Ron Large invites students to ponder what a just society looks like

By Emma Maple

For Gonzaga Religious Studies professor Ron Large, times and social issues may change, but what remains constant are life's big questions.

"I don't think questions like what does it mean to be a just society, what does it look like or how do we bring it about are ever going to go away," he said.

Ron, who is in his final semester before retirement, specializes in Christian ethics with an emphasis on Christian social ethics and peace studies.

His courses, specifically his nonviolence course, are "not really a religion course in terms of what people think that means," he said. "I'm not trying to convert people.

"My classes are more dealing with ethics and how religion informs the way in which we think about making ethical decisions, and how that shapes our moral lives," he explained.

Ron frames these questions around the Vietnam War and nonviolent movements like the 13-month Montgomery bus boycott that began in 1955 and Mohandas Gandhi's general strike in 1919.

"We examine the ways those areas have become case studies for thinking about our ethical lens or our moral capabilities," Ron said, asking, "How do we look at war or nonviolence? How does this shape our own lives or thinking about decisions?"

He suggested that these topics also tie into the question of how to act in such a way that other people's lives can be changed.

Some nonviolent leaders that play heavily into Ron's worldview and classes are Indian nonviolent activist Gandhi and American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

While both these leaders are dead and their immediate movements are over, Ron said their principles are still relevant to movements today.

Students will often ask how these principles tie into modern day events like the Black Lives Matters protests, the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and more.

Because of this, he tries to shape courses in ways that students will find compelling.

For Ron, all of these studies and ideas center around one fundamental question.

"How do we bring about social change, in all honesty, without killing each other?" he asked. "Can we do that?" 

He also focuses on larger questions such as how humans make decisions and what it means to be human.

"Teaching ethics, it is a little easier to frame those sorts of questions," he said. "Nonviolence is a way to get students to think about that." 

Ron's interest in peace studies grew out of major world events during his childhood.

"My growing up was shaped by two events: the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement," he said.

At the University of Virginia, he took three religion courses in one semester.

"It was fascinating," Ron said.

When he realized he could spend his whole life thinking, studying and reading about these topics, he decided to major in religious studies. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1972.

In 1975, he received his master of divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, N.J., and a doctorate in 1985 from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif. His dissertation was on social change related to King and Gandhi.

After graduation, Ron taught at several different universities before landing at Gonzaga in 1988.

In addition to serving as a tenured professor, he was Gonzaga's associate academic vice president from 2012 to 2019, as well as the associate provost for educational effectiveness from 2019 to 2022. He's in his 37th year at Gonzaga and his 45th year in higher education.

Ron enjoys teaching at Gonzaga because of the freedom that a private university affords.

"I had quite a bit of freedom to teach within my specific area, to develop courses that would be helpful and useful for students," he said.

The department as a whole also stays aware of the need to hold student interest in creating courses, he said. This has resulted in the department broadening its religion courses to include Native American studies, Catholicism in Africa, African religions and Buddhism.

"We've expanded our focus," he said. "That's the direction that the religious studies program has been going." 

The department has also diversified, Ron said. Overall, there are fewer Jesuits and more women professors.

This has corresponded with the expansion in the field of ethics. While Ron said ethicists used to be mostly white men, it has seen many women and feminist ethicists shaping the field in recent years.

"They began to ask questions that weren't being asked," he said.

Ron and his wife have had three children—one born in California, one in Montana and one in Michigan.

When he retires at the end of May, not only will they visit them, but also Ron said he would love to explore Ireland and practice photography in more depth, staying based in Spokane.

Both in teaching and life, Ron said the questions he focuses on are eternal.

Ethicists have been asking them for years, he said, noting that "they haven't gone away, and they aren't going to go away."

When students enter his class, Ron said they often come in with a preconception that there will always be war and violence. They think nonviolence is too idealistic or not effective.

By the end of the semester, students realize that nonviolence can work and that questions of war and violence are nuanced, not simplistic.

Ron still has questions of his own, such as whether war and violence can ever be completely eradicated.

"I'm an idealist," he said, "but I'm also a pragmatist." 

Ron quoted King's famous saying, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." 

"It's a big arc," he said, asking, "How much more bending can this do?" 

In the end, he said that while violence may seem to be inevitable, it is still a choice. 

"We can choose to be violent or nonviolent," he said. "Violence is a choice that people make, and they can unmake it or not make it." 

It's a long haul, and violence is not going to stop tomorrow, but we have to keep working at it and teaching it," he said.

Part of his mission is to challenge students' assumptions that war is inevitable, and violence is the only choice.

"We're more nonviolent than we are violent. We just don't think of it," he said. "How do we sustain that? How do we get to the point where we don't think violence is the only solution to our problem?"

Nonviolence is not an easy choice, according to Ron.

"It means that people put themselves in danger, they risk their lives," he said. "What does it mean to take that sort of risk?"

Gandhi and King were able to convince people to take that risk, Ron said, largely through the promise of hope.

"Give people some level of hope," he said. "Sometimes violence is born out of hopelessness."

"Without hope, the people perish," he added. "Give them the sense that we may not get the ideal, but we'll get further down the road.

"I present students with two competing visions," he added. "This path and that path. Neither one is inevitable."

Ron encourages students to think about the choices that they make and how those choices will impact others.

He pointed to the irony that nonviolence is risky. While Gandhi and King took that risk and advocated nonviolence, both were assassinated.

"How do we bring about social change toward a more just and inclusive society—what King called the beloved community?" he asked. "That's the subtext, from my personal perspective, for the students."

For information, email large@gonzaga.edu.