Sulis Academic Press kindly agreed to make Chapter 12 of my new book available free for download. Chapter 12 summarizes the book’s conclusion and makes four practical suggestions for Christian Universities. I believe reading these nine pages may peek your interest enough to read the whole book. Feel free to download this chapter, read it, and pass it on to others.
I ended my previous essay by quoting a statement that I place in all my course syllabi and teased my next essay by saying, “Next Time I will unpack my syllabus statement in hopes of answering the question about the place of evangelism, catechesis and theology in the Christian college.”
The much-discussed tensions within the concept of “a Christian university” find expression also within in the idea of teaching the faith within an academic institution. An institution that presents itself to students, donors, and the public as a “Christian university” incurs an obligation both to be authentically Christian and to uphold sound academic standards. I won’t undertake here the challenge of blending these two principles together harmoniously in one institution. I work toward this end in my forthcoming book The Christian University & The Academy.
A professor teaching the faith in a Christian university must do justice to at least three major concerns:
The meaning of each of these concerns is contested and always has been. Contested or not, however, a Christian university must define the limits of what it considers true Christianity, good teaching, and sound academia. Individual professors don’t get to define these values as they wish.
At whatever level and by whatever method, professors should endeavor to present true Christianity to their students. The measure of “true” Christianity is its conformity to the teaching of Jesus and his apostles as recorded in the canonical New Testament. I will accept no substitute for this criterion. There have always been disputed questions and obscure matters on which learned and sincere Christians have disagreed. But it is very clear both in the New Testament and in the course of church history that some matters of faith, doctrine, and morality are nonnegotiable. To step outside these boundaries is to move away from orthodoxy into heresy.
In secular private and public universities, leftist politics has all but replaced liberal values and traditional subject matter. This is especially true in the humanities and social sciences but increasingly so even in the natural sciences. Christian university professors—most of whom received their graduate education in secular universities—are not immune from the temptation to use their classrooms to advocate for the social or political causes dear to them. In my experience, the ones most likely to politicize their classrooms are on the political and theological left.
After the elections of 2016 and 2024 in which evangelical Christians overwhelmingly supported Donald J. Trump for President of the United States, it is not uncommon for Christian university professors to dismiss the faith of evangelicals in very harsh terms. In the politicized Christian university classroom, students often hear barely-argued assertions that Christianity is incompatible with capitalism and most compatible with socialism, that Christians should champion radical responses to climate change, that God is always on the side of the oppressed, and other claims based on a liberationist approach to theology. (For my thoughts on Liberation Theology, see my essay of February 19, 2025: “Is Liberation Theology Christian?”)
I do not deny that Christianity has implications for the way we live in the world and that we need to reflect on these implications. But such reflection presupposes a thorough grasp of Christianity and a commitment to live according to the teaching of Jesus and his apostles. Unhappily, most contemporary students and many faculty do not possess either one. So, “Christianity” becomes an empty cypher invoked to enhance the authority of the speaker. In my view, it is unethical as well as unacademic to ask students to accept a supposed social or political implication of Christianity before they gain a thorough knowledge of Christianity itself.
The first priority, then, is to make sure that Christian university students encounter the full range of Christian teaching as presented in the Bible and the ecumenical tradition of the church.
The student bodies of the colleges I attended as an undergraduate were pretty homogeneous. Most of us were raised in Christian homes, attended church all our lives, and had a basic knowledge of the Bible. Most students lived within 250 miles of the college. There were very few international students, and I don’t recall a single Roman Catholic, adherent of a non-Christian religion, or atheist among my classmates.
This description fits very few Christian universities today. In my general studies classes I have evangelical students, Roman Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, and atheists. I have students from six continents. How do you teach the true Christian faith to such a diverse class of students? Do you design your course for the least, average, or most knowledgeable? Do you teach in a way that presupposes Christian faith or belief in God or at least openness to faith? Do you stay objective and descriptive or do you advocate for belief?
Precise answers to these questions must be decided by the teachers, given the makeup of their classes. However, I think there are some goals we must strive to achieve whatever the composition of the student body. We should want every student to learn the story told in the Bible and embodied in the historical life of the church. Even if we teach in the descriptive and objective style characteristic of academia, the Christian sources themselves present Christianity as the truth about God’s identity and purposes. So, even if professors refrain from using the rhetoric of evangelism, the claims of the Christian message will exert their persuasive power. And a Christian university professor should be happy about that.
Consider what the student with no prior knowledge of Christianity can learn: the basics of what Christianity asserts about God, creation and providence; about human nature, sin, death, and salvation; about Jesus Christ, the Spirit, and the church; about what constitutes well lived human life, and about the hope for eternal life. And the student with prior knowledge of Christianity can benefit from an orderly, sympathetic, and coherent presentation of the Christian narrative and doctrine. Catechesis, then, if conducted in an academic mode, is not out of place in a Christian university classroom. In contrast, theology explores in depth the interconnections among the topics of faith. It teaches students how to justify the church’s teachings from Scripture, tradition, and reason and engage in debates with dissenting views. Theology is best reserved for advanced students who are believers and wish to learn how to teach the basics of the faith to others.
Teaching the faith in an evangelistic or catechetical way differs from teaching the faith in an academic style. But that difference is not what you might suspect. We expect the academic style to proceed rationally, to respect the freedom of the student, to delve deeply into the subject matter, and explore the subject’s connections to other subject areas. But evangelism should also appeal to listeners’ reason, respect their freedom, and address their concerns honestly. Catechesis, too, respects these values. What then makes a presentation of the faith academic?
Academic teaching accepts the obligation to avoid relying on presupposed authority. It feels an obligation to state clearly its presuppositions and axioms, present evidence for its assertions, get informed about the views of others, and argue logically for its conclusions. Though evangelism makes arguments, it is primarily proclamation and confession. Catechesis does not ask students to bow blindly to the church’s authority. It respects their rationality and freedom. Nevertheless, it focuses on explaining the details of what the church believes to those who already have faith and wish to learn more. Christian evangelistic, catechetical, and academic teaching communicate the same faith, but they do so in different ways tailored to different audiences and for different purposes.
