Posted on 09/11/2005 6:21:04 AM PDT by rhema
She's bright, homeschooled, and devout. She is definitely college material. So her parents, having read about the relativism and debauchery of the nation's secular universities, send her to a Christian college.
After her parents finish hauling boxes into her dorm and drive away, she is thrilled at the chance to study with so many others who share her faith. By the first week of class, she already has made many Christian friends and has joined a good Bible study. Her classes, though, are confusing.
In her Introduction to Bible class, her professor explains that the Bible was written by many different authors over many centuries and so cannot be taken literally. The professor in her psych class, who calls herself a feminist, teaches that "homophobia," not homosexuality, is a mental illness. In English, she has to read a modern novel filled with profanity and graphic sex scenes. Her biology class teaches Darwinian evolution and makes fun of "creationists" who believe in Intelligent Design.
When she asks her professors about the disconnect between what is going on in the classroom and the college's professed Christian identity, they tell her, "We are just trying to open your mind. That's what a college education is all about. Yes, we are Christians, but we have to challenge our incoming students' narrow fundamentalism in order to broaden their perspectives and make them well-educated." She marvels that these teachers don't seem to recognize that the ideologies they are so impressed with are far narrower than what the Bible teaches. After four years, she graduates, with an education that is little different from that of her friends who went to secular schools.
This scenario plays out over and over again, to the consternation of many students and their parents. As John Mark Reynolds, a professor and director of the honors program at Biola University, observes, "Many profs view their mission as helping poor, right-wing Christian children outgrow their parents' faith."
But not all professors and Christian colleges are like that. In a time when the postmodernist academy is jettisoning truth, reason, and the Western tradition, Christians—with a worldview well suited for education—have a dramatic opportunity to exert intellectual and cultural leadership. In many cases, Christian colleges do give their students a first-rate education, even as they contribute positively to the student's spiritual formation.
Certainly, the demand for what Christian colleges can offer is booming. Between 1990 and 2002, enrollment in the 100 evangelical schools that make up the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities rose by 60 percent.
So to kick off the new academic year, WORLD brought together a panel of distinguished veterans of Christian education: John H. White, president-emeritus of Geneva College; Samuel T. Logan, former president and now chancellor of Westminster Theological Seminary; and Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. As a Christian college English professor for just under 20 years, I also participated in the discussions. What follows represents our common general assessment of the state of Christian colleges.
Conservative Christians tend to value the colleges that were founded by their church bodies or that exist to transmit their particular intellectual and theological heritage. But sometimes those colleges promote theological ideas that undermine that heritage: "the openness of God" movement that denies God's omniscience and omnipotence, "new perspectives on Paul" that deny justification by faith, and feminist theology pushing for the ordination of women.
In The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches (1998), Catholic scholar James Burtchaell studies the history of religiously founded schools, documenting how time and again colleges founded in a specific theological tradition shift to generic Christianity, then to being "church-related," then to holding Christian "values" if not belief, until finally they are as secularized as any public university.
This process is already complete in most institutions founded by mainline Protestants—from Southern Methodist University to Princeton. Catholics held out a little longer, but a study by Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, in The Catholic World Report found that Catholic universities now make their students less Catholic. He found that 45 percent of incoming freshmen at the major Catholic universities believe that abortion should be legal; by the time they are seniors, 57 percent believe in abortion, contrary to church teaching. Fifty-five percent of freshmen believe in homosexual marriage; by the time they graduate, 71 percent do. Only 30 percent of freshmen approve of casual sex, but by the time they are seniors, 50 percent do.
Evangelical colleges tend to resist the tide, but not always. In 1988, sociologist James Davison Hunter, in his book Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation, found a similar phenomenon in evangelical institutions. In a survey of students from nine members of the Christian College Consortium (Wheaton, Gordon, Westmont, Bethel, Houghton, Seattle-Pacific, George Fox, Taylor, and Messiah), he found that while 56 percent of incoming students scored high on his "religious orthodoxy" index, that number declined to 42 percent when the students were seniors.
