What happens when you’re out of harmony with the chorus?

Part two in a series detailing my experiences pledging/depledging a Christian fraternity.

[UPDATE: I got a phone call from the former president of the fraternity. He had been alerted to my posts that morning and called me after reading to apologize for what happened all those years ago. He was very humble and gracious and the apology meant a lot.]

In the fall of 2008, I pledged a Christian fraternity. What I saw shocked me and left scars long after the bruises and cuts healed. There were moments that easily fit the definition of hazing.

I think it’s important to talk about this now—even if the pledging process may have changed considerably—because I think my experience speaks to some of the ways harmful behaviors get excused or even celebrated in the name of Christianity. What follows is part two. You can read part one here.

I’ve been waiting to tell this story for a long time.

Am I really about to give up something I’ve wanted so desperately—to be “one of the guys”?

These are the first thoughts that greet me on Day 7 of a six-week process to pledge a Christian fraternity. I’ve been through Bid Night, an agonizing ordeal involving intense physical activity. I’ve seen hazing in various forms. I’ve become overwhelmed with the physical and emotional toll of pledging while dropping two classes.

The night before, I bailed on a pledging activity in an attempt to depledge. I got a flurry of calls from concerned members—and a terse call from the fraternity president who questioned my integrity. He also gave me a long list of requirements if I truly wanted to depledge.

First, I must write a letter explaining why I am depledging and share that with my fellow pledges. Then, I must also share that letter with the faculty sponsors. I must also meet individually with at least three of the fraternity officers to explain in person why I am depledging. And I must do all of this before 2 p.m.

Until I figure out what to do, I’ll keep dressing the part. Once again, I cover the bruises and scrapes with the required khakis and blue polo.

Later in the morning is club chapel, where all the pledges and members gather for a devotional and to discuss club matters. I walk in, knowing many people in the room likely have hard feelings toward me.

The president, Brad, makes a beeline for me.

“Are you in or out? You gotta make up your mind.”

Last night, he was intimidating me to stay in with a lengthy list of requirements and now he seems exasperated that I’m here.

The meeting begins and we learn more of the never-ending list of duties that come with pledging. In addition to nightly activities, daily 1x1 meetings with members, sporadic errands on behalf of members—oh, and attending class if you can stay alert through it—we are also strongly encouraged (required) to complete a certain number of hours of community service work. I have no idea how I am supposed to complete all of this.

And for six weeks? Two weeks of intense physical activity and four more weeks of unknown drudgery?

There was a part of me that wondered if I could stick it out. Now that small part of me is once again overwhelmed by the sheer time commitment of pledging.

After chapel, a few members want to grab lunch with me to talk me down from depledging. They are kind and concerned. They say they’ll be with me every step of the way. It’s the kind of camaraderie I’ve longed for.

But at what cost?

After lunch, I return to my room to get some rest. But I can’t. My mind is reeling. Am I in or out? I can’t do this anymore. But I want to belong. But my mind, body and soul are aching. But how will the members react? But I’m missing out on other opportunities for community. I’m barely able to focus on my academics. But this is my chance to be “one of the guys.” But they probably already resent me for skipping last night, and I don’t blame them. But the long list of requirements to depledge seems insurmountable. But the long and growing list of required pledging activities seems overwhelming.

I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. So I walk to the Student Activities and Organizations Office. On my way there, I see one of my podmates. He tells me he just left class because he couldn’t concentrate and just needed to go back to the dorm and sleep.

It’s a reminder that I’m doing the right thing in depledging.

I talk with the head of student activities. I explain that I want to depledge but don’t know how. I also relay the laundry list of requirements that Gamma Phi Deo President Brad laid out for me.

“No, that’s not true. All you need to do is email the president, the sibling father and copy me. Inform them you are depledging. You do not have to give an explanation.”

I am relieved. The director also asks the obvious question:

“What would they do if you didn’t complete all those tasks to depledge? Kick you out?”

This confirms my suspicion that, after Brad questioned my integrity, he lied about the depledging requirements to intimidate me into staying.

The director is troubled about how this has played out. I also learn I am not the only “sibling” that is depledging. When I describe some of the pledging activities, especially the pledge that was subjected to the heated car, the director is more alarmed.

It is then that I meet with the associate vice president for Student Life. He listens to me recount the multiple examples of what I believe to be hazing. The trudging through the mud that may have been peed in. The jumping through hoops set on fire. That some believed I pushed through Bid Night with a concussion, and that bought me bonus points.

