The Winter 2010 issue of Christian Scholar’s Review includes an article titled “A Slippery Slope to Secularization? An Empirical Analysis of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities,” by Samuel Joeckel and Thomas Chesnes, both on the faculty of Palm Beach Atlantic University. The article presents the authors’ analysis of results of a 2007 survey of 1,900 CCCU faculty, concluding that “these institutions are hardly descending a slippery slope to secularization.” They go on to argue that “overzealous vigilance against secularization proves counterproductive” to the appropriate ethos and aims of higher education.

The authors claim that their data “suggest that faculty at CCCU institutions are firmly committed to Christian higher education,” basing that judgment, at least in part, on the following responses:
• 98% strongly or somewhat agree with “My college/university should maintain its Christian identity”;
• 94% strongly or somewhat agree with “I have a good idea of what is meant by the phrase, ‘the integration of faith and learning’”;
• 84% strongly or somewhat agree with “It is not difficult for me to integrate faith and learning in my discipline.”

They also claim that their data “suggest that CCCU institutions are places where faith is nurtured and strengthened,” with 79% reporting that, “as a result of the time spent at their college/university, their faith has either become much or somewhat stronger” (sic).

So here is their conclusion:

Based upon our data, we conclude that the dangers of secularization, insofar as they apply to the CCCU, have been overstated. Survey participants overwhelmingly endorse the Christian identity of their institutions; participants also understand and practice the integration of faith and learning.

Finally, they quote approvingly an author who refers to “the myth of declension” which “has cramped our thinking and narrowed our reflection on the nature and character of Christian scholarship.” (Rodney Sawatsky, Scholarship and Christian Faith: Enlarging the Conversation)

I can only begin to scratch the surface of the serious and complex issues which the authors gloss over in their effort to convince us that everything is just fine in Christian higher education — and that any who claim otherwise should be characterized as over-vigilant, hyper-conservative, closed-minded indoctrinators. . . in other words, the real problem.

First, the authors’ data and analysis represent shallow scholarship at best, and will hardly do for their purpose. Certainly, if secularization is measured merely by the presence or absence of certain phrases, such as “Christian identity,” or “integration of faith and learning,” then any institution which continues to use those phrases is, by that standard, not succumbing to secularization. And it is the case that these phrases are broadly accepted and used among institutions who publicly aver their Christian commitment and who are willing members of the CCCU, which is an association of self-professedly “Christ-centered” colleges and universities.

But surely the concern regarding secularization deserves more than such a simplistic approach. While these faculty self-reports are interesting, they leave the deeper questions of meaning and interpretation completely unaddressed. It’s good to know that faculty think their institutions should maintain their Christian identities – but what do they mean by Christian? What is the nature of the faith that is being integrated with learning, and how does that integration actually happen? And how do today’s answers to these questions compare or contrast with the answers that were given at their institutions in previous generations? Only with a careful analysis of meanings and historical progression could these survey results even come close to supporting the authors’ conclusions.

One of the characteristics of historic slippage is that those slipping often deny it; that is, they claim to be continuing to support historic commitments and convictions, using the language of their traditions and, in some cases, claiming to be more in accord with the tradition than their more immediate predecessors. We are witnessing just such a dynamic in the American Episcopal church, where the push for recognition of homosexual marriage and ordination of homosexuals to the ministry is explicitly explained in “Christian” terms: the love of God, the grace and inclusivity of the gospel, etc. We at Covenant experienced such an approach during our interaction with the homosexual advocacy group Soulforce, who, on the basis of their view of the Bible and the gospel, denounce our convictions as unChristian and call for fundamental change in our policies on “biblical” grounds.

The mere use of the language of Christian faith is not enough, and it makes sense to want to know what actual meanings are in play in the use of such terms. This is why I encourage parents and others to ask further questions, of schools and churches and organizations: What do they mean by “Christian?” Exactly how do they describe the authority of the Scriptures, and what place does the Bible hold for scholarship and campus life? What do they believe the biblical gospel is? These terms must not become shibboleths, which we intone as a kind of mantra of identity and faithfulness. These terms have identifiable histories and meanings which have helped to provide theological and ecclesiological definition and continuity across the generations. We do well to use them carefully, and to evaluate carefully their use by others.

The example of homosexual advocacy is especially appropriate here, in that the authors point out that there was a minority of survey respondents who “either strongly or somewhat agreed that their college/university has been influenced negatively by secularism.” This minority group tended to have, in the authors’ words, theologically, epistemologically, and politically “conservative” responses to a set of further questions on topics such as biblical inerrancy and authority, homosexuality, abortion, stem cell research, and abstinence-only sex education.

