The Wall Street Journal - A Test of Faith: A professor's firing after his conversion highlights a new orthodoxy at religious collegesJan. 3, 2006
By Daniel GoldenCopyright 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
The Wall Street Journal reports about hiring practices at religious universities, including Baylor.
WHEATON, Ill. -- Wheaton College was delighted to have assistant professor Joshua Hochschild teach students about medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas, one of Roman Catholicism's foremost thinkers.
But when the popular teacher converted to Catholicism, the prestigious evangelical college reacted differently. It fired him.
Wheaton, like many evangelical colleges, requires full-time faculty members to be Protestants and sign a statement of belief in "biblical doctrine that is consonant with evangelical Christianity." In a letter notifying Mr. Hochschild of the college's decision, Wheaton's president said his "personal desire" to retain "a gifted brother in Christ" was outweighed by his duty to employ "faculty who embody the institution's evangelical Protestant convictions."
Mr. Hochschild, 33 years old, who was considered by his department a shoo-in for tenure, says he's still willing to sign the Wheaton faith statement. He left last spring, taking a 10% pay cut and roiling his family life, to move to a less-renowned Catholic college.
Mr. Hochschild's dismissal captures tensions coursing through many of America's religious colleges. At these institutions, which are mostly Protestant or Catholic, decisions about hiring and retaining faculty members are coming into conflict with a resurgence of religious identity.
Historically, religious colleges mainly picked faculty of their own faith. In the last third of the 20th century, however, as enrollments soared and higher education boomed, many Catholic colleges enhanced their prestige by broadening their hiring, choosing professors on the basis of teaching and research. As animosities between Catholics and Protestants thawed, some evangelical Protestant colleges began hiring faculty from other Christian faiths.
But now a conservative reaction is setting in, part of a broader push against the secularization of American society. Fearful of forsaking their spiritual and educational moorings, colleges are increasingly "hiring for mission," as the catch phrase goes, even at the cost of eliminating more academically qualified candidates.
Addressing faculty at the University of Notre Dame, the school's new president, the Rev. John Jenkins, recently expressed concern that the percentage of faculty who were Catholic had fallen to 53%, compared with 85% in the 1970s. Today's level is barely above a line set in 1990 by the late Pope John Paul II, who decreed that non-Catholics shouldn't be a majority of the faculty at a Catholic university.
Notre Dame is compiling a database of candidates who can contribute to the university's religious mission. Administrators say that instead of reducing quality, Notre Dame's religious identity has lured some premier faculty, such as associate professor Brad Gregory, who left a tenured job at Stanford in 2003 for an equivalent, higher-paying position. "Notre Dame's Catholic character wasn't only a factor, it was the factor," says Mr. Gregory, a Catholic, who specializes in the history of Christianity. "By any ordinary measure, you'd be crazy to leave Stanford for Notre Dame."
At another Catholic school, Boston College, some administrators would like to hire more people committed to its religious mission, but its faculty has proved "particularly resistant," says a 2004 report by the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. To achieve its goals, the college is contemplating establishing research centers on Catholic intellectual tradition and Catholic education. Georgetown University, also a prominent Catholic school, appointed its first vice president for mission and ministry, a Jesuit priest, in 2003.
About 400 U.S. colleges cite religion as an element in their hiring policies. And many of these colleges, such as Brigham Young, an almost entirely Mormon university, are growing fast. At the 102 evangelical Protestant schools belonging to the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, full-time faculty rose 36.2% from 1991 to 2003, the latest available data. These schools hire only Christians, mostly Protestants.
Defining evangelical schools isn't easy to do, but in general they are populated by people of various Protestant faiths who share a common religious vision. That includes a commitment to spreading the word of God and a literal interpretation of the Bible.
Many, like Wheaton, bar Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faculty. "We've got a marvelous Greek Orthodox person we'd kill to hire and we can't," says Wheaton sociologist James Mathisen. Mr. Mathisen says he has mixed feelings about the Protestants-only policy. He understands the religious rationale but also feels it deprives Wheaton of quality faculty.
Such hiring policies would be illegal at most universities but the 1964 Civil Rights Act carves out an exemption for religious colleges. Their students qualify for federal financial aid. Partly because of their hiring practices, evangelical Protestant colleges have been denied certain kinds of aid in California and Colorado under laws barring support of "pervasively sectarian" schools.
Phi Beta Kappa, the honors society, hasn't established a chapter at any of the evangelical colleges that make up the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, including Wheaton. Kelly Gerald, a spokeswoman, says the society wants to uphold what it sees as the values inherent in the liberal arts and sciences, such as tolerance for diverse points of view. The American Economics Association, which operates a Web site for academic job seekers, deletes references to religious preferences in job listings.
