Le Sabot Post-Moderne

Disco, the number of people reading the "Left Behind" series is truely frightening. (serious, not a joke)

You're right that the most interesting thinkers... the creative edge of social innovation... all comes from Christians now. The secular left is out of ideas, and it shows.

A more interesting question is why all the great Christian universities you list (Harvard, etc.) all STOPPED being Christian at some point. Why? As new Christian institutions and movements are birthing around the world now, how do we lay the foundations so that they will be true to their founding spirit?

Interesting post. I have my eye on Patrick Henry College in Purceville, VA for my 13 year old son. A brand new christian college that just whupped Oxford in a moot court debate in England. And they've structured their by-laws so it won't turn into a Harvard or Yale by beiong taken over by lunatic liberals.

Shannon wrote: "And they've structured their by-laws so it won't turn into a Harvard or Yale by beiong taken over by lunatic liberals."

How? I can see some structural things one could do, like requiring a certain number of seats on the board to go to pastors to keep the connection between the college and the practicing, worshipping church (I know at least one Christian college that has tried this).

My bigger question is whether there is some inherent entropy that sets in when Christianity is institutionalized in academia... whether a sort of negative cultural inertia is inevitable due to the nature of christianity (at it's best when it is a counter-culture movement) and the academy (in which new ideas are valued just because they are new)?

Greg-

I only have a sec, but I wanted to chime in on this:

"the nature of christianity (at it's best when it is a counter-culture movement)"

I have a slightly different take on Christianity. I think we should strive to BE the culture -- not in an ugly, repressive sort of way, but in the sense of permeating the culture and providing its basis for comprehending the world. And in a situation like our own, a pagan one, our approach shouldn't be merely counter-cultural, but transformative.

and the academy (in which new ideas are valued just because they are new)?

I think this is crucial to the discussion. You're describing Academe as it is NOW. But many of these Christian universities are consciously returning to a humanistic, classical view of education that sees it as a way of forming character and transmitting the permanent things to the next generation. This is also true of many of the new Reformed private schools.

I do think you have a point though, in that there is a natural tendency toward degredation. Eternal vigilance is the price of orthodoxy. I think it fair to modify O'Sullivan's Law: Any organization that isn't actively theologically conservative will eventually become secularized.

Salt might mix, but light won't. Don't you think Jesus point is that they are different? What salt and light have in common is that they are radical. They stand in contrast against the darkness and against all other flavors. So the lesson of the text is that we must have the differentness of the counterintuitive beatitudes. We can't help being in the world, but we can stand out from it.

I do agree that being stupid only makes us stand out in the wrong way though.

Discoshaman: Of course we agree that Christianity has the power to be transformative of culture and is at its best when it is transforming pagan culture. But this very point leads to an inevitable paradox: what happens when Christianity, having conquered pagan culture in a given society, becomes the dominant, established culture itself?

When in church history (or Old Testament biblical history for that matter) have the faithful not succumbed to a kind of entropy and turned to apostasy? Constantine transforms the Roman world to a Christian world... and Christianity becomes institutionalized and loses its vital transformative mission. The Reformation is a glorious revival and transformation... but within a generation it devolves into religious warfare and institutional corruption. Protestatism transforms Britain, but ends with Cromwell burning Irish Catholics and the corruption of the Church of England. Jonathan Edwards sparks the First Great Awakening... but within a generation his church is empty and the colleges founded from that vibrancy are degenerating into secularism.

Because Christianity has a transformative mission vis-a-vis pagan culture, it is uncomfortable with being the establishment. This is the tension of being in the world but not of the world, etc.

Actually, I am more optimistic that the return of pagan culture across the globe frees Christianity from the Constantinian dream of "Christendom" -- the notion that we can rule -- and returns us to a prophetic, missional and transformative role in society. Freed of the seduction of ruling the world, we are called to be salt and light within it...

There is so much more to discuss on this, because it's at the heart of the identity and purpose of the church...

Greg-

"Of course we agree that Christianity has the power to be transformative of culture "

I don't see it as an "of course" thing. . . We don't know each other well yet, and there are plenty of 'don't polish brass on a sinking ship' Christians who would have disagreed with what I wrote. I was just starting with a general statement, and assumed we could move from there. More later, after sleep and work. :-)

Oh, and about the academy: you're right about eternal vigilance being the price of orthodoxy. Isn't that true in our personal relationship with Christ? We must be ever vigilant of our own soul, guarding and feeding the new mind in Christ, otherwise entropy sets in. Actually, what sets in is worse than entropy: it's sin. A Christian college is exactly the same (I say that having sat on the board of trustees of a Christian college and seen the price of inattention).

But I was saying that the essence of the academy is that it values novelty. Look, every year a new crop of doctoral candidates has to think of something clever and original to write their dissertations on. And it's publish or perish: and nobody gets published writing articles that simply restate common knowledge. The academy not only values new ideas and testing the cannon of any given discipline... it exists to do that.

Given that, it's tough to encourage creativity and yet preserve orthodoxy. Error in one direction and you get Yale Divinity School. Error in the other direction and you get Bob Jones University.

"Magdalen College bans not only televisions in students' rooms [fair enough!] but also dating, hanging pictures on dorm-room walls, and sitting with one's friends during meals."

...isn't this an overreaction?

Valerie-

I think it's incredibly weird. I'm cheering the academic progress at these schools, not the ascetism. I think the extra-biblical rules established by both Catholic and Protestant Fundamentalists smack of the pharisaical. The Bible teaches us how to be holy, and pictures on the dorm walls aren't mentioned. :)

Just discovered you blog and enjoyed it very much, particularly this thread on the University. Having grown up in the fundamentalist sub-culture, it has always seemed like an incongruity that we profess the need to bring Christ to our culture, yet create parallel organizations and institutions remove us from the very culture we say we want to transform.

After having visited the Brownsville Assembly of God Church, I have to disagree with your comparison of it with the infamous, and unchristian Left Behind series of books. They are a good, God-fearing Church, and many of come to know Jesus through it. Did Jesus not say that he who is not against me is for me, and also that you can test something by its fruits? God can be worshiped out of the reformed church. And he can be worshiped in new ways, with new music (Some of the reformed songs, like Martin Luther's ones were bar-songs with new words).