I’m going to preface this by saying that it is only a hypothesis, and I do not have nearly as much data as I would need to properly back it up. But my knowledge of Lee’s history and it’s relationship with the Church of God has left me with enough anecdotal evidence to actually come up with this. Convocation is one of the last holdovers from before Lee was a liberal arts university. Lee started off as a small Bible college, and it was founded to essentially train future pastors. Of course, it has grown significantly since then, consistently expanding its scope of education (and most growth can be attributed directly to Paul Conn’s tenure as President). Despite its growth though, two things that don’t really make sense at a liberal arts university have remained mandatory: chapel attendance and convocation. Convocation and mandatory chapel both make sense within the framework of a small bible college. It would help the future pastors to not lose focus on the reason they’re attending Lee, and back when chapel was a daily event, it served that purpose well. Convocation serves a similar purpose; by holding a mandatory “revival” once every semester, Lee could reinforce Church of God idea about the Holy Spirit through mandatory “spiritual experiences,” and thus quell doubt present in students who may have otherwise been skeptical about that aspect of Pentecostal theology. As for what these events are used for today, Lee makes no secret why they have mandatory chapel. It’s purpose is very clearly to remind students about the place Christianity is supposed to take in their lives (10:40-11:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays is apparently when people are supposed to be a Christian), and reinforce Christian ideals about various topics. The purpose of Convocation is not nearly so heavily touted though. And that’s because its purpose, while similar, is much more denominationally oriented. Convocation is the place where Lee University can reinforce Church of God ideas about spirituality; namely, it can reinforce ideas about speaking in tongues, being “filled with the spirit,” and the nature of spiritual experiences. It even doubles as an opportunity to pressure students to “re-commit” to Christianity (which I’m willing to bet brings down Community Covenant violations (though I would need data to confirm, of course)). Convocation essentially works as the last part of Lee University that can push purely Church of God Pentecostal ideas (despite the fact that neither the student body or faculty is made up purely of Church of God members (I would seriously love some data here on the actual denominational makeup of the school)). So, that’s my hypothesis on why most people here don’t like convocation.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 22:57:18 +0000
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