Tag Archives: Christian education

New Resource for Lovers of Christian Colleges and Universities

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I wanted you, my readers, to know that as of yesterday, my book The Christian University and the Academic Establishment is now in print and available. I hope, wish, dream that it will be read and discussed on Christian college and university campuses everywhere. I wrote it because I love the ideal of a Christian college. I believe it would be of interest to anyone who shares my love for Christian education—students, alumni, donors, faculty, staff, administrators, and trustees. Each chapter has questions for discussion at the end, and each theme (sometimes more than one chapter) has “takeaways” at its conclusion. And the last chapter (#12) contains a conclusion and four practical suggestions for Christian universities.

Take a look at the Amazon.com page for the book. Peruse the Table of Contents and the summary Amazon provides. Of course, if you know someone who could benefit from reading it, please recommend it.

In future posts I will quote some excerpts from the book and reflect on them.

Understanding the Church’s Teaching Ministry

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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 Teaching Ministry

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

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.

Theology

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).

Why the Church Needs Theologians

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.

The Christian College

What about teaching the faith in the Christian college? Is it catechesis or theology or evangelism or something else?

To be continued…

Some Questions for the American System of Education: Part Two—My Answers

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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.

What’s the Purpose of Children’s Education?

1. Why are there more illiterate people today than before the government took over most children’s education?

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.

2. Why does it take 12 years to educate a child?

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.

3. Why is high school called “high” school?

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.

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?

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.

5. Why do the sociopolitical aims of the public education system rank so high among its priorities?

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.

5. Why don’t parents demand a better education for their children?

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?

Some Questions for the American System of Education (Part One)?

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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.

The Mind of an Educator

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.

Questions: What’s the Purpose of Children’s Education?

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?

Questions: Who Needs A College Education and Why?

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

Christian Colleges Are Academically Sound and Socially Necessary

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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.

An Abstract and Unworkable Ideal

University Not a Street Corner

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.

A Fallacious Argument

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?

No University is Universal

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.”

No Professor is An Island

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.

The Christian Philosophy

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.

The Christian College* and the New Left

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This essay concludes the seven-part series containing my review and reflections on Christopher Rufo, America’s Cultural Revolution. The series began on May 03, 2024. Look for it: in a few days I will post a compilation of the whole series so you will have access to the entire review in one document.

The Collapse of the Modern Liberal University

In the previous essay we learned why the era of the modern liberal university, which began around 1870, came to an undignified end around 1970. The modern university adopted a critical, skeptical, never-ending research model of academia and exempted no moral tradition or religious dogma from critical scrutiny. Though it praised the quest for truth, progress and scientific discovery as its founding principle, its operational values were completely negative. Modern academic leaders were especially on guard against Christian fundamentalism and cultural conservativism; hence they focused exclusively on the dangers from the Right. This one-sided focus, however, made them vulnerable to criticism from the Left. When the Left accused the liberal establishment of not being radical enough in its criticism of the forces of conservativism, the establishment could make no reply. For though it examines everything, it believes nothing. Because it could not appeal to positive political, moral, historical, religious or metaphysical beliefs, the modern liberal university collapsed like a house of cards.

The Christian College: A Place to Stand

In contrast to the modern liberal university, the Christian college, if it takes Christianity seriously, can draw on a worldview authoritative for the Christian tradition and integrated into the charter and mission of the school. It can resist the critical, skeptical, know-nothing philosophy of the modern liberal university as well as the New Left’s subversive combination of criticism and dogmatism. The modern liberal university founded itself on the illusion that perpetual criticism of tradition will eventually generate scientific truth. The post-modern leftist university justifies its existence by repeating the groundless dogma that destruction of every actual thing will bring about utopia. The Christian college is founded on faith in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the authority of the canonical Scriptures accepted by the ecumenical church, and respect for the two-thousand-year Christian tradition.

