Tim Bousquet’s article about the current state of church-appointed governors on local Halifax university boards (“Sunday School,” Jan. 17) was informative, but lacking.

Bousquet does not tell us why the church officials were appointed in the first place. His assumption—which we, too, can only assume—is that they exist simply as a reminder of the historic patriarchal and hierarchical social system that the churches imposed, and which we are now desperately trying to dismantle.

The old fathers who founded these academic institutions saw a vital link between the examination of cosmic structure and a life of prayer. The noble pagans also understood that without prayer, ritual and mystery, humanity would remain ignorant of its subservience to the larger creation.

The question that remains is whether the churches themselves can articulate why they should be allowed to continue helping to govern our great academic institutions, and whether they are capable of fulfilling that task.
By Nicholas Hatt
This article appears in Jan 24-30, 2008.