Injecting faith into hiring decisions often runs counter to decades of tradition -- even at religious schools -- and as a result has sparked fierce debate. Robert Sloan stepped down last year from his position as president of Baylor, a Baptist university in Waco, Texas. He alienated some faculty by questioning job candidates about how they would infuse religion into teaching and research, and vetoing some who didn't answer satisfactorily.
Mr. Sloan, now the school's chancellor, says the unhappiness was "one of the central factors" in the "turmoil" that led to his resignation. John M. Lilley, the new president, won't interview faculty candidates, says Baylor Provost Randall O'Brien, a high-ranking administrator.
Baylor hires only Christians and Jews. According to Mr. Sloan, Jews were included because a prominent Jewish scholar was on the faculty at the time the policy was formulated. Mr. Sloan says the school gives hiring preference to Baptists first, followed by other Protestant evangelicals, then other Protestants, other Christians, and lastly Jews.
Wheaton College, founded in 1860, is ranked the 55th top liberal arts college by U.S. News and World Report. It has an endowment of $294 million. On the 1600-point SAT scale the average combined verbal and math score of entering freshmen is 1336, similar to the average scores at University of Virginia and Bryn Mawr.
Wheaton has a handful of Catholic students, houses papers of Catholic authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and welcomes Catholic visiting professors. But it has never hired a Catholic professor full time and tells Catholic applicants it won't consider them for such posts.
In 1993, Wheaton's English department did venture outside Protestant circles, bringing in visiting professor Thomas Howard, whose conversion to Catholicism had cost him a job at an evangelical school in Massachusetts. That same year, Wheaton hired a minister from an evangelical church in Tennessee, Duane Litfin, as its president. One of Mr. Litfin's early acts was to prevent Mr. Howard from giving a speech in the college chapel. Mr. Litfin says his decision was in line with college rules.
Since then, Mr. Litfin has mostly stuck to tradition. An exception in 2003 was easing Wheaton's ban on faculty drinking, which was considered a disadvantage in recruiting.
In a 2004 book titled "Conceiving the Christian College," Mr. Litfin argued that hiring Catholics would start Wheaton down a slippery slope. Wouldn't having Catholic faculty, he asked rhetorically, "lead to a gradual sacrificing of Wheaton's distinctives?"
In an interview, Mr. Litfin acknowledges that a ban on Catholic faculty "narrows the pool that you can draw from." But he says that the school's niche is also a key to its success. "If you look at the caliber of our faculty, this is an amazing place. It's thriving. Why do genetic engineering on it? Why muck up its DNA?"
As president, Mr. Litfin was forced to tackle that question, which came unexpectedly from a young professor traveling a roundabout spiritual journey.
Joshua Hochschild grew up in Plainfield, Vt. His father, who died when Joshua was 9, was Jewish; his mother came from a Lutheran family. Neither was observant. Josh edited the student newspaper and was valedictorian at his public high school before enrolling at Yale.
There, for the first time, he made friends who took religion seriously. Studying philosophy, he came to believe that many important philosophical questions ultimately lead back to religious ones. Evangelized by an Episcopalian friend, he converted as a sophomore and was later baptized. Of Protestant denominations, Episcopalianism is closest in doctrine, liturgy and hierarchy to Catholicism.
Mr. Hochschild's brother Adam, a St. Louis lawyer, says he was appalled by his brother's religious turn at the time. "I just thought he had been lost to the dark side," he jokingly recalls. Eventually, Adam also became a Catholic -- on the same day as his brother.
Mr. Hochschild pursued his philosophy studies in graduate school at Notre Dame. "I had friends who thought, 'You're going to Notre Dame, you'll convert,' " recalls Mr. Hochschild, who says he gave the matter little thought. His Ph.D. dissertation analyzed the 15th-century writings of a Vatican cardinal, who was later sent to urge Martin Luther, the founding father of Protestantism, to recant.
When he got his doctorate, Mr. Hochschild was offered jobs by Wheaton and a Catholic school -- Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Md. Says Carol Hinds, a former Mount St. Mary's provost: "He was a Protestant, but he was a faithful person. He could contribute to the mission." Feeling "in between" the two schools' spiritual traditions, Mr. Hochschild chose Wheaton.
He signed Wheaton's faith statement, which asserts that the Bible is "inerrant," meaning without error, and "of supreme and final authority." Wheaton President Mr. Litfin asked in a job interview how Mr. Hochschild understood that passage, according to their later correspondence. Mr. Hochschild said he agreed, but added that the Bible should be read in light of "authoritative traditions," an example of which would be church councils. Although that view is closer to Catholicism than evangelical Protestantism, the president approved the appointment.
Mr. Hochschild got on well with colleagues and students, and University of Notre Dame Press agreed to publish his revised dissertation. "He was excellent on every score," says Wheaton's philosophy department chairman, Robert O'Connor.
Yet a question nagged Mr. Hochschild: Why am I not a Catholic? As he saw it, evangelical Protestantism was vaguely defined and had a weak scholarly tradition, which sharpened his admiration for Catholicism's self-assurance and intellectual history. "I even had students who asked me why I wasn't Catholic," he says. "I didn't have a decent answer."