The Christian college can assert with confidence that world history cannot be explained with the simple formulas of the neo-Marxists. The true human situation cannot be illuminated by dividing people into the villainous oppressors and the innocent oppressed, and it cannot be improved by instigating an endless war of liberation from ever smaller micro aggressions. For the Christian, violence, hatred, envy, greed, division, and all other sins against human community derive from abandonment of obedience and worship of God the Creator (Romans 1:18-32). There will be no reconciliation among human beings until there is reconciliation with God. Liberal platitudes and leftist threats cannot overcome division between races, classes, nations, sexes, or any other binary. Hatred cannot overcome hatred, racism cannot expel racism, violence cannot end violence. Satan cannot cast out Satan. Only the Holy Spirit can do that!

The Christian College: Friend of Truth

The liberal university argues that truth is illusive, and the post-modern university asserts that there is no such thing as truth and reason is a slave to self-interest; power alone is real and acquiring it is all that matters. The Christian college rests in the truth of faith and finds this truth reliable in producing light, love, joy, unity, and peace. Its knowledge grounded in faith gives the Christian college the right, the confidence and the determination to assert truth claims against liberal quibbling and leftist intimidation. Its faith knowledge bestows on the Christian college a mandate to establish and enforce community standards. The open secret is that liberal faculties perpetuate themselves by hiring and retaining other liberals and leftist faculties hire and promote their fellow-travelers. With much more integrity, Christian colleges have the right to hire and retain administrators, faculty, and staff who affirm Christian faith. Moreover, they have the right to define in statements of faith and codes of conduct what they mean by the “Christian faith.”

The Christian College: Courage to Push Back

Academic freedom and tenure are not absolute even in the most liberal and leftist universities. Those institutions have the right to define the boundaries of academic freedom and, under certain conditions, the right to revoke tenure and terminate employment. Like other colleges, Christian colleges do not acknowledge unlimited academic freedom or irrevocable tenure, but they define the limits differently. Christian colleges encourage faculty to speak about their faith in and outside the classroom and commend the Christian faith to their students. Professors are free to critique anti-Christian philosophies and lifestyles. In contrast, these activities are restricted by law in publicly funded universities and by custom in elite private universities. At the same time, liberal and post-modern universities give faculty unrestricted freedom to affirm atheism, Marxism, and libertinism. As long as they do not engage in sexual harassment, they are free to live immoral lives. Christian colleges deny faculty members these freedoms. Faculty members who feel restricted by this denial do not belong in Christian colleges. If they are serious about maintaining their Christian identity, Christian colleges should make clear to faculty members that academic freedom and tenure will not protect them if they violate their contractual obligation to abide by the college’s faith statements and codes of conduct.

The Christian College: Its Critical Principles

Every academic endeavor must employ critical principles; otherwise, it has no criteria by which to distinguish possible from impossible, true from false, valid from invalid, probable from improbable, good from bad, wise from unwise, right from wrong, and just from unjust. For an academic community to exist and work together, its basic critical principles must be accepted by all members of that community. Christian colleges no doubt share many critical principles with other colleges, especially in the areas of logic, mathematics, and other hard sciences. In areas of morality, history, theology, and metaphysics, however, they differ dramatically. The liberal university denies that it gives any positive belief, moral, historical, theological, or metaphysical, the status of a critical principle by which to judge other beliefs of this type. The post-modern university, in contrast, asserts the morality of diversity, equity and inclusion and the narrative of oppressor versus oppressed as critical principles by which to judge other moral beliefs and narratives. The Christian college asserts the morality of faith, hope, and love and the biblical narrative of God, creation, sin, incarnation, reconciliation and redemption as critical principles by which to judge other moral beliefs and narratives. And it may in good faith exercise this power with boldness.

The Christian College: Learning to Say “No”

Most Christian college professors and administrators received their terminal degrees at universities dominated by the New Left. Having been immersed in Critical Theory, CRT, DEI, and Critical Pedagogy throughout their graduate studies—especially those studying education, social sciences, religious studies, literature, and all identity-based programs—new professors bring these theories and activist teaching methods with them to the Christian college and begin employing them in their teaching and institutionalizing them in training programs. These programs, sponsored by various administrative offices, often appear on the academic agenda without any justification at all. When questioned, their sponsors appeal to “best practices” or the latest educational literature. Or, they attempt to justify these neo-Marxist programs on Christian grounds, arguing that standing up for the poor and oppressed, working for social justice and against racism, and seeking diversity, equity, and inclusion embody the highest ethics found in the Bible and the Christian tradition. Who could object to that?

