The Many Faces of Academic Freedom*

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As readers of this blog know, I have had a long-term interest in higher education, especially in the nature of the Christian college. Today I want to focus on the theme of academic freedom. I just finished reading Daniel Gordon, What is Academic Freedom? A Century of Debate–1915 to the Present (Routledge, 2023.).** Gordon is professor of history at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. It’s not possible in one short essay to do justice to this excellent study. My goal is to present a very compressed summary of the book and draw your attention to some things I learned from reading it.

It pains me not to recount all the stories, authors, and related issues in this book—the case of Angela Davis ([1969/70] Can the Regents of the University of California fire you for being a communist?), Steven Salaita (Can your offer of employment be rescinded because of your anti-Israeli statements?). What about the work of Stanley Fish on academic freedom or the thought of Alexander Meiklejohn on the absolute nature of freedom of speech or Edward Said on academic freedom and the politicization of the study of literature? And so much else!

Lessons Learned

The current controversies about the presence of Marxism, Critical Race Theory, gender theory, and other forms of “radical indoctrination” in American colleges and universities were initiated in 2003 by David Horowitz. Horowitz began a campaign to get state legislatures to ban (mainly) Marxist indoctrination from university classrooms by adopting the Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) into state law. Horowitz received support from dozens of state legislators and huge pushback from university faculty members. The debate continues today and promises to intensify as the 2024 campaign season progresses. Should academic freedom extend to a professor’s political activism and advocacy in the classroom? Horowitz’s campaign focuses on the academic freedom of students not to be coerced or intimidated into accepting a professor’s political viewpoint. On the other side, defenders of “radical” professors and the politicized classroom claim the academic freedom to teach their views even if unpopular. Both sides appeal to academic freedom.

The genius of Gordon’s book is its historical explanation of how the concept of academic freedom came to be understood in such dramatically different ways. I will focus on Gordon’s documentation of three historical changes that profoundly affect contemporary discussions of academic freedom.

The American Association of University Professors

In 1915, Arthur Lovejoy and others founded the American Association of University Professors. In view of the continuing push toward the professionalization of the American professorate and the desire to forestall governmental interference and censorship of teaching and publication, Lovejoy wrote the 1915 AAUP General Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure. The Declaration claims the right of professors to explore issues within their disciplinary expertise with great latitude in view of their noble calling. However, it warns against using the classroom to “indoctrinate” (Lovejoy’s word) young students with the opinions of the professor, especially with partisan political views on issues of current social concern. Additionally, the original 1915 Declaration urges professors to be cautious in their speech in non-academic settings: “In their extramural utterances, it is obvious that academic teachers are under a peculiar obligation to avoid hasty or unverified or exaggerated statements, and to refrain from intemperate or sensational modes of expression.”

However, by 2006 the AAUP had changed its opposition to politicizing the classroom under the presidency (2006-2012) of Cary Nelson. Nelson was the chief opponent of the Horowitz project. Long before the AAUP got on board, the American University had already shifted its understanding of academic freedom. The shift began in the 1960s with the founding of programs in Black Studies, Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies, and other analogous groups. These programs were from the very beginning unapologetic advocacy groups. By the 1990s postmodernism (Michel Foucault) had convinced many academics that all speech is political. According to postmodernism, those who claim scientific neutrality or objectivity merely hide the power structures that favor their class. Today, two visions of academic freedom compete for dominance, the postmodern activist and the anti-political professional view.

Freedom of Speech

The second historical transformation I had not fully understood before I read Gordon’s book is the change in the jurisprudence of free speech. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution addresses the right of speech: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech….” Originally, this restriction applied to the federal government only. States were free to enact their own bills of rights and laws concerning, among other things, speech. After the Civil War, the United States ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution (1868). It begins, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States…. The bolded lines are taken today as applying to the states all the rights of the citizen listed in the Amendments to the Federal Constitution. What I did not know was that it took the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, until well into the twentieth century to apply “freedom of speech” to the states.

Additionally, I did not understand the federal Judiciary’s evolving theory of what constitutes a legitimate limit on speech. Until the early twentieth century, the courts agreed that speech that tended to create unrest or might reasonably be thought to do so was not protected by the First Amendment. In the 1919 case Schenck v. United States, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, articulated the “clear and present danger” test for when the government may limit the exercise of speech. However in the 1969 Brandenburg v. Ohio case, the Supreme Court replaced the “clear and present danger” test with the “imminent lawless action” test. As is clear, the conditions under which speech may be limited by a government entity became more and more restrictive as the century unfolded. Correspondingly, the scope of free speech was expanded exponentially.

The Fusion of Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech

Before the 1960s, academic freedom was distinguished from the constitutional right to freedom of speech. Academic freedom was considered a special freedom to teach based on the unique calling and qualifications of the professor, the nature of academia, and the special role of the university in society. One can see this distinction clearly in the 1915 AAUP General Principles of Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure. In public spaces, controversies over speech rights were focused on the political and commercial spheres, and in the 1915 statement those activities were excluded from the classroom as inappropriate to the profession. Moreover, as we saw in the previous section on the history of free speech, until the 1960s government at all levels could restrict speech for a number of reasons. Hence before that time, appealing to the right of free speech in an academic setting would not have helped one’s case. Moreover, appealing to the First Amendment to protect academic speech would in effect surrender the special status of teaching as a profession and place it on the same level as a political rant or an advertisement for soap.

But within the last 50 years, the courts, the professorate, and the public have come to identify academic freedom with freedom of speech. And since the courts now protect even the most outrageous and radical forms of speech, activist professors that wish to use such speech in the classroom increasingly appeal to the First Amendment to protect their right to say whatever they wish in the classroom–political rants, recruitment drives, and vitriolic, personal attacks on religious and political leaders.

