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Lauren Ware Stark is a Belfast resident, an assistant professor of education and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network. The opinions and research outlined in this column do not necessarily represent the views of any of the author’s current or former institutional affiliations.
In selling the Hutchinson Center to Calvary Chapel Belfast, the University of Maine System is treating education like a commodity instead of a public good. I see this as another act of “bad faith” that breaks trust between the university system and the midcoast Maine community. This center was built with funding from Charles Cawley of MBNA to facilitate public higher education in midcoast Maine, supporting the mission of the university system. It operated for years with financial support from the city of Belfast, offering fiscal benefits to the university system and educational opportunities to all people in the region.
Calvary Chapel Belfast would not continue this legacy by serving the entire midcoast Maine community. As a religious organization, it is by definition exclusionary and focused on serving its members. Its members have the right to express and practice their religious beliefs, and as a neighbor I respect their right to do so. However, a building dedicated to the church would not serve the full, diverse community in midcoast Maine. It also would not meet the public higher and adult education functions for which the building was intended.
The church’s home-schooling program, Calvary Belfast Academy, has a mission that directly contradicts that of the university. Rather than offering public higher education for all, it focuses on providing religious education to members of the Calvary community. Indeed, it condemns the very institution of public education as embodied by the University of Maine System: “Public schools no longer have the best interest of your child in mind.”
Members of the Belfast community have expressed concerns that education provided by Calvary Chapel Belfast in this space would include discriminatory, transphobic, anti-LGBTQ and gender essentialist rhetoric. These are not unfounded concerns; a quick review of its live-streamed sermons on YouTube shows that this rhetoric is common. In a recent sermon, for example, lead pastor Greg Huston ridiculed gender diversity: “Watch television today, it’s all confusion. I don’t know if that is a boy, a girl, an it, a thing, a we, a them, an us.” He went on to demonize reproductive rights and health education, and to pray for marriage as an institution between “one man and one woman.”
Midcoast Maine residents who are former members of affiliated Cavalry churches have shared allegations of control and intolerance by its leaders and members. Nationally, pastors in the Calvary Chapel Association have been convicted of committing and covering up sexual abuse.
Calvary Chapel Belfast and its members have the right to express and practice their beliefs as they see fit within the bounds of the law. That being said, when the church’s leaders use language that is demeaning to women, LGBTQIA+ people and the institution of public education, it is worth asking whether they would offer mental health or educational services that are open to all. It is also worth respecting the concerns of many Belfast residents. University trustees and strategic procurement should therefore reconsider whether the sale of the Hutchinson Center to this organization benefits the university — including its mission, reputation and public trust — and the diverse residents of midcoast Maine.
The university has the opportunity to rebuild faith with the midcoast Maine community by working with stakeholders to secure an accessible, inclusive space that continues the legacy of the Hutchinson Center. Per the request for proposal process, the university is not obligated to select the highest-scoring bid, and it can reject any bid that is not in the best interest of the university.
By selecting the proposal from the Future of the Hutchinson Center Committee, Waterfall Arts and the city of Belfast, they would ensure that this vital community space remains within public stewardship and that it is available for use by all members of the community, regardless of their religious beliefs, gender or sexual orientation. It would offer avenues for future university system revenue through in-person education in keeping with the center’s purpose.
