The past two weeks at Luther College have been emotional, exhausting and incredibly stressful. At the center of it all is a statement of solidarity with Muslim students, produced by the Just Action Group and released on Dec. 7. The statement signaled a rejection of the hostility aimed at Muslims and pledged to establish relationships with Muslims "based on friendship and not fear."

By many measures, the statement has been a huge success. Eighteen academic departments and over thirty organizations at Luther endorsed the statement. The statement also received over 1,600 individual endorsements from people within and beyond our community and included evangelical Christians and progressive Christians, Buddhists and atheists, and Republicans and Democrats. It has inspired calls for similar statements at other colleges and seminaries and has served as the basis for an open letter to college students of faith circulated by the prominent magazine Sojourners.

But the statement has also generated tension on our campus. Not all departments and organizations chose to endorse it. These decisions led to significant fallout in some quarters of the college, particularly in many of the choirs. Choir members engaged in intense and at times heated exchanges over the statement. Choir directors found themselves in the difficult position of trying to maintain morale and cohesion while creating space for diverse and passionate opinions to be expressed.

I bear some of the responsibility over this fallout. At the very least, I refrained from reaching out to choir directors to ask if I could be of service to them as they helped their students navigate challenging conversations over anti-Muslim bigotry and wrestle with questions over why Islamophobia should be a matter of concern for choirs, most of which have no Muslim members. I held back because I did not want to interfere with their autonomy or to insert myself into another organization's decision-making process.

In retrospect, I made a mistake. I should have reached out sooner to my colleagues in the music department. I should have been more proactive in providing them with resources to guide these discussions. But some good has come out of this, not least of which was Dr. Hightower's invitation to me to come and speak with the Nordic Choir last Friday about the controversy. I was grateful for the opportunity, and I want to thank Dr. Hightower for working with me to find ways to bridge the gap between choir members who support the statement and those who don't.

I am also aware that some members of the Luther community questioned why we even needed to discuss a statement on Islamophobia, or at the very least why it had to be done now. After all, we are at the end of the semester. Final exams, papers and projects loom largely. We also are on a "high" from Christmas at Luther and its vision of love, compassion and fellowship among all peoples. Why in the world would we try to tackle such a divisive topic at this time of year?

I agree. This was not a convenient week to debate Islamophobia. But that's also the point. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, the ultimate measure of what it means to be human is not where we stand in times of comfort and convenience but where we stand in times of challenge and controversy.

There is never a convenient time to take a stand against bigotry. Politicians calling for the closing of mosques, the special registration of Muslim citizens and the banning of all Muslims from entering the U.S. certainly didn't check with the Luther calendar to make sure that this was a good time for us to respond to their proposals. Those who vandalized mosques or physically assaulted Muslims this past month also didn't check to see if any of this might distract us from Christmas at Luther or finals preparation, not to mention if this was a good time for Muslims in our nation to undergo such hardships.

Bigotry doesn't materialize on a timetable that's convenient for the majority. It thrives on the willingness of the majority to stand by and do nothing because the timing isn't "right" to respond. If you want to know what privilege is, it's the ability to ask whether or not this is a convenient time to talk about bigotry. You have to be part of a privileged group even to entertain such a question.

I am OK that Luther has been inconvenienced as of late. Luther needed this inconvenience. We needed to dig deeper these past couple of weeks to start to address the larger questions of who we are, who we include in our community, and what it means to move "beyond immediate interests and present knowledge into a larger world." The statement on Islamophobia moved us into a larger world, and this larger world took notice! Whether we are ready for it or not, the spotlight is on us. It's time to stop worrying about whether it's convenient to discuss bigotry and to start recognizing that the time is always right for a college of the church to embrace and embody its commitment to racial and religious diversity.