Academic Freedom in Christian Colleges

Though Gordon’s book deals with state educational institutions only, I believe it can be helpful in grappling with the issue of academic freedom in Christian colleges. I want to expand on this at a later date, but let me tell you briefly what I mean. (1) Gordon explodes the idea that there is only one definition of academic freedom that must be implemented in every institution that claims to be true to the nature of the academic vocation. Christian colleges, then, should be free to define academic freedom in a way that fits their mission. (2) Debunking the idea that academic freedom must be subsumed under the more general concept of freedom of speech will help Christian colleges resist encroachments by the state, accrediting bodies, and professors that work against the Christian mission of the college.

*See also my essay of January 24, 2022, “Academic Freedom in Context.”

**As of this writing, the Kindle version of this book is free! And instantly available!

The Road to Moral “Progress”: From Obedience to Self-Governance to Autonomy and Beyond

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In a previous essay (“At the Edge of Ruin,” June 22, 2023), I shared some insights I received from reading J. B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Moral Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1998). In that essay I reflected on the significance of the tension between voluntarism and intellectualism in the history of modern moral philosophy. In passing I mentioned Schneewind’s compressed summary of that history: from obedience to self-governance to autonomy. Today, I want to begin a brief series using this summary as a window into the soul of contemporary culture.

Morality in General

As preparation for comparing and contrasting these three views of the ideal moral life, let’s make some generalizations about morality. Every moral ideal must answer certain questions about the nature of morality:

(1) What is the ground of the distinction between right and wrong, good and bad?

(2) How can we discern what is right and good in life’s circumstances?

(3) What is the proper motivation to act in a right and good way?

(4) What is freedom?

(5) What is the nature and extent of human dignity.

Obedience

In the Bible and for most of Christian history, the ideal moral stance of the individual was a spirit of humble obedience to God’s commands. Human beings stand under divine authority and God has graciously revealed his wise and good will. The first verse of Psalm 119 pronounces a blessing on those “who walk according to the law of the Lord,” and the hymn continues to praise God’s laws for 175 more verses. The Old Testament book of Proverbs begins with this maxim: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (1:7). The Lord promises to bless Abraham, not only because he believed (Gen 15:6 and Romans 4:3), but also because he “obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees and my instructions” (Gen 26:5). The New Testament also exalts the life of obedience. Jesus does the “will” of his Father (John 4:34, Matt 26:35, 42). He “learned obedience from what he suffered” (Hebrews 5: 8b). And obedience to God’s will remains an ideal in the life of the Christian.

Obedience in Practice

The ideal of obedience answers the questions above in the following way: In the Bible and in traditional Christian moral theology, (1) God’s holy character and good will determine what is right and wrong and good and bad. (2) Human beings, being blinded by pride, misdirected desires, and limited knowledge, need divine guidance and wisdom to discern the right and good way. God knows perfectly his character and will and in various ways has communicated to us what is right and good. (3) Human beings ought to be motivated to obey God as a response to his perfect character and his love demonstrated in creation and in Christ. However, the Bible also warns of the destructive consequences of disobedience that follow naturally from misdeeds or that are inflicted by the divine Judge. (4) In the Bible, freedom is the removal of all impediments that hinder the soul from knowing and loving God and conforming to the divine life. True freedom is found only through union with Christ in the power of the Spirit. Faithful obedience to God’s will in the present anticipates the future realization of perfect freedom. (5) For Christianity, true human dignity or worth is grounded in God’s plan to share his eternal life and power with his human children. There is no greater dignity than to be a child of God. Obedience is our way of stepping into the character of that future eternal life insofar as possible in the present life.

Obedience Abused

By 1600, however, the ideal of obedience had come into disrepute in the eyes of many moral philosophers. In the medieval church, the ideal of faithful obedience to God’s will was used to justify the demand that the people obey the clergy and the Christian state. The people were expected to obey without question their “betters” in spiritual and secular matters. In the century of Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Hobbes, and Locke (1609-1690), however, demands for blind, “servile” obedience to authority seemed more and more out of step with the progress of reason. Galileo had demonstrated by empirical evidence that the earth orbits the Sun, and Newton had discovered the mathematical laws of celestial motion. Descartes proposed that all knowledge be grounded in the human mind’s power to establish a point of certainty within itself. Hobbes and Locke, each in his own way, proposed that rational analysis of human nature itself could discover moral principles sufficient to found a governmental order and legitimate its exercise of coercive power. In this climate many thinkers were searching for a new understanding of morality to replace obedience to authority. The stage was set for the new moral ideal of self-governance to make its appearance.

To be continued…

At the Edge of Ruin

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I have been engaged in a decades-long quest to understand the philosophical assumptions that have driven Western culture, especially in the United States of America, to the brink of moral anarchy and metaphysical nihilism. I have read shelves of books in service of this quest. For the past six months I have been reading J. B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Moral Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1998) . There are very few books I think worth careful reading even once, and I could count the number of books worth reading twice on my fingers and toes. Schneewind’s book is among the latter. I read it very carefully in the spring and I am over halfway through my second reading at present.

In 554 dense pages, Schneewind analyses the thought of hundreds of thinkers. It would be foolish of me to attempt to map the bewildering variety of theories. Nevertheless, I’d like to share a few things I’ve learned from reading this history about those contemporary assumptions driving us to ruin.

The Quest of Modern Moral Philosophy

Schneewind marks the beginning of the distinctly modern approach to morality with the career of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) and ends the story with Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Before modernity, moral theology and philosophy were not distinguished to the point of becoming separate spheres of knowledge and distinct academic disciplines. Until around 1600 the dominant approach to morality was obedience to authority. In the century and a half between Grotius and Kant the disciplines split apart and the dominant approach shifted progressively from obedience to authority (that is, to God, state, and church) to self-governance, and finally to autonomy (self-legislation).