His wife, Paige, said her husband's distaste for the "evangelical suspicion of philosophy" at the school might have contributed to his ultimate conversion. The Hochschilds say some evangelicals worry that learning about philosophy undermines students' religious convictions.
During a 2003 academic conference at Notre Dame, Mr. Hochschild revealed his anguish to another attendee, a priest. The priest replied that Mr. Hochschild seemed, in his heart, to have already embraced Catholicism. Although he had taken Communion in the Episcopalian church, Mr. Hochschild realized after the conversation that he longed to "obey the Gospel commands to eat the flesh of Christ [as a Catholic]." Returning home, he signed up for a Catholic initiation class.
Aware of Wheaton's Protestants-only policy, Mr. Hochschild recalls thinking he would probably lose his job. In September 2003, he told the philosophy chairman, Mr. O'Connor, of his intention to convert. Hoping Mr. Hochschild could stay, Mr. O'Connor notified the administration.
In general, Catholics believe the Pope is the final authority on religious matters. Protestants reject that authority and generally profess a direct relationship between the individual and the Almighty.
A months-long debate followed between President Litfin and Mr. Hochschild. They argued over whether the professor could subscribe to Wheaton's faith statement, which faculty must reaffirm annually. Like most evangelical colleges, Wheaton bases its employment practices on such a document.
Wheaton's 12-point statement doesn't explicitly exclude Catholics. But its emphasis on Scripture as the "supreme and final authority" and its aligning of Wheaton with "evangelical Christianity" were unmistakably Protestant, Mr. Litfin wrote to Mr. Hochschild in late 2003. Because Catholics regard the Bible and the pope as equally authoritative, a Catholic "cannot faithfully affirm" the Wheaton statement, he continued.
Mr. Hochschild disagreed. The Bible, he wrote, is indeed the supreme authority for Catholics, who turn to the Church hierarchy only as Protestants consult their ministers. While acknowledging the college's right to exclude Catholics -- and knowing his position was endangered -- he replied that as a matter of principle, "I see no reason why I should be dismissed from the College upon joining the Roman Catholic Church."
Mr. Hochschild was "quibbling," the president retorted four days later. "Perhaps Wheaton College has come to a point where, because of challenges such as yours, it must revise its documents to make more explicit its non-Catholic identity."
Mr. Litfin said the college would terminate Mr. Hochschild's employment at the end of the 2003-2004 school year. He later agreed to let Mr. Hochschild stay another year to find a job. On the eve of Easter 2004, Mr. Hochschild was received into the Catholic church.
President Litfin's office is across the street from the Billy Graham Center, named for the famed preacher and Wheaton alumnus who has sought to reconcile Protestants and Catholics. The president says he has also been "a part of this rapprochement." But, he maintains, the core doctrinal issues separating Protestants and Catholics "have by no means gone away."
The president wouldn't discuss the specifics of Mr. Hochschild's case, which he calls a personnel matter. He did say, "Josh is a terrific young guy. We would have loved to keep him."
The decision disappointed some at the college. Describing his ex-colleague's conversion as "a real act of intellectual and spiritual courage," philosophy professor W. Jay Wood says Wheaton could enhance its quality by "expanding the extent to which it draws on evangelicals within the major Christian traditions -- Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant." Indeed, not all evangelical schools are so strict. Messiah College, in Grantham, Pa., counts a dozen Catholics among 170 faculty.
Josh Carlton, a 2004 Wheaton graduate, says Mr. Hochschild excelled at guiding discussion. "I'm thinking about graduate school, and I don't know if I would be doing that if I hadn't had him," says the philosophy major, who complained to trustees about the dismissal. Mr. Litfin says the majority of faculty, students and alumni support the Protestant-only hiring policy.
At home, Mr. Hochschild encountered doubts within his family. His wife, a Canadian native, remains Episcopalian. "I hoped she would convert to Catholicism," Mr. Hochschild says. "I tried for a while to press it, but that's not the kind of thing you can force."
Mrs. Hochschild, who recently finished her dissertation in theology at the United Kingdom's Durham University, says she sometimes wishes her husband would have "waited for the rest of the family to be on board." But, she says, she trusts his reasoning and convictions. The Hochschilds are raising their three children, ages 11 months to 5 years, as Catholics.
His brother Adam says Mr. Hochschild "knew he was supposed to be doing what he was doing" and was calm about the decision, even though he was his family's sole breadwinner.
In what was at best a lateral move, Mr. Hochschild accepted a lower-paying assistant professorship at Mount St. Mary's, the college he once spurned. Mr. Hochschild applied to both secular and Catholic colleges, but only the latter invited him for interviews.
