“I’m not going to be ashamed for being queer,” Sweda, who ultimately quit her job in order to speak openly about her wedding, said in the Chimes interview. “I’m not going to be ashamed for being married to Annica.” The events reveal the dilemma facing many Christian schools, who want to welcome a diverse range of students to their campus while upholding their beliefs that marriage is for one man and one woman and that sex outside marriage is sinful.

For years, Calvin University, a leading evangelical school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has tried to walk a fine line of being welcoming to students who identify as LGBTQ while still enforcing traditional Christian Reformed Church views on sexuality.
The school sponsors a support group for gay students, gave an alumni award to an LGBTQ graduate, and last year saw a gay undergrad elected as student body president.
But after a Calvin professor officiated a wedding last fall for an LGBTQ staffer at a campus-based research center, putting both employees in violation of school policy, school leaders tried to resolve the matter quietly. The Center for Social Research, part of the school since the 1970s, was allowed to spin off and the staffer was able to stay.
Things changed this last week when Chimes, the Calvin student newspaper, broke news about the reason for the split. Chimes later interviewed Nicole Sweda, the Calvin staffer whose marriage led the CRS to leave Calvin.
“I’m not going to be ashamed for being queer,” Sweda, who ultimately quit her job in order to speak openly about her wedding, said in the Chimes interview. “I’m not going to be ashamed for being married to Annica.”
The events reveal the dilemma facing many Christian schools, who want to welcome a diverse range of students to their campus while upholding their beliefs that marriage is for one man and one woman and that sex outside marriage is sinful.
Striking that balance has become increasingly difficult in recent years as more and more young Americans, including students at Christian schools, identify as LGBTQ—a recent Gallup survey found that 1 in 5 Americans born between 1997 and 2003 say they are LGBT. Most younger Americans also see LGBT inclusion as a nonnegotiable, which puts them at odds with conservative older Christian leaders and evangelical institutions.
“I want Calvin to be honest,” said Sweda. “If they are going to cut ties with staff members, faculty and an entire center over this, then just say that. And stop promoting things that make Calvin look more welcoming.”
When Sweda and Annica Steen decided to marry in the fall of 2021, they wanted to find someone to officiate who could capture the range of emotions they were feeling. Because the wedding would be a civil ceremony, the couple was not looking for a clergyperson, but still someone they admired.
“Right away Joe came to mind,” said Sweda, referring to Joseph Kuilema, an assistant professor of sociology and social work at Calvin who had been a friend and mentor to Sweda.
Last Oct. 15, Kuilema stood with the couple in front of a gathering of family and friends and pronounced them legally married.
Things began to unravel in January when Sweda was summoned to a meeting at the provost’s office, where, according to Chimes, Sweda was told her marriage violated university policy and she could no longer stay at Calvin.
She told Chimes, “If they had fired me that day, that would have been fine by me.” Sweda told Religion News Service that fellow staff and supervisors were aware of the marriage.
But instead of firing Sweda, the school told her it was working on an alternative solution: to spin off the Center for Social Research, which is largely self-sufficient. In February, the center, which performs surveys and other research projects for nonprofits, businesses and churches, announced plans to become independent by the end of April 2022.
Neil Carlson, director of the CRS, told Chimes the split between the school and the center was amicable. “We still have a desire to stay in social and economic proximity with the community; it’s not a bad breakup, more of a ‘let’s just be friends,’” he said in February.
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Ultimately, we learn in Scripture that that satisfaction, abundance, and life are bound up in Jesus Christ. Ecclesiastes bids us to incline our ear to God, particularly as we make our way through the course of life filled with voices inviting us to come, partake, and find life. It is through the lens of wisdom calibrated to the fear of God that we examine the perspectives proffered by our culture and the practices offered to bring life. 

Ecclesiastes is a wisdom book. Like Proverbs, it helps us to discern wisdom from foolishness, what will lead to life and what may seem promising but is nothing but a dead end.
Recognizing our quest for meaning and value in life, the book of Proverbs holds up two women for us positioned along the way of our journey. Each one beckons us with identical words: “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here” (Prov. 9:4, 16). Each woman pitches promises of blessing, inviting us to find the life we are looking for.
A closer look, however, reveals one woman to represent truth and the other to represent a lie. The first woman is identified with wisdom. She urges, “Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight” (Prov. 9:6). The second woman personifies foolishness. She appeals to our desires and encourages any means to the end of satisfying our desires. “Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant” (Prov. 9:17). Though she promises satisfaction and fulfillment, we learn that those who give heed to her invitation find themselves at a banquet in the grave.
Ecclesiastes issues the same warning about a desire-driven life. “And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun” (Eccl. 2:10–11).
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Over time, division in healthy churches produces unity, not division. Don’t let the good fruit of conflict silence the apostle’s clear charge: “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you.” Christians don’t aim for conflict; we aim for agreement and harmony in Christ. We can’t let the usefulness of divisions make any of us divisive.

In most cases, cruelty — not wisdom — would have told them to cut the baby in two. How many kings in history would have had the sword brought, not to draw out the true mother, but to violently end the matter? Who would have imagined that thousands of years later, we’d still hold up such a brutal scene as a beautiful model to imitate — as a masterclass in conflict resolution?
Two women came to King Solomon, like so many others, to settle a dispute. They were both prostitutes, so deciding whom to trust wouldn’t be easy. Both had recently given birth to sons, within just a few days of each other. One boy was now dead because of a horrible accident. His mother woke to find she had smothered him while the two were sleeping. Can you imagine the horror when she realized what she had done?
Desperate, she added horror to horror. She took the living son from her roommate’s breast, and laid the cold body of her carelessness there instead. She stirred the heavy storm of guilt into a hurricane. When the other woman woke up, she found the child at her side was dead. After examining the baby more closely, though, she discovered what evil had happened (like any mother would). But how could she prove it? She couldn’t; they “were alone” (1 Kings 3:18). So the two went to court, both declaring, “The living child is mine, and the dead child is yours” (1 Kings 3:22).
We know what the king does next — the jarring way he uncovers the truth. Who would have guessed he’d threaten to have the child cut in two? When Israel heard of the judgment Solomon rendered, they stood in awe of him, perceiving that the Spirit of God was in him (1 Kings 3:28). Can you explain, however, why he was wise to reach for a sword?
Needful Conflict
We might say Solomon was wise because it worked. The true mother proved herself by pleading that the boy be spared, even if that meant he would be raised by another woman (1 Kings 3:26). Likewise, the selfish response of the other woman exposed her treachery. That it worked, however, doesn’t explain why the king was wise (only that he was). Surely the same strategy would have failed in lots of other crises.
What made Solomon wise, in this case, was that he knew to lean into the conflict between them to prove who was who. He pressed on the sensitive issue at hand until each woman revealed what kind of woman she really was. The apostle Paul offers a similar piece of wisdom to the church when he writes,
When you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. (1 Corinthians 11:18–19)
There must be factions among you. In other words, some conflict is necessary for churches to remain healthy. Why? Like Solomon with the prostitutes: to prove who is who. Who’s really here to worship, obey, and enjoy King Jesus — and who’s here for some other reason?
Isn’t Division Bad?
Aren’t all divisions in the church to be avoided, though? After all, the apostle himself says (earlier in the same letter, even),
I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. (1 Corinthians 1:10)
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