What prompted the development of a distinctively modern moral philosophy? To oversimplify but not falsify matters, the Protestant Reformation (1517 and following) provoked a crisis of faith, gave birth to philosophical skepticism, and disrupted the moral and political order in Europe. Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) articulated this new skepticism in a sophisticated and fashionable way. In a collection of essays, he advised his generation on how to live well in a culture where everything is doubtful. In response to the religious conflict and the skepticism this struggle provoked, Grotius and those who followed in his wake worked to articulate a moral philosophy that could be agreed upon by people who differed greatly in religion. This objective energized a line of thinkers that lead from Grotius to Hobbes to Locke to Kant.

The Great Debate

According to Schneewind, the moral philosophers working on this project fall into many conflicting and overlapping schools of thought. But almost all of them fall on one side or another of the great debate between voluntarism and intellectualism, which has roots in late medieval philosophy. Voluntarism argues that the distinctly moral nature of an action is grounded in (and only in) the command of a superior. Obligations and duties, the distinctions between right and wrong and justice and injustice are created by (and only by) the commands of a superior. The motives for obeying the laws thus promulgated are fear of punishment and desire for reward. Voluntarism can take shape in theological or secular forms. Theological voluntarists (William of Ockham) argue that God and human beings do not share a common moral world. Right actions are right because God commands them, not because they conform to God’s moral nature. Secular voluntarists (Hobbes) argue that what is obligatory is determined by the legislation of the state. There is no law before or above the state.

 Intellectualism argues that the distinctly moral nature of an action is rooted in the eternal nature of a moral universe shared by God and other rational creatures. The distinctions between right and wrong and justice and injustice are unchangeably present in the eternal nature of things. Obligations and duties arise from the inner necessity of reason to conform to truth. We are rightly motivated to moral action by the impetus of reason to conform to the rational order. For some intellectualists God plays an essential role in their philosophy. Leibniz (1646-1716), for example, understands God as the most perfect being and views moral action (divine and human) as seeking under the guidance of reason to increase perfection in the world. Loving God is the most rational act possible for a human being. Secular leaning intellectualists set aside the question of God and ground moral action in the autonomous moral order.

Mutually Assured Destruction

Voluntarists criticize intellectualists for subordinating God to a moral order that exists independent of the divine will and choice. God’s power and freedom, voluntarists charge, are limited if God and all rational beings share an eternal moral universe. Additionally, if human beings share a moral universe with God, they can know the divine mind simply by reflecting on their own minds. And this theoretical overlap between the divine mind and the human mind opens the possibility of deification of the human mind, making God irrelevant to morality, and grounding the right in the human essence.

On the other hand, the intellectualists criticize voluntarists because they apparently make the divine nature and will inscrutable and arbitrary. As far as we can know, the voluntarist God is beyond good and evil as we understand them. God is pure power and must be obeyed for that reason alone. Additionally, a state based on the voluntarist philosophy would be by definition tyrannical.

There were many thinkers in this 150-year history that attempted to avoid the extremes of both voluntarism and intellectualism by weaving into their systems elements of both. Immanuel Kant’s concept of autonomy can be considered an attempt of this kind. Autonomy is the idea that rational beings legislate laws for themselves not by an act of will but by an act of reason, which they are obligated to obey.

What Failure Teaches

Early modern moral philosophers were searching for a rational theory of morality that could overcome doubt about the reality of a moral order in an age when traditional authorities no longer commanded universal respect. They wished to reestablish the consensus of culture that had been destroyed by the Reformation and the religious wars that followed. Their failure to find compelling grounding for morality and the exposure of the limits and problems of both voluntarism and intellectualism raised the real possibility that morality has no grounding at all.

I find it significant that no philosopher discussed in Schneewind’s history attempted to create a new morality or rejected all moral rules. All accepted the necessity of the rules that make for social peace and cooperation as well as many other traditional moral rules. Philosophers in this era, instead of taking traditional moral rules for granted or accepting them on authority, felt compelled to establish the grounds of their truth, discover how we know them, and pinpoint what motives should compel us to live according to them. They understood themselves as apologists for a moral order they thought necessary for the continuance of civilization.

However, by acknowledging that traditional rules cannot (rationally) and should not (morally) be accepted on authority or taken for granted as traditional and by failing in their quest to establish morality by reason alone, they unwittingly opened theoretical space for the idea that there are no moral structures that transcend and define the limits of individual actions.

At the Edge of Ruin

In the 225 years since Immanuel Kant, hundreds of other moral philosophers worked on the Grotius-to-Kant project. The also failed. Twentieth-century existentialism (Jean Paul Sartre and Simon de Beauvoir) and a variety of post-modern theories are premised on the failure of the project. If morality cannot be grounded and justified by traditional authority or universal reason, and if intellectualism and voluntarism destroy each other, the only ground left for justifying anything like morality is within the inner world of the unique individual. In analogy to intellectualism, the individual’s inner world replaces the universal moral order and in analogy to voluntarism, the individual’s desires replace the will of God or the laws legislated by the state. The particular desires, feelings, sense of self, wishes, and aspirations of the individual guide that individual in their external behavior. Authenticity—that is the fit between external behavior and internal desire—replaces conformity to authority- or reason-based rules.

In view of the general skepticism in Western society toward a traditional or rational moral order, we are taught in schools and in the media, not respect for moral law and rational order, but respect for the inscrutable and arbitrary inner world of the individual. What is not acknowledged is that apart from integration into the external moral and rational order, the inner world of the individual is chaotic, irrational, and self-contradictory. Hence to affirm the inner world of the individual as the basis of the moral order is to embrace the ruinous nightmare so feared by the early modern moral philosophers. Not only are the rules necessary for social peace and cooperation left ungrounded, it becomes thinkable that an individual may justifiably refuse to live by them if they do not fit harmoniously with their inner world.

