by Sandy » Wed Dec 18, 2013 12:21 pm
First of all, it's a silly idea, and I can't believe that the seminary's development team isn't trying to move the donors to another project that will be of more direct benefit to the students and their theological education. Statues and stained glass are aesthetic touches, and they're pretty, but if a donor funded a scholarship or a professorship, it would be more beneficial to the students and have a greater impact in the long run.
That being said, it would not take me long, if I wanted to look, for similar examples of such silliness among educational institutions operated by Christian groups and denominations of all theological varieties and stripes. Everyone has their prominente and their mutual admiration societies that hand out plaques and awards, and pats on the back, to people who have not really done all that much except open their checkbook or be a good friend to someone who has a big checkbook, or ascend to leadership with the right mixture of supporters, detractors, moxie and vanity.
"Honorary" doctorates come to mind. When I think back on the individuals who were awarded one, in front of a chapel service at my Southern Baptist alma mater, it was the same sort of thing as this. Someone who, in the opinion of those who had the power to grant them, was a great influence peddler in the right way, or who wrote a gigantic check to the school. During my sophomore year, W.A. Criswell came to speak at the 50th anniversary of the state convention, which was also the retirement party for the executive director who was one of his protégés. He spoke in chapel the next day, and the school gave him an honorary doctorate, I guess so he would remember po' lil' us out in Arizona. That made the moderates on the trustee board and in the administration mad, so they invited Ken Chafin to come and speak in chapel and gave him an honorary doctorate as well. This stained glass window thing is more of that kind of stuff. Everyone does it and should be ashamed of it.