Mount St. Mary's has a lower average freshman SAT score -- 1094 -- than Wheaton and a much smaller endowment of $33 million. The transition delayed his opportunity for tenure by two years, increased his teaching load and uprooted the Hochschilds from their home in an affluent Chicago suburb. They now live in a smaller, rented house on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border.
On Sundays, the family worships at a Catholic church, St. Anthony's Shrine, though Mrs. Hochschild sometimes slips out early to an Episcopal one. Mr. Hochschild wishes the service, which features modern hymns, was more traditional.
For Mount St. Mary's, Mr. Hochschild's newfound Catholicism was a bonus because the school was just starting to reassert its own religious mission. The Rev. J. Wilfrid Parent, the school's executive director for Catholic identity, says he will be involved in hiring new faculty, asking candidates about their faith and tracking the proportion of Catholics.
Meanwhile, Wheaton hasn't replaced Mr. Hochschild. One obstacle: Most scholars of medieval philosophy are Catholics.
37 comments:
Sometimes I really hate that bastard Litfin. Most times, actually.
Yeah, reading stuff like that makes me feel a lot less regret about leaving, to be honest.
Are we breaking copyright law by posting the article in its entirety here?
yes, yes we are.
So, at the risk of encountering the sort of deadening silence that usually accompanies a serious question these days on our beloved blog: if we object (and it seems as if several of us, at least, do) to Litfin's handling of Wheaton's institutional mission, what alternative would you propose? Is it possible for Wheaton to remain (or solidify) its conservative, Protestant identity and still attract quality faculty like Josh? Or must it choose one or the other? I welcome your response, and scoff at your attempts to ignore the question (you're like that kid in the back of my classroom who pulls his hat down further and further to avoid my scintilating comments on literature and life.)
Seriously, though, I'd love to have a conversation about this with somebody... anybody, really.
I wonder if Wheaton produces more disgruntled Alumni than the average college.
Dosen't everything depend on one's position vis. "quality" as it relates to "conservative?"
From my vague notions of it, the mainstream accademic world structures its notion of quality around risk-taking, free thinking, unswervingly brave questioning, wit, word play, etc. Oh yes, and publishing like a crazy person. Conservation of identity means nothing in this schema unless we are talking in vague motive-generalities such as those listed above. For institution leaders, to be brave is nobel (so long as it is in the context of the brave question), to be Protestant is to throw off one's potential nobiliby--to become the dull serf who does not look up from her labors and who keeps her whole family subject to an unthinking Ruler. Conservatism, for the liberal, is forced slavery, and thus cannot be quality.
But if one is conservative, nothing about the above kingdom enchants or pleases. Quality, for the conservative, is always structured within the boundary of traditon. Risk-taking, free thinking, unswervingly brave questioning, wit, word play, are all valued only if they respect the city walls. Here, the conserved identity itself is nobel, and the institution leader sees himself charged with the task of keeping and guarding what has been handed to him. To be Protestant first is to be brave, to remain Protestant is to be nobel.
Can conservative be quality? It has to do with what city your living in or walking toward, dosen't it?
To be "conservative", particularly as regards one's identity, seems to flow (or very often to originate) from two sources (either independently or in combination): fear and arrogance.
This fear, generally, is fear of the unknown. It is also fear of ceasing to remain recognizable (fear that one's identity will die, and so fear of death); Litfin's rhetoric often falls into this category. Using an example from Holy Scripture, it is also the fear that makes us hide talents underground for fear of losing them.
Conservatism is arrogance when it assumes that it already has the answers right. If I know the truth with relative totality-- if I own it, if I proclaim what measures up to it, if I AM it-- then why should I be open to change or, for that matter, anyone who isn't me?
A third possibile eplanation (and, given the fact that a college is a burocratic institution, perhaps an important one in this instance) is that conservatism is easy. The rules are already made, everything that you are required to do is already laid out, and your only responsibility is to apply the rule regardless of the particulars of the situation. This may secure the rule of law, but it will never produce justice.
(There are other reasons, of course, but these seem particularly applicable to the evangelical movement in which I have spent most of my life.)
It is important to note the distinction between conservative and traditional. Tradition, as traditionally understood, is an aid to memory, not a final word. It is a lively conversation to which we, the late-arrivals, pull up a chair and join falteringly as we pick up threads from the discussion. "Traditional" and "Progressive" are not mutually exclusive terms-- particularly if your tradition begins with a reformation!
Finally, Litfin is neither traditional nor progressive. He is not traditional: there are no traditions of the Church that Josh Hochschild does not endorse, support and, in my experience, live. Nor is he progressive: the current trajectories of both Roman Catholicism and Evangelical Protestantism are towards greater unity, agreement and cooperation between these two branches of Christianity.
As Christians, we and our common alma matter should be less concerned with whether we continue to look like ourselves (self-identity) and more concerned with whether we continue to follow Christ as He reveals himself in our developing traditions. That entails changing as our understanding changes and not remaining fixed at the feet of conceptual idols we have made in our own image. We should, like Meister Eckhart, "pray to God to rid me of 'God'."