So here’s the picture. Those who believe that secularism/secularization is a danger tend to be those who believe: that the Bible is inerrant in the original manuscripts; that practicing homosexuals should not be allowed membership in a Christian church; that embryonic stem cell research is wrong; that abortion should be illegal; and that abstinence-only sex education is appropriate. By contrast, those who do not believe that secularism/secularization is a danger tend to be those who do not have – at least not as strongly as the minority – these convictions.

It’s hard to imagine that the authors would not understand that, for many of their readers, their data is convincing in exactly the opposite direction from their own conclusion, i.e. that secularism really is a problem and secularization has in fact been happening. The rejection of biblical authority, the denial of the sanctity of human life, the approval of sexual perversion – these are in fact indicators of the very secularization which the authors are seeking to deny.

The conclusion, then, could more accurately be put thus: Those who don’t acknowledge secularism and its impact don’t think it’s a problem. Or, declension must surely appear a myth for those who can’t recognize it or won’t acknowledge it. Such blindness, willing or not, to the reality of declension is sad indeed, not only for those who suffer from it, but even more so for the generations of students whose education is shaped and directed by those whose discernment has been so dulled.

Again, I must emphasize the authors’ point: Those concerned about secularization tend to be those who hold theological, epistemological, and moral views more in line with historic Christian orthodoxy and orthopraxy (the authors use the term “conservative”), while those not concerned about secularization tend to be those whose theological, epistemological, and moral views represent a move away from historic Christian orthodoxy and orthopraxy. (In contrast to “conservative” I suppose the appropriate term would be “liberal,” although the authors don’t use it.) While I’m glad to have the survey to substantiate this, it does seem hardly necessary.

The second leg of the authors’ argument is that an overbearing vigilance against secularism leads to…

…a homogenous academic culture that intimidates into silence those who disagree… threatening to stifle a thriving academic environment founded on open and honest conversation.

Citing both quantitative and qualitative data from faculty, the authors raise concern about “substandard intellectual rigor” and the negative effect on faculty of institutional policies and their students’ “closed minds.”

Here are two faculty comments:

Being afraid that at some point, the denominational convention and our convention-appointed trustees will decide some of us are not Christian enough for them, and will try to shove us out. (sic)

The narrow and rigid ideological framework – suspicious of the world and even ideas themselves – that most students bring to their university education makes the difficult task of teaching them all the more difficult.

The authors approvingly quote Parker Palmer:

A spirituality of ends wants to dictate outcomes of education in the life of the student. It uses the spiritual tradition as a template against which the ideas, beliefs, and behaviors of the student are to be measured. The goal is to shape the student to the template by the time that his or her formal education concludes. Authentic education wants to open us to truth – whatever truth may be, wherever truth may take us. Such a spirituality does not dictate where we must go, but trusts that any path walked with integrity will take us to a place of knowledge. Such a spirituality encourages us to welcome diversity and conflict, to tolerate ambiguity, and to embrace paradox.

In contrast, then, to “stentorian exhortations against slipping down the slope to secularism,” the authors sound warnings “against a different, inverse danger: the formation of a university so vigilant against secularization that it stifles the spirit of open inquiry and underestimates the value of diversity of thought.” (I won’t take time here to rehearse the well-documented trajectories of originally Christian institutions in the United States; the record of declension is so one-sidedly dismal that the authors’ concern regarding this “inverse danger” can hardly be persuasive.)

This section of the article is laden with caricatures of those who express concern about secularization and declension:
• “The idea there is not so much to educate as to indoctrinate….”
• “…a well-armored albeit shallow faith….”
• “…a homogenous culture that intimidates into silence those who disagree.”
• “…a very closed intellectual and social environment.”
• “Above all, present your college or university to prospective students and their parents as a safe place, where body, soul, and spirit can be protected through the dangerous years of adulthood.”
• “There is an expectation of some faculty and students that everything should have a verse to support it or it’s bad, or secular, which means it is not to be discussed.”

And there is the almost requisite reference to the usual bug-a-boo, Bob Jones University, as if the mere mention of BJU is sufficient to implicate a broad range of diverse perspectives and approaches in one easy sweep. I’ve even heard the fear expressed from time to time that, by intentionally focusing on fidelity to our founding mission, our missional convictions, and important implications for our academic community, Covenant may become “a Reformed Bob Jones.”

