Northwestern College Shifting Toward Egalitarianism? Part I

There was once a time, not so long ago, when Northwestern College stood as an unquestioned bastion of conservative evangelical orthodoxy. But today many say that Northwestern has fallen victim to the shifting sands of postmodern thought.

Nearly 107 years after beginning its mission of training workers for Gospel service, the St. Paul, Minn., school sits under a cloud of controversy with students, faculty members, former trustees and alumnus contending that a profound theological drift, one that tends toward a postmodern denial of absolute truth, has taken root at the highest levels of Northwestern's administration. The present administration has begun to steer the school away from the authority of Scripture, they argue.

The situation reached the public square last October 27 when a group of former trustees-all of whom had resigned or been removed from the board for refusing to support president Alan Cureton's vision-launched a website called "Friends of Northwestern College and Radio"-to document the school's theological drift. The administration at NWC soon responded with its own website-NWC Responds.

The school was founded in 1902 by Baptist minister William Bell Riley and gained accreditation as a liberal arts college in 1978. Noted evangelist Billy Graham served as president of NWC from 1948 to 1952.

Contributors to Friends of Northwestern College and Radio contend that the shift began in 2002 when NWC trustees hired Alan Cureton as the school's eighth president. Former trustees allege that Cureton did not share many of the school's conservative convictions-including its complementarian view of gender roles. NWC's drift has been well chronicled over the past few months, including an in-depth article by Christianity Today that details the controversy.

Courtney Tarter matriculated at NWC from 2004 until her graduation in 2006. Tarter, who worked as a student assistant and intern for one of Northwestern's vice presidents, says the gender issue serves as one palpable illustration of the institution's theological compromise.  

Tarter says she began to notice a less friendly attitude toward complementarianism among NWC leaders after Wayne Grudem spoke on campus in 2004 about gender issues: 

"I remember coming to work one afternoon to hear the vice president for whom I worked speak in frustration against the complementarian events that were being held at the college," Tarter said. "It was then that I realized that maybe everything wasn't as it seemed. During my senior year Ben Witherington was brought in to speak in chapel and to speak at an event on egalitarianism. The chapel announcer said, ‘Since Northwestern doesn't take a stand on this issue we are having someone from the other side speak.' It was in that moment that I realized that Northwestern was trying to play both sides regarding the gender issue."

Following the Witherington event, Tarter wrote an opinion piece in The Column, the NWC student newspaper; in it, she called on the administration to take a particular stand on the issue of gender because Scripture takes a clear stance on it. For Tarter, the authority of the Bible was at stake. Her boss at NWC did not take kindly to the article. The vice president insinuated that Tarter would, with the maturity of years, come to see the archaic nature of her complementarian view.

"I was called into her office after I wrote the article," Tarter said. "She wanted to explain to me that the reason NWC doesn't take a position on the issue is because of her. She said that it would alienate donors and put us in a position that we wouldn't want to be in as an institution. "She informed me that most likely, as I got older, I would change my mind on my position on complementarianism. After this meeting it became apparent that NWC was not interested in taking a position on gender, though by default they were functioning as egalitarians."           

Egalitarianism has become a more prominent feature the past few years at NWC as certain events at the school seem to illustrate. The rise of egalitarian views at the school has led a group of students to form a pro-complementarian group. Tomorrow, Gender Blog will take a closer look at these evidences of NWC's move on the gender issue.