At the edge of ruin…that is where we live today.

Interpreting the Bible the “Humble” Way? A Book Review

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This morning I read Karen R. Keen’s new book, The Word of a Humble God: The Origins, Inspiration, and Interpretation of Scripture (Eerdmans, 2022). Readers of this blog may remember that in September and October 2021 I wrote an extended review and response to her earlier book, Scripture, Ethics & the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships (Eerdmans, 2018). In that earlier book, Keen argued that properly interpreted Scripture allows for acceptance of covenanted, loving same-sex marriages. Her book made a six-part argument. Central to this argument was her view of biblical interpretation:

  • The Bible’s positive moral teachings provide a vision of justice, goodness, and peace, and they are intended to promote a just, good, and flourishing world.
  • The Bible’s moral prohibitions and limitations are intended to forbid things that cause harm to human beings, human community, and the rest of creation and to prevent heartache and destruction from disrupting human flourishing.
  • To interpret and apply the Bible’s positive and negative moral teachings in keeping with their intended purposes, we must deliberate about whether or not applying a specific biblical rule to a particular situation prevents harm and promotes justice, goodness, and human flourishing. Interpretations and applications that harm and inhibit human flourishing must be rejected.
  • Gay and lesbian people do not choose to be gay or lesbian, and the overwhelming majority cannot change their orientation.
  • A large majority of gay and lesbian people do not have the gift of celibacy and find such a state lonely and deeply painful.
  • Therefore:
  • Because loving, committed same-sex relationships embody justice, goodness, and human flourishing, do not cause harm to the people in the relationship or the human community, and unwanted celibacy causes great harm and unhappiness to gay and lesbian people, faithful deliberation and application must conclude that the Bible allows and even blesses covenanted same-sex relationships.

Reading the biblical texts that condemn same-sex activity in view of these rules of biblical interpretation, Keen concludes that we should not apply these texts to covenanted, loving same-sex relationships. To do so would not promote justice, goodness, and peace but would cause harm and heartache and disrupt human flourishing. These texts condemn only exploitative same-sex relationships.

In a brief email exchange with Keen in 2021, I learned that her new book The Word of a Humble God was forthcoming. I expected that this book would explain and defend the interpretative method she used in her 2018 book. And in a sense my expectation was confirmed, but her argument moves in a long, roundabout way and never actually mentions same-sex relationships. In what follows, I do not provide a full review of the book. My goal, rather, is to isolate and examine what I take to be its essential point.

The book is divided into three parts, The Making of the Bible, Inspiration, and Interpretation. Part One contains four chapters and tells the story of the composition of the Bible in the way one might hear it in a introductory course in a progressive or liberal seminary. The Bible must be understood within its Ancient Near Eastern religious, cultural, and literary context (Chapter 1). It is not the work of one author but the result of community experience and a cooperative effort of reflection, oral tradition, writing, and editing (Chapter 2). The Bible was “not produced in one setting…Scripture developed over time, with later scribes updating and adding their contributions to it” (p. 58). The Bible contains many voices that reflect different contexts and perspectives (Chapter 3). Even the “final” form of the Bible was fixed in a process of assessment and decision, and different branches of Christianity (Orthodox, Ethiopic, Roman Catholic, and Protestant) do not agree on the exact extent of canonical Scripture (Chapter 4).

Part Two deals with inspiration. In three chapters, Keen explains her view of inspiration and differentiates it from other views. She first distinguishes between revelation and inspiration. Revelation “is God’s eternally active presence disclosing the divine Self in various ways” (p. 85).  Inspiration “is how that revelatory communication occurred” (p. 85; Emphasis original). Keen lists six views of inspiration, the last of which is her own. She labels her view the “Divine-Humility View.” She states it as follows:

The Bible is the product of God’s humility in sharing power with human beings. It reflects God-given human agency in collaboration with the Creator (p. 86).

The humble God “inspires” the Bible by “collaborating” (p. 99) with humans and working in a hidden way through their experiences to produce the history that culminated in the Bible.

I read and reread this chapter and I still do not know what Keen means by “inspiration,” how she knows that God inspired the Bible, or even why she needs the word “inspiration” to name the mysterious process to which she refers. In Keen’s theory, God’s working seems so hidden that one could never distinguish a product of divine inspiration from a purely human work. And God’s working seems so universal that it becomes difficult to explain how the Bible differs from other modes of divine communication: nature, other religions, philosophy, or inner illumination.

In Part Three, building on her previous chapters, Keen takes up the subject of interpretation. Interpreting the Bible in view of the divine humility involved in its production requires us to come to the text with humility. God hides in the humanity, diversity, and tensions within Scripture. Only as we approach Scripture with humility can we discern God’s word and will. Humility is the gateway to the meaning of Scripture:

The hermeneutical key, then, is the humility of God and our imitation of it. God shares power and serves us. To know God is to do the same. If the Bible reading does not result in using our agency to elevate and serve others, we aren’t doing it right. Any approach to interpretation can be used for selfish ambition; the right reading is the one that embodies humility (p. 173, Emphasis added).

In her 2018 book Scripture, Ethics & the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships, Keen set forth some hermeneutical rules, which I quoted above. We should, she argues, interpret Scripture in view of its divine intention, that is, God’s desire to promote justice, goodness, and human flourishing. We should never interpret Scripture in a way that causes harm, heartache, and destruction. In this book (The Word of a Humble God), she attempts to show that even the mode in which God inspired the Bible models humble love and a servant heart, and it shows that this humble love is what God wants from us. Hence the purpose of Scripture is to model and evoke humble love. Humility is the interpretive key to Scripture.

