Is there still time for rethinking Christian Higher Education?
Looking for some encouragement here
Five years ago, in anticipation of a Fall Sabbatical, I launched a research project on millennial evangelicals. My thesis was that this generation (and those behind them) were less likely to see the broader society as antagonistic and were generally more accepting of pluralistic norms. Combining a survey of Nazarene clergy with the millennial evangelical memoirs (that I’ve mentioned here before)1 and experiences at two of the Evolving Faith conferences, I attempted to show that this subset of the evangelical world could potentially become the dominant view in the coming years.
In a series of good discussions with an acquisitions editor from a Christian publisher, he made the argument that it was too late. He said that the gatekeepers had already pushed those innovative voices out of evangelical legitimacy and that they weren’t coming back. Sadly, I agreed with his analysis — especially when projecting forward the 2-3 years before the potential book came out.
So I’m experiencing a bit of deja vu. I keep writing this book about what a Fearless Christian University would look like, why it’s needed, and how we might get there. And I can’t avoid the feeling that the time to have written this book would have been fifteen years ago. Every day it seems like we’re moving further and further from the ideal I’m envisioning.
I’ve sent the chapter descriptions and drafts of the first three chapters to some people.2 I’ve had some positive feedback and encouragement. But I’ve also heard comments saying “the donors and the trustees will never allow these changes”. When I write about these ideas in this newsletter, some commenters decry what’s currently happening to Christian Universities under the guise of dealing with budgetary issues.
I want to be able to offer my vision of Christian Higher Education to young faculty members to support them as they find their way into their career. But that becomes increasingly difficult as administrators often squelch the very creativity we need.
Today I’m very much aware of the sands slipping through the proverbial hourglass. Every college seems to be looking to “program prioritization” (elimination) and approaching “new markets” (away from core identity). And they all seem to be standing like that Spiderman meme where they simply point at each other; claiming that they are only following the pack (and it’s worse at that other school).
In the midst of that process, they are failing to connect to their potential student market and will likely scare off those young (and not so young) faculty I want to encourage. Which will damage retention in addition to recruiting.
I was sharing this lament with my friend David Gushee today over Zoom. We discussed the many alternatives to the current models of Christian Universities while being aware of the gatekeeping structures that make those models difficult to pursue.
The conversation helped me realize something. If trying to transform Christian Universities is a Sisyphean task, maybe there is value in painting a picture of what can follow in the wake of the current model. Perhaps Christian Higher Education must enter full crisis mode and face extinction before it can conceive of a different way.
If the name wasn’t irredeemably damaged already, I could call this new approach Phoenix University!
So, I’ll keep plugging away on the project even though I keep looking at that hourglass.
And I’ll take any words of encouragement anybody has to share.
There’s probably still a decent article that could come out of this project.
If you want to see it, email me.
I was anticipating your conclusion. I went to a Christian liberal arts university that had mostly de-Christianized in the 1980s, but is now a thriving Christian university. Your book is needed because we need a way forward when the culture wars end and a generation has forgotten how to do Christian liberal arts well. As Andrew Ryder commented, our university functioned as a true third way regardless of our policies. We’ve seen how well it can work. And it is necessary. As is your work.
It may be an unwinnable task, but work like yours is the only way forward I think. Just wonder if the right people can go against the tide long enough to make an impact.