Eastern Mennonite University - Shenandoah Yearbook (Harrisonburg, VA)

Page 12 text:

If anything, this year | have sensed a greater degree of polarization on campus than heretofore. Perhaps because of the charismatic tendency in the air beyond our campus, this emphasis has been accented in our public gatherings this year. This shift was accentuated when the structure that developed for the fall meetings promoted “experience” to the hilt. As a result, a great many of our finest and most ex- emplary students and faculty were unable to conscien- tiously throw their weight behind what others thought was a vital movement of the Spirit in our midst. The “immedia- cy” that was stressed in the public meetings tended to overlook the manner in which the Spirit functions through our class preparations. Tensions developed between the approach of IDS and courses in Biblical studies on the one hand, and those who were convinced that breadth and depth of study should give way to a direct reliance on the Spirit who would provide ‘‘ready-made” insights as needed, on the other. Some dialogue has taken place in isolated situations, but the basic dichotomy is still with us. — faculty Ruth Lehman, Robert Maust Community comes into being when individuals, who are basically at peace with themselves and their past, find themselves in a context in which they feel accepted as persons to the point where they dare to think that their deepest insights and concerns will not only be given a hearing, but will actually be solicited and appreciated as their distinctive contribution to the whole. — faculty

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Marlin Yoder EMC is dead! There are those who would argue with me, but they have been fooled into accepting the cordial facade that disguises the inner artificialities. Each ideologically segregated group meticulously conforms to their supposed roles in our Christian society. Their socially engineered standards and insepa- rable convictions mutely condemn each other while they each so brilliantly defend our contrived wilderness of pretended oblivion. We have created an elite society of dignified snobs who sadly look down on their less privileged brothers and continue on their merry way. | have heard many this year proclaiming the joy of their new-found experiences, but they continue to avoid associating with those people who have not felt such joy. In essence, they have formed a new religious clique in the community. In my two years here, | have become doubtful as to the specific benefits of an EMC education; but | am not yet despairing hope for the fragile paradox of Christian education. — student

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| think we’ve experienced community in ways this year that we haven’t before. Our views didn’t become more alike, but our acceptance of that person and his views became more real. On the other hand, there have been times when we didn’t experience community; and those times were when someone said, “My experience is the only valid experience and you must have it too.”’ Hubert Pellman — student aon Elton Horst Irene Kanagy