Although in The Word of a Humble God Keen does not apply her hermeneutics of humility to the question of same-sex relationships, the kinship to the hermeneutics developed in Scripture, Ethics & the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships is obvious. All that is missing is the argument that the traditional reading of Scripture as condemning all forms of same-sex sexual relationships does not embody humble love. An interpreter formed in humble love would not read the Bible in a way that causes unhappiness, loneliness, and shame to gay and lesbian people.

I do not object in principle to the hermeneutics of humble love. The Bible clearly teaches that disciples of Jesus should be both humble and loving. Scripture should not be used as an instrument of torture. However, I object to Keen’s implication that any interpretation of Scripture that causes unhappiness and shame in someone is for that reason alone wrong. This principle is too broad to be of any practical help. In many cases helping people to recognize and repent of their wrong and destructive behaviors–even if it causes them to be sad or angry–can be an act of profound humility and deep love. The question, then, turns not only on whether an interpretation causes someone to be unhappy but on whether the condemned behavior is wrong.

The LGBTQ+ Question: Debated or Debatable?

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“In the beginning was the Word…and the Word became flesh and lived among us.” (Jo 1:1-14). This Word could communicate the truth about God because “the Word was God.” God’s Word is truth by nature because it is God by nature. In contrast, our words are not by nature God and hence not by nature truth. We are subject to error. At best, words communicate accurately the fallible thoughts of the human mind from which they come. I say “at best” because the process of choosing the right words to communicate our thoughts is also fallible. Often, we are not clear on what we think, and even if we possessed inner clarity of thought, experience teaches us that words cannot perfectly reproduce our thoughts in the minds of others. Not only so, others hear our words through the filters of their own vocabularies and experiences.

Given these challenges many thinkers have observed that open-ended, personal conversation is the best way for two minds to achieve mutual understanding. The back and forth, trial and error, proposal, correction, and counterproposal method of dialogue gradually creates mutual understanding. Writing, podcasts, public speaking involve one-way communication. They are highly subject to misunderstanding, distortion, and caricature. Ideally, we would engage in conversation with everyone we wish to understand. Because the ideal is unachievable, we have to learn to read and listen carefully, analytically, and critically to one-way communications.

An author whose book I read recently drew an inference I think is unwarranted. They based that inference on the verbal similarity between two words. This author observed, quite correctly, that over the last 10 years traditionally evangelical publishers—Eerdmans, Zondervan, and Intervarsity—have started publishing books on both sides of the debate about the Christian acceptability of LGBTQ+ identities and ways of living. So, the subject is debated among self-identified evangelicals. But the author inferred from the fact that the moral status of people who identify as LGBTQ+ is debated that the subject is now debatable within Bible-believing, evangelical churches.

I do not think this inference is warranted. To say that an issue is debated is to make a statement of fact apart from any judgment about its status in relation to Christian doctrine. To say that a subject is debatable is to make a claim about its legitimacy as a viewpoint that may be held under the umbrella of Christian faith. For sure, to label a matter debatable takes no position as to which side is correct. But it envisions a state in which churches must tolerate and listen to both parties in the dispute with an open mind.

Within the history of the church many issues have been designated debatable, disputable, or indifferent matters on which believers may disagree without breaking fellowship (See Romans 14 and 15; Acts 15). But which matters were debatable was itself debated! This debate (about which matters were debatable, disputable, or indifferent) turned on the distinction between matters that were essential beliefs, scruples, and practices and those that were in some way adjunct. In the end, however, the church had to make judgments, come to consensus issue by issue, and enforce those decisions as community standards.

With regard to the debate over the Christian acceptability of LGBTQ+ identities and ways of living, it will take more evidence than the mere existence of a debate to prove that it is now a debatable matter within Bible-believing churches. This change from a settled to a debatable question would overturn a consensus that is unanimous in the Bible and the universal church until recently. The mere presence of a few authors that dispute that consensus does not warrant breaking with that settled teaching. They would need to convince the church that it has misread the Bible and held to a false, cruel, and destructive teaching for 2,000 years.

In my view, the claim that the issue of LGBTQ+ acceptance is a debatable issue because it is now openly debated within evangelical circles is a rhetorical ploy designed to grant legitimacy and gain a hearing for a viewpoint that has not earned that legitimacy the hard way. Hence the debate today is not only about the Christian acceptability of LGBTQ+ identities and ways of living, it is a debate about this issue’s debatability. And the “debatability” of an issue cannot be decided by a few authors’ assertions but is a judgment that only the church can make. In the meantime, the church—given the prima facia teaching of Scripture and the 2,000-year consensus—has every right (and in my view is obligated) to debate with this new teaching as it does with other error and heresy.

A Prophetic Warning

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Prophets, Priests, and Politicians

For the most part, prophecy in the Old and New Testaments was not miraculous foretelling of a future event, though that did happen on occasion. Most often prophets simply warned a thoughtless and arrogant people of the inevitable consequences of their evil actions.  Politicians try to please enough people to get elected. Journalists relish scandal. Priests ease troubled consciences. But prophets tell the unpleasant truths even if they must stand against the whole world. Prophets see clearly the difference between good and evil and right and wrong. They know that God sees all and judges in truth and justice. And they cannot refrain from speaking the truth.

During my hike today, along with thoughts of the beauties of nature in the California springtime, I kept returning to a disturbing thought. How long before God’s wrath erupts on our world? Everywhere I look I see corruption, rebellion, despair, greed, envy, dissensions, blasphemy, idolatry, indulgence, violence, and arrogance. Romans 1:18-32 contains a chillingly accurate description of contemporary society. I fear for my contemporaries. I do not feel like Jonah who looked forward to the destruction of Nineveh. I have grandchildren who must live in this world for a long time. And there are many righteous people among the citizens of Sodom. I pray for God’s mercy, but sometimes God’s mercy can be quite severe.

