A part-time chaplain in the Office of Protestant Ministry resigned last week after just five weeks on the job over the university’s decision last month to bar several affiliated Protestant ministries from campus.
The chaplain, Reverend Derrick Harkins, said his decision stemmed largely from the additional work he was assigned resulting from the ban, which he said was more than he agreed to take on before he began the job on Aug. 25. He said that he was assigned many of the functions that the affiliated ministries had filled within Campus Ministry, including programming and leading services.
Harkins said he thought the job would consist of leading worship services on Sunday afternoons, providing support to Protestant ministries on campus and a few auxiliary functions. The new responsibilities, Harkins said, were too onerous in addition to his work as a full-time pastor at the 19th Street Baptist Church in Northwest Washington, D.C., where he has worked for the past nine years.
Jacques Arsenault (COL ’01), the university’s media relations officer, did not comment on details surrounding Harkin’s resignation.
Harkins said that he thought Campus Ministry should have worked more closely with the affiliated organizations, and that they should not have been removed from campus.
“My understanding was that there were going to be attempts to develop relationships with the evangelical ministries on campus,” he said. “It turned out that that was going to be filling the gap.”
Harkins said that he believes that Campus Ministry underestimated the effect that the decision would have on the ministry’s internal operations and the intensity of student backlash.
“There was such a deep sense of hurt and lack of understanding as to why this decision unfolded,” he said.
Harkins said that the current set-up does not adequately meet the needs of Georgetown’s Protestant community, which played a big role in his decision to quit.
While certain students from the affiliate groups have said that relations were strained with Campus Ministry, Harkins said that the office can serve a crucial function in the organizations’ operations. He added that many of those groups have perceived that they are unwelcome on campus.
“It was my experience talking both with some of the students and the InterVarsity staff members was that it was the opposite,” he said.
The Office of Campus Ministry announced Sept. 20 the members of the advisory committee that will examine the effects of the affiliated ministry ban. Harkins was not named to the committee, but Protestant Program Coordinator LaKendra Hardware and several students from the affiliate organizations were, according to a university press release.
John Borelli, special assistant to the president on ecumenical and inter-religious affairs and a committee member, said that the committee was formed to promote dialogue and cooperation between different religions.
“I think this is an ongoing reflection that’s being done to coordinate Protestant ministries on campus,” he said.
The committee will evaluate the relationship between Campus inistry and the affiliated ministries and consider alternative ways to better engage Protestant students.
Theology Professor Terrence Reynolds was named chair of the committee, but has yet set a date for the group to meet, according to the press release. Reynolds could not be reached for comment.
Other faculty members of the committee include Fr. Timothy Godfrey, S.J., director of campus ministry, Government professors Bruce Douglass and Anthony Arend and classics professor Victoria Pedrick. Godfrey and Douglass could not be reached for comment.
Two students, Tabatha Blake (COL ’07), a president of the Protestant Student Association, and Hannah Coyne (COL ’07), co-leader of the Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship, serve on the committee.
Kevin Offner, a District-area coordinator for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, one of the affiliated ministries, and Reverend Peter Lee, a pastor at Berkland Baptist Church, are also on the committee.