In a gentle tone, he makes a statement that is also a question.

“I’m glad to hear you’re not feeling intimidated?”

It is then I start spilling about how, yes, I feel incredibly intimidated. The phone call from the president. The intensity of Bid Night. The way one member wordlessly glared at me on campus when I saw him.

He records all this in his notes. They are taking this seriously.

I return to my dorm room and, for the first time in days, I rest.

---

The next morning, after a better night’s sleep than I’ve had all week, I wake up and get dressed. I put on the clothes I want to wear. I am no longer a sibling.

I’ve been hiding in my room, nervous about the reaction from my podmates. But they are understanding, even Mike. Griffin gives me a hug before I drive back home to my parents for the weekend.

A member I barely know reaches out to say he wishes I could reconsider, that there’s probably a way I could come back. He really wants me in the fraternity.

Others aren’t so kind. Zach, who had been our leader on Bid Night, who had texted us the morning after about being one step closer to becoming the man God wants us to be, won’t make eye contact when he sees me.

During the next staff meeting for the student newspaper, Patrick comes over to me. I’ve been dreading this moment. In addition to depledging, one of the classes I dropped was the lab he assisted with. I look up to Patrick and now I must seem like such a quitter.

He rests a hand on my shoulder and gently asks, “So just taking it easy, huh?” “Yeah,” I respond sheepishly.

I feel like I’ve disappointed him. To be honest, I feel disappointed in myself. There’s this sense that I’ve let people down.

Maybe if I had planned my semester better. Maybe if I had worked out more during the summer to prepare physically. Maybe if I had gone in with a better sense of what I was getting into. Maybe if I had just one good night’s sleep, I wouldn’t have made this rash decision. Maybe if I had just been tougher, stronger, pushed through like the other 30 guys.

This is the bargaining stage of grief.

Pledging a fraternity was like being tossed in a raging river. I knew where the river was going, and if I kept my head above water for long enough, I would make it downstream, where a better life awaited. That’s where the fraternity socials and the camaraderie and the belonging and the social clout are. That’s where I’ll get to be “one of the guys.”

But now I’ve stepped out of the river. I’m collapsed on the shoreline and catching my breath. The lack of forward motion is jarring. I have no idea where to go from here. Pledging a fraternity was at least a path to follow.

I’m reading John Eldredge’s “Wild at Heart,” which talks about the journey into the masculine heart and the masculine soul. Masculinity is about adventure, taking risks, pushing yourself. Aggression.

Is that really it? Because that’s what pledging felt like. And every fiber of my being felt like there was something deeply wrong going on. This is a really messed up way to make friends.

Because I also dropped two classes and a lab, there are now seven hours freed up. More time to sit around and ruminate on this decision that feels life-altering to my 20-year-old mind.

I am grasping at anything to help make sense of my situation. Depledging feels like such a rare event. But I find an article in the school newspaper from years ago about those who depledge. They gave similar reasons to mine.

“It’s a big commitment,” she said. “Some people are overwhelmed with school, and they just can’t give up that time. It can often be stressful and there’s other stresses going on in their lives, and sometimes it’s just way too much.”

But it’s the next quote that fully captures what I’m feeling:

Chris Faulkner, sophomore youth and family ministry major from Irving, accepted a bid from [Gamma Phi Deo] and participated in Bid Night.

He said he depledged for spiritual reasons.

“I didn’t know what to expect going in there, and I certainly wasn’t prepared for what happened,” Faulkner said. “I just didn’t believe they were the Christian organization they said they were.”

---

Despite the conviction that pledging was a toxic experience, I still wish things were different. During the homecoming parade, I am on the sidelines with the rest of those not in a fraternity or sorority. The Gamma Phi Deo float goes by with the guys in a version of Graceland, a two-story wood structure pulled by a truck.

I sorely wish I was one of them. But I made a different choice—one that the emotional part of me deeply regrets in this moment.

Later in the morning, I see Griffin behind the dorms. He looks ragged. He says they were up all night putting the float together. The pledges are getting frustrated with the demands of the members.

At one point he pauses to cough and spit what looks like blood onto the ground. There is the public-facing spectacle. And then there is the drudgery it takes to create that spectacle.

Homecoming is also an opportunity to grab lunch with my old youth minister, John Quince. He was a revered member of Gamma Phi Deo. So revered, in fact, that one of the fires at Bid Night was named in his honor.