Those holding traditional views of the family plummeted from 45 percent to 30 percent for men, and 34 percent to 14 percent for women. "Contemporary Christian higher education," Mr. Hunter concludes, "produces individual Christians who are either less certain of their attachments to the traditions of their faith or altogether disaffected from them."
But that was in 1988. In her book God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America, Jewish researcher Naomi Schaefer Riley cites Mr. Hunter's research, but reports that recent evidence shows Christian college graduates to be more conservative morally and theologically.
"I believe the tide is moving the other way rather than a watering down," said panelist Mr. White. He sees "an openness and hunger on the part of young faculty" to relate their faith to their discipline. "When I began teaching a biblical worldview course 30 years ago," he said, "other than [theologian Francis] Schaeffer and some obscure Dutch work in the Kuyper tradition, there were no books for college students. Now there are many that are well-written."
Though a veteran of many battles to keep his institution faithful to its biblical heritage, Mr. White finds the climate much improved. "After a year of returning to the classroom I find many students and faculty eager to embrace and understand orthodox Christianity and the holism of the Lordship of Christ."
This points to an important shift in the relationship between faith and learning. Historian Douglas Sloan of Columbia University has shown that a "two realms" model dominated Christian scholarship through most of the 20th century. Objective knowledge of the outside world was considered the realm of science. Inner feelings, values, and commitments to meaning were the realm of faith.
In practice, this distinction meant that faith and learning were not integrated at all; faith was not allowed to trespass onto the territory of science, knowledge, and facts. This was a disaster theologically, as faith was turned into an interior set of emotions, with no connection to external truth.
In today's climate, the fact/value distinction—and the exaltation of scientific rationalism—has been shot down, even for secularist scholars. Christian thinkers from Herman Dooyeweerd to Francis Schaeffer have critiqued that dualism. Nancy Pearcey, researcher with the Discovery Institute, in her book Total Truth has exploded the "two realms" model.
Instead, today's Christian scholars tend to approach issues of faith and learning in terms of "worldview." This allows them to see and build upon the distinct biblical assumptions about God and His creation—such as the complexity of human beings having been made in God's image and yet fallen into sin—while still dealing accurately with the various secularist ideologies, each of which can be seen as an alternative worldview.
So if contemporary Christian scholarship has found a way to effectively relate faith and learning, why are so many Christian colleges still struggling to keep their identity? As WORLD's panel of college presidents made clear, the strongest tides faithful schools have to swim against are institutional and cultural.
Financial pressures can change the direction of a school. Presidents, who now have to focus on fundraising, must cultivate wealthy donors. "Once an institution becomes dependent upon a donor base that no longer holds Christian conviction as the central defining mark of the school, a process of liberalization or secularization inevitably follows," said Mr. Mohler. In some institutions, he said, "a loss of Christian conviction and character can be traced to just one major donor who insisted on a more liberal, less church-directed identity. "
Mr. Logan told of donors who offered gifts of a million dollars plus, if Westminster would change its position on apologetics or give a woman an endowed chair. Not that donor requests are necessarily a bad thing, observed Mr. Logan, but they can have unintended consequences. "Suppose, for example, the Lilly Endowment offered a funding initiative in support of multiculturalism in theological education. It is possible that the conditions set by Lilly would not require subtle alterations in institutional identity. But it is also possible that those conditions would require such alterations. It takes great corporate wisdom to make the right decision and it could take extraordinary courage to do what is right (especially if that meant turning away from a lot of Lilly money)."
Mr. Mohler cited another temptation: "Mission creep can quickly pull an institution away from its more clearly articulated Christian identity. As a rule, the broader the scope of the institution, the greater the danger of loosening church and confessional commitments." He gave the example of a college wanting to attract more students and asking, Why not a pharmacy school? The school may not be able to attract evangelical faculty members qualified to teach pharmacy. As a result, hiring practices get loosened. Non-Christian students uninterested in the college's Christian identity come to study pharmacy. Resources get shifted to the pharmacy program and away from the school's original mission.