If you read the previous essays in this series, you won’t be surprised to learn that I completely reject these arguments. They are usually made by people who have only a superficial understanding of Critical Theory—of Marcuse, Davis, Freire, and Bell—and even less understanding of Christian doctrine and history. They mistake a small linguistic overlap between Christian vocabulary and neo-Marxist vocabulary for substantive agreement. The words diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-racism, oppression and justice as used by the New Left possess no more than verbal resemblances to Christian concepts, and sometimes they mean the direct opposite.

Suggestions for Christian Colleges

1. Don’t allow programs based on Critical Theory, CRT, DEI, intersectional identities, and Critical Pedagogy to be instituted. Discontinue them if they are already in place. Beware: these neo-Marxist programs appear under a variety of innocent sounding names. Read the fine print.

2. Replace teacher workshops rooted in Critical Pedagogy with workshops firmly centered in Christian Pedagogy, and discontinue programs that train faculty and staff in diversity, equity, and inclusion and institute programs that teach faith, hope, and love.

3. Institute continuing education programs that help your faculty and staff understand the Christian worldview at a deeper level.

4. Scrutinize every program and office in view of the critical principles listed above, and make sure that every other narrative and identity is thoroughly subordinate to the Christian narrative and identity.

*This essay focuses on higher education, but it applies equally to primary and secondary education.

What Went Wrong in American Higher Education and What to Do About It

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In the previous six essays I summarized Christopher Rufo’s account of how the New Left came to dominate American education, government agencies, and corporations. I will devote this essay to higher education.

Christian Faith versus The New Left Philosophy

Before I discuss higher education, I want to assert briefly and bluntly that neo-Marxist philosophy is incompatible with Christianity. You cannot be a disciple of Karl Marx and Herbert Marcuse and be a Christian in any sense close to orthodoxy. Marcuse was an atheist as are most other New Left leaders. As we saw in our previous essays, neo-Marxists are willing to destroy a relatively just, admittedly imperfect, social order in a despairing hope that a perfect one will take its place. The New Left divides human beings into oppressors and oppressed; it further divides the oppressed into a hierarchy of ever more marginalized identities. It explains all human relationships by this narrow category. Moreover, it justifies violence as a means of bringing about its vision of justice. CRT, DEI, and Critical Pedagogy make no sense apart from neo-Marxist critical theory. They cannot be adapted to serve a Christian purpose.

In contrast to the New Left philosophy, Christianity proclaims that God exists and is known truly in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. God is the creator and lord of the world. Human beings are God’s creatures made in his image and subject to sin, corruption and death. There is no hope for salvation except in God. People find their true identity in faith and union with Christ. Jesus calls on his disciples to live in peace and joy, to be peacemakers and extend mercy, to love their neighbors and enemies. There is one church, inclusion into which depends on faith and baptism. Class envy and racial animus are forbidden. Violence in service of supposed just causes is prohibited. In both spirit and letter, Christianity and neo-Marxism could hardly be more antithetical. You cannot serve two masters.

Why American Universities Fell So Readily to the New Left

Why were American universities so easily and so thoroughly conquered by the New Left? Why could they not resist such an anti-Christian, anti-democratic, anti-American, and divisive philosophy?

The New University

The short answer is that in the late 19th century the old American colleges began their transformation into modern universities by adopting the research model of the University of Berlin (1810). They cease assuming the truth of Christianity and argued for professorial and student freedom to teach and learn unencumbered by confessional restrictions. They viewed academic freedom and professional competence as essential because the new idea of the university centered on critique of old ideas and the production of new knowledge. Hence any force that resisted those new goals was considered anti-progressive. And progressive academic leaders thought that orthodox Christianity and conservative politics were the most counter-revolutionary forces they had to fear. To guard against these reactionary forces, modern academic leaders institutionalized such strong protections as near inviolable academic freedom and career-long tenure. The enemies of critical scholarship, value neutral research, and the progress of science, they thought, were all on the right, that is, among those wanting to turn back the clock. Hence all modern academia’s defenses were directed to its right. The values academic leaders asserted were critical, skeptical, purely methodological, liberal, and supposedly metaphysically and religiously neutral; all were designed to defend against traditional religious and political dogmas. Modern academia could not assert positive beliefs, truths, and values without sounding dogmatic and hypocritical. Its only commitment was to make no commitments. It never imagined that it would be attacked and conquered from the dogmatic left.

