“I am a Democrat, a United Methodist clergywoman, an ethicist, a Southern Methodist University faculty member…and an enthusiastic supporter of efforts to bring the George W. Bush Presidential Library to SMU,” Rebekah Miles wrote in “The United Methodist Reporter” this week.   “Some of the news stories have made it sound as if most SMU faculty members oppose the Bush library,” she noted.  But she is “surprised at how few faculty members” actually the anti-library letter.  “Like many other faculty members, I was given multiple opportunities and chose not to sign.”

More forcefully, SMU theology professor William Abraham warned in the “SMU Daily Campus” that academic freedom was imperiled by the fight against the Bush Library for political reasons:  “If the decision is derailed, it will be clear that the academic and theological wells at SMU are poisoned. We will be revealed as a community that does not value diversity of opinion and that shuts down alternatives. The first step in responding to the potential poison is to do all we can to ensure that the Bush institutions come to SMU.”

Abraham and Miles were responding to angry critics of the Bush Library who argue that the library will become a throbbing thinktank for war, environmental degradation and homophobia, all of which supposedly characterize the Bush Administration.  Some are claiming that Bush’s policies are intrinsically at odds with the teachings of the 8 million member United Methodist Church, which technically owns the university.

SMU theology professor Susanne Johnson, who organized the letter of protest for SMU faculty, has warned that a Bush Library would, horrifyingly, "create a tipping point toward conservative scholarship" at SMU.  An earlier draft of her letter had called the Bush Administration "morally reprehensible” and “ethically egregious,” though this language was later diluted so as to appeal to a larger audience.  Reportedly, four dozen SMU faculty signed Johnson’s letter.

Other critics, more generically, simply assert that the Bush Library is too controversial for the school and the denomination.  But Jimmy Carter’s thinktank, the Carter Center in Atlanta, has from the start been affiliated with Emory University, which also is owned technically by The United Methodist Church.   Hardly immune from controversy, the most recent of which has been the resignation of advisory board members in protest against Carter’s anti-Israel statements, the Carter Center has not similarly been targeted by Methodist bishops and clerics supposedly distressed by such political affiliations.

SMU’s president and board of trustees, half of whom are Methodist, have so far firmly defended the proposed Bush library.  Trustees include the pastor of the Dallas congregation to which President Bush belongs, the 12,000 member Highland Park United Methodist Church.  First Lady Laura Bush, herself an SMU alumnus, is also on the SMU board.  Another board member is former SMU theology professor and now Bishop Scott Jones of Kansas, who wrote all of his fellow Methodist bishops defending the Bush Library.

“I serve as a Trustee of SMU, and have supported the University’s efforts to obtain the Library since the topic was first discussed in the Board,” Bishop Jones wrote his colleagues.  “What is now political controversy will, in a short time, become historical study.”  He added:  “The Library with its documents, exhibits and other research materials will provide an excellent forum for debate, discussion and research about the accomplishments, mistakes, political philosophy and missed opportunities of this presidency.”  The library will enhance rather than diminish academic inquiry at SMU, Jones assured fellow bishops.

Jones also mentioned that two controversial politicians, both President Bush and Senator Hillary Clinton, are United Methodists:  “At times I disagree with both, and at times I agree with both. But they are my sister and brother in Christ, and I claim them as part of my United Methodist family.”  But many United Methodist bishops, seminary professors and bureaucrats are not so charitable, characterizing the Bush Administration as uniquely sinister. 

So far, SMU is rejecting that argument.  The student senate voted overwhelmingly for the library.  SMU’s theology school dean, William Lawrence, insisted in an op-ed that the library would showcase the church’s willingness “to ponder the great social issues of the age.”  According to SMU’s chief theologian, “a Methodist university can illustrate for the continent that it is possible to have a great debate without fear that some ideological or ecclesiastical forces will dictate its outcome.”

Less loftily, the anti-Bush library petition organizer told United Methodist News Service that his protest is a “modern epistle” from “those who don’t wish to have their beloved church associated with a man who has authorized torture and a lie-based war of aggression against the people of Iraq.”

Perhaps helpfully, the Bush library debate at SMU has spotlighted how the religious and academic left, which are too often unwilling to engage in robust debate, simply want to eradicate any possibility of dissent.

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