The topic of pledging naturally comes up. John tells me stories of his time in the fraternity that he finds humorous, but I find horrifying.

As intense as the pledging process is now, it used to be much, much worse. The emergency rooms at hospitals in the area always knew when Bid Night occurred, because numerous young men would show up with gashes and wounds and injuries from inexplicable activities.

The year John joined the fraternity, a pledge got injured while they tried to heave a train rail up the side of a hill.

When John was an upperclassman, he relished the role of pledge tormentor. He tells me the story of how they strapped an electric device to a metal folding chair and had pledges sit down. They only threatened to activate the chair, but never did. Except once.

AI-generated image.

There was a pledge widely disliked in the fraternity and John thought it would be funny to actually electrocute the chair. The pledge’s body went rigid as the electricity flowed through him. If there is any remorse in John’s voice over this incident, I can’t find it.

My view of John has changed over the years. And its changing even more after this conversation. John had been our youth minister for about three years, until he was fired by the elders for insubordination and reckless behavior.

I remember once during a youth group spelunking trip, we were trekking through a cave and John wanted to explore a section off the main path. Some of the parents were alarmed when they heard about it.

John was ultimately fired for insubordination, an unwillingness to submit to the elders. His rogue attitude and issues with authority were his undoing.

Years later, a group of friends visited John for the weekend. We were in high school. The first night I arrived, John took me and two friends to an abandoned hotel to go exploring. This is called trespassing. Abandoned buildings are typically not safe places to go at night. Our parents, who had trusted us with John for the weekend, were not thrilled.

Gamma Phi Deo, rather than curbing John’s reckless behavior, had celebrated it, indulged it, and held him up as someone to be emulated. All the problems that led to his downfall as a youth minister were readily apparent when he was in the fraternity.

But rather than serving as a warning sign, this behavior was lauded and revered more than a decade later.

When I see my podmates later that day, they are worn down. But also aggravated. The morning of homecoming was breakfast with fraternity alumni: among them numerous preachers, church elders, youth ministers and other church leaders. They taunted the pledges about how easy they had it, how much harder pledging was when they went through the process. Based on John’s description, they are probably right.

Me and my friends in front of the abandoned hotel we just trespassed into at the urging of our former youth minister.

---

Gamma Phi Deo is a constant presence in the pod. I can hear them in the common area while hiding in my room. There is something I wish I had on the other side of the door, just feet away, but it feels painfully out of reach. I made my bed. Now I have to lie in it.

“Why do you always glare when you walk by our room?” Mike asks one day.

“What? I didn’t think I was doing that,” I answer, trying to act like this is new information. But the moment he asks, I realize he is right. And that glare is really just deep jealousy. Mike and his roommate, Craig, are often with other members of Gamma Phi Deo, like Patrick and Nick. And I wish I was a part of that.

I make a mental note to be less obvious about it.

Perhaps because of my desire to reclaim what I feel I’ve given up, I start hanging out with a group of guys trying to recharter a dormant fraternity, Spartans. I admire these guys. Some of them had brothers in other clubs and want to forge a new path, a group to bond with but with less intensity.

What if this is a chance to not only belong in a fraternity but change the culture? What if this group could be formed in a way that is different from what I saw and experienced with Gamma Phi Deo?

But this is risky for me.

I sneak out of my pod to attend meetings. I hang out with this crowd in secret. But I realize how untenable my position is when the group decides we should wear t-shirts with the fraternity logo together one day as a show of pride.

I do the cowardly thing and wear my shirt, but with a zipped-up hoodie over it. When I pass by my fellow would-be Spartans, I unzip to display the shirt and quickly zip back up when I’m in the line of sight of a Gamma Phi Deo.

Mike corners me in the pod common room.

“You wouldn’t pledge Spartans, would you? You wouldn’t possibly do that, right?”

“Of course not,” I say, feigning indignance while subconsciously reaching for the hoodie zipper concealing the Spartans shirt underneath.

“Good, because you can’t do that to GPD.”

Even though I depledged, I am still in the gravitational pull of Gamma Phi Deo. And I decide not to pursue anything with Spartans.

It’s not just the potential drama and the fact that I’m chronically conflict-avoidant. A part of me senses that any form of pledging is going to be toxic. What I’ve seen has left a terrible taste in my mouth, and I want to spit the whole thing out.