The Dilemma

As we learned from Rufo, the New Left turned modern academia’s progressive rhetoric, critical methods, and institutions of academic freedom and tenure against it. Because the New Left was neither conservative nor Christian, it caught the liberal establishment off guard.  The New Left painted the liberal order of the modern university as sold out to the white capitalist establishment. The liberal university establishment, in the leftist critique, was not critical enough, not neutral, and not progressive. Liberal academics and university administrators were face with a dilemma. They could admit that they have positive commitments after all and assert those beliefs, values, and truths in its defense against the leftist critique. Or, they could give in to the New Left as the logical outcome of their critical stance toward traditional Christianity and conservative politics. Not wanting to give ground to their old enemies, they chose the latter. To escape Christian dogma and reactionary politics, the nightmares of the liberal establishment, the university mortgaged itself to tyrannical, dogmatic leftists.

Is Reform Possible?

According to Rufo, the only possibility of overturning the neo-Marxist hold on the American university—if there is a possibility at all—lies in the democratic process. The public must reassert its control and reimpose its values on the education system. It will have to insist that primary, secondary and college education should stop working to create activists for the left’s utopian vision of social justice and take up again its traditional task of preparing productive and informed citizens for the constitutional republic of the United States of America. The value of tenure for securing the quality of education and as protection from arbitrary dismissal should be obvious, but it must be granted and maintained only under specific and clearly stated contractual obligations consistent with the stated mission of the university. The protection of academic freedom should not be extended to efforts that subvert the academic mission of the university by redirecting the educational process toward non-academic purposes. Moreover, universities should make it clear that freedom of speech applies not to the classroom but to public spaces. In staff, administrative, and bureaucratic positions, where academic tenure and academic freedom do not apply, legislatures, Boards of Regents, and administrators have much more freedom to reorganize and reform the educational bureaucracy. Shutting down all Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) offices would be a good start.

An Uphill Climb

But I am skeptical that the public, elected officials, and Boards of Regents will carry out these measures. I could list many reasons for my pessimism, and so could you. But from an insider perspective, this one stands out: there is a deeply rooted assumption in higher education that there should be a single academic culture that sets the standards for the whole nation. Each university, it is assumed, should embody those standards. As long as this assumption holds sway, it is impossible for any one university to assert positive beliefs, values, and truths against the New Left. In a diverse society like ours, it is unlikely that a set of beliefs, values, and truths strong enough to resist the New Left can emerge as a national consensus. The only way forward is to reject the assumption of the necessity of one uniform definition of sound education. Individual universities must assert their right to define their own standards.

Next Time: The New Left and The Christian College

Counter-Cultural Christianity for an Upside Down, Inside Out World (Part One)

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Today I will begin a series in which I interact with a new book by Christopher F. Rufo: America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything (Broadside Books, 2023). The book documents the growth in influence of the radical left, that is neo-Marxism or Critical Theory, from the 1960s to 2023 in American higher education, government, and corporations. Rufo uncovers the origins of the now familiar leftist theories and programs: Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Critical Pedagogy, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Identity Politics, and many others. He introduces us to the most influential theorists and activists of the radical left: Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis, Paulo Freire, Derrick Bell, and their students and allies.

In America’s Cultural Revolution, Rufo describes, analyzes and criticizes the radical left from a traditional and conservative position. I will evaluate the radical left from a Christian perspective. Like Rufo, I am skeptical of socialism and don’t want to live under the rule of neo-Marxist politicians and I lament the destructive impact of the radical left on American education. I am grateful to Rufo for his efforts to inform the American people about the dangers coming from the Left.  In this series, however, sticking to what I know best, I want to warn individual believers, the church as a corporate body and Christian educators about the radical left’s pervasive influence on the cultural air they breathe.

