Part of that comes from Butler's career interest. As a criminal justice professor at Calvin College, he should be interested in the crime rate in his city.

But it goes much beyond numbers and statistics for Butler. In fact, it's the reason he believes he ended up at Calvin.

Butler, 57, grew up as the son of a Mississippi bricklayer and from there took a long and winding road to Calvin. He earned an athletic scholarship at the University of Wisconsin, worked at Cabrini Green in Chicago (the infamous housing complex which became symbolic for failed urban renewal), then went on to work for the All African People's Alliance in Chicago's west side. He returned to school and earned a master's degree from DePaul University in 1970. He was ordained as a Baptist preacher in 1989 and worked as a director of family services in the early 1990s. He earned his doctoral degree in sociology from Loyola University last August and came to Calvin in September.

"I was looking for a faith-based institution where I could teach," he said. "I had seen, heard and read about so many schools that had started Christian and had become secular that I didn't know if I would find a place like Calvin."

"When I was first asked if I was interested in Calvin College in Grand Rapids, my response was, 'no.' I kept thinking 'Grand Rapids?' I had never been here. Then I prayed for God to open a door or close a door and the doors kept opening," he said.

On his visits to Calvin, Butler made trips into the inner city. "I discovered that it wasn't far from Calvin and there was a lot of work to be done there," he said. "When I started talking to people though, they had this perception that "those Calvin people were all racist over there.'"

Butler tried to figure out where that notion was coming from.

"I take pride in being a good judge of character and I never felt that at Calvin," he said. "I decided this would be a brilliant opportunity to bridge the gaps that existed from John Doe Grand Rapids citizen to the gifted students that I had met at Calvin."

Butler's first concern was to assure himself that his religious beliefs coincided with what Calvin teaches, he said. He was happy to find out that not only did his religious beliefs fall right in line with Calvin's, but that his philosophy of being a transforming agent in the inner city is exactly what Calvin is committed to through their Reformed theology.

"I found the Kuyperian model to be exactly what I was looking for," he said.

Butler set out immediately to become involved in the community.

His most visible way is as a martial arts instructor at Abundant Life Community Center in Grand Rapids Southeast Side. As a criminal justice professor, Butler is well aware of the estimates that one-third of black men in their twenties are either in prison, on parole or on probation.

So the lessons there go beyond self-defense. "Discipline is the key," said Butler, in a recent interview with the Grand Rapids Press. "When you instill discipline, you can instill respect."

"You can also never say die, never give up," he tells his young karate students. "I can press my way through to graduation from high school. I can press my way past the drug dealer trying to get me on pot."

But it's not just on his own that Butler hopes to accomplish much as a catalyst for getting Calvin and the Christian Reformed Church involved in transforming the inner city.

He takes his students to an inner city school twice a week to tutor, he brings troubled teens to his classes to speak to students, he brings minority families into his class on the family and he teaches the weekly seminar at Calvin's Harambe House, an inner city housing project where Calvin students live and work toward community harmony.

"I have found Calvin to be making a sincere effort to be involved in this community," he said. "I refuse to let people get away with saying Calvin is racist. 'What about me then?' is my response. I have become a translator for both sides. I always stop and ask people, 'If Calvin is reaching out, who is reaching out from the inner city?' We all need to work on making it a two-way street."

—Lynn Bolt Rosendale

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