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(11/28/12 11:00pm)
On Tuesday, Nov. 13, as I was washing my hands in the women’s restroom of Tarver Library, my eyes happened upon a pamphlet entitled “The Death Cookie” that was conveniently placed by the paper towels.
Intrigued, I picked it up, read a few pages, and with a sinking heart, put it back down on the counter in shock.
In all of my years at Mercer, up until this point, I had never read any material that has so blatantly scorned my Catholic faith.
In “The Death Cookie,” the author, Jack Chick, describes how a man consorts with the Devil who tells him that he shall be his “Papa,” in reference to the Pope. It goes on to say that he should trick his followers into thinking that a cookie, in reference to the Eucharist, contains the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, when in reality it doesn’t and will condemn them to hell.
In the latter pages of the tract, Chick suggests that the only way to be saved is “to leave that occult system before He [God] destroys it,” and then he proceeds to outline four steps to salvation:
1. admit that they are sinners,
2. be willing to turn from sin (repent),
3. believe that Jesus Christ died, was buried, and rose from the dead, and
4. invite Jesus into their lives as their personal Savior.
In concluding his tract, Chick asks his readers to pray the following prayer to strengthen their commitment to God by the rejection of Catholicism before checking “yes” or “no” as to whether they will choose to be faithful Christians.
The prayer is as follows:
Dear God, thank you for showing me what You think about Catholicism. I also reject it! I accept Christ’s sacrifice as perfect and complete. Please forgive me in Jesus’ name. I invite Jesus Christ to come into my life and I place my trust in Him alone for my salvation. Thank you for giving me eternal life right now.
Heather Ziemba, a member of Mercer Catholic Newman says, “This tract represents a gross misunderstanding of Catholic theology. The ignorance on every page is incredibly offensive.”
My fellow Christians, as we are all brothers and sisters in Christ who are made in the image and likeness of God, are called to love one another and as an extension of that love, show one another respect.
An illustration of this love and respect can be echoed in the words of Peter Scholtes who wrote “They’ll Know We are Christians by Our Love”: “We are one in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord and we pray that all unity may one day be restored. We will work with each other; we will work side by side and we’ll guard each one’s dignity…and they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”
In secular terms, we are called to recognize our common humanity that demands of us to respect others’ beliefs in the same way that we would want others to respect and not antagonize our beliefs.
There are other avenues for discussing religious or other differences aside from distributing literature that is antagonistic - namely through one-on-one and group discussions.
It is my hope that “The Death Cookie” and any of Chick’s other nine anti-Catholic tracts will not be found on campus in the future.
(03/30/11 6:11pm)
Mercer University, founded in 1833, was declared a liberal arts college after Jesse Mercer and other prominent Baptist leaders of his time recognized that promising individuals needed an institution that furthered their knowledge and love for the humanities, the arts and the sciences.
Initially the classes offered in these subsets of learning categories were limited, but the curriculum expanded with the growth of Mercer’s student body. The largest of these expansions occurred between 1982 and 2006 when eight new colleges and schools were created, including the School of Medicine, the Stetson School of Business and Economics and the Townsend School of Music.
The board of trustees and the presidents who served Mercer University during these developing years continued the legacy of the initial founders of Mercer because they sought to fulfill the learning needs of their diverse body of students.
Today, 21 majors and minors are offered in the College of Liberal Arts. However, in viewing this list of majors and minors, one can see that a dancing major or minor is not available to its students.
Dancing, since the dawn of civilized man, has been seen as one of the foremost expressions of art. In fact Havelock Ellis, a social reformer of his day, called dance “the loftiest, the most moving, and the most beautiful of the arts, because it is not a mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself.”
Thus, in order for Mercer University to remain true to its original heritage founded on advancing the arts as part of a liberal arts education, it must seek to offer its students the opportunity to major or minor in dance.
According to Dance Magazine, 11 colleges throughout the state of Georgia offer dance programs, including the University of Georgia, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University and Berry College.
In their “ten-year strategic plan,” launched in April of 2008, the board of trustees vowed to make Mercer University on par with the most prestigious universities of the south, including Emory University.
By creating a dance major and minor, Mercer can come one step closer to achieving this ideal. Furthermore, Mercer will stand out from other Georgia colleges of comparable size that do not have a dance program, enabling Mercer to become the home of students who excel in the area of dance.
Thus, not only would prospective dance students benefit from the formation of a dance program at Mercer University, but Mercer University would flourish even more as a liberal arts institution, growing in size and in prestige.
As the influential philosopher Nietzsche once said, “dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words.” As part of continuing the legacy of Mercer University, let us “put Mercer on its toes,” creating a program exclusively for dancers of the future.
Comments on this opinion should be sent to clarissa.a.price@live.mercer.edu