Faculty hiring is another issue. Mr. Mohler cited the problem of "catalog envy," in which schools hire a new professor with a Ph.D. from a prestigious Ivy League institution over someone from a lesser-known school who might be a better fit with the school's Christian identity. Also, in the postmodernist climate in which words can have different meanings according to each person, it becomes more difficult to ascertain whether a professor subscribes to a particular statement of faith, or what he means when he says he does.
Presidents have to be especially attentive. "I am personally involved in every faculty hire," Mr. Mohler said. "I interview all candidates, read their published material, and check out everything from their resumés to their church responsibilities and their marriage/family commitments. The president must be a scholar who is intellectually engaged, if this is to be effective."
Secularist accrediting agencies can also pressure a school away from its Christian identity. Mr. Mohler told about his institution's social work program. "The Council on Social Work Education is adamantly pro-homosexual and committed to 'non-judgmentalism.' That led to an impasse here, the closing of the school.
"We spent years working to convince our regional accreditation agency that confessionalism allows an authentic academic experience," Mr. Mohler said. "It was so foreign to the visiting committee (in the main) that they were simply at a loss." And yet, eventually, his school did get the accreditation. As did Westminster, said Mr. Logan, after a tough battle.
Thanks in part to the church institutions that stood their ground, most accreditors have switched their approach. Today, said Mr. Logan, "they are generally more likely now to allow Christian schools to define their own missions and to evaluate those schools on the degree to which the schools can demonstrate that they are accomplishing those missions." Mr. White agreed: "My experience is that accreditation is almost always helpful."
So despite the continuing problems, it may be easier now than before, given resolute leadership, constituent support, and faculty committed to the school's Christian mission and identity, to resist the secularizing tide.
*secular
Dan
Gosh, I wrote my #42 before seeing you'd already said about the same! Tag!
Dan
Can't say. But I can address haow it is taught in Christian school using A Beka cirriculum. God Created in 6 days is the basis. Flood explains majority of geologic evidence. Earth 6-10 thousand years old. Creatures adapt to their surroundings, those inept die off, their is genetic variation, but mutation is almost always bad. Creatures vary within kinds, but fish don't become land based animals, and they in turn don't teach themselve how to fly. It all started with the encoded info in the genes by the Creator.
Thanks. Strange, but interesting.
Well, if you are going to be ignorant of science, at least be consistently and logically ignorant.
If you want to deny Evolution and assert young earth creationism, you also have to deny Physics, Astronomy, Einsteins General Relativity, Planetary Geophysics, and a huge compendium of scientific observation ranging from the detailed fossil record, to carbon dating, to the microwave background.
But the most ridiculous part is that the Bible does not assert a 4000 year old earth. Biblical creationism has to be interpreted properly. The Bible was written by Jews, and to be interpreted properly, must be understood from the cultural milieu of Biblical Jews. We have had Jewish scholars on these threads patiently explain that the Biblical account of creation (particularly the inference of a time scale) does not contradict the science of the Big Bang and earth's creation 4.5 billion years ago. It does not contradict evolution either. Moreover, Jewish and Catholic schools teach it this way.
FYI
Actually the normally quoted date is 6,000 years old...
some creationists are giving a date of 10,000 years...
excellent point...part of the problem is that many people
think professors have ALL the answers...I found out after
many years of schools that they do not. Remember, they got
their degree after about 8 years of school and hopefully
a good dissertation, and some teaching training...Now, go
to a library, look at all the literature in their own field
and see how much of their education encompassed the information
present in the library...You get your best education trying
to solve problems in the "real" world where a trillion factors
act on your information set. School is just the barebones framework from
which you can base your own work.
Thank you for the post. I graduated from a Southern
Baptist School--Grand Canyon University--where a truly
committed faculty, staff and student body gathered to
teach about the world from a liberal arts perspective
teaching about a personal faith in Christ.
Over the years, that school began to disintegrate. Our Southern Baptist leadership in the state led by an extremely weak administrator eventually abandoned the school and sold it to an entrepreneur. Now, the school claims to have a Christian perspective, but it is so weak and puny that the only thing you can really tell about the school's point of view is that is MOST LIKELY not a muslim school.
