Scot McKnight engages with FCU

The first public engagement of my book

I was thrilled today to read Scot McKnight’s SubStack where he engages with the preface and first chapter of The Fearless Christian University. There are nine chapters in the book and I don’t know if Scot will do a post on each one (that’s his normal way of dealing with a book). I probably won’t share everything he — or others — write about the book but since is the first public engagement with my book I thought it deserved attention.

One of Scot’s books, A Church Called Tov, was in the back of my mind as I was writing about Christian colleges even though I didn’t address it directly. Another, the recently released Invisible Jesus, speaks to the issue of deconstruction. I wish I’d read it before my manuscript was submitted.

After some preliminary comments on how we met and subsequently followed each other’s writings and my professional history, Scot gets to my thesis.

I attended a Christian (of a fundamentalist, not neo-evangelical, sort) and then attended an evangelical, or neo-evangelical seminary. I agree with Hawthorne’s framing of the book with fear but not because I felt that fear-shaped context very often. But at times, when needed, it sprang into force. “Christian universities, much like the evangelical subculture that spawned them, are characterized by fear: fear of societal decline, fear of secular authorities, fear of apostasy, fear of not being ‘real’ schools. In short, they fear losing their way.”

Opposition to secular culture, Hawthorne observes, is essential in evangelical identity formation. The challenge, if I may, is to discern how to be “in” the world but not “of” the world. The boundary lines are fuzzy and are determined by those with the loudest voice at that moment. Thus, Christian “University leaders operate far too often out of concern that a boundary will inadvertently be crossed and, as a result, that their institution’s reputation will be damaged, donations will dry up, and the school will be characterized as ‘going liberal’.” Bingo. Hawthorne knows that some Christian universities/colleges today are taking a hard right turn to prevent those concerns being raised.

John Hawthorne has a proposal: “I am advocating for a fearless Christian university: an institution that understands its role in the higher education landscape, can articulate that position in meaningful ways, organize its people and programs in support of that mission, and become a laboratory for how people of faith engage the broader culture. There are numerous forces that mitigate against my vision, and many of the shifts that have occurred in Christian universities … may well have to be addressed if the fearless Christian university is to be seriously pursued.”

That last paragraph is my attempt to foreground what is coming in the rest of the book. It’s a tall ask, I know. Scot acknowledges this as well, but rightly observes that the Fearless Christian University is not only possible, but desperately needed at this point in our society.

You may be asking what John has been asked and what I am asking, and what many of us have asked: who has the moxie, the capacity to withstand the pushbacks, and the courage to step into leading a school into this fearless Christian university in a day like ours? Hawthorne’s book has arrived at the right time, not because I think schools are looking for this proposal. No, it’s the right time because if not now, the fearless Christian university will become an unrealizable dream. If Christian university presidents do not stand up now to reverse the trend toward fundamentalist, Christian nationalist universities, there may be no schools left to lead into a fearless Christian university proposal.

I’ve written elsewhere that the changes in the Supreme Court and the new Trump administration’s approach to religious freedom (read, Christians First) eliminates one of the central fears Christian Universities have clung to: the fear that the government is coming after them to make them abandon their closely held religious beliefs. Such an eventuality is extremely unlikely.

What Christian Universities should be afraid of is the changing nature of their student bodies and the parents who support them. The gap between the rising generation and administrators, trustees, donors, and denominations is the motivating force behind my argument. Scot summarized it like this:

The Christian worldview approach to Christian universities, then, has become less attractive. But Hawthorne thinks the real issue is fear, not worldview: “I submit that the heart of the distinction between Christian universities and secular schools is the fear of students losing their way. Perhaps they would be tempted by the (often imaginary) licentious lifestyle of secular schools, so we need campus lifestyle covenants. Perhaps they would drift away from faith once they have separated from family in their home, so we need Chapel services. Most importantly, they might be led astray by faculty members who attack Christianity, so we need careful hiring practices.”

Proposal: “fearless Christian universities would accept the internal and external shifts that have occurred and find ways of engaging those changes from a position of strength. They would be arguing for the special role they play in higher education period students, faculty, and alumni would be seen as vast resources to shape a model of the Christian university that speaks into a pluralistic society in profound and important ways.” They will need to be both Christian and higher education, not with the former overruling the latter. They will pursue truth in its complexity. He cites Parker Palmer: “Be not afraid” and “Don’t be the fear.”

“This is what a fearless Christian university does. It recognizes that addressing social change or hearing students’ concerns or living in true community is scary. Yet that fear does not get the last word. It is but the beginning of a liberating journey that truly engages the culture and stakes out a unique role for the Christian university in the sphere of higher education.”

Needless to say, I am deeply grateful for Scot’s careful reading on the opening chapter. We have already interacted on his reactions to the second.

And welcome to all the new subscribers who have joined this community as a result of Scot’s post!