To teach the faith academically is not at all synonymous with taking a skeptical, cynical, or ironic stance. It’s not identical with being progressive, liberal, or rationalistic. Except in extreme cases—concluding to a flat earth, holocaust denial, or soundness of phrenology—it is not the conclusions you reach but the methods you use that make for academic soundness.
In the previous essay, I posed the following question, which I left unanswered: “What about teaching the faith in the Christian college? Is it catechesis or theology or evangelism or something else?” I will address this question today.
I do not remember a time when I did not know that I would attend a Christian college. The Christian college was presented to me as a safe alternative to state colleges. Faculty at state colleges were known for ridiculing the faith of Christian students, and state-college students, away from home for the first time and unsupervised, often plunged into drunkenness and fornication and reaped the consequences. In contrast, faculty at Christian colleges were all faithful Christians and encouraged students to pursue lives of faith. Most students were raised in Christian homes and chose to attend a Christian college because of its devotion to Christianity. There they could study the Bible at a deeper level with knowledgeable Bible teachers and live in a community dominated largely by Christian ethics and worship.
I attended two Christian colleges and found them to be much as they were described to me. All the faculty were indeed Christians, and a religious mood permeated both campuses. No matter what their majors, students were required to take a Bible course every semester. We attended dorm devotionals every evening and chapel services every day. You could hear the continual buzz of theological conversations in dorm rooms, hallways, and classrooms. These two Christian colleges gathered hundreds of Christian students and faculty in one place for one purpose, and it was good for me. Indeed, it was so good for me that I set my sights on teaching in a Christian college. And for the past 36 years I have taught in a Christian university.
During my time as a student in these two Christian colleges I knew nothing about the history of the Christian college in America and very little about the history of the institutions I attended. I knew only their founding dates and founders and the names of a few of their most illustrious presidents. Later, I learned that from the colonial period until the late 19th century nearly all colleges and universities in America understood themselves to be in some sense Christian. However, from the late 19th century to about 1920, many of the older church-related colleges moved from an overtly Christian stance first to non-sectarian and then to a secular identity. At the same time, conservative Christians—sometimes called fundamentalists—established small liberal arts and Bible colleges as orthodox alternatives to liberal and secular colleges.* My alma maters, too, were founded in the early 20th century in response to the loss of the older Christian colleges to modernism. And they retained that countercultural mentality through my time there and beyond.
According to the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, there are hundreds of Christian colleges in the United States and Canada and around the world. And they are quite diverse. Some are closely associated with a particular denomination and some center their identity in a confession of faith. Some require all faculty to be confessing Christians and some do not. Some require students to adhere to a Christian confession of faith and a code of conduct and some do not. Given this diversity, I cannot hope to present a one-size-fits all answer to the issue posed in the title of this essay: “Teaching the Faith in a Christian College.” Should it approach students as subjects for evangelism or catechesis or theological instruction? Below is a statement I place in all my syllabi and read to my classes on the first day of the semester. Although you can easily find out where I teach, I will not use my university’s real name. Let’s call it Misty Mountain Christian University or MMCU.
“Misty Mountain Christian University is a Christian university.”
At minimum, this assertion means that (1) most professors and staff profess and practice the Christian faith; (2) students are required to take courses that introduce them to the original, normative religious texts of Christianity—the Bible—and show how this faith has influenced the world; (3) students are allowed and encouraged to be involved in voluntary Christian activities of worship and service; (4) the University takes an affirmative stance toward Christian belief and practice. If you are a Christian, studying at MMCU gives you an opportunity to deepen your faith in an affirming climate. If you are not a Christian, studying at MMCU will give you an opportunity to understand what Christianity actually teaches and why it affirms these things as good and true.
In terms of your course of study, MMCU does not require you to be a Christian to study here. Nor does it make the quality of your grades depend on affirming Christian belief. Grades will be determined by your level of mastery of the course material and not your beliefs.
Professor Highfield is a Christian believer, thinker, and writer. This course takes an affirmative stance toward belief in God in general and Christian faith in God in particular. Nonetheless, I will respect every person even if you do not agree with my viewpoint and Christian beliefs. I ask you to treat your classmates with the same respect. The quality of your grade does not depend on agreeing with me.
This statement contains the essential features of my view of the purpose of teaching religion courses in the Christian university.
*For more of this fascinating story, see William Ringenberg, The Christian College: A History of Protestant Higher Education in America (Baker, 1984, rev. ed. 2006).
Next Time I will unpack my syllabus statement in hopes of answering the question about the place of evangelism, catechesis and theology in the Christian college.
It may be, as John Calvin thought, that human beings are born with a sense of divinity, so that their experience of the magnitude, mystery and grandeur of the universe invariably evokes the thought of God. But it is certain that children are not born with explicit knowledge of religion any more than they are born with knowledge of agriculture, animal husbandry, or physics. Their sense of divinity will be given concrete form by the society into which they are born. In many cultures, especially those dominated by only one form of religion, children gain religious knowledge by participating in the common activities of the culture: listening to its founding stories and myths and participating in its rituals, ceremonies, and holidays. The Old Testament records how the nation of ancient Israel was established. Israel taught every new generation the stories of the patriarchs, Passover, Exodus, wilderness wanderings, the giving of the Law, and the conquest of the land. They celebrated feasts and holidays associated with these great events. They participated in sacrifices, ritual washings, and purity practices.