I could never see myself standing on a street corner holding up a sign on which the word “REPENT” is written. It always struck me as a bit kooky. And yet the first words Jesus spoke in the Gospel of Mark are, “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15). The Gospel of Luke records Jesus as saying to some listeners, “Unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13:3). Paul observes that in his own day, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Romans 1:18). And in Romans 6:23, he says “The wages of sin is death.”

A Word of Prophecy

I have a prophetic word for our world, especially for those to whom we look for leadership:

However cleverly you lie, no matter how many people believe it, or what kind of culture you construct on the basis of these lies, reality and truth will smash your imaginary world to bits. Contrary to the popular postmodern saying, there is only one reality. All others are merely deceptive appearances. Reason, logic, and nature are irresistible and relentless. And the wrath of God will come upon anyone who acts otherwise. Divine wrath does not always fall from heaven like fire. It can also come in the form of God’s will to stand by the laws of logic and of cause and effect. If you rebel against the Creator, if you think human beings can save themselves from themselves, if you think indulging the flesh will bring happiness, and if you follow your imagination into every sort of evil, you will suffer the consequences that inevitably follow. “The wages of sin is death.” That is a divine law written into the fabric of reality.

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life (Galatians 6:7-8).

And so, I shall not stand on the corner with my sign crying, “The end is near” or run half naked through the streets like Ezekiel; nevertheless, I say to our generation, “Repent or you will likewise all perish.”

The Double Meaning of Good Friday

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Good Friday commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth for blasphemy against Israel’s God and insurrection against the Roman Empire. Only in light of God’s act of raising Jesus back to life again on Easter morning, can Good Friday be called “good.” It is “good” only in view of the part it played in God’s plan to reconcile the world to himself in Christ (2 Cor 5:18-20) and because it demonstrated the depths of divine love (Romans 5:1-11). The cross of Christ is, as Paul never tires of saying, something in which to glory—an irony indeed because crucifixion was designed to shame the victim to the extreme measure. There is much to ponder in this reversal. However, on this Good Friday I found myself thinking of another divine revelation made known in the events of that day.

On the first Good Friday, God displayed his wrath on the world and pronounced his judgment on all flesh. In the persons of Judas the betrayer, Peter the coward, the Jewish religious leaders, and the Roman Empire, all humanity betrayed, rejected, denied, and murdered the Messiah and the Son of God. Whereas the Jewish leaders and the Roman Empire acted to judge and condemn Jesus, in fact they judged and condemned themselves. In their act of judicial murder, God revealed the corruption and futility of all human efforts, religious and political, to bring about salvation. Democratic politics can do this no better than Imperial politics. The Christian religion will fail just as the Jewish religion failed. Coercion will not work. Nor will persuasion.

Every new generation thinks it can do what no other generation has been able to do: If we evangelize the world, the Kingdom of God will be established! If we put all our energies into social causes, we can create a world of justice, love, and peace. Just one more war, one more revolution, one more election, one more treaty, one more freedom achieved, one more scientific advance…. But the glorious future never arrives. It never will.

Good Friday stands as the definitive refutation of optimism in human capacity for goodness. When the very embodiment of justice, love, and peace—indeed the exact image of God—appeared on earth, the “best” of men condemned him to death. They still do.

Freedom of Speech II

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My Agenda

Perhaps I should tell you why I am discussing freedom of speech in such general terms and outside the bounds of my expertise. I am working my way toward addressing this question: Is a Christian school possible in the United States of America? Can an institution possess both the qualities that are expected of K-12, college, or university education and be thoroughly Christian? Or have government law and regulation, the courts, lack of qualified faculty, accrediting bodies, and progressive culture made it impossible?

Defining Freedom of Speech

What is freedom of speech? Clearly, this First-Amendment right does not merely point out that we have the power to speak, to say something in front of others. This mistaken view lies in the background of such statements as this: “Well, you have freedom of speech, but you have to take the consequences.” No, in the context of the First Amendment, “freedom of speech” means first that you have a right to speak without fearing consequences emanating from the Federal Government. The Federal Government will not suppress speech within its sphere of authority. Second, the government will not allow any private person or entity to forbid or punish speech within public spaces. The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) applied all the rights mentioned in the Bill of Rights to the states. Hence the right to freedom of speech applies to all spaces regulated by governmental authorities, federal, state, and local.

Limiting Speech

Not being a constitutional lawyer, I do not want to venture too deep into the legitimate limits that the courts have established on speech: libel, sexual harassment, conspiracy, incitement to violence, yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, etc.  The courts do not think the kinds of speech covered by the First Amendment is limitless. However, it seems that for the most part governments at all levels limit speech that is inextricably associated with or used as a means for carrying out acts that are crimes considered apart from speech. The Bill of Rights does not cover such acts. But as the recent controversy over “disinformation” concerning COVID, election fraud, and climate change demonstrates, any attempt to limit speech opens the door to censorship, suppression, or cancelation of speech. Who decides what disinformation is and when it merits criminalization?

Duty to Listen?

Clearly, your right to speak freely does not entail a duty for others to listen or to remain silent while you speak. No one who gives a talk in a public space should expect the government to punish people who refuse to attend or walk out angrily or Boo or in some other way protest. Government must protect the personal safety of the speaker, but it cannot guarantee the respect of the audience. For freedom of expression applies to audiences as much as it does to speakers. The right to speak can be granted, but the right to be taken seriously has to be earned.

Free Speech in Private Spaces?

