It’s not clear to me where one should even start here, so I’ll just dive in. First off, while Duke is nonsectarian, it has historic and denominational roots in the United Methodist Church. Far from hiding those roots, the university takes pride in them and, to this day, runs what is probably the preeminent divinity school in the denomination. (See links 1 & 2, below.)
Every weekday at 5:00 PM, the bell carillon on the Chapel plays, and the music includes many familiar Christian hymns. (See link 3, below.) On Sundays, of course, the bells play as part of nonsectarian Christian worship services and, on a clear day, can be heard for miles.
In addition to those roots, Duke works hard at being a good home for active practitioners of many faiths. Some of this has been mentioned in the prior posts, but it is worth noting that the university has a large and active Center for Jewish Life (see link 4, below), along with an active and growing Hindu and Muslim student associations.
With that context, it might be easier to understand why Duke’s administrators viewed their original proposal on the Friday call to prayer as a logical extension of the university’s historic commitment to supporting its students’ religious life in addition to their academic pursuits. (After all, the school motto is is Eruditio et Religio.) To answer one strangely persistent question above, having the call to prayer made over a loudspeaker from the Chapel probably would not have carried much further than about halfway down either the residential or academic wings of the old main quadrangle and certainly not as far as the bells do.
In hindsight, Duke’s administration was somewhat tin-eared to how the outside world was going to react, but, then again, I’m not sure I want my school’s administrators making decisions regarding religious principles based on how they’re going to play on talk shows. In my view, it is unfortunate that they now look like they caved in to the heckler’s veto because that sets a dangerous precedent for the future. However, given reports that there had been threats against members of the university community (see link 5, below), I understand the decision.
I believe that, far from turning Duke into some sort of madrassa, supporting a vibrant religious life for Muslim students and other students at Duke and other places like it is crucial to developing strong, active, well-educated, thoughtful future leaders for our faith communities and, one hopes, for reducing the voice and power of extremists everywhere. Here’s hoping that Duke keeps at that task.
1/ http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/uarchives/history/articles/methodist-church
2/ https://divinity.duke.edu/united-methodist-connections
3/ http://chapel.duke.edu/worship/music/carillon
4/ http://studentaffairs.duke.edu/jewishlife
5/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/knowledge-religion-and-vitriol-at-duke/2015/01/18/2422fbce-9dd4-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html