The church engages in at least four types of ministry: sacramental or worship, pastoral, teaching, and works of mercy. Each is important and teaches the faith directly or indirectly, but I want to focus on the teaching ministry. Like ancient Israel, the church must teach its faith to converts and every new generation. The story of Jesus from birth to resurrection is the center of that message. But that story is set within the history of Israel told in the Old Testament and it continues in the work of the apostles and the churches they founded. The goal of that teaching ministry is that believers may continue to possess the original, true faith and enjoy the fulness of life in Christ and the Spirit to the glory of God the Father.
The church teaches in many ways and at many levels. Christian parents teach their children when they pray over meals, read Bible stories, point out the works of the Creator, take them to church services, and answer their questions about God. The church provides such programs of instruction for children as Sunday school and catechism classes. Regular church services usually incorporate Scripture readings, homilies or sermons, and hymns into the program.
Catechesis merits further comment. The English word catechesis derives from the Greek verb katecheo found in Acts 21:21; Galatians 6:6, and 1Corinthians 14:19. It means to instruct. As it is now used, catechesis refers to the process of teaching the full range of doctrinal and moral teachings to believers at a secondary level. It is usually conducted in special classes devoted to this purpose. Surveying all these teachings in detail in sermons, homilies, or the eucharistic liturgy would not be possible or appropriate. These teachings include such topics as God, the Trinity, creation, providence, the incarnation, the atonement and resurrection of Christ, the Holy Spirit, sin, the church, the sacraments, justification, sanctification, the Ten Commandments, marriage, the biblical virtues and vices, and much more.
Catechesis supplies knowledge of the faith appropriate and useful for every believer. However, the church needs some believers who are taught at an advanced level. For it needs people qualified to teach the basics of the faith and answer difficult questions asked by students. At this level, select students explore in depth the interconnections among the topics of faith, learn how to justify the church’s teachings from Scripture, tradition, and reason, and engage in debates with dissenting views. At this level, we first engage in the study and practice of theology. Theology methodically employs reason (logos) to see connections among the truths of the faith, explore the presuppositions, and unfold the implications of these truths. Anselm of Canterbury (d. 1109) famously defined theology as “faith seeking understanding.” At the level of catechesis, the believer trusts that the church possesses the true faith and the correct interpretation of Scripture. The study of theology helps the advanced student understand why the church is correct in what it teaches.
For most of its history, the church has valued a theologically educated clergy—priests, presbyters, and bishops—and provided means toward that end. Theological training has taken place in a variety of settings. In the early centuries, individuals studied theology in catechetical schools, monastic schools, or private study. In the Middle Ages, bishops established cathedral schools, some of which developed into universities. After the Reformation, the Jesuit Order established the first seminary (1563), which is a school devoted exclusively to training clergy. In the American colonies, people destined for the ministry would attend college for an advanced classical education but for their theological education would apprentice themselves for three years with an experienced clergyman. The first Protestant seminary in America was Andover Theological Seminary (1807). (For the full story, see Justo Gonzalez, The History of Theological Education, Abington Press, 2015).
There must, however, be an even more advanced level of theological education. Some individuals must qualify themselves to teach teachers, ministers, and priests for service in the church. Let’s call them theologians. In the early centuries, many of them were highly educated in secular learning before they embarked on a program of reading and writing theology. Among these are Athanasius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, and many more. Some were bishops, some—like Origen—were monks, and some—like Justin Martyr a converted philosopher—were private teachers. In every generation some theologians stand out as teachers of theologians or doctors of the church. Since the Middle Ages, most theologians have been located in universities or seminaries.
What about teaching the faith in the Christian college? Is it catechesis or theology or evangelism or something else?
To be continued…
This is the first essay I’ve posted since April 27. In the intervening two months, I’ve given all my literary energy to finishing my next book, The Christian University & The Academic Establishment. I expect it to be published sometime in August. I will have more to say about it then.
As always happens when you are reading and formulating your thoughts on one topic, other issues come into view that you must set aside for the moment. In writing the The Christian University & The Academic Establishment, I read much about the history and the current state of higher education in America, and this concentration forced me to ask other questions: What is education? What is learning? What part do schools play in learning? What does it mean to be an educated person? How does one gain a good education? And specifically, how does one gain a good education in Christianity? In the next few months, I hope to address these questions and more. This essay sets the table for that discussion.
We will never know everything. We must be satisfied with (1) learning what we need to know for living the life we want to live; and (2) doing the best we can to make sure that the knowledge we gain—partial though it is—cannot be completely falsified by future discoveries.
We don’t know what we don’t know. Remember the old saying “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”? Why is that? Because that little knowledge is surrounded by a lot of ignorance! But we can know that we don’t know. So, be humble and careful. Strive to distinguish between beliefs that are firmly grounded in evidence and thus are likely to withstand scrutiny and those that are supported solely by our desires, vanity, wishes, and feelings.
No individual knows everything that is known. Human knowledge is a communal possession. Unlike animals, human beings can learn from the thoughts, discoveries, and experiences of other people and pass that knowledge on to future generations so that the body of knowledge grows with the passage of time. Each new generation benefits from this heritage of wisdom, knowledge, and skills. The process of passing on this knowledge is called education.
There is a difference between schooling and education. One can attend a school, college or university—even get a degree—without acquiring a good education. To gain an education, one must learn.
Learning is always something we do. We can sit at a desk while a teacher lectures, but learning involves assimilating new information into the body of knowledge and the patterns of understanding we already possess. It changes us.
The sum total of human knowledge can be refined and extended only by those who have mastered traditional knowledge. You need to learn what is already known. Even though this body of knowledge is incomplete and may contain errors, it is the best starting place for learning more. Only from this vantage point can an individual see unanswered questions and the limits of inherited theories, methods, and procedures.
A good education is one that enables us to live well in the society in which we dwell. As I said above, no one can know everything. It is the business of educators to create programs of study that provide students with the opportunity to gain a good education. Unsurprisingly, educators do not agree completely among themselves on what that program of study should be, and it is always changing as society changes. But in general, educators agree that it is a great advantage for a person to gain basic proficiency in language, history, natural science, economics, and political and social institutions.