The book is divided into four parts with four or five chapters within each part. The parts cover roughly the same span of time (1968-2023) but from different angles. Each part centers on a theme and a person: 1. Revolution and Herbert Marcuse; 2. Race and Angela Davis; 3. Education and Paulo Freire; 4. Power and Derrick Bell. I will review one part in each post and follow these essays with some applications to the church and Christian education.

Part I: Revolution

1. Herbert Marcuse: Father of the Revolution

Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) was born in Germany of Jewish parents. During World War I, Marcuse joined the Social Democrat Party, but soon became disillusioned because of the party’s accommodation to the old establishment. He pursued a doctorate at the University of Freiberg, studying under Martin Heidegger and writing a dissertation on the philosopher Georg W. F. Hegel. With the rise of Adolf Hitler, he fled first to Switzerland, France, and then to the United States. He taught at Brandeis University and then at the University of California, San Diego. Marcuse never wavered from his commitment to socialism as the most democratic form of political society and the most fitted to human nature. His main intellectual project for the rest of his life was creating a form of Marxism responsive to the new conditions of the post WW II situation in the Western world. Classical Marxism theorized that the working class, oppressed as they were by the capitalists, was the natural place for the socialist revolution to begin. By the 1950s, however, labor laws, unions, and increases in productivity, had transformed the Western working class into the comfortable and conservative middle class. Bitterly disappointed, Marcuse had to look elsewhere for potential revolutionaries. His “new left” had to be an alliance between the class of (mostly) white “intellectuals” and the black urban population. Race rather than class would be the new dividing line between oppressor and oppressed.

Marcuse articulated his “New Left” theory in a series of books: One-Dimensional Man (1964), Critique of Pure Tolerance (1965), Negations: Essays in Critical Theory (1968), An Essay on Liberation (1969), and Counter Revolution and Revolt (1972). In these writings he argued that the masses of people can be awakened to their oppressed status only by destabilizing the social order. Revolutionaries have every right to use violence to disrupt and protest the systemically unjust order. Generations of revolutionaries from the Black Liberation Army (1970s) to Black Lives Matter (2020) and from the Weather Underground (1970s) to the contemporary Pro-Palestine student protests look to Marcuse and his theories to justify burning, looting and murder in the name of liberation. Marcuse, then, is the intellectual father of today’s radical left.

2. The New Left: “We Will Burn and Loot and Destroy”

This chapter tells the story of the Weather Underground organization and its founder Bernadine Dohrn. Acknowledging Marcuse as her inspiration, Dohrn led the Weather Underground to join with other militants a four-year terror campaign designed to provoke the long-anticipated revolution. The Weather Underground’s part in the campaign began on June 9, 1970 with the detonation of 15 sticks of dynamite in a New York Police Department headquarters. Between January 1969 and December 1970, the Weather Underground and like-minded organizations carried out 4,330 bombings. Forty-three people were killed. Dohrn and her friends gleefully celebrated the murder of police officers (a.k.a. “pigs”). But by 1972, the public had had enough and the FBI and President Nixon had decimated the ranks of the Weather Underground. Their reign of terror was a complete failure.

3. The Long March Through the Institutions

After the failure of the Weather Underground, the Black Liberation Army and other violent groups, Marcuse was forced to rethink his approach to revolution. His German admirer and student activist friend Rudi Dutschke suggested that the New Left movement return to the universities to regroup. Dutschke used the metaphor “the long march” to describe this strategy of retreat and consolidation, borrowing an expression originally used to describe Mao Zedong’s year-long, 5,000-mile retreat to the mountains after his 1934-defeat by the Nationalist Chinese Army. Marcuse agreed with Dutschke and advised his students to join university faculties with the aim of training new recruits and eventually taking over education from within and from there other social institutions. From positions in literature, journalism, and education, these radical professors railed against capitalism, sexism, colonialism, and racism. They invented new theoretical concepts such as “white supremacy,” “white privilege,” “systemic racism,” “neocolonialism,” “patriarchy,” “anti-racism,” and a thousand other terms. Marcuse labeled this process “linguistic therapy.” Leftist theorists generate these ideas out of their Marxist ideology, which explains every less than utopian state of affairs through the lens of the oppressor/oppressed dialectic.* The process of “linguistic therapy” works like this: invent a term useful to the cause of revolution and use it over and over with confidence and people will begin to believe it refers to a real state of affairs. To draw out the social implications of their oppressor/oppressed ideology, the New Left academics lobbied for the creation of a host of new “studies” programs: Black Studies, Feminist Studies, Gender Studies, Whiteness Studies, Critical Race Studies, and the list grows every year. In these “studies” programs, theory held dogmatically and applied with methodological rigor determines the meaning of every fact. As a sign of the pervasive priority of theory over fact, consider how frequently you hear the adverbial phrase, “As a (an)…feminist, gay man, black woman, trans man, etc.” used to condition a person’s expression of an opinion in academic and popular speech.

