By Haylee Conrad
On March 13, 2020, Houghton College sent out an email that marked the change for the rest of our lives. Now at the start of year three, we would think things would be different; the pandemic would be over, we wouldn’t need to wear masks anymore, but look at where we are.
When that email was first sent out to campus, I was down in North Carolina at a three-day-long Women’s Holiness Conference. I was there with Dr. Derck, Dr. KLP, Katie Allen, and Olivia Flint. The night we received the news that we would be sent home when we made it back to campus didn’t feel real. It turned out to be the night I would feel closest to God in a really long time. I was in the same room with over 500 other women, each who loved God and each who wanted to show God’s light in the world through ministry. The band had gotten special permission from Kari Jobe to play her new song, at the time, “The Blessing,” which was so new, it hadn’t even been released on Youtube yet. I know that song is well overplayed by now, but it has become my absolute favorite worship song. That’s because when I heard it for the first time, the women in that room were singing it. It was real, it was true, and it was genuinely filled with love for one another and for God. That is what true Christian worship is: gathering together to worship God and to love those around you.
In September, we started gathering in chapel twice a week, each week, shoulder to shoulder as if Covid wasn’t still running rampant all over the globe. This semester, we were told that streaming chapel was no longer being offered and online classes are slowly becoming less accessible. Houghton College is forcing a reality of normalcy in a world where normal is no longer an option. There are thousands of people dying on a daily basis. There are hospitals so full, people who need medical attention for heart attacks and strokes can’t be seen. There are schools where all their classes are being taught by subs because every teacher has Covid. Yet we’re expected to go back to normal just because it’s Houghton College and we’re a “community”?
I am, according to medical professionals, in the “high-risk” category. I know many other people on campus who also fit into that category. The new expectations on campus make us uncomfortable and make us feel unsafe. I get anxious about getting food from the dining hall to take it back to my room and eat. Imagine how I feel having to sit in a building with poor ventilation, surrounded by people I don’t talk to on a regular basis, to listen to speakers who seem not to recognize the reality of this deadly virus. As a member of Houghton’s so-called “community,” I do not feel safe or cared for. As a member of this so-called “community,” I wish the situation surrounding Covid was taken more seriously.
As Christians, we are called by God to love those around us. Right now, in the situation we’re in, loving your neighbor means pulling your mask up above your nose. It means giving the people who aren’t comfortable being in chapel the permission to watch it synchronously or asynchronously from a different location. It means being gentle with those who don’t feel safe in a world that is putting their health at risk. Yet Houghton doesn’t seem to think the same thing. Instead, they are putting the mental health and physical well-being of their students at risk just to maintain a false sense of spirituality on campus.
Houghton College wants its Christian campus to go back to “normal,” but how far will they go and at what cost? ★