How can you make sure that you get a good education? Whatever subject you want to study, place yourself under the tutelage of teachers who can direct you to the best of what is known and guide you through a maze of crackpot ideas, fancies, and conspiracies. As I emphasized above, there is a difference between going to a school and getting a good education. The most important thing about becoming an educated person is not where you learn but that you acquire the best knowledge available and become a discerning and critical student. However, for most people, the best place to begin this journey is in an educational institution—a high school, college or university. Why here? Because these institutions gather in one place teachers who have given many years to mastering their disciplines and are responsible to their professions. It is their duty to direct your attention to the best knowledge available—ideas and practices that have been critically examined by many thinkers and have proven themselves useful and reliable.
Almost every book I’ve read on the subject—whether coming from the right or the left or from inside or outside the university—complains that higher education in America is a mess. Universities are too expensive, too inefficient, sold out to the political left, or in danger from the political right. They encourage students to take on huge debt to earn useless degrees. They are run too much like corporations. Needed change proceeds at a glacial pace. Professors care more about their research than their students. Tenure and academic freedom shield incompetent faculty and serve as cover for anti-academic, political activism.
I agree. Education in America at all levels is a mess. Reforms are needed. Alternative paths to a good education are desirable. But my point in this essay is this: Whatever reforms in existing educational institutions we enact or new ways of securing an education we envision, at the core of all of them must lie the process of learning an accumulated body of knowledge and skills from those who already know them. And this is the answer to the question posed in the title: What is Education?
Today, I want to propose some answers to the questions I asked in my previous post. But I want to make it clear up front that it is not my purpose to propose simple (or complex) solutions to complicated and likely intractable social problems. My goal is to shed light on these social problems so that we as individuals, families, and churches can make the best decisions in areas over which we have some immediate control.
I am recalling this from my reading in the history of education in America, but I remember that the literacy rate in Massachusetts in 1780, when all schooling was private, was about 90% . Clearly the Massachusetts Puritans valued universal literacy. I can only speculate about the deterioration.
I think the decline probably reflects an underlying social, moral, and spiritual breakdown in culture: (1) the breakdown of the traditional family—divorce, fatherlessness, and decline of church going; (2) the decline of the buying power of the average income and the accompanying increase of two-income middle class family; (3) the increase of an entitlement mentality and the decrease of the notion of sacrifice; the rise of “I-deserve-a-little-happiness” thinking; (4) the transformation from thinking of education as a privilege to be treasured to a right that can be taken for granted; (5) the rise of the permissive society, especially permissive parenting. Very few children are self-motivated. They need guidance and discipline; (6) The fatalism and lost of hope in some subcultures that getting an education is the way toward economic and cultural advancement.
I am certain that I could have learned everything I learned in 12 years in half the time. I wonder why such a waste of time? This 12-year calendar must be more about modern theories of child psychology and development than intellectual progress. Nowadays, kids don’t grow up until 30 years of age, at least the ones that go to college. What’s the problem?
If the entire 12 years were spent efficiently on academics, high school graduates would be prepared for professional and graduate schools right out of high school. They would not need to take remedial English and math courses or learn basic history in colleges. However instead of academics, schools seem to take on the general task of parenting children through the developmental stages of their lives. Not only so, schools take on the quasi-political role of socializing children into their vision of a diverse and pluralistic society viewed through the lens of the oppressor/oppressed and privilege/prejudice analysis. In obvious ways, those who benefit from expanding the scope of the public school system, promote such a whole of life philosophy.
High school was called “high” because it taught advanced subjects and skills beyond those learned in grammar school. The term, though not the modern institution, originated in the Middle Ages. In colonial times most college students were minors from 13 to 16 years of age. Their main preparation for college was learning math and language skills in schools or via private tutoring. Colonial and early American colleges prepared students to study for the professions in medicine, the ministry, and law. High schools in America were not originally designed for college preparation but to prepare students to transition to professions that required literacy and mathematical skills but not classical professional training.
Needless to say, modern high schools are no longer “advanced” and many students graduate with a high school diploma but not a “high” school education. Moreover, high schools differ dramatically in the quality of education they provide. Clearly, grade and degree inflation have eroded the value of high school and four-year college degrees.
Why has this happened? I think it has to do with the six problems I dealt with in question #1. When education becomes a right, it will be taken for granted. Schooling will replace education and diplomas will replace knowledge and skills.
Let’s face it. We are not all born equal in every respect. Each person has their own gifts, and there are different kinds of intelligence. But calculus, chemistry and logic are not for everyone. Some children can be amazing mechanics and plumbers. We need them and should celebrate their skills. But not everyone will make a good Wall Street analyst. So, let’s help each child find their gifts and make their particular contribution to the common good.
Perhaps we should rethink our naive view of the meaning of equality, democracy, and equal opportunity. We could begin to direct and track children at an early age—always leaving open each track to all in case we misjudge a child’s abilities and interests. Every child is precious, but it does not honor their value to press them all into the same shape.
Why are schools so political these days? And why does their politics lean so heavily to the left? I have lots of opinions on why this is the case. But first, we need to remember that the political public school classroom is not a recent development. The public school system has always been political, but explicitly so at least since around 1830 when Horace Mann succeeded in getting the State of Massachusetts to set up its public school system modeled on the German state system. Public schools were designed from the beginning to serve the purposes of the state. It may not seem like it, but measured by the culture of their day, the first public schools were progressive, and they are still that way today. Only what counts as progressive has changed.
Public schools were never primarily tailored for students’ and parents’ aspirations as individuals and families. Their function has always been to serve the socio-economic interests of the governmental and business classes. “Public” means publicly funded and administered and designed to serve the “common good” as defined by those in power. Again: nothing “public” is designed specifically for you, your kids, and your family. Once set up, however, the public system, like all institutions, takes on a life of its own and puts its survival and comfort above all things. Public school teachers, whatever noble motives many of them have as individuals, are trained in teacher education colleges, which are some of the most liberal/progressive places in left-leaning American academia.
