"prudent boundaries about first-order theological or ontological issues"
More reflections on that Newsweek article
I didn’t expect to return to last Wednesday’s post on the Newsweek story about Christian College faculty quite so soon. But subscriber and frequent commenter Jim Eisenbraun forwarded me a newsletter from The Dispatch yesterday. I’m not a Dispatch subscriber (I follow way too many SubStacks as it is) as they are a little too right-leaning for me.
Still, this particular post included insights from John Inazu. I’ve long been an Inazu fan and wrote about his most recent book back in April. I highly recommend his 2016 Confident Pluralism.
What first caught my eye in the newsletter Jim forwarded is the passage I chose for my title. It was written by Michael Reneau and serves as the introduction to the Inazu essay. He wrote:
The problem I saw with the Newsweek story, though, was that it didn’t make much of an attempt to help readers understand when the Christian institutions it reported on were drawing prudent boundaries about first-order theological or ontological issues and when they were being petty and fearful. Some of the issues in question require prudential judgment calls (outlining commitments on human sexuality that have obvious implications for belief about human identity, for example). Others, not so much. What I wished had been in the story was the degree to which some of the institutions mentioned made good-faith efforts to wrestle with those questions. (emphasis mine)
The highlighted phrase brought to mind my post from last month about how we understand religious freedom, especially on issues of “sincerely held religious beliefs”. If you’ve been reading this newsletter even sporadically, you know that when my varied interests start to overlap, I have to dig deeper.
To be fair, I appreciate the addition of the “petty and fearful” line. I wrote a whole book about it!
Let me unpack that paragraph a little. What makes a theological issue a matter of first order? Are these issues in the creeds or are they social issues backed up by particular hermeneutical approaches to scripture (inerrancy and proof-texting)? How are these “prudent boundaries” protected? Is it by mutual agreement through members of a community or by enforcement mechanisms enacted by the Powers That Be (which seems to cover the faculty in the Newsweek story).
The latter mechanism is particularly problematic as new leadership mandates a change in direction (see recent stories about Cornerstone or older ones about Cedarville and Bryan). Or when a denomination determines that social issues (namely LGBTQ+ affirmation) are now considered theological perspectives that require adherence.1
I find “ontological issues” even more problematic. That language suggests that the institution simply declares “this is who we are” as if that ends dialogue.2 Any dissent from the institutional position is met with a standard refrain: “If you don’t like it here, go somewhere else”.
In my review of James Davison Hunter’s new book, I offered a brief introduction to Durkheim’s theory of society. I wrote:
Durkheim argued that society was possible because individualism was supplanted by group cohesion. In The Division of Labor in Society, he argued that tribal society was held together by what he called Mechanical Solidarity. The idea was that all members were the same and could be interchanged (like widgets). In modern (for him) society, that sameness was supplanted by diversity and diffusion. A new form of solidarity, Organic Solidarity, took its place. The basis for Organic Solidarity is interdependence where component parts need each other and must work in concert (consider the body’s interdependent systems).
The sociological challenge Durkheim identified is that mechanical solidarity struggles in the face of internal diversity. As society grows in diversity and role differentiation, a moral system based on sameness is freighted. The more one expels “the deviants”, the more visible other deviants become. It’s a never ending cycle in search of an unhealthy uniformity.
I have argued for years that an important corrective for Christian universities is simply to acknowledge that Christians legitimately disagree on certain issues (both theological and social) in spite of their shared Christian commitments. Finding a central focus around which those differences revolve is far better than stringently enforced boundaries.3
John Inazu’s essay describes how, because of a 2016 essay he wrote called “How to Unite in Spite of Trump”, he was disinvited from a schedule speech at a Christian school.4 He observes:
For example, had the school that disinvited me been formed to “make disciples in the image of Donald Trump,” then my speaking there would have been fundamentally inconsistent with its mission.
As I wrote in my piece on religious freedom detailing an institution’s commitments is vitally important. The Supreme Court may take things at face value when a university cites “sincerely held religious beliefs” but those inside the institution deserve more. In the ideal world, they would explain their positions in publicly facing ways (like the webpage or HR listings or admissions materials).5 Inazu picks up a similar theme:
But greater clarity around the nature and justification of those boundaries would help Christian educational institutions, and the rest of us, better parse the difference between lamentable cancel culture and laudable coherence. That in turn requires these institutions to know and understand their own core commitments. As I’ve written elsewhere, the boundaries set by expressive restrictions, including who is in and who is out, inevitably “reflect something about a community’s goals, values, and—ultimately—its purpose.” Under the First Amendment, private institutions are generally free to draw whatever boundaries they want. But they should still seek to explain those boundaries and enforce them equitably and fairly.
The individuals in the Newsweek story may each have circumstances that allow the institution to not continue their employment. But these issues of boundaries — especially when they are malleable and vague — is a problem of institutional culture. Failure to remedy that when one has a diverse student body and faculty, almost guarantees more Newsweek type stories down the road.
Resulting in pastors losing their credentials or faculty members their positions
Gordon College has twice argued that its faculty were special in that they were essentially ministers. Courts have consistently refused their logic.
That’s a key theme of my book — placing the concerns of contemporary Christian students as that central focus.
I don’t know if it was a college or private high school.
Another theme in my book is that the market for young conservative evangelicals has shrunk dramatically and such pronouncements could make it much harder to fill slots in the incoming class.