Princeton Theological Seminary
As delivered.
I am honored to stand before you on this signal day and to play a part in marking the installation of Jonathan Lee Walton as the 8th president of Princeton Theological Seminary. It was my great privilege to work closely with Jonathan at Harvard for seven years, so I know well the strength of his courage, the depth of his faith, and the power of his voice—as well as the value of his friendship. He is a leader of great accomplishment and great promise, and it is a joy to join in celebrating him.
We have gathered here in solidarity. Like a congregation at a wedding, we signify by our presence our pledge of support to this marriage of a new president to a venerable institution. But our presence and our solidarity represent a great deal more. As we observe this rite of passage for Princeton Seminary, we celebrate both the old and the new. Our very robes represent the long heritage of learning, service and faith that has defined Princeton Seminary and that links it to ancient traditions of scholarship. In the enactment of this ritual today, we affirm our ties to the values of that past, the commitment to deep inquiry, to what has been called here at Princeton Seminary “solid learning”; we affirm values and purposes that are not shaped by the immediate demands of an often myopic present; we affirm a long view that readily recognizes how distant and indeed Biblical times have meaning for our own. Even as a professional school training people of faith for roles and jobs in an everyday world, Princeton Seminary asks its community to transcend the immediate, to seek the larger understanding that comes from melding the past and present through the insights of history and tradition.
This is a day to recognize and honor Princeton Seminary’s distinguished past. But it also marks a new beginning, a new chapter, a new future for Princeton Seminary. In its work on Princeton Seminary’s historic ties to slavery, the community has recently recognized the imperative of distinguishing between traditions that are valued and must be perpetuated and other legacies that must be exposed, disowned and repaired. A ritual like today’s, representing a defining moment of institutional history and renewal, urges us to look both backward and forward; it requires a clear-eyed assessment of the relationship between past and future, a deep seated examination of how best to seize the possibilities inherent in this moment of change and rebirth.
It is hard even for me—a historian of the American Civil War —to imagine that any previous president has been inaugurated at a time of greater crisis and upheaval. In little more than just the past week, the American government has descended into chaos with a leaderless House of Representatives; a shocking and cruel war has enveloped —and in many cases ended —the lives of civilians who have been taken hostage, bombed, terrorized, and killed. Recent torrential rains here —not to mention fires in Canada and disappearing ice in the Arctic —remind us that climate change presents an existential threat to planet Earth. And in our own realm of education threats seem existential as well. States and communities across the country are requiring schools and libraries to ban books. The truth of our history is being defined as too uncomfortable to tell.
These realities would have seemed unimaginable even a few years ago. Banning books? In America in the 21st century? Wildfires darkening our skies for days? Waves washing through New York subway stations? An 85 year old Holocaust survivor driven off at gunpoint in a golf cart as a hostage?
I certainly don’t want to impose the burden for fixing all of this on my friend, your new president. Nor do I want to make it the sole responsibility of Princeton Seminary or even of all of us assembled here. But I think Princeton Seminary has a special role to play in its dual commitment to knowledge and learning and to the ethical values it embraces as its purpose. Yours is an education devoted not to the personal gain or success of an individual but to the larger good. It regards scholarship and service as inseparable. “Intellect,” your new president has written, “is never divorced from moral character.” In this week of such profound tragedy, let me invoke the notion in Jewish theology of “repairing the world.” We need the scholarship, the conviction, the courage and the wisdom you cite in your mission statement perhaps not just to repair the world but indeed —even more urgently —to save it.
You here at Princeton Seminary understand the long history of humankind’s terrible failures and injustices. And you understand the best of humanity as well; you know the meaning of hope and faith. In this moment of change and possibility for Princeton Seminary; in this moment of need and tragedy in the world, how do you confront the future? What will you do to ensure that there is a future for the principles that animate this institution? How will you use the assets of your traditions, your libraries, your faculty, your students —and this dynamic new president —to speak and to act for justice, for truth, for compassion and for peace?
As we face a new and frightening era in the world, we today mark a new era at Princeton Seminary. May it be a time when learning illuminates truth, knowledge confronts injustice and wisdom forges a path toward peace. An education grounded in faith and compassion has never been needed more.