The lives today’s parents want to live is built around having their kids from years 5-18 occupied for 8 hours per day five days a week by schools. They seem to think they have no alternative. Parental abdication gives schools too much power over your flesh and blood. Schools become the defacto (and while they are on school grounds the legal) guardians and protectors of your children. But who guards the guardians? Who teaches them what is good and bad, right and wrong, normal and perverse while you are not in the room? Again, why don’t parents demand a better education for their children? Some do, but those who don’t avoid it because it’s easier not to do so.
Next Time: Who Needs A College Education and Why?
Today, I want to ask some questions about the way we educate our youth in the United States. In a follow up post, I will present my perspective on those issues. As you have opportunity, think about how you would answer these questions.
I come from a family of educators. My mother taught junior math for 30 years in the public school system. One of my brothers, my sister and my sister-in-law also taught in public schools. I admire them and others like them for their competence as teachers, their dedication to the public good, and their love for their students. I spent twelve years as a student in public schools and 13 ½ years in private universities. I am about to finish my 36th year teaching in a university. My opinions about education have been percolating from my junior high days. In view of the huge ferment that is roiling higher education these days I’d like to reflect on the context in which we must exercise our God-given responsibility as parents, learners, teachers, and citizens.
1. Why are there more illiterate people today than before the government took over most children’s education?
2. Why does it take 12 years to educate a child?
3. Why is high school called “high” school?
4. Why do public schools teach to the average student when this practice results in intelligent and interested students not learning up to their potential and the less than average students getting overwhelmed?
5. Why do the sociopolitical aims of the public education system rank so high among its priorities?
5. Why don’t parents demand a better education for their children?
1. Do you think that 62% of high school graduates belong in college?
2. What is a college education for?
3. Why does a college education cost so much?
4. Why are there are 1.4 million college teachers in America?
Coming Soon: Part Two
Today I want to flesh out an idea I introduced in the previous essay: “Can Christian Scholars (and Colleges) be Academic?” Secular critics of the idea of the Christian college charge that such colleges cannot live up to the ideal of a university. As I observed in that essay, according to the reigning model of academia,
to be a real college or university, that is, to live up to the ideal of academia, the institution must not presuppose the truth of any belief. No theory, hypothesis, belief, description, method, etc., can be given privileged status. Professors must be left completely free to go wherever their minds and hearts take them and share these thoughts with students and the public.
Christian colleges and universities violate this principle by presupposing the truth of Christian faith. Hence, they are not true colleges and universities.
Notice first that the ideal of the university as articulated in the above principle is abstract. It has never been realized in any real university; nor can it be. Every real university embodies a host of value judgments, social goals, methodological principles, and truth claims. And it excludes many theories and truth claims from examination because it considers them false, immoral, irrational, or irrelevant. It seems to me that the “ideal” of a free-for-all discussion fits better in the general space of society governed by the First Amendment right of freedom of speech than in the university where speech is governed by rules far more restrictive than freedom of speech. You don’t have to possess a PhD to express your opinion on the street corner. But possessing a PhD is the minimum qualification to teach in a university classroom; and by the time students complete their PhDs they’ve already been socialized into the elite world of mainstream academia.
Second, academic critics of Christian colleges and universities make a fallacious argument. They apply an abstract ideal to Christian colleges but not to the secular university. Secular universities will not allow the geocentric theory of the universe or the idea that the earth is flat to be taught because they “know” they are false. They will not allow racist or homophobic or sexist ideas to be expressed by professors because they “know” they are immoral. The list of proscribed theories and dogmatic certainties is long. I am convinced that the real reason secular critics reject the idea of a Christian college is that they believe that Christianity is false or immoral. Or, is it that they are afraid it might be true?
Third, no university is universal. No particular university can house research professors from every discipline and study every problem. Nor can any one university create programs and employ teachers in every possible subject. Many significant problems will suffer neglect and resources will be wasted pursuing ephemeral winds of change. Universities possess limited resources and draw on a finite pool of prospective students. They compete with each other for resources, professors, and students. They vie with each other to construct the most appealing “brand.”
Fourth, the idealized principle quoted above makes it seem as if professors work in complete isolation, boldly experimenting with ideas, daring to think for themselves, having no settled opinions, and beginning every morning with a clean slate and a clear mind. This image completely misrepresents how academia really works. Professors work in disciplinary departments—chemistry, sociology, psychology, biology, history, and philosophy. And though there are always inner departmental controversies and rivalries, departments have a tendency to hire like-minded professors. It is sometimes called ideological inbreeding.
Professors also belong to national and international associations devoted to their discipline: The American Chemical Society, The Modern Language Association, The American Historical Association, and hundreds more. These societies develop professional standards and give professors a sense of identity beyond their local universities. Perhaps even more significant, every subject area is further divided into rival theories held by communities of adherents that are often called “schools of thought.” No one is just a philosopher, sociologist, psychologist, language scholar, theologian, biblical scholar, or political scientist. These subjects divide into rival theories bent on refuting each other. Some of these rival communities have existed for decades or centuries and some for over 2,400 years.
An isolated researcher, a member of no community, without adherence to a school of thought can make no progress. Progress in any field of study is marked by extending the explanatory scope of a paradigm or theory held by the community of scholars to which one belongs. People like Galileo or Newton or Einstein come along once in a century. In the meantime, thousands of scientists work out the implications and applications of their theories to new areas of experience. Mathematics, physics, and Chemistry best exemplify the possibility of progress. But every discipline taught in the university imitates these sciences insofar as it can.
Every modern university conducts its business according to this method or pretends to do so. For only in this way can a university claim to advance knowledge, provide a sound education, and therefore justify its existence.