[How's that, Andy?]
Dave,
As usual, I found your comment interesting and insightful. I do want to quibble with one particular image, however. One lesson I continually learn-- and was often helped along by you, Dave-- is that this is not our home. (I believe that "not my home" is the listed residence on your blogger profile.) So, I want to argue with your image of the city walls, especially as applied to traditional Protestantism. This is NOT our home; we are wanderers, travelers and pilgrims (like Abraham. Whatever city's walls surround us, it is the City of Man, not the City of God. We are always moving towards that City and cannot rest comfortably within the walls of any other.
I think it's wholly possible to look at each prof or potential prof as an individual and, regardless of their "sect" within the general "Christian category", decide if that individual can "teach" (or whatever it is professors do) the students in line with Wheaton's guidelines or general philosophy. It sounds to me like this Josh fellow would have continued to be a fine teacher; I think other people under the same circumstances might not have.
It comes down to the administration knowing each prof on a personal level. This article makes it sound like all of Litfin's correspondence with "Josh" was limited to written dialog. Seems odd, if that's really the case.
I don't think it would be untenable at all to have a policy of "Protestant only, with exceptions to be determined according to the applicant".
Coye, it's funny. After I finished the "two cities" paragraphs, I noticed that I didn't feel comfortable in either one. The fact is, though, the cities do exist (as far as I can tell, anyway!), and I think it's helpful to point them out. I also tried to make room for the fact that there are areas outside of either, where we are traveling toward one or the other. But, yes, there needs to be a third category for those of us who prefer "tenting." I don't know if we could ever start a large institution, though! (And, remember, we're talking INSTITUTIONALLY).
Now on to a few quibbles of my own :)
What's this about "tradition as traditionally understood?" You make it sound as if our forefathers and mothers were strictly pleasant folks who listened quietly and spoke nicely around the proverbial table.
In the history I'm coming to know, "memory aid" might apply only in the twisted terms of "when we cut off your head, it will AID our children in not REMEMBERING what you said."
Yes, there were and are moments of brilliant and spirit filled conversation in our traditions, but that is not the normal state of affairs.
And, finally, I think it is rather unfair to relegate fear and arrogance to the "conservative" camp. For example, what else could possibly lie behind the real hate you feel toward Litfin. Hate, it seems to me, is always rooted in fear.
"Hate, it seems to me, is always rooted in fear."
Is this a Yoda quote?
"It seems remarkably disengenuous to elevate an individual professor for holding to his own personal ideology, while criticizing an entire college for daring to do likewise."
Sort of like praising Rosa Parks for standing up for her personal ideology while criticizing the Montgomery bus system for daring to do likewise.
Evading the issue, you are.
But, whatever; go ahead and strike.
I know you were secretly praying for a Jewish Mysticism class at Wheaton, Grady. Taught by a hasidic rabbi.
The analogy is apt: both have to do with institutional discrimination against individuals. It is heavily loaded, I admitt, but if you're going to use an analogy... It is intended to point out that, in our moral judgments, institutions (such as the college or state) do not hold strictly equivalent positions with individuals (in this case, Dr. Hochschild or Ms. Parks). Grady's conflation of those two categories forms the really dubious analogy.
Sure, fear often motivates hatred. Is it the only source... I don't think so. To use another (HEAVILY) loaded example, Christ's anger at the moneychangers (or at his disciples' unbelief or at oppressive religious leaders--He did tend to get angry from time to time) does not seem to be motivated by fear. Plato talks about a tripartite soul containing a rational intellect, "animal" desires and a third thing "between" those two. Plato called it a "spirited element" and it is the emotional force that supports moral judgments made by the intellect. (CS Lewis draws on this idea in "Men Without Chests" in The Abolition of Man: people "without chests" no longer feel that emotional force behind moral judgments.) It's not a perfect description of the psyche, I know, but it does provide us (convincingly, I think) with a non-fear source of anger.
But the dark side avoid I will try.
I can't help it if the traditional definition of tradition literally is "an aid to memory." I didn't make it up.
Constant adaptation, individual self-preservation... really it's none of the above, Grady. I've been trying to talk about an ethical situation, and ethics are necessarily particular. I can't give you a generalized theory of interaction between colleges and professors. If you can't find a coherent system behind what I'm saying, it's because coherence isn't always that useful. Sometimes it kills people. To quote a fellow Frederick, "I mistrust all systemitizers." We draw comparisons, we look for precedent, but it always has to be judged on an individual basis. In this particular case, the college was wrong. Very wrong. I would say, "It's their loss" and move on, but it's also Hochschild's loss, our loss and a loss to everyone who goes to Wheaton in the next twenty or thirty years. I also think that the policy [i.e. the Protestant inquisition] is deletrious to the academic, moral, religious and political states of the college, as it is today, in the present set of contexts.