I want to emphasize strongly that freedom of speech applies only to forums legitimately regulated by government and only to government action. The First Amendment does not guarantee your right to say what you please in wholly private spaces. (It does, however, protect you from acts that cause bodily harm, from robbery, theft, etc., even in “private” spaces.) As the clearest case, consider how things work in your private dwelling. We expect to be able to invite guests into our houses according to our personal preferences and refrain from inviting those with whom we do not wish to associate. We demand freedom to invite only people with whom we agree politically or religiously. If someone we invite into our homes begins to speak in ways that we do not like, we claim the right to ask them to stop or leave our house. In doing this we have not “abridged” their freedom of speech, because this First Amendment right applies only to public spaces and restricts only government action.

I think most people would agree that common spaces—such as courthouse steps, public sidewalks, town hall meetings, public parks, and other publicly owned areas—should provide maximum freedom of speech. In contrast, in wholly private spaces—private dwellings, churches and other spaces owned by private associations—speech may be regulated by the private entity that owns and regulates that space. In these spaces, governments may neither abridge nor protect speech.

The In-between Spaces?

What about all the spaces in between the town hall and your house, the quasi-private, quasi-public spaces? What about businesses, educational institutions, political parties, political action committees (PACs), clubs, guilds, labor unions, churches, religious and non-religious non-profit organizations, and a host of other corporations, institutions, and associations?

I think I am safe in assuming that the right to freedom of speech applies to corporate entities in the same way it does to individuals. After all, in addition to “freedom of speech,” the First Amendment declares that the people have the right “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” A corporate entity may speak freely in its bylaws, policies, constitution, advertisements, code of ethics, declaration of principles, or statements of political and religious or moral advocacy. The government must protect the corporate entity’s speech from violent suppression by the public and refrain from abridging its speech by threatening or enacting punitive government measures.

One huge difference between corporate entities and individuals affects the way the right to freedom of speech applies to them. An association, a club, or an educational institution usually contains many individual members. Do those individuals possess the First-Amendment right to free speech inside the space controlled by the corporate entity? Or, does the school or business or club have the right to control speech within its own space? As examples, does the First Amendment apply to students while on campus, employees in the workplace, or individuals present at club meetings? How far can the government go in regulating the internal affairs of a private association?

The Ever-Expanding Government

Since the end of the American Civil War (1865), the federal government has steadily expanded its reach into daily life and hither to private corporate spaces. The pace of expansion quickened in the twentieth century and reached warp speed after WWII. The civil rights laws passed in the 1950s and 60s dealt primarily with race, but they have been steadily expanding so that today the list of protected groups, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), includes, “race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability and genetic information (including family medical history).” Federal, state, and local governments have grown quite creative in finding ways to bring ostensibly private associations under its anti-discrimination, free speech, anti-harassment, and other regulations. It seems that almost any interaction an association has with a government entity or the space it regulates provides an excuse to regulate that association. Of course, it is impossible to exist in the world as an association or even as an individual without interacting with government-regulated spaces!

If it were not for the First Amendment no space would be off limits to government regulation. Let’s read it again:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Applying the Bill of Rights to Associations

As I argued above, these rights apply to corporate entities as well as to individuals. The corporate application is obvious in the establishment and free exercise clauses. But it is also clear in the references to freedom of the press and of assembly and of the right to petition the government. Except for freedom of speech, these protected activities are most naturally exercised by associations—churches, publishers, trade unions, and corporate entities of many kinds. The tension between individual rights and corporate rights is deeply embedded in the history of moral and political thought. And much of that history has been taken up with seeking the proper balance between the two.* It seems to me that since WWII the American public, politicians, legislators, and the courts have tilted the balance toward individual rights to the point of almost destroying the rights of private associations, businesses, clubs, and educational institutions to create and maintain their distinct identities and pursue their unique missions.** Indeed, most people are so focused on individual rights that it would never occur to them that the Bill of Rights applies to associations as well as to individuals.

As I stated above, my concern in this series is with the question, “Is a Christian school possible in the United States of America?” The American government’s war against private associations’ discrimination toward individuals on the basis of the characteristics listed above—race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, and genetic information—has had the effect of disempowering Christian schools and other Christian non-profit organizations of the ability to craft a distinctive Christian identity, govern their internal affairs, and pursue their mission energetically. At some point, those students and faculty that are no longer committed to the Christian identity and mission of the school insist that their individual rights take priority over the institution’s rights to maintain its Christian identity and mission even if their insistence destroys the institution. And the government, the public, and the courts always take their side in this struggle. It is almost as if destroying Christian institutions is the goal. Perhaps it is.

*I am now reading an excellent history of moral and political philosophy that details this story from around 1610 (Grotius) to 1800 (Kant): J.B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy (Cambridge, 1998).

**Some readers may object that we live in an age of group rights in opposition to individual rights. I do not believe this is the whole truth. Indeed, individuals are often treated as members of a protected group when being considered for admission to a college or for employment. This factor sometimes outweighs scholastic achievement, experience, or other merit-based considerations. Still, members of protected groups are treated as individuals who possess certain traits on the basis of which schools and employers must not discriminate and to which they may even give preference for the sake of equity.  They are not treated as associations, clubs, corporate entities. Hence my point stands: in contemporary society individual rights trump corporate rights.

To be continued…

The New Apostles

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The Long, Narrow Way

As a junior in college, I felt an irresistible call to devote my life to teaching and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have given my entire adult life (50 years!) to studying the scriptures, the history of the church, and the greatest minds and truest hearts the church has produced. I’ve not always been certain of my views, likely not always correct, and perhaps sometimes not always pure of heart, but as a whole I believe I have sought God’s will. My assumption in all of this is that I am not a latter-day apostle, that I don’t have a right to craft a Christianity that suits me and keeps me in step with the spirit of the times. Hence, I have tried my best to submit my mind to the words of Jesus, the witness of Paul, Peter, James and the rest of Jesus’s chosen apostles.