Secular universities as institutions adhere to rules, principles, values, and certain truths that distinguish them from a gathering on a street corner, and research professors and teachers conduct their work within departments, disciplinary societies, and among rival schools of thought. There is no such thing as an uncommitted, neutral academic institution or enterprise. Academia is about testing, extending, and applying theories and paradigms that researchers believe are reliable guides to discovery and progress. Therefore, I believe I am fully justified in rejecting the secular criticisms of the idea and practice of the Christian college based on the abstract principle quoted above.
How may the existence of a Christian college or university be justified in view of the actual practice of research and teaching in American colleges and universities as I described it above? What if we think of Christianity as a “school of thought” in analogy to such philosophical schools of thought as Platonism, Stoicism, Idealism, or Empiricism? These philosophical paradigms can be, and in fact are, taught in state and private secular universities. Many philosophers who teach courses in Plato or Stoic literature argue for the truth of these philosophies in part or as a whole. Why couldn’t Christianity be taught in secular universities alongside these philosophies, some of which are very theological? As long as professors argue in rational ways and deal fairly with objections rather than merely asserting Christianity dogmatically, I can see no rational or legal objection to the practice.
Sadly, state universities appeal to the United States Supreme Court’s decisions about the First Amendment’s prohibition of government-established religion to forbid professors from arguing for the truth of Christianity. But more than that, there is a huge bias against Christianity in both state and private secular universities. Hence Christians need to establish their own colleges and universities to explore the implications and applications of their Christian faith.
The exclusion of Christian theology from academia is an important academic rationale for the existence of Christian colleges and universities.* Because of the bias against and legal restrictions on teaching Christianity as possibly true, beautiful and good in secular universities, theology has been exiled from the curriculum. In my view, this exclusion is a dereliction of duty based on animus—a betrayal of the true academic ideal. Christian colleges and universities are doing for American society what secular colleges and universities culpably neglect to do. Christian colleges and universities serve the Tens of millions of American Christians and other believers in God by seriously exploring the implications of their faith for all aspects of life and in providing an education for their children that takes their faith seriously as a truth claim. And these institutions keep alive for society as a whole a very influential and profound viewpoint on the perennial questions about the human condition.
*There are many other rationales for establishing Christian universities and colleges. I am focusing on one academic reason that secular academics should acknowledge even if they are not sympathetic.
For the past year I’ve been reading about higher education in America, about 10 books in all. I wrote blog reviews of 5 of them. Most of these books focus on secular private and state-controlled colleges and universities. Whenever they mention “denominational,” or “sectarian” schools, the clear implication—if not the explicit declaration—is that these colleges are not truly academic. Indeed, they cannot be academic, because they exempt certain religious dogmas from critical scrutiny and prohibit professors from teaching or writing anything that contradicts them. To be a real college or university, that is, to live up to the ideal of academia, the institution must not presuppose the truth of any belief. No theory, hypothesis, belief, description, method, etc., can be given privileged status. Professors must be left completely free to follow where their minds and hearts take them and share these thoughts with students and the public…and be given career-long security and a salary to do so.
I think you can see already that this ideal of academia is unworkable. It is skepticism of the most cynical kind that envisions academia as a game to be played for its own sake. If students, parents, and the government came to believe this, would they pay professors and administrators to play this game? In fact, however, the secular description of academia is a cynical ploy designed for one purpose: to make it seem irrational for a college to presuppose Christian faith, traditional morals and common sense as guiding principles. Secular colleges and universities have no intention of living up to this ideal.
The whole point of anything we might call an academy is to rise above the undisciplined and emotion-driven conversations of the street. The academy claims to be a social good because it uses time-tested and critically proven methods of assessing facts, perceiving logical coherence and causal connections, and weighing probabilities to approximate truth. And in order to carry out this process, scholars work within traditions, schools of thought and communities to work out the implications of the dominant theories. Apart from accepting well-supported theories at least provisionally, scientific progress is impossible.* The same holds true in all areas of academic research—from fine arts to history to economics. It is precisely the methodical, rational exploration of (provisionally) accepted theories that makes academia academic!
Christian scholars, colleges and universities conform to this model of academia as well as secular colleges and universities do. If you think of basic Christian doctrine in analogy to a well-supported theory, Christian scholars seek to work out the full implications of this theory in religion, theology, ethics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, etc. Christian colleges and universities gather Christian scholars from all disciplines to work together on this grand project and to share the results of their study with students and the public.
1. But you may object that Christian colleges presuppose only one grand theory, whereas secular colleges gather scholars that presuppose many theories, which are allowed to clash. In response we might point out that secular colleges exclude many theories from consideration. Just try exploring the implications of belief in divinely revealed moral law or the resurrection of Christ at a secular university. Or try teaching a class arguing for rejection of the theory of human-caused climate change or that there are only two genders. Larry Summers was forced to resign from the presidency of Harvard just for suggesting that the disparity between the numbers of men and women in the STEM subject areas should be researched to see if it might be biologically based. Secular colleges’ and universities’ claims of neutrality and all-inclusivity are clearly disingenuous.
2. Some would object that Christian faith is not a “well-supported” theory but a set of beliefs based on faith. But this objection misses an important truth about Christianity. Christianity claims to be true. Belief in God can be supported by many lines of argument that many people find compelling. The distinctive beliefs of Christianity are based on events that it claims really happened. Christian scholars assert that Jesus Christ really lived, taught, died on a Roman cross, and three days later rose from the dead. The tomb was empty and Jesus was seen alive by many people, including Saul of Tarsus. One may argue that these beliefs are false, but note well, you have to argue that they are false! And if something is worthy of arguing about, that makes it worthy of academic study! If Christians believe that basic Christian doctrine is true, that of itself makes engaging in scholarship to explore the implications of this truth and creating an institution to facilitate that exploration an immanently reasonable (academic!) thing to do.