Very sad.
Great point. Check the books in the bookstore, too. Definitely, personally visit the "Christian Psychology" (an oxymoron) professors, especially the one teaching the required course for your child. Buy the best Christian viewpoint references on psychology (http://www.psychoheresy-aware.org/psychobk.html) for your new college students. They can make good choices with good biblical resources to rebut liberal thought. Don't forget, college students bring world viewpoint with them to Christian colleges and the social scene.
It would be possible to teach straight modern biology without evolutionism thrown in. I think geology might be problematic, although I can see just teaching about present geological formations without attempting to explain how they developed, sort of the same way you would teach biology, or if you were going for a straight theological approach simply explain the Creation to modern development.
Great, but what do you do when your students start asking "how" and "why"? "God did it" only holds out for so long. What happens when a kid who does his homework asks you some question that contradicts what you've been teaching?
Maybe I should just call one of these college's professors. Anyone have an idea which one I should call?
Great, but what do you do when your students start asking "how" and "why"? "God did it" only holds out for so long.
works from a false premise, i.e. that "God did it" is not a factual statement.
Creationism is a mater of faith in the fact of itself. If you start from that frame of mind, then explaining modern development from Creation in no way disagrees with observable facts.
Now as I stated Geology has more problems, but if you start with premise that the Flood explains the layering from "Early" to "Modern" times then you can eliminate those problems.
Faith is the sarting point, if you (not you personally) don't have it, then I can see how any teaching of these subjects could be problematic.
Oops...there's the root of the problem. Bible needs to be taught. Real Bible. Other disciplines will flow from that.
Well, if you are going to be ignorant of science, at least be consistently and logically ignorant.
Gee name calling...certainly proves your knowledge, eh? Exacly what am I denying in Physics? Gravity? Newtons laws? Atomic weights? Levers and fulcrums? And astronomy - how did I deny that? Just becasue I believe God made it, in a flash of a second, and stretched out the heavens, which accounts for the red shift, blah blah. Since you assert a big bang, you also deny there is a center to the universe, eh? So there was a big explosion, but now there is no center, and no place for the "inflating baloon" to start empty. How else would we explain that all star seem to be expanding away from the earth at equal rates? EG, red shift same for stars of relative distance regardless of their position in space from earth as a reference. (MAYBE the Earth is at the center?!?!) And how must I deny e=mc^2? Seems to me you have hung your entire world view on evolution as an integral base for almost all science, without realizing (or worse, refusing to investigate) the alternative explanation.
...detailed fossil record,
Actually, all we have is bones in the dirt. The "record" is put together by man, based on his assumptions and beliefs. If you would open your closed eyes to investifate the creation account, and the explanation of the same evidence, you would find it takes less faith to believe than evolution.
But the most ridiculous part is that the Bible does not assert a 4000 year old earth.
Ever actually read the book for yourself? Or are you a good evolutionist, and never investigate the other side for validity? Read Genesis 5:1-32, and Genesis 11:10-26. Hint:Abraham died somewhere around 2150-2050 BC. If you add up the numbers, the earth is around 6000 years old.
We have had Jewish scholars on these threads patiently explain that the Biblical account of creation (particularly the inference of a time scale)
Then why did the writer of Genesis 1 go to so much trouble to explain "the evening and the morning were the first day". Of course, you (they) can explain that to mean Billions of years, but it reads like a day to me. Final problem is that according to Genesis, God created plants the day before he created the sun! So He sustained the plants for milions (or is it billions) of years with no sun! Wow!!!Genesis 2:7 says "God formed man from the dust of the earth" not by millions of cycles of death and evolution.
Just because some "scolars" sacrifice the integrity of the scripture to fit in with "modern science" (sic), does not make them correct.
The point of the article in the first place is that because someone claims something, investigate their beliefs and action to verify they are true.
If you can't trust the Bible on creation, how can we trust it on Salvation? On Christ's deity? Many "modern biblical scolars" (sic) deny Christ was raised in bodily form, or that he even died! (like the muslims, eh?)
