Calvin College Cancels Concert

Here is the statement issued by Calvin College when it decided this week to cancel a concert by a popular band:

Regrettably, Calvin College has decided to rescind its invitation to the band, The New Pornographers, slated to perform on Friday, October 15, 2010, in the Fieldhouse Complex on campus. We believe that the decision to invite the band fit our rubric of engaging culture through a Christian lens. The band makes good, thoughtful music, and we invited them here based on their artistic merit. However, after weeks of discussion and consideration, the irony of the band's name was impossible to explain to many. The band's name, to some, is mistakenly associated with pornography. Consequently, Calvin, to some, was mistakenly associated with pornography. Neither the college nor the band endorses pornography. The Student Activities Office regrets the way this has happened. We regret the message we have sent to the band and their fans with this cancellation, and any confusion this has caused generally. We have been in contact with the band to explain this regret and the breakdown in our own processes that led us to first invite them and then withdraw that invitation. Calvin College remains committed to the difficult, yet important work at faithfully engaging popular culture.

Calvin has an enviable track record of bringing thoughtful musical artists to campus. Why was the invitation to The New Pornographers first extended?

One of the goals of the student activities office at Calvin College is to help students discern the positive and negative messages contained in the culture around us. The band, The New Pornographers, makes good, thoughtful music, and we invited them to Calvin College based on their artistic merit. The decision to invite this band fits our rubric of engaging culture through a Christian lens.

Why has there been a change of course to withdraw the invitation?

In recent conversations we’ve had both on and off-campus, we have found that, for some, the band’s name has become a distraction to the good work we are trying to do in the student activities office. In no way does the band or the college endorse pornography. However, the name of the band unfortunately creates some unintended misunderstanding on this point. We should have realized this before the band was invited to perform at the college and regret the resulting confusion concerning the name of the band or the intent of the college.

Unfortunately, the band’s name is mistakenly associated with pornography. Calvin College mistakenly is being associated with pornography because of the band’s ironic name. Explaining the irony has become impossible for Calvin College, even though we first tried.

What implications does this have for future concerts?

As we move forward we will continue to do our best to feature artists who will challenge, delight and inspire our audiences, artists whom we discern, from our Reformed perspective, are getting something right. At Calvin, students and the general public experience the work of international touring artists in the context of Christian examination and evaluation. Concerts are, and will continue to be, part of a carefully crafted context that encourages serious critical engagement of popular culture.

This decision by Calvin College to cancel the concert of the band has drawn widespread comment in many places, especially on music news sites, across the Internet.