Contemporary diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training can be traced back to the work of Marcuse’s third wife, Erica Sherover-Marcuse. Theory needed to be operationalized in practice. How do you get white people to recognize and confess their racism and privilege and black people to become conscious of their internalized oppression? In the 1980s, Sherover-Marcuse developed workshops designed to facilitate this new consciousness. The most well-known exercise in these workshops is the “privilege walk.” Participants divide into groups based on where they stand in the hierarchy of privilege and oppression. The privileged, then, must acknowledge and apologize for their racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression. This exercise has been incorporated into many institutional programs designed to promote DEI. These programs are administered by armies of bureaucrats, adding millions of dollars to institutional payrolls. They act as modern-day inquisitors to sniff out hidden biases, intimidate dissenters, and punish offenders.

4. The New ideological Regime

This chapter documents the culmination of the “long march” through the institutions. The legacy media, government agencies, and most large corporations have adopted the critical theory and DEI programs, hiring thousands of DEI administrators and paying millions to outside anti-racist and DEI consultants.

Preliminary Reflections

I will save my comprehensive critique until I finish reviewing the entire book. But I will make some preliminary remarks. (1) I don’t see how a Marxist or Neo-Marxist theory of social relations can be separated from Marx’s atheism and anti-religious stance. For Marx, and apparently Marcuse, the possibility of thorough revolution depends on completely limiting one’s hope to this life and relying on human power alone to bring about the ideal society. Marxism encourages envy and discontent and justifies violence against the “oppressor” class to bring about its vision of justice. (2) It views evil as residing in systems and thinks human nature can be redeemed through social reordering; that is to say, it is utopian. It can dream and destroy, but it cannot build. (3) It has never worked anywhere it has been tried. (4) Hence Christians, churches, Christian non-profit organizations, and Christian educational institutions should be highly skeptical and very cautious of adopting any theory or program that finds its origin in the New Left: DEI, CRT, SEED, Critical Pedagogy, and the whole series of “Studies” academic tracts. Nor should we adopt the subversive vocabulary of New Left academics: “white supremacy,” “white privilege,” “systemic racism,” “neocolonialism,” “patriarchy,” “anti-racism,” “homophobia,” “transphobia,” and the rest. As I argued above, the truth of these terms depends on the truth of the (neo)Marxist theory out of which the terms are spun. Accepting the terms implies accepting the theory.

*“Dialectic” refers here not to logical contradiction or friendly debate but an intractable social conflict that can be resolved only by establishing socialism as the political order.

To be continued…

Academic Freedom and Christian Education (Part Three)

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This essay concludes my series on academic freedom in American universities and colleges. I posted earlier instalments on July 15, 2023 and August 28 2023. As we discovered in the first two essays, academic freedom is a contested concept. Simple appeals to academic freedom soon find themselves mired in disputes about the nature and limits of such freedom. Even in public and private secular colleges the idea is a bone of contention. And this dispute expands inevitably to disagreements about the nature of the teaching profession, the academic ideal, and the place of the university in society. Your stance on these subjects determines how you understand academic freedom. Not surprisingly, then, the nature of academic freedom is also disputed within self-designated Christian colleges and between Christian colleges and secular colleges.

