Immigrants are being disappeared. Journalists are being threatened. Protesters are being criminalized. The poor are abandoned. The sick are left behind. Wars still rage. Democracy is crumbling.
The world feels increasingly precarious, and various crises are compounding and multiplying. What moral responsibility do religious institutions—especially seminaries—have at this time?
I just completed my master of divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary, and I have been wrestling with that question. Below, I offer five imperatives for Christian institutions that say they are committed to faithfully living as sites of moral formation and theological instruction.
Stand with immigrants and international students
At a time when fear, anxiety, and panic are growing among immigrants and international students, Christian institutions have a moral imperative to care for and boldly advocate on behalf of those directly targeted by the cruel immigration agenda of the present regime. Across the country, we have already seen academic communities come under attack. In 2020, the U.S. government attempted to force international students to leave the country if their coursework was fully online, sparking a high‑profile legal battle led by Harvard and MIT.
Since Donald Trump’s reclamation of the White House, his mass‑deportation platform has been in full swing. Many immigrants are being detained or arrested without any prior criminal history. It is a cruel system, ripping apart families and destabilizing communities.
With the recent passage of the so‑called “Big, Beautiful Bill,” Trump’s mass-deportation agenda is poised to expand. The bill funnels an unprecedented $170 billion into Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, dramatically expanding deportation efforts and detention facilities across the U.S. As a result, many of the international students in our academic communities are living in constant fear. Many students are uncertain if their visas might be revoked or if leaving the country could mean being barred from returning, or worse, that they might be disappeared for no reason at all.
Seminaries and theological schools cannot treat this as a peripheral issue. Core to Christian convictions is welcoming the foreigner. Our institutions must increase financial support, provide housing, and advocate vigorously for policies that protect the students in their care. Anything less is a failure of both hospitality and justice.
Many international students depend on student employment or stipends that are only available during the academic year. But because of the crackdown on immigration, some schools have advised international students to remain in the U.S. even when class is not in session. This leaves many students without income in the face of unexpected housing and living expenses.
Garrett‑Evangelical Theological Seminary recently raised over $85,000 dollars to support their international students: “Garrett has advised international students to remain on campus over the summer [break]. While this guidance protects their legal status, it has created unexpected financial strain—especially around housing and basic living expenses.” This is the kind of concrete action we need to see across all seminaries and theological institutions. Garrett’s campaign is one example of how our institutions can act imaginatively and concretely to live out their commitments to justice and hospitality.
Protect students criminalized for protesting
When student protests and encampments were underway last year, many students I knew across the country took part. Some of them were criminalized, arrested, charged, or disciplined. Many were left without adequate institutional support to navigate the legal challenges that followed. As The New York Times reported, more than 3,000 students were arrested and detained simply for protesting peacefully.
It is not right for our institutions to stand idly by while this happens. As theologian Willie James Jennings reminds us, theological education is meant to be a site of encounter and belonging—not only with God but with the world and the people around us. It is a place where one is shaped and formed to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).
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In this light, Christian institutions must live consistently with their moral responsibility to walk the talk. If seminaries teach that students are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, who embraced the poor and the weak, they need to embody that same witness. If professors proclaim that we are called to join God’s work of justice and healing, they need to be the first to model it. And if deans and administrators insist that their institutions exist to form emerging Christian leaders, they need to be the first to defend those leaders when they take a courageous stand.
If seminaries teach that students are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, who embraced the poor and the weak, they need to embody that same witness.
Indeed, our Christian institutions bear a particular obligation to protect and offer legal, pastoral, and material support for students who, in their nonviolent witness, are living out the very justice these schools claim to embody.
Speak with courage, not caution
Making public statements is never simple—especially for institutions with large donor bases or massive endowments. It can feel risky to release a statement or take a public stance that might unsettle key financial supporters or jeopardize donor relationships.
And yet, some institutions have demonstrated what true moral clarity can look like. In October 2023, Serene Jones, the president of Union Theological Seminary, issued a statement in response to the terrible events of October 7 and the ongoing violence in Gaza: “What is presently unfolding in Gaza must immediately cease,” Jones wrote in reference to Israel launching an all-out offensive on the Gaza Strip. And Jones also condemned the “actions of Hamas in Israeli villages,” describing the attacks as “horrendous.” Her call was unambiguous: “As people of faith and conscience, let us continue to strive to create a world of justice, love, and peace for all.”
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For many other seminaries, however, it proved too challenging to do the same. Perhaps it is a fear of backlash from donors and endowment granters. Perhaps it is a desire to avoid the political spotlight and keep a low public profile in an attempt to avoid the Trump administration’s assaults on academic freedom. Perhaps it is something more deliberate, complicity cloaked in discretion.
But now is not the time to shrink in the face of challenges. If seminaries and theological institutions claim to be moral voices in the public square, they must speak out.
Public witness matters. It means engaging real situations of violence and offering moral clarity that cuts through the noise of headlines, online disinformation, and conspiracy theories. To make a statement is to speak clearly about what the gospel demands of us now. Silence in moments of moral crisis is complicity and a failure to live up to the moral responsibility of speaking truth to power.
Clean house in institutional leadership
Billionaire Michael G. Fisch’s signature is on my diploma as chair of the board of trustees. Although he is no longer serving as the chair, Fisch still remains on the board. Fisch built his fortune as the founder and CEO of American Securities, a company profiting from the prison industrial complex. Through its subsidiary, ViaPath, the company has charged up to $15 for a 15-minute phone call to people in prison. People who are incarcerated make less than $1 a day. These people are torn from their families and communities and brutalized by a racist system that is a continuation of slavery.
Fisch’s signature on my diploma is a stark reminder of how even our theological institutions are entangled in systems of exploitation. In a time dominated by oligarchs like Trump and Elon Musk, it is a moral failure for Fisch to hold such a position at my seminary.
If we renamed our chapel to the “Seminary Chapel” in order to remove a slaveholder’s name from it, then it doesn't make sense to allow a capitalist who profits from modern-day slavery to sit on the board of trustees. If seminaries want to be morally credible, they must ensure their leadership embodies justice and integrity.
Receive critique and implement change
Many of today’s seminary students are not only out in the streets protesting injustice, but they are also calling their seminaries and institutions to take action. At my seminary and elsewhere, students have organized petitions, spoken at forums, and met with administrators, pleading for greater transparency, moral clarity, and tangible support for the vulnerable.
Too often, these requests have been met with dismissal, resistance, or quiet deflection. But if theological education is meant to shape moral leaders for the church and the world, then the voices of students should not be treated as threats. They should instead be treated as a form of prophetic accountability.
If theological education is meant to shape moral leaders for the church and the world, then the voices of students should not be treated as threats.
Our institutions must not merely tolerate critique but actively welcome it and implement the changes suggested, learning to embody the gospel they teach in structures, budgets, and policies. Many students are already leading the way. Seminaries and other Christian institutions only need the courage to follow.
Yanan (he/him) is a liberation theologian and musician from Cagayan de Oro, Philippines. His work explores the intersections of modern Christology, decolonial theory, Asian American studies, and the doctrine of Israel. In early 2025, he released Palimpsests, a post-classical album that meditates on the possibility of faith in a fragmented world.
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