---

If there’s one thing I regret more than anything, its that I won’t be able to participate in Club Sing Song, an annual performance competition with singing and choreography. I was part of Sing Song my freshman year, and it was one of my favorite experiences: being part of a group, bonding over practice, giving the best performance.

Club Sing Song is another level. The choreography is tighter. The competition is fiercer. And GPD has won first prize several of the past years.

I want to be up there on the stage with GPD, one among many. Shiny happy faces singing and moving with precision. Our individual movements combining to create one cohesive whole.

This is the fraternity in its most basic form: individuals subsuming their identity and moving in sync as one. But off the stage, I don’t know if I could continue moving in unison with the group. My arms and legs hesitate when going with the collective motions of the fraternity. Because it feels like I am one of the lone people looking around at the pledging process and saying:

This isn’t Christian brotherhood. This is hazing.

One day, one of the guys who just got in to GPD shares how miserable the Sing Song practices are.

Some of the members are tyrannical about it. Last year, they lost the top prize for the first time in five years and there’s enormous pressure to reclaim the title. Long hours of practice. A general edginess among the members. It’s very different from what I’m experiencing as a member of the Sophomore Class Sing Song group.

There is the public-facing spectacle. And then there is the drudgery it takes to create that spectacle.

---

In January, some of the guys I’m hanging out with decide to run the campus trail in their boxers. It’s freezing outside. I’m too inhibited to do something like that. But something else is holding me back.

It’s been months since Bid Night, but the memories are still vivid. I write in my journal:

There was a part of me, a large part, that desperately wanted to join them, to do something wild. The other part of me, the part that dominates me, held me back. It was not the rational side, it’s the side that is still terrified of these kinds of activities because they resemble, however faintly, pledging.

I am still anxious to engage in any kind of intense physical activity because I have flashbacks to running in those mud ridden jeans, freezing cold, miserable, exhausted and fearful along those dirt roads and fires. I can’t take it. I want to join them but I can’t. I don’t want that side of me, fear, to take hold, but it has.

I still have hard feelings about the word “integrity” and express that in my journal:

---

A jarring phone call from back home puts my situation into perspective.

Kylie, a close friend from high school who was a member of our church’s youth group, committed suicide. I had known her since seventh grade. We were in the same prom group together. Mission trips. School plays. Years of memories.

I take a day off from school to drive to my hometown for the funeral. I weep during the ceremony. It was unexpected.

It is back in the pod that I realize how shallow the relationships around me are. I have no one to talk to about the suicide of a close friend. At least not in the pod. I look elsewhere.

My small group at church has become my lifeline during this time. I’ve shared with them about my depledging (while keeping details secret out of a perverse sense of loyalty). And I share about the suicide of my close friend.

The group meets in a house that three of the members are renting. It’s warm and inviting. I’m building close friendships with the people there. It’s a place to be vulnerable. To share difficult emotions or things you’re going through. No one is asking you to tough it out or power through. You don’t have to jump through fiery hoops to belong. As we’re growing closer together, we’re also growing in our faith.

I’ve grown especially close with three guys in the group. We’re going to be housemates next year. We spend most of our free time together. During a night of studying, we end up talking about grief. I share the difficult feelings about my friend’s suicide. Another friend shares about how he processed the death of his father a few years ago. We talk about the last time we cried.

In this moment, in this room, I feel closer to this group than anyone I went through Bid Night with. I’m one of the guys.

---

Our sophomore year ends. No one in the pod is going to continue living with anyone else from the pod. My roommate and I have naturally drifted apart. I sense there was a falling out among some of the other guys.

Mike’s roommate, Craig, is transferring to another school. He was in my group on Bid Night. I held him up as we sat in the mud and he was right beside me during some of the most excruciating moments of that night. But we rarely talk.

He went through the whole pledging process and got in. He is one of the guys who already had close friendships in GPD and is popular among the fraternity. This past year, he’s been living in an alternate universe just a few yards away. His room is often a hangout spot for other guys from GPD, like Patrick and Nick, that I wish I was a part of.

I cannot understand why he is transferring when it seemed like he fit in perfectly. When I ask, he makes a general comment about hating all the fakeness and hypocrisy.

I think about this comment years later when I see on Facebook that he’s marrying his longtime boyfriend.

---

A new semester starts. And so has a new pledging season. My close friend, Ella, who is also close with many of the guys in GPD, tells me I was a topic of discussion among some of the fraternity members.