Coye,
Your correction taken.
As you stay away from the dark side, I'll stay away from the land (or city!) of generalizationville.
The Holy Spirit does warn us about anger, though; so we should be at least wary of it. "The anger of God does not produce the righteousness that God requires (or NIV 'desires')" (James, the brother of Christ). Anger drives us toward the raging, "you fool" that Jesus warns us so heavily against.
On the other hand, may we truely learn to allow ourselves to manifest the kind of righteous anger Jesus displayed at the Temple--may His zeal be our zeal. May we not fall into the numbed nothingness of apathy.
Wow... have we ever had a conversation on here that ended THIS agreeable? It's almost sappy. But thank you for the conversation.
Just to clarify: my ethical tendencies (I REALLY don't want to say "system") are primarily French and Jewish in origin.
While we're singing our sappy songs, can we agree on tradition too?
Yes, "a tradition"--a repeated narritive that is passed from story-teller to story-teller--is properly understood as an aid to memory. That is one thing. However, you must grant that we have switched categories when we speak of the Protestant Tradition or the Catholic Tradition. Yes, the first kinds of tradition is involved here, but they are not the sum of the parts. In one instance we are speaking of an aspect of a sub-culture (or culture), in another we are speaking of the sub-culture itself.
I followed this thread. It strikes me as exemplary, especially in its conclusion. Do it again, please.
If the problem lies solely in the identity of an evangelical subculture [and "evangelical" is the more precise term than Protestant for discussing Wheaton's identity issues-- Jonathan Blanchard, etc.] then I say that here, on this issue [how we interact with Catholics, Orthodox, etc.], the isolationist urge is wrong and needs to change. I say this as someone who has spent his entire life in that subculture and who recently attended the institution in question; that is to say, I am an insider intimately acquainted with the finer points of conservative evangelicalism, and I recognize its rejection of people exemplified by Joshua Hochschild's dismissal as a serious ethical problem in the movement.
[Also, I would not say that "Christian tradition" is a part of Protestantism and Catholicism; rather, I would say that they are each versions of Christian tradition, or, simply, that they are Christian traditions. As "humanity" doesn't exist apart from particular humans, Christianity does not exist apart from particular traditions.]
I hope this doesn't spoil the moment.
1) Andy, you're the one who wanted this conversation, yet you remain silent. Pull up a chair and join the conversation!
2) Coye, in your judgment, is it ever Just to bar a person from a leadership position at a Christian institution because of what they believe or profess? If it IS ever Just, how would one judge between particular situations? Also, is such activity always located within an "isolationist urge"?
3) Grady, you might want to be a bit more hesitant to speak on behalf of "most" or "many" sociologists. It might be wiser to let James Mathisen do that.
I referenced Dr. Mathisen mostly because he was quoted in the WSJ article; he seems (interestingly) to stand against Litfin's policies (since, for example, he "would kill" [!] to hire a particular Orthodox sociology candidate). I'm guessing he does so with considerable knowledge of the sociological ramifications.
Anyway, didn't mean to be harsh (hope i wasn't)
As much as I WANT to be outside the evangelical tradition/subculture, I increasingly feel that I never will be. Twenty-three years is a substantial amount of time (especially when they encompass my entire childhood, adolescence and emergence into adult life). If Grady doubts my credentials, he should ask Dave about the conversations we used to have in which I would violently oppose anything that questioned young-earth creationism. I will admit, however, that I expect a large number of evangelicals to place me outside the scope of their identification because, among other things, I am overtly critical of the republican party. That's okay, too.
What does hurt-- although I assume it was inserted as a joke-- is Grady's insinuation that "I am responsible" for getting Dr. Hochschild fired. It hurts because Josh Hochschild is a person for whom I have much personal respect and affection, but I can't blame Grady for not knowing that about me (and knowing that I would be actually hurt by a flippant comment). That's okay, though.