*This is a major conclusion of Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Revolutions come along generations apart. In between, scholars work within traditions or paradigms. Kuhn calls the activity within these interim periods “normal science.”
Today I continue my series on the contemporary challenges to the viability of the Christian college. In past essays I’ve focused on academic freedom. In this essay I want to explore the concept of “shared governance,” that is, faculty participation in the decisions that determine the academic quality and educational effectiveness of the college. In the literature I’ve read, academic freedom, tenure, and shared governance are held to be the mutually entailed rights that transform college teachers from employees into professionals. Apologists for the profession justify granting professional status and bestowing these three privileges on professors by appealing to their disciplinary expertise and their unique contributions to democratic society.
It should come as no surprise that even professors in Christian colleges desire such privileges. But will giving them such powers tend to preserve or erode the Christian character of the Christian college? I am a professor and have never served as an administrator or on the board of trustees of a college. I am content in my role as a thinker, teacher, and researcher. For many reasons and much bitter experience, I am very clear that the faculty is not a reliable guardian of the Christianity of a Christian college. Boards of Trustees and administrators—especially presidents—must serve as the guardians of the Christian mission of Christian colleges. That is where I am headed, but first we need to get clear on the history of the concept of “shared faculty governance.”
I will get us into this subject by reviewing, analyzing, and applying Larry G. Gerber’s The Rise & Decline of Faculty Governance: Professionalization and the Modern American University (Johns Hopkins, 2014). Gerber is a historian of twentieth-century America with a long-term interest in faculty governance and a career of involvement with the American Association of University Professors. The book contains an introduction, five core chapters, and a conclusion. Typical of history books, each chapter covers a time span marked off from the preceding and the following by a turning point of some kind. The periods are; before 1876, 1870-1920, 1920-1940, 1940-1975, and 1975 to the present.
In the Colonial era and beyond, American colleges were organized under governing boards of trustees and “strong presidents” (p. 15), a pattern that continues to exert strong influence today. Education at these colleges focused on character formation rather than “on intellectual inquiry and discovery” (p. 16). The faculty were usually younger, recent graduates headed for the ministry or another profession with no plans for a lifetime career as a professor. In 1817, Yale president Jeremiah Day took a significant step toward shared governance by inviting the Yale faculty to participate in the appointment of new faculty (p. 17). As more and more faculty studied abroad and came to see themselves as subject area experts, they began to expect more respect from administrators and boards of trustees. Under the influence of the German model of higher education, Henry P. Tappan, president of the University of Michigan, speaking before the university senate in 1861, urge that “no laws or regulations should be made without the concurrence of the faculties; and the appointive power should rest with the University Senate” (p. 21). Even into the 1870s, however, “the idea of a formal academic career was still in its infancy” (p. 25).
Between 1870 and 1920 several factors contributed to the growing professionalization of the professorate and the corresponding demand for greater faculty control over the academic aspects of the university. Over 5,000 American scholars studied in Germany between 1870 and 1900, and they returned intent on implementing the German model in American universities. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins University patterned itself on German educational principles to a great extent. The newly founded universities of Cornell and the University of Chicago as well as the older universities, Harvard, Columbia and the University of Michigan, competed for faculty from the best scholars available. Because of their growth in size and increasing specialization, the university department became the center of day-to-day academic life. Professors began to root their identity more in nation-wide specialty areas of study and professional organizations than in their local college or university. It was in this era that the PhD became the required credential for teaching at elite universities. Under pressure from these forces, boards of trustees and administrators began to acquiesce to professionalized faculty demands for more shared governance, academic freedom, and tenure. Gerber summarizes these changes in words that focus on academic freedom but apply to faculty shared governance:
The more rigorous and specialized postgraduate training required to become a faculty member at American’s emerging universities provided a basis for claiming both the right to, and the need for, a more robust form of academic freedom than had been known in America’s antebellum colleges. Expertise was thus a crucial component of the emerging concept of academic freedom (p. 46; emphasis added).
This era saw the founding of the American Association of University Professors, about which I have written in previous essays.
In this chapter and in the rest of the book the newly founded AAUP takes center stage. Gerber recounts the three stories of what he and the AAUP consider arbitrary and authoritarian conduct by university presidents and boards. These episodes take place at Washburn College, Clark University, and the University of California (pp. 61-65). In 1940, the AAUP’s Committee T on Place and Function of Faculties in College and University Government report highlighted four areas of concern voiced by faculty nationwide:
(1) opportunities for direct faculty communication with trustees; (2) faculty involvement in the selection of administrators (president, dean, department chair or head); faculty exercise of primary responsibility for appointing and promoting colleagues; (4) meaningful faculty participation in the budgetary process (pp. 75-76).
According to Gerber, in 1940 very few faculty in American colleges enjoyed these rights, which are clearly aspirational for the AAUP.
The years between 1940 and 1975 saw unprecedented growth in student population, public financing, and world-wide prestige in American colleges and universities. Demand for qualified professors outstripped supply. By 1973, a “consensus” had developed within higher education of “the advisability of granting faculty primary responsibility for making most academic decisions” (p. 82). One of the most significant landmarks of this era was the publication of the 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, a joint statement of the AAUP, the ACE (the American Council on Education, and the AGB (the Association of Governing Boards).
Section 1 introduces the document. Section 2 deals with the “joint Effort” in which the trustees, administration, and the faculty participate jointly. These include general education policy, internal operations, and external relations. Sections 3 and 4 deal with the duties of the governing board and the president respectively. Section five lays out the scope of faculty duties and privileges:
The faculty has primary responsibility for such fundamental areas as curriculum, subject matter and methods of instruction, research, faculty status, and those aspects of student life which relate to the educational process…
The faculty sets the requirements for the degrees offered in course, determines when the requirements have been met, and authorizes the president and board to grant the degrees thus achieved…
Faculty status and related matters are primarily a faculty responsibility; this area includes appointments, reappointments, decisions not to reappoint, promotions, the granting of tenure, and dismissal. The primary responsibility of the faculty for such matters is based upon the fact that its judgment is central to general educational policy. Furthermore, scholars in a particular field or activity have the chief competence for judging the work of their colleagues; in such competence it is implicit that responsibility exists for both adverse and favorable judgments.