Furthermore, I am aware that I am not sufficient of myself—my perspective is too narrow, my knowledge is too limited, and my biases too unconscious—to understand the fulness of the faith. I need help from wise men and women from the church past and present. In my search for reliable partners, I have listened to the teaching of Irenaeus of Lyon, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil of Caesarea, Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, John Calvin, and hundreds of others. All of them, too, attempted to submit their minds and hearts to the words of Jesus and the teaching of the apostles. And I have profound respect for the tradition shared by these teachers, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant. In fact, I consider myself a biblical, catholic, and orthodox Christian.

I have taught Christian doctrine at the university level for 34 years. Chief among my goals has been to ground the next generation of church leaders in this great tradition. In so doing I hoped to free them from slavery to the winds of change and the spirit of the times. I have tried to teach them to be humble, cautious, systematic, and analytical in their efforts to understand the faith and how it applies to the present age.

Consternation

I say all of this to place in context my profound consternation at how lightly many of my highly educated acquaintances dismiss that apostolic/catholic/orthodox consensus and embrace a “progressive” form of Christianity. They throw over the original apostles and the saints, martyrs, reformers, and doctors of the church to embrace the cultural fads of the last 25 years as a new revelation, a lately-discovered gospel. According to my progressive friends, the man confronted by the risen Jesus on the Damascus Road and chosen by the Lord to be his apostle, the man who personally knew Peter, James, and many other first-generation disciples of Jesus, and author of much of the New Testament, Paul, was wrong about how to live a Christian life, about marriage, family, and sex. He missed the boat on women’s rights and slavery. These modern apostles know more about what Jesus would do than the ones Jesus chose to be his witnesses. All they need to do is keep step with progressive culture as it gradually erases boundary after boundary set by the Creator.

Envy

I’m envious of these new apostles. The knowledge and certainty I’ve sought through cautious, painstaking thought, they attained simply by listening to contemporary culture, which knows nothing of the scriptures and possesses no sympathy for the church. Like the ancient Gnostics, these new apostles attain to gnosis (knowledge) instantaneously without reference to the scriptures or tradition. They know everything they need to know about God and true morality from a source within themselves. Only, the ancient Gnostics at least made a pretense of using reason to deduce their quasi-mythical system. The modern Christian Gnostics don’t need reason, for they know the truth directly from their feelings and desires. Personal experience is their teacher. And if they even bother with scripture and tradition, they use their feeling-derived gnosis to judge and correct them. I am envious indeed! Such knowledge is too wonderful for me! Not being an apostle, I have to rely on the apostolic tradition and the wisdom of the church to learn how to live as a Christian.

Gnostic America

While I am at it, let me recommend a book. Recently I read Peter M. Burfeind, Gnostic America: A Reading of Contemporary American Culture & Religion According to Christianity’s Oldest Heresy (Pax Domini Press, 2014). Perhaps I will write a full review later, but let me give you a taste of what Burfeind has to offer. Toward the end of the book, in his discussion of the Emerging Church Movement—an early progressive movement within evangelical churches—he charges:

It’s a Christ abstracted from his humanity and his Church once again…a Christ rarefied from his history and ecclesiastical grounding and reunited with the Self. Ultimately it’s a rebellion against created forms, a rejection of them as idolatrous, the very position taken by the Gnostics (Gnostic America, p. 334).

These comments were written nine years ago. They were true then, and nine years later we can see how prophetic they were of developments that followed.

Freedom of Speech for Me but Not for Thee

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There is great ferment in contemporary American society over the idea and practice of freedom of speech. The history of the United States of America from 1788 to today could almost be derived from the history of interpretation and application of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. It reads as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Perhaps reading that history would reveal that from its institution until today, the right to freedom of speech has been prized most by groups with the least political and cultural power. The dominant culture has been less enthusiastic, because freedom of speech grants unearned power to those who do not have it and exposes those with power to criticism and threat of losing power. However, history demonstrates that once the formerly powerless groups gain power and themselves become the dominant political and cultural force, they become critics of freedom of speech. I know it sounds cynical, but I think most appeals to lofty ideals in defense of free speech turn out to be little more than clever rhetorical ploys.

As an example, consider the change that has occurred on American college campuses since the Berkeley Free Speech Movement that exploded onto public consciousness in 1964-65. At that time, left-leaning students demanded freedom of political speech on campus. The enemy was the old conservative establishment on campus and in the country as a whole. On college campuses today—and in many other centers of power–the political/cultural left is overwhelmingly dominant. Not surprisingly, the new leftist orthodoxy is as great a suppressor of dissent as the conservative establishment ever was, perhaps even greater. Speech defending conservative morality and politics and even speech advocating free speech is condemned as “hate speech” or “racism” or some other form of despicable speech. The list of ways to misspeak grows longer every day. It seems that hardly anyone really believes in free speech. They pretend to support it only when it is to their advantage.

I do not deny that there have been some true believers in free speech. Sincere free speech advocates past and present appeal to the value of truth. The appeal assumes that everyone can (or should) subordinate their private interests, beliefs, preconceived notions, and desires for wealth, power, and honor to the communal quest for truth and goodness. Allowing everyone to participate in public deliberations, whether we agree or disagree with them, serves the goal of getting a clearer picture of the actual state of affairs and of what is possible. And that makes us all better off in the long run. Or, so the argument goes.

These days, defenses of free speech come only from conservative circles with perhaps a few leftover liberals mixed in. Political leftists and postmodernists do not believe in truth, and they label all appeals to truth and fact as ideological defenses of the racist, sexist, homophobic, white, colonialist establishment. What matters to the political/cultural left is consolidation of its power. Free speech for conservatives would only hinder that consolidation.

Next Time: Consider the essay above an introduction.  In future essays we will examine the idea of free speech in detail. What does it mean? Where does it apply? How do churches, Christian schools, and other religious non-profit institutions deal with demands for more freedom of speech within their spheres or for more restrictions on speech?