As far as identity and community: you're not pointing anything new out to me. This issue is MY issue. I just wrote a nineteen page seminar paper on the relationship of community, identity and hospitality in the "cosmopolitan" ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida as manifest in Philip Roth's novel The Counterlife. The entire paper is about how community (the latin roots of which suggest a "common defense" against outsiders-- it comes from the same root as "munitions") identifies itself in opposition to the outsider, the stranger, the other and then writes a particular kind of exclusionary identity onto each of its members. Practically all I did for months was read philosophical texts (along with human rights reports, news coverage and political theorists-- Hannah Arendt, etc.) dealing with this issue EXACTLY. As I said, this is what I do. The problem is: If, as most contemporary ethics hold, we have an ethical responsibility to welcome the other (the totally other, taut autre), then fulfilling our ethical responsibility threatens our identity because it welcomes INTO the community the VERY person whose EXCLUSION served to define the community. Since our individual identities are based on communal assosiations, welcoming someone other than us also immediately threatens our own personal identity (this, by the way, is why the French have ostracized generations of native born French citizens of North African descent, and why they have terrible race problems in every major city, eg the country-wide riots in November). Given that Judeo-Christian ethics also focus on welcoming the stranger (widow, orphan, stranger, etc-- "in doing so many have entertained angels"; "as you do to these you do to Me"; etc.), then latching onto an identity based on the exclusion of the other threatens our identity AS FAITHFUL PEOPLE even more than welcoming the other into the community. What we are called to, in the end, is definitively NOT "community"; we are called-- both in Scriptural commands and in a broader, even secular, ethical imperative-- to hospitality (like the hospitality Abraham gave to the messengers from God). Hospitatlity is problematic-- in order to show hospitality we must maintain our position of host (hostis) in relation to the guest, but absolute hospitality, by offering everything to the guest as though it were his home, threatens to break down the relationship that provides the possibility for us to offer hospitality-- but we find ourselves responsible to its demands. Hospitality produces an ever-present threat to community, but what ethical responsibility do we bear towards community? I understand Habermas's point, and I agree with him to some extent, but the point at which we do some violence to the other for the sake of defending our tradition, at that point our tradition becomes ethically reprehensible.
Dave, of course. I question the sincerity of your first question: if you assume my answer will be "yes, Socrates, of course" then why ask it? Just say "In some cases it is necessary to bar someone from a leadership position; how do we go about deciding this?" So, how do we go about deciding this? Well, as you indicate, we make a judgment. There is NEVER enough evidence to produce a decision (the choice will always be, to some extent, undecidable) or we would not need to make a judgment (the "decision" would be reduced to the kind of mechanical action that could be performed by a computer, and I assume that human beings, not computers, are the kinds of beings that make ethical judgments). And no, all activity is not always an "isolationist urge", but there is presently an isolationist urge in the evangelical community. Just look at the group who wants to take over South Carolina. Look at "intelligent design." Look at A. Duane Litfin. This last example I see as a rejection of an other who is also our brother, which makes it a particuarly painful rejection to witness (and, in part, to participate in, since I was still paying tuition-- and therefore funding Litfin's actions-- at the time of the infamous decision).
Look, ethics are difficult, tricky, complex and deathly important. There aren't cheat sheets, short cuts or controling theories. There is, on the other hand, an enormous amount of responsibility. I know that I've talked at lenght about this on mulitple other threads on this site, so I won't belabor the point any more here.
Andy: say something (please).
Quite the interesting thread going here, to piggy back off Grady's comments, Coye's handling of the matter of hospitality seemed to make a large, possibly invalid, inference regarding interpretation of Scripture. Yes, the Bible holds hospitality in high esteem, but equating scholars with orphans and widows (the physically needy) seems to me a stretch; and as Grady mentioned, there is defense of the community in both Old and New Testament be it Israelites driving out Canaanites or early church leaders' instruction on the handling of false teachers. (Pardon the vague reference, I have no Bible at hand.)
Read your Derrida and your Levinas.
Yes! Lets load books on each other's backs! No more talking until we've all read each other's books.
And, almost as important, don't confuse illustrations with proofs.
Speaking of books piled upon backs…my books, Derrida, Benjamin, Levinas, Marcel Mauss, Bruno Latour, to say nothing of the multitude of rough drafts I had the pleasure of reading and commenting on over the weekend, have kept me out of this very engaging discussion and relegated me to the status of a mere spectator. Your hospitality, though, has limits, as I see from the repeated calls for my input.
Coye raises some very pertinent and interesting issues in his most recent post about the nature and status of community itself, which have clear resonances with the situation at Wheaton that we are trying to understand. His argues that: “latching onto an identity based on the exclusion of the other threatens our identity AS FAITHFUL PEOPLE even more than welcoming the other into the community. What we are called to, in the end, is definitively NOT "community"; we are called-- both in Scriptural commands and in a broader, even secular, ethical imperative-- to hospitality.” There is tremendous insight here. Community, defined according to indices of exclusion (which is a nice phrase I just made up) does tend to get in the way of our work in the world—to witness faithfully to the reality of Christ. Often (and sometimes in these pages) we get so caught up with drawing lines and associating or dissociating ourselves from different people and/or positions, in other words, with protecting our identities from contamination, that it becomes difficult to see the world outside our community (or is it a ghetto?).