Before you know, we can deny sin, absolutes, etc!
Before you make silly assertions based on statements by "authorities", please investigate the Biblical claims on your own! God intentionally had it written in simple terms so we all could understand it. And remeber this, if the Catholic Church had it's way during the reformation, no one but the priests would have the Bible today!
DISCALIMER: Oh, and by the way, Evolution here on FR does not refer to astronomy, Big Bang, Physics, etc. "Evolution", as "proven fact", only means that we "know" less complex bilogical organisms evolve to more complex animals via natural selection and mutation.
That is exactly why it CAN be trusted! Another proof of inspiration. A library of books, written over a minimum of 1500 years by 40 authors minimum on 3 different continents, in 3 languages, yet they consistently convey the same message with no contradictions! Also, it has not been revised thousands of time to fit in with the latest findings and theories, either!
Amen.
Since you assert a big bang, you also deny there is a center to the universe, eh?
Yes, so what??
So there was a big explosion, but now there is no center, and no place for the "inflating baloon" to start empty. How else would we explain that all star seem to be expanding away from the earth at equal rates? EG, red shift same for stars of relative distance regardless of their position in space from earth as a reference. (MAYBE the Earth is at the center?!?!)
Again, yes, but so what. There is indeed no definitive "center" to the universe. It is undefined under General Relativity anyway. So what??? Could the earth be the center. Sure, as could absolutely every other point in the universe. Again, so what?? I don't understand how this supports either Biblical creation or somehow diminishes the notion of the big bang.
"inflating baloon" to start empty.
What inflating baloon that is empty??? That makes no sense. It wasn't empty. The "baloon" doesn't "inflate", that is not what inflation refers to.
And how must I deny e=mc^2?
My comment was that you were denying General Relativity, not Special Relativity. Two entirely different theories applying to two entirely different phenomena.
But let's go back to the big bang. If you work it in reverse, it means that the universe is 15 billion years old. OK, God could have done that. I suppose that's your point. However, it is also consistent with the cosmic microwave background, which is entirely consistent with Planck black body radiation, plasma physics, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics. So, you need all that physics, all of which has been demonstrated elsewhere in the laboratory, in order to demonstrate the cosmic microwave background. Furthermore, you need General (not special) relativity and the big bang to make the whole thing consistent.
Now, you can argue that God could have done all of that. However, the argument gets progressively more silly. Let's just assume that He created the entire universe 6000 years ago. OK, He could have also put all of the stars and galaxies in the heavens as well, all moving away as if there had been a singular explosion. And, He would have created all of the physics laws too. OK, that might work. But it becomes silly when you assume that he also put in the cosmic microwave background as well. Why do that too?? And why make it EXACTLY right with all the physics and the expansion of the universe?? Just to lead us astray?? What's the point?? It is this area where you are denying astronomy (the observation of the big bang), gravity (General Relativity), etc. (OK, not Newtons laws here, you managed to avoid that).
The fossile record is a matter of observation. All of which can be dated. And the dating is based on that same nuclear physics, namely the decay rates of various isotopes (both Carbon 14 and its precursors).
Again, you can invoke this contrivance that it was all made by God 6,000 years ago, and he just decayed everything so it would look like it was millions of years old based on His physics. I can understand that He created the physics, but why decay everything so it matches EXACTLY. Consider that the evolutionary progression from simple to more sophisticated life forms is essentially monotonic when dated.
One thing I have learned by observing the universe. God is not wastefull. He is not capricious. His design is extraordinarily economic. As Einstein stated: "God is subtle, but He is not malicious."
If you add up the numbers, the earth is around 6000 years old.
OK, I was off by a factor of 1.5. You are off by a factor of 1.5 million.
