is a vague promotion of and belief in “volunteerism” or “community service” as a “good thing,” without a clear sense of why it is a good thing and how it might be connected to the development and practice of democratic citizenship. When citizenship is discussed in the YMCA, it is often discussed less as a political or public concept than as a personal character trait. Good citizens under this view are those who selflessly help out others who are in need. They are caring people of good will. They vote, pay their taxes, and obey the law.

The vague and broadly general religious and civic views the YMCA promotes are partly a result of its attempt to welcome and be open to diversity. But they are also partly a result of its shift from being a religious movement to a secular institution firmly cemented into a community’s infrastructure. Both the welcoming of diversity and institutionalization carry risks or tendencies that lead YMCAs to avoid confrontation and controversy, to settle for a watered-down set of spiritual and civic convictions that are imagined [p. 171] to appeal to the “average” person. In general, movements tend to seek change, while institutions tend to seek to continue their own existence. In some institutions that are sensitive to diversity, the desire to avoid making waves, to avoid upsetting anyone’s values and beliefs, can smother the pursuit of incisive belief and action. While this is not an unavoidable consequence of the embrace of diversity, it is, unfortunately, all too common. It is fed in part from a growing hypersensitivity to identity and difference and an underlying relativism—fed in part by certain strands of “postmodern” thinking—that suggests that everybody’s values and beliefs are equally valid and important. In such a context, incisive belief and action—especially Christian belief and action—is deemed oppressive by definition.⁴

The embrace of “religion-in-general” and “citizenship-in-general” makes a full, rich integration of spiritual and civic values and aims difficult by creating an environment or culture which discourages individuals from moving beyond vague generalities and a lukewarm—even paralyzing—relativism. It dims and marginalizes the power of prophetic faith, energy, and vision, both spiritual and civic. Those who attempted to bring the Social Gospel into the YMCA experienced this, as did those who tried to deepen and expand the YMCA’s work and role in public affairs.

A look at the current mission statements of four of the most active student YMCAs provides a glimpse of the vagueness of spiritual and civic values and aims in the YMCA today. The mission statement for the YMCA/YWCA at Washington University in St. Louis declares that

The campus Y is a place where students have a chance to give something of themselves to others while developing leadership skills, moral imagination and a commitment to justice.⁵

The YMCA at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech for short) states that

Our mission is to provide opportunities for student leadership, social awareness, and activism through community service. Through our strengths and diversity, we strive to make [p. 172] a difference, create a positive atmosphere, and satisfy the needs of the community. These combined efforts offer a means for an alternative education for self-fulfillment.⁶

The mission statement for the University YMCA at the University of Minnesota declares that

The University YMCA seeks to develop the ethical leadership capacities of students in a context of social issues. We do this by combining cross-cultural and community-based experiences with reflective learning. We work through collaborative processes with the University and the wider community to make these opportunities available.⁷

The current mission statement for the University YMCA at the University of Illinois is similar to the three quoted above:

The University YMCA shall challenge and nurture the mind and spirit of individuals and communities to develop and practice ethical principles and responsible leadership for social justice and the integrity of our natural world.⁸

While each of these statements reveals the continuing importance of the integration of personal and public work, the language used in each is vague and loose. None of the statements contains anything as sharp and potent as the 1923 mission of the University YMCA at Illinois, which called in part for “making the will of Christ effective in human society, and to extending the Kingdom of God throughout the world.” Remarkably, not one of the current statements includes any reference to Christianity at all. The insertion of phrases that signal a commitment to such things as “ethical leadership,” “social awareness,” “making a difference,” “justice” or “social justice” are vague. They are weak substitutes for the older and more incisive grounding in Christianity.

I want to stress that my comments here are not meant to imply that a “golden age” has been lost that must now be recaptured. The old incisive Christian focus was often accompanied by much narrow-mindedness, racism, sexism, and other problems. The era [p. 173] which brought an embrace of religious pluralism and other forms of diversity marked a real advance over earlier times. And yet, I believe that something important has been lost. Exactly what it is, and how it might be expressed and applied in our time, is in need of study and debate.

2. The Compartmentalization and Marginalization of Spiritual and Civic Values

The second and perhaps most potent challenge to the YMCA’s work of integrating spiritual and civic values and aims is the continuing power and attraction of a compartmentalized view of life that sees spiritual and civic affairs as being separate or unrelated—not only to each other, but to other things as well, most notably the economy. This compartmentalization is especially powerful in research university settings, which have long thrived on a radically reductionist science committed to breaking things down into separate parts rather than weaving things together into a whole. For both students and faculty members, the search for wholeness and connectedness is a marginal or countercultural activity. For faculty it cuts against the grain of a disciplinary research culture devoted to sharply focused, detached, rational objectivity, to the pursuit of “scientific truth” untainted by personal beliefs and values. For students it cuts against the grain of professional education programs geared towards the detached study of discrete, highly specialized “bodies of knowledge” and the development of various technical proficiencies.