“I heard Self is going to pledge Spartans,” one of them apparently said. I barely know the person who made this pronouncement. But I am amused to hear they’re still guessing at my next move.

Because they’re not going to like it.

In the campus newspaper editorial meeting, there is a discussion about whether we have any opinions about the pledging process.

Having gone through a portion of the pledging process myself, I certainly have opinions. I think fraternities have plenty of solid qualities, but much of the pledging process is toxic. And the fact it’s portrayed as inherently spiritual is deeply troubling.

We discuss a general editorial about this concern but I quickly realize this won’t have the same impact as a personal column. Writing under my own name is going to upset a lot of people. But I feel it needs to be said: pledging shouldn’t be confused with spirituality.

So I start my piece by saying, yes, I went through Bid Night and saw enough to have deep reservations about the pledging process:

There seems to be an anonymous editorial questioning the merits and values of the pledging process every year. And every year, members of social clubs argue outsiders cannot judge the pledging process based on what they do not know.

I pledged a social club last year.

I returned from Bid Night with scratches, scrapes and bruises all over my body. I woke up later that morning to a text message from a member that read, “Congratulations, men. You’re one step closer to becoming the man God wants you to be.”

I try to acknowledge there are plenty of solid Christian guys in fraternities:

I know many strong Christians from both sides [fraternity members and non members] and many of the men I pledged with, as well as the members themselves, are great Christian leaders. It’s what attracted me to the club in the first place. But it is distressing when pledging is made out to be a “Christian” activity, not by adhering to high standards of moral conduct but by using Bible verses as catchy slogans.

Out of a perverse sense of loyalty, I choose not to mention any of the activities I saw off campus. I could mention any number of events that were clearly hazing and dangerous. But I make a conscious decision to stick to public events.

I doubt God swells with pride when he sees intramural games where one group is holding a banner that reads, “We’re better than you,” and the other has “volunteers” jump through a flaming hoop in order to gain respect. That’s not Christianity.

Perhaps with the lack of integrity accusation still ringing in my ears and the way that word was used throughout the pledging process, I make it clear where I think “integrity” comes from.

Integrity is not a byproduct of the number of pushups one does. Honor should not be judged by how willing one is to engage in activities that are potentially dangerous, such as jumping through fiery hoops. Moral character is something endowed by God, not by traditions…

I hesitate when writing the ending. There is a rhetorical flourish that seems like the perfect final sentence. But it would also reveal which fraternity I am referring to. And also seems like a clear dig.

I got for it.

…and that is something I don’t think I could have learned sweating in an old suit from Goodwill with a watermelon in my hands.

I submit the column. And wait for the fallout.

Every morning, most students gather in the “coliseum” for chapel, a time of worship and socializing. I know the newspaper that has my column will be distributed just before chapel. Within minutes, many will be reading what I wrote.

I look over at the section next to me. About 10 yards away is the section where most of the GPD guys sit. And they have newspapers in their hands. And judging by their faces, they are not happy.

I am watching in real time as members of the fraternity I depledged absorb what I have written. I can feel the glare of a growing number of eyes on me.

The next morning, I wake up to a text message from a member that begins, “Listen, bro” but I don’t think he is using the term in the Christian brotherhood sense. He takes issue with how I framed the pledging process, since I didn’t finish. This becomes a theme of the complaints as Gamma Phi Deo circles the wagons.

About a week later, the esteemed “secretary emeritus” of the fraternity, a Bible major, writes a letter to the editor to rebut what I’ve written.

I believe [a column in Sunday’s issue] concerning pledging was misleading. The author claims to be an insider into the pledging process of a men’s [fraternity].

As a former officer for the [fraternity] that the author pledged, I know for a fact that the author left the pledging process less than a week into what is a five – week experience. His view is not that of an insider. In fact, it may be even more skewed than a complete outsider because he witnessed only a small fraction of what the entire process entails.

The [column], which does a very poor job of keeping [Gamma Phi Deo] anonymous, represents a smear against a campus organization that truly does provide, for many, an intensely spiritual experience. We would never claim it is more than just one way to experience a deeper kind of faith.

No organization is perfect, and social clubs certainly aren’t. But no one is helped by an inadequate, uninformed account of the pledging process that claims to be more than it is.

“No organization is perfect,” Jim Jones said as he filled another cup with Kool-Aid and handed it to one of his followers.