Of course the problem with using caricatures and associations is that, as most everyone knows, there are more than enough caricatures and suggestive associations to go around; but I’ll resist the temptation! Such tactics “work” in most cases because of the emotional reactions the caricatures and associations evoke, and also because of the important distinctions they avoid. Dr. Jay Green, professor of history at Covenant, has written a very thoughtful essay on how people use historical analogies, laden with powerful connotations and often unaccompanied by careful analysis, for rhetorical purposes (forthcoming in a book Green is co-editing entitled Confessing History: Essays on the Exploration of Faith and the Historian’s Vocation). We’ve all heard phrases like “another Vietnam” or “another Hitler” – or in the context of Christian higher education “another Harvard” or “another Bob Jones.”

Regarding the Christian educational enterprise, we can and must recognize the essential aspects of genuine education: willingness to explore, to ask questions, to be open to new ideas and directions. But Christian education is not, and was never intended to be, unqualifiedly open-ended, and thus Parker Palmer’s “authentic education” is not Christian education. The Bible itself presents from its opening chapters a spirituality of ends, and the entire Scriptural storyline is eschatological, i.e. it unfolds with its final consummation in view. In contrast to Parker’s and the authors’ recommending “any path walked with integrity,” the Bible points us again and again to one path, one way, one gate, one ending to the story, and one Savior and King.

Informed by this biblical framework, true Christian education pursues teaching and learning, with energy and diligence and seriousness, within the context of historic theological and moral convictions, grounded in the Scriptures, gathered around the person and work of Jesus Christ, and passed down to us by our fathers and mothers in the faith. And true Christian education proceeds purposefully with an end in view: through the exploration and expression of the preeminence of Jesus Christ in all things, to bring about the moral and intellectual discipleship and sanctification of God’s people for the gospel and God’s eternal purposes.

It’s important to add that, while declension is not myth, open-endedness certainly is, as if any education or any educator is free from starting-points and presuppositions – what Palmer calls a “template” — that shape and direct, and in large measure determine, the learning outcomes in students’ beliefs and values. I will address the myth of open-endedness in my next posting.

The authors’ rightful criticism of narrow-minded educational approaches which preempt genuine inquiry and thought must be complemented, for Christians, by an analogous criticism of educational approaches which gradually reject the pattern of sound words delivered to us dependably in the Scriptures, words which communicate to us the faith once for all delivered to the saints, words which are God’s words regarding himself, ourselves, his world, and his purposes. Those words don’t answer all questions, nor do they stifle energetic and far-reaching inquiry; the impressive history of faithful Christian scholarship proves that beyond doubt. But they provide the framework for Christian education by which we seek to disciple students toward godly worship in heart, mind, and deed.

In their own characterization of the educational enterprise, the authors, professors at a Christian college, focus almost exclusively on the open-ended nature of the academic task and fail to mention the Bible, Jesus Christ, the gospel, the church, the Kingdom, or any of the biblical themes that have across the centuries provided grounding and direction and purpose for the Christian intellectual and educational enterprise. Perhaps this is oversight or, in their view, a different topic. But it is appropriate to ask what role, if any, these elements of historic Christian faith and scholarship play in their conception of Christian education.

Further, and contrary to the authors’ caricatures, our whole-hearted embrace of the biblical template for Christian thought and education does not rest on fear, either of creative and vigorous intellectual exploration, or of the world around us in all its complexity, or of our students’ futures as men and women of God. It rests on the glorious and trustworthy truth and grace of Jesus Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and who in all things is preeminent. Our work is joyful and hopeful, not despairing. It willingly engages, and does not avoid, the full range of subjects and questions. It is curious, thoughtful, and courageous, and is not nervous about our students’ faith or our standing in the eyes of others.

Genuine Christian education won’t settle for falling off the path on either side – either the simplistic and stifling approach which the authors (and I) reject, or the equally simplistic and ultimately goal-less approach which they propose (which doesn’t actually exist). We must live and teach and learn in the tensions among the pathways of our academic inquiry and the sure and dependable revelation of God in the Bible and the truth and grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This means, at Covenant, that we continually wrestle with deep and difficult questions, not simply in an open-ended journey to anywhere, but as those gripped with the majesty of the faith we profess and our Kingdom calling, looking toward the consummation of all things in the eternal reign of Jesus Christ. Anything less is a spiritual and intellectual cop-out.

At Covenant we happily embrace our distinctive calling to first-rate and rigorous Christian education with a God- and gospel-focused end in view.