Diversity Among “Christian” Colleges

Great diversity reigns among “Christian” colleges. We must map this diversity before we examine the distinction between academic freedom in Christian colleges and academic freedom in secular colleges. I spoke above of “self-designated” Christian colleges. I did so because there is as much diversity among Christian colleges as there is among “Christian” churches and individual Christians. Some church related colleges have so assimilated to the national culture that only vestiges of Christianity remain. Perhaps they require a course or two in religion, maintain a chapel on campus, and employ a chaplain, but otherwise they differ little from their secular counterparts. Their religious studies departments are very progressive, and there are no confessional requirements for students or faculty. The scope of academic freedom in these colleges tracks perfectly with secular schools.

At the other end of the spectrum are colleges that require administrators, board members, faculty and students to adhere to a list of orthodox beliefs. Christian symbols permeate the campus, occasions for worship are numerous and attendance is mandatory, and faith-affirming classes in Bible and theology are required. Expressions of faith and prayer in the classroom are encouraged. Strict moral conduct by students and faculty is expected. Continued employment is contingent on abiding by these rules in life, teaching, and research. Confessional boundaries determine the limits of academic freedom.

Between these two extremes lies a spectrum of self-designated “Christian” colleges. In his book Quality With Soul: How Six Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith with Their Religious Traditions (Eerdmans, 2001), Robert Benne lists four types of “Christian” colleges: Orthodox, Critical-Mass, Intentionally Pluralist, and Accidentally Pluralist (p. 49).

The question whether or not a particular college that self-designates as Christian really is Christian is open for debate in the same way a church’s or an individual’s claim to be Christian is open for debate. I am willing to admit that various models of the Christian college are possible, just as I am willing to accept some flexibility of belief among churches and individual believers. But there are limits. Outright denial or malicious neglect of core Christian doctrine or abandonment of Christian morality belie claims to Christian character. A college that designates itself as Christian should maintain a constant internal debate about the meaning of that designation.

When a person claims to be a Christian it is reasonable to assume that they sincerely hold the central beliefs proclaimed in the New Testament and wish to be an active and faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. Likewise, when an institution advertises itself as “Christian” it should embody this very same confession in its institutional mission, policies, and code of conduct. The Christian faith encompasses every dimension of life. It is a way of thinking, feeling, and living. Compatibility with the Christian mission of a Christian college should be a determining factor—equal to technical competence—in administrative, faculty, and staff hiring, and in retention, tenure, and promotion decisions. It is relevant to curriculum, co-curriculum, teaching, and research.

Christian Colleges Contrasted with Secular Colleges

If a self-designated Christian college adheres to the above essential marks of a Christian college, its concept of the nature and limits of academic freedom should differ markedly from that employed in state or private secular, or nominally Christian colleges. To grasp those differences let’s examine ways Christian and secular colleges differ.

The Reason to Exist

As a matter of historical record, at least from 1900 onward, Christian colleges (Protestant) were founded as alternatives to secular colleges and universities. The older private colleges and newly established state schools had come first to tolerate and then promote agnosticism, secular humanism, atheism, social Darwinism, pantheism, and religious indifferentism. The founders of Christian colleges rejected as laughable the claim that these secular colleges were “nonsectarian” or neutral on matters of religion. Christian colleges aimed to protect young minds from being led astray by persuasive presentations of these anti-Christian ideologies. This sentiment is expressed clearly by William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) in a speech at Taylor University in Upland, IN:

Parents all over this nation are asking me where they can send their sons and daughters to school knowing that their faith in God and in morality will not be destroyed. I find that this is a college where they teach you the Bible instead of apologizing for it, and I shall for this reason recommend Taylor University to inquiring Christian parents [Quoted in William Ringenberg, The Christian College: A History of Protestant Higher Education in America (Baker,1984, 2006) p. 171]

The Christian worldview served as the intellectual and moral framework to give coherence to institutional policies, curriculum, and co-curriculum.