The challenge here is not just about separateness or compartmentalization. It is also about marginalization. Religious and civic values and aims are treated as being both separate from and unequal to other values and aims. In a research university setting, the exploration of religious beliefs and civic principles and values (e.g., democracy and citizenship) is, at best, viewed as being of secondary importance to the “real” work of creating knowledge and improving the economic productivity and efficiency of the economy, mainly through technology transfer and the development and application of specialized expertise. At worst, it is viewed as being irrelevant. In a time when people have become increasingly obsessed [p. 174] with the idea that our highest goal is to “compete and win” in the global economy, spending resources (including time) exploring and developing religious values and civic principles is viewed as a distraction, an unnecessary—even counterproductive or “inefficient”—luxury.

George Marsden, a professor of history at Notre Dame, has written that “The fact is that, no matter what the subject, our dominant academic culture trains scholars to keep quiet about their faith as the price of full acceptance in that community.”⁹ The same goes for students. As Marsden points out, the main issue here is not the separation of church and state, or the inappropriateness of proselytizing from the professorial pulpit. Rather, it is the rejection of the whole idea that religious faith has a potentially useful or important role or place in scholarship and programs of undergraduate and graduate education. Due to its irrationality and subjectivity, faith must be left at the doorstep of one’s laboratory, office, or classroom. The implication is that it is not relevant to the work of higher education. Religious faith and values are therefore marginalized and trivialized, banished to the private life of families and individuals. Religion is viewed, as Stephen Carter has argued, as a kind of harmless hobby, like stamp collecting or building model airplanes.¹⁰

Civic principles and values are also marginalized in higher education. In general, the development of citizenship in higher education receives little serious attention. It is a distant afterthought, far from the center of importance. While some goal related to the development of citizenship is probably held by all colleges and universities, exactly what such a goal means and how it is supposed to be pursued is typically left remarkably vague. Often, the aim is described as the production of “informed” citizens. This suggests that institutions can dispense with their obligations related to civic development simply by offering classes about government, public policy, or current affairs. It rests on a sharply limited, government-centered view of citizenship as being mainly about voting and deliberating about public policy choices. Citizenship has also been trivialized as being about feel-good but mostly inconsequential “community service” or “volunteerism.” Deeper and [p. 175] richer understandings of citizenship—for example, citizenship as the public work of building the American commonwealth—receive little interest and attention.

There are two key questions to be asked here. First, why and how might both the development and practice of democratic citizenship and the exploration of religious or spiritual values be integrated into each of the three activities—research, teaching, and “service” (also called “outreach” or “extension”)—that make up the work of a public land-grant university such as the University of Illinois? Second, what might the University YMCA’s work and role be in the pursuit of such an integration? To ask such questions is to engage the long-standing and deeply challenging debate about the role of religious faith and the meaning and nature of citizenship in a democratic society. Such a debate cannot be conducted in private, nor can it be conducted by detached individuals. Its full engagement is a part of the promise of association.

•••

On December 4, 1953, Lloyd Morey, the acting president of the University of Illinois, gave a speech before the University YMCA’s Faculty Forum titled, “Character Building Supplements to the Curriculum.” In concluding his remarks, he declared that the University contributes “to the education of the sons and daughters of our State and Nation by training them to be persons and not merely technicians, to be citizens and not merely experts, and to live and not merely make a living.”¹¹ This admirable statement captures not only the heart of the old land-grant mission in higher education, but also the core spirit of the mission and work of University YMCA. It should remind us of how closely in tune the University YMCA is to the “high mission,” as Andrew Draper called it in 1903, of a land-grant institution such as the University of Illinois.

Yet the fact remains that this “high mission” has always been a challenge to pursue in a research university culture. Over time, the difficulty of the challenge has intensified as civic and spiritual aims and values have been increasingly flattened and marginalized. [p. 176] While some weak echo of the old “high mission” might still be occasionally found at the center of public pronouncements by presidents and chancellors, its pursuit in practice lies mostly at the distant margins of academic life. Today, neither civic nor spiritual aims and values count for much in the day to day work of research, teaching, and outreach. It is in the careful assessment of the meaning and implications of this state of affairs that we might renew our understanding of the continuing importance of the mission and work of the University YMCA.

¹ Perspectives for the YMCA (New York: Association Press, 1964), p. 17.

² See Ibid., pp. 28-45.

³ Quoted in Ibid., p. 34.

⁴ Excellent discussions of the problem of relativism in postmodern thinking can be found in two books by Charlene Spretnak: States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991), and The Resurgence of the Real: Body, Nature, and Place in a Hypermodern World (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997); and in Douglas Sloan, Faith and Knowledge: Mainline Protestantism and American Higher Education (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), pp. 212-243.

⁵ Today’s Campus Y, the newsletter of the YMCA/YWCA at Washington University. December, 1995, p. 2.

⁶ The Spy, the newsletter of the YMCA at Virginia Tech. December, 1995, p. 3.

⁷ The Torch, the newsletter of the University YMCA at the University of Minnesota. March, 1997, p. 1.

⁸ Adopted by the Board of Governors on November 16, 1995, and published in the University YMCA 1995-96 Annual Report, p. 4.

⁹ George M. Marsden, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 7. For historical background on this point, see George M. Marsden, The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

¹⁰ See Stephen L. Carter, The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion (New York: Basic Books, 1993).

¹¹ Lloyd Morey, “Character Building Supplements to the Curriculum,” p. 12. Unpublished transcript of a Faculty Forum speech delivered on December 4, 1953.