To give us another angle on this (and to be hospitable by actually citing sources instead of just throwing names at you), I want to mention another notion of community that actually bears some interesting affinities to the model Coye is pushing us to think through. Benedict Anderson, in a great book called Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, provocatively defines the nation as an “imagined political community.” In essence, this kind of imagined community (and I think here we could extend this concept to collective identities beyond the nation without doing violence to Anderson’s argument—“Christians,” “evangelicals,” “Bears fans,” etc.) exists as a powerful abstraction, inscribing a collective self-identity upon a group of diverse people. Anderson identifies this abstract entity as imagined, because “the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion”; limited, because even the most sprawling nation or empire “has finite, if elastic boundaries, beyond which lie other nations. No nation imagines itself coterminous with mankind”; and communal, because “regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship.” I think we would agree that any collective identity is largely, if not entirely, artificial, yet these identifications have a profound influence on how we relate to the world and to each other, especially to others outside this community. For community, in Anderson’s terms, is always defined oppositionally, it requires an other to whom one can point and say that’s not who I am. Should evangelicalism be conceived along these lines? If so, do we want this kind of community?
You can often learn a lot about a community and how it works itself out in the popular imaginary by looking at boundary situations. I vividly recall, for example, attending a theology conference at Wheaton several years ago titled “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” at which Cardinal George of the Chicago Arch-Diocese was warmly welcomed to Edmund Chapel by A. Duane Litfin, in his official role as president of Wheaton College (seems ironic, now). The conference was very ecumenical, and the only sour note came when a Wheaton student asked a question from the audience, all of which I have forgotten, except for the fact that he made reference to the difference between “Christians and Catholics.” The moderator (Ken Chase, maybe?) smoothed things over by reminding the questioner that the proper terms were “Evangelicals and Catholics,” as if to say, we’re all Christians here, we’re on the same team, working toward the same ends. Clearly, though, this is a disingenuous stance at Wheaton.
Well, I am sorry that this post is pretty scattered—lots of information and little depth, but I do have to get back to my “real” work. I hope I can be more involved in this discussion (but know that Tuesday-Thursday is a black hole during while I sleep, eat, go to class, teach other classes, read, write and nothing else. So you might not see me again until Friday.)
On an unrelated note, Purdue University is in the process of founding the North American Levinas Society. Maybe next year, Coye, we should submit papers to their annual conference together.
Here's the catch: True Christian hosptitality can only flow from an ongoing dependence to the Living God. That is, you can only share everything when you are recieving from a resource without limit. This applies to everything from clothes and food (e.g. Sermon on the Mount) to Identity (e.e. Ephesians 4:22-24).
The second we cease to operate with total dependence on Jesus and his provisions--the moment we place our trust in what is by nature limited--we become unable to share, we become fearful, we sink into the wild depths of the complexity of "real" economy. This is the standard to which we are clearly called: to be a people who radically share the robust provisions of our God because He continually pours into us.
This means acting in no mere religion. This means living the life of real faith, hope and fullest of all: love. May the Lord be gracious to us that we may recieve the courage to live this standard!
You have been speaking of community based on limited resource; I am speaking of community based on unlimited resource. Community [I'd trace the etymology to the phonemes + ideas of common change or exchange (think mutible)] itself is not the culprit, it is nature of a community's source (and its response to that source) that will be judged.
Now, that said, there are CLEAR reasons for boundaries that keep false teaching from corrupting the Gospel which has been entrusted to us. There is no other means than the Gospel (the history-rich, scripture soaked, future-hoping, full-orbed declaration that Jesus is the Christ, the King (and thus benefactor) of the whole earth) by which people are transformed into children of the Living God (following the footsteps of the faith their father Abraham had). In the same way Adam was charged to guard and work the Garden, in the same way the priests were called to guard and work the temple, so we are called to guard and work God's Church by proclaiming the full Gospel and by living under the rule and reign of King Jesus: recieving all and giving all. May this be our life, may it be what we do.
Clear reasons, but not clear boundaries. For instance, what if someone-- oh, let's say... me-- holds that Litfin's actions under scrutiny here represent a false teaching that corrupts the Gospel? Apparent conservatism doesn't always (perhaps rarely does) protect the Gospel. It does, however, do a nice job of protecting cherished concepts under the banner of "protecting the Gospel".
I, like Andy, have much, much work to do; in fact, I shouldn't be writing now, and probably should have stopped writing a couple of days ago, but... All that to say that I may be absent for a day or two so I can fulfill my responsibilities as a student, teacher, tenant and automobile owner.
I just had a great idea about one of the "tradition" analogies that I was trying to point to earlier. I will ammend another man's analogy for my own purposes. Forget the table; imagine that a tradition is like a giant Steve-and-Adam's room. You walk in after a day of classes and find that some deeply involved conversation is already taking place. You listen for a while trying to pick up on the topic, the stakes, who is on what side, etc. Eventually you add your own 2 cents worth; someone challenges your position; someone else comes to your defense. In the meantime, people have been coming and going, listening and contributing, playing the occasional game of Monkey Island. Eventually it gets late (Adam crawled into bed hours ago) and you have to go get some sleep. You walk down the hall to your room, but there are still people in 611 and the conversation continues.
How long has it been since we had a fifty-comment post?
I'm trying to find that post! Where the heck is it?
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