Was I misleading? I specifically mentioned I only went through one week of pledging:

Still, the implication of the message – and in fact, the entire week of pledging I endured – was that pledging and spiritual growth are connected.

I also specifically mentioned that I depledged:

After I “de-pledged” last year, I began to spend more time with close friends. I was able to focus more time on my education – the reason I came to college. These were all things I believed I had been deprived of during the pledging process.

Was I writing a “smear”? I didn’t think so.

There are some amazing people in [fraternities], and [fraternities] certainly do not lack potential. Members of [fraternities] take an enormous amount of pride in the club itself, but also in the university. [Fraternities] are a tradition that keeps alumni and their families returning year after year. I know many people that have benefited greatly from their time in club, but the atmosphere that surrounds the pledging process is not by definition conducive to spiritual growth.

I’m bending over backwards to note positive aspects of the fraternity, avoiding the most inflammatory accusations, and giving real examples to make my point. Only to be dismissed as “uninformed.”¹

My op-ed creates a stir on campus and also cuts off my lingering connections to some in the fraternity.

One day, I’m walking with Ella after a journalism department meeting. Patrick is on Ella’s other side. He won’t look at me or acknowledge my presence. When I log onto social media, I see we are no longer Facebook friends.

That’s fine. I’ve lost almost all respect for him.

In addition to the op-ed, the men of Gamma Phi Deo are likely angry for another reason—their entire pledging process has come under strict review from the university administration.

At a social gathering, I hear the agitated voice of Zach, the member who wouldn’t make eye contact after I depledged.

“That’s him. That’s the guy!” Zach exclaims, possibly assuming I’m out of earshot.

“Because of that guy, we came under all this scrutiny. We had to share all our plans with the administration.”

No, the reason y’all had to do all that is because you were flouting university rules and in some cases hazing pledges.

---

The Junior Class Sing Song Act of 2010. My midriff took center stage.

Many school years pass. My junior year I co-direct the Junior Class Sing Song act. I come out to a few friends. I develop bonds with guys I will stay in touch with long after college.

I run into guys from GPD occasionally. Griffin never treats me differently. I have a bowling class with Mike the last semester of our senior year. It’s fun. I’ll see him at homecoming when I hang out with Ella.

After graduating summa cum laude, I take a job at the university.

As I walk around campus, I run into Brad. It’s been years since he was fraternity president. And years since I depledged. We’ve nodded at each other a few times on campus but this is the first time we actually talk.

It’s pleasant, surface level. He’s still around getting his master’s degree to prepare for ministry. I’m now a full-time employee on campus. It’s a polite conversation.

But what I want to ask him is “Do you regret anything that happened? Do you regret lying about the depledging process to intimidate me into staying? Do you regret trying to shame me by saying I had a lack of integrity?”

But I don’t ask. I let the moment pass and we part ways. He’ll go on to become a lead pastor at a large Church of Christ in another state.

One day after work, I wander around campus and hear familiar chanting coming from the amphitheater. It’s a new pledging season. I approach the crowd to watch the latest crop of siblings hold watermelons in the hot sun. Wearing bad suits and ties.

“Siblings, spell unity.”

“S-I-B-L-I-N-G, sir!”

“Siblings, spell sibling.”

“U-N-I-T-Y, sir!”

“Siblings, what is the purpose of pledging?”

“To know yourself, to know others, to know God, sir!”

What I know, and what the siblings are about to find out, is yes, watermelons truly is the easiest part of pledging. Years later, a sibling from that group will tell me he went through some of the very same activities, the fires, the night that stretched until 4 a.m.

Some traditions never die.

It’s hard to watch knowing what’s coming. But before the weeks of grueling physical activity, before the remainder of Bid Night, before the church service, before the siblings are rounded up into cars (hopefully without the heat turned up), they will gather in the atrium of that gleaming white building and the members will sing a song only a chosen few are allowed to sing:

“We believe in Christian brotherhood, it’s what we’re about.”

Read my original op-ed about the pledging process, “Pledging confused with spirituality.”

I’m hoping this story will start some conversations/reflections about the pledging process. I realize these conversations have been ongoing for years and I’m just adding my perspective. If you have memories that differ or want to discuss, I’m happy to hear from you at ryanclarkself@gmail.com.

1. Readers in 2025 can determine whether my account is “uninformed” and whether I saw enough to have deep reservations that this is something that should be branded as “Christian”