Christian colleges were not founded as research universities or as instruments to serve the national interest in agriculture, industry, and defense. It was not their purpose to change or preserve the national culture. Their aim was much less grandiose, being a direct extension of the aspirations of churches and Christian parents. It was to educate young people for living as Christians in their chosen professions, as ministers, missionaries, teachers, and others. Christian colleges transforming themselves into research universities and touting their service to the nation is a recent development. This transformation seems always to be accompanied by a loss of Christian identity.

The Profession

As we learned in previous articles in this series, the founding of the American Association of University Professors (1915) was part of an effort by leading professors at America’s elite research universities to consolidate the growing demand for greater professionalization of the professorate. Among their goals were creating nation-wide standards and a nation-wide culture for the profession. Not surprisingly, their professional standards and culture were those most congenial to the secular research university and the self-interests of the professors who teach there. They wished to nationalize and standardize the image of professors as secular saints devoted to discovering truth—courageous, unbiased, and free from all external loyalties that would constrain their judgment.

Teachers that embrace fully the founding purpose and mission of the Christian college do not fit the image of the professor whose highest loyalty is to the profession as secular universities understand it. Ideally, Christian college professors would possess technical mastery of their subject area equal to that of professors in secular universities. Yet they would remain critical of ways in which secular professors in these fields import alien frameworks and anti-Christian philosophical, moral, and political beliefs into their research and teaching. For example, a Christian professor would deny that to be a good physicist, chemist, or biologist one must assert that these sciences refute belief in God and creation. Christian professors see clearly that the social and psychological sciences—insofar as they are truly scientific— have nothing to say about morality. However, because holding such secular views seems to be a requirement of the profession, Christian professors may feel like strangers within the profession.

The Academic Ideal

As we learned in previous articles, even secular colleges debate the nature and purpose of academia: Should academia be driven by the cool, objective search for truth regardless of its practical application? Or, should its goal be to reform society in a mood of urgency and advocacy? Advocates of the truth-seeking approach accuse the cause-advocating group of abandoning reason for political advocacy. In response to this charge, the cause-advocating group accuses the truth-seeking group of hypocrisy. Their high-flown rhetoric of disinterested science hides their intellectual assumptions and socioeconomic agendas. Perhaps these two alternatives are not mutually exclusive. Even so, thoughtful Christian academics will not combine them in the same way that secular academics do. Christian professors value reason and truth-seeking highly and they prize fairness in critical evaluation. In this, they resemble the truth-seeking ideal. But they do not pretend to take a neutral attitude toward the Christian understanding of God, the world, humanity, and morality. This stance of advocacy they have in common with the cause-advocating academics.

The real difference, then, between Christian academics and truth-seeking secular academics is not that the latter value reason and truth and the former do not. They differ, rather, in the guiding assumptions and presuppositions each makes. Likewise, Christian academics and cause-advocating academics do not differ in that one serves non-academic causes and the other refrains from serving any cause outside of academia. They differ in the causes they serve.

Academic Freedom

Academic freedom is about the freedom to teach and learn within the limits clearly defined by an academic institution. This description applies both to secular and Christian colleges. The limits on academic freedom differ according to the ways each type understands the mission of the college, the character of the profession, and the nature of academia. Secular colleges grant professors freedom to teach and advocate agnostic, atheist, immoralist/libertine, and other views incompatible with Christian faith but deny them freedom to teach and advocate Christianity. In contrast, Christian colleges deny (or should deny) professors freedom to teach atheist, agnostic, immoralist/libertine, or any other view it regards as anti-Christian.

Understandably, professors want maximum freedom and secure employment. But there is no college that allows unlimited academic freedom and unconditional tenure. If professors want freedom to teach unbelief and immorality and recruit young people for those causes, they should seek employment where they have freedom to do this. Similarly, if professors want freedom to argue that Christianity is true, good, and beautiful, they may be happier in a Christian college, which allows and encourages such advocacy.

If private and public secular colleges wish to teach anti-Christian views, this is a decision for those institutions and their stakeholders to make. And if Christian colleges and their stakeholders decide that anti-Christian views and values must not be taught and practiced, this is their prerogative. There is no rationally self-evident or divinely revealed law of academic freedom, and there is no academic supreme court to settle disputes among different views. Institutions must discover through dialogue and debate among the interested parties a balance that works best for them.

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…