If you would open your closed eyes to investifate the creation account, and the explanation of the same evidence, you would find it takes less faith to believe than evolution
I have heard this and similar claims on FR before. And, each time, with "an open mind" I have reasonably asked for the proof of the assertion. One person stated that ID had to be true because "he could do the math." So, I asked him to do the math and post it. The response was silence. I have asked about the ID argument that invokes the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. I either got silence or a completely incorrect argument by someone who has never calculated the entropy (which is done from a canonical ensemble by the way). It was nonsense. I even got one person who stated that 2 + 5 was not 7. So, I continue to make the honest request.
So you think that creationism makes a better, more logical, explanation of the observations than evolution. OK, pick a subject, make your case. (If you can't decide, then do the big bang and the microwave background).
Or are you a good evolutionist, and never investigate the other side for validity?
OK, we are even on the name calling bit.
You did, however, avoid calling me an atheist or a satanist, which is what many of the creationist crowd do, and I appreciate it, since I am a Christian. However, you do call my interpretation of faith into question. So, I will politely question yours.
So, my thought is that when you go to Heaven, jimmyray, and I will stipulate that you may, God may say to you:" jimmyray, welcome to Heaven. You were a good person. However, that Biblical creationist stuff. Did you really think that was the best that I could do?? That was the explanation I gave to simple herdsmen. However, I gave you my most precious gift, intelligence and the hope you would use it. You would use it to explore the full majesty and beauty of my creation. That would be a form of worship too. Pity, jimmyray. You missed out. Alas, jimmyray, the explanation I gave to herdsman was simple, they could not count past the numbers on their hands. I could not have said: ' Well, start with a 4 dimensional rank-2 tensor of space and time (General Relativity). Put this in a 7 dimensional universe (string theory, quantum gravity), begin with a quantum singularity of infinite mass and infinite energy so that it can explode past its infinite gravity (renormalization), allow space itself to expand with the mass (General Relativity)....etc.'"
State your assumptions:
1. Universe started as big bang (thimbleful of matter, or less)
2. Elements produced by BB were? Where did all of the other ones come from?
3. Big Bang has no center, although it started with one.
4. Universe exploded away from the non center at incredible speed, what was light doing?
5. Why don't all galaxies spin in same direction (impart rotation direction on offsprung bodies)
6. Why don't our planets spin in the same direction.
I know you have explanations for all of this, but what are the assumptions? The Inflating balloon baloney is used to explain that the universe has no center. The alternative is...The EARTH in the center. Of course, THAT can't be true because the earth is a meaningless speck in the enormity of the universe, and man is nothing more than an adapted chimp, which evolved from a rock. My theory takes a lot less faith than that. BTW, the scriptures declare that God "stretched out the heavens". If they were rapidly stretched to their current point, what would electromagnetic enery do?
I would suggest honestly investigating the ASSUMPTIONS of carbon 14 dating, radiocarbon dating, etc. How often do the numbers disagree with preconceptions? What is the margin of error? What is assumed about starting condition, contaminations from surroundings, rates of decay, etc.? I submit it is not nearly as clean as we have been led to believe.
If you add up the numbers, the earth is around 6000 years old.
OK, I was off by a factor of 1.5. You are off by a factor of 1.5 million.
Point is, you claimed "...But the most ridiculous part is that the Bible does not assert a 4000 year old earth. Biblical creationism has to be interpreted properly." You recanted that, or just ignored it? Point is, you have not read the Biblical account, nor investigated it's claims.
This is also evidenced by your statement
"You did, however, avoid calling me an atheist or a satanist, which is what many of the creationist crowd do, and I appreciate it, since I am a Christian. However, you do call my interpretation of faith into question. So, I will politely question yours. So, my thought is that when you go to Heaven, jimmyray, and I will stipulate that you may, God may say to you:" jimmyray, welcome to Heaven. You were a good person..
Define Christian. How does one get to heaven? Can I be good enough, as you assert? Suggested reading, Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 3:23 & 6:23, as well as Romans 10:9-10. Also John 3:16, 20:31, and Especially John 14:6-7. If I can't trust the creation account, how can I trust this? According to the Bible (not Jimmyray) man cannot get to heaven by being good enough.
Serious question: Why do you believe you are a Christian? Do you have a Biblical reason?
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