The chair or head of a department, who serves as the chief representative of the department within an institution, should be selected either by departmental election or by appointment following consultation with members of the department and of related departments; appointments should normally be in conformity with department members’ judgment.
Agencies for faculty participation in the government of the college or university should be established at each level where faculty responsibility is present. An agency should exist for the presentation of the views of the whole faculty.
For most of its existence the AAUP stood firmly against faculty unionization. Indeed, most faculty at elite research universities shared this rejection, because the notion of professional expertise and faculty shared governance, which focus on quality of education and the common good, seems incompatible with the self-interested goals and adversarial methods of trade unions. In 1971, however, the AAUP relented and accepted collective bargaining as one way to achieve its goals. The debate about the compatibility of the two approaches still rages within higher education.
This era saw the high watermark of faculty shared governance. But by 1975 storm clouds began to darken the horizon: the dramatic rise in the use of “contingent faculty,” the advent of the “for profit” university, and the influence of the market, consumer, and corporate model on higher education.
By the mid-1970s, the flood of students from the baby boom generation slowed to a trickle. Just as the undergraduate student population declined, a glut of new job-seeking Ph.Ds. entered the job market. States like California and Michigan that had poured money into their systems of higher education in the booming post-World War Two era reduced their support by a third. At the same time, states and the federal government imposed a huge number of new regulations, which diverted funds from professors to the ranks of new administrators, compliance officers, and support staff (p. 155).
Responses to these challenges were predictable. Cost-cutting, reorganization, competing for students by appealing to their and their parents’ immediate wants, and turning to lower-paid graduate students and other contingent faculty to teach courses. By the 2010s, when you include graduate students, 60% of teaching was done by part-time faculty (p. 147). Currently, less than one third of faculty in American colleges and universities serve in tenured or tenure-track positions (p. 9). According to Gerber, this shift amounts to the “deprofessionalization” of the faculty (pp. 146-147). Contingent faculty do not have the benefits of tenure, full academic freedom, or participation in faculty governance.
In his highly influential book, [Academic Strategy: The Management Revolution in American Higher Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983], George Keller argued that American colleges and universities faced “the specter of decline and bankruptcy” (p. 123). This crisis was brought on by a “leadership crisis,” a “breakdown of leadership” (p. 123). Governance must not be divorced from “concerns about an institution’s financial condition and future economic viability” (p. 123). Keller “criticized the effectiveness of faculty senates and the increasing tendency of faculty members to focus on their own individual interests rather than the collective well-being of the institutions in which they worked” (p. 123). According to Keller, the AAUP’s view of faculty governance was “stuck in a historical freezer” (p. 123). Every organization needs “a single authority, someone or some body of people authorized to initiate, plan, decide, manage, monitor, and punish its members” (p. 123). For colleges and universities, this authority naturally falls to the president and the board.
As we discussed above, drives to unionize college faculty seemed to many professors to be at odds with the push toward greater faculty participation in governance. This tension factored heavily in the Supreme Court case NLRB v. Yeshiva University (1980). The Yeshiva University Faculty Association appealed to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for the right to represent the Yeshiva faculty in collective bargaining. Yeshiva University argued that the faculty already enjoyed a share in the governance of the University and therefore it should be considered management instead of labor. The Court agreed with Yeshiva. Private college faculty members are not eligible for collective bargaining under the rules of the NLRB; they are “managerial employees” “involved in developing and enforcing employer policy” (p. 132). This case effectively ended efforts to establish collective bargaining at private colleges and universities in America.
The rise of for-profit colleges and universities (e.g. University of Phoenix), which hire mostly part-time faculty to teach administratively designed curricula, is a huge thread to shared governance and to the ideal of a liberal arts university, which views education to be a service to the common good (pp. 145-146).
To make adapting to changing economic circumstances easier, some administrators wish to shift tenure from being a university-wide status to applying only to a department (p. 153). Should a department prove economically unviable and become subject to reduction or closure, tenure will not protect a faculty member from being released. In another development weakening tenure, and consequently academic freedom, most universities now require tenured faculty to undergo periodic post-tenure reviews.
Recently, the Association of Governing Boards, which joined the AAUP and the American Council on Education in the 1966 Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, retreated from full-throated support of faculty shared governance (pp. 155-156 ff). The AGB’s 1998 Statement on Board Responsibility for Institutional Governance, lamented “academia’s appetite for the kind of excessive consultation that can bring the institution to a standstill” (p. 156). The Statement calls for giving greater authority to the president to reshape the university in situations wherein changes must be made rapidly.
In his conclusion Gerber again laments the “commercialization” of higher education and the threat it poses to “the validity of ideal professionalism—and ideal premised on the possibility of individuals using their expertise in a disinterested way to advance the common good” (p. 165-166). In a final call to action, Gerber urges
If any group is to take the lead in standing up for academic values and the importance of a liberal education and trying to prevent the further degradation of the quality and narrowing of purpose of our colleges and universities, it must be the faculty, who must reassert their commitment to a broad conception of their professional rights and responsibilities…The practice of shared governance that developed in American colleges and universities were thus not simply a privilege and perquisite of the professorate; they were a necessary condition for the development of a system of education that became the envy of the rest of the world. Reinvigorating the practices of shared governance on American college and university campuses will be critical if the United States is to maintain its position of global leadership in higher education (pp. 169-170).
Next Time: How does the concept of “shared governance” apply to Christian colleges?
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