Mileposts on the Broad Way

If my observations are not incorrect, the path of the Christian school to secularism generally contains five steps.

At the founding the school is in the Confessional Phase. It knows why it exists, why this school is different from all other schools, and is energized by a missionary zeal that will without much hesitation eject teachers or administrators who do not cleave to its doctrinal and ethical Standards.

At what I will call the First Embarrassment Phase, the original denominational or confessional heritage of the school is downplayed—sometimes because of the difficulty of putting together a full or fully qualified faculty from the sect, but also because increased learning—particularly becoming, in Newman’s words, “deep in history”--frequently militates against its original beliefs. (This is never spoken of by those responsible for directing the school, for it would be professional suicide, causing them to be driven, in shame for their apostasy, out of a denomination where they have risen to high honor.)

Next is the Ecumenical Phase where the school opens its doors to other forms of Christianity. It begins hiring teachers who are not of its own tradition, claiming thereby to be serving the Church at large. Since no firm definition of the school’s beliefs has replaced the chartered confession, the latter becomes by degrees more loosely interpreted, or, if it is particularly bellicose or incompetent or otherwise indigestible, ignored. (A variation favored by Presbyterians is to add new confessions that contradict or blunt the edges of the old ones. They have also been know to spirit embarrassing phrases out of old Westminster when nobody’s looking. A rule: no such institution repents of past doctrinal error until it finally repents of once being Christian.)

The ecumenical door then opens as wide as the donor base is perceived to allow, and the school, surrounded by temptations to be “just like (academic) folks” on every side, without firm doctrinal mooring or consensus, and with liberality as the administrative watchword, gradually enters the General Religion Phase in which the faculty is expected to pledge allegiance to the conventional pieties of the group, but not adhere to a statement of doctrine.

At the end of this phase, the beliefs of the founders have become something to be lived down. Administrators and catalogs speak respectfully about the school’s denominational “heritage,” while at the same time making it plain, in so many words, this is a relic of the past that nobody really needs to fash themselves about. Or they will pretend, if they can get away with it, that the school is still faithfully what-it-was by obscuring the denomination’s past beliefs and/or drawing out and emphasizing aspects of the founders’ thinking with which it still agrees.  (Luther liked beer and disliked a great deal of Roman dogma; so does the ELCA.  During my days at LSTC the students were wearing T-shirts with the legend "Marty Would Be Proud."  Doubt it.)  Much fog is needed for this operation, but remember that it is the most intelligent and practiced minds in the denomination who are the operators here--people who get their jobs by being able to assure the heads--once again, in so many words--that they are in on the game.  The last thing these people want is somebody up high who all of a sudden discovers what's going on and doesn't like it. If the school trains ministers, or is Catholic (given the current weakness of the Roman magisterium), this is its last stage: it cannot abandon “religion,” it can only redefine God.  If it is not in this situation, it comes to the Final Embarrassment Phase, and is soon to trouble with the ruse no longer. When the givers of the most substantial gifts are perceived not to object much, the school, with a nearly audible sigh of relief, abandons religion except perhaps as an object of study.

Things appear often to come full circle.  There may very well follow a Second Confessional Phase where the school’s mission is now as intensely as anti-Christian as its founders wished it to be Christian. The illiberality, the sectarian bias, the minute confessional requirements, the bars to accession, the quick repulsions, the forceful putting down of anyone who does not agree at every point, are re-instituted with a vengeance now unmitigated by the requirements of charity to which even the narrowest of Christians recognize themselves bound. 

The case of Georgetown University, which has just, in God’s name, and with much prayer, through a letter from the Rev. Constance C. Wheeler beginning, “Blessings, and may God’s peace be upon you!” banned Evangelicals (but obviously not Protestant liberals) from its campus ministries, is interesting in this regard, about which more anon.

Comments

[Bobby Winters]

From an article on it:

>>>In addition, Georgetown’s first-ever Muslim chaplain, Imam Yahya Hendi, has been hired, fulfilling a promise made by Campus Ministry to the Muslim community on campus, Bunnell said. Mark Robbins has been hired to serve as a Jewish chaplain and will focus mainly on Jewish ministry efforts in the Law Center and Medical Center. Both positions are full-time.<<<

[Ethan Cordray]

Dr. Hutchens, or anyone else,

I wonder where you would say Wheaton College falls on this continuum. It has never been officially associated with a particular denomination (though it had close ties with Congregationalism near its founding), and it still has a statement of faith that is taken very seriously (hence the Joshua Hochschild controversy). At the same time, many of its professors have gone "deep into history" and subsequently changed their denominational allegiance and theological beliefs, yet they have not been dismissed. I personally know Mennonites, Reformed Presbyterians, continuing Anglicans (lots of continuing Anglicans) and Non-denominational Evangelicals who all hold faculty positions. While there are some undercurrents of liberalism at the school (especially, in my experience, in the Theology Department and Ancient Languages Department), I don't know that these represent an overall liberalizing trend in the college.

Perhaps the absence of an initial narrow denominational identity has saved Wheaton from progressing neatly down this path.

I'd also like to hear what your proposed solutions might be to halt this process at each point along the path. Or, if you think it inevitable once it starts going, how is it to be prevented? Might the Touchstone concept of an "Ecumenical Orthodoxy" play a role in correcting this slide?

[Ethan Cordray]

Also, what, besides cowardice, is the rationale for the Vatican not closing the doors on places like Georgetown?

[Arnold Conrad]

Ethan: The Vatican does not own or operate Georgetown so it cannot shut it down. The archbishop of Washington could declare the university as no longer Catholic and require it to stop claiming to be one (or as they say at GU, a "university in the Jesuit tradition", whatever that means these days). If it weren't for the students, crucifixes would have been banned from the classroom walls too. I am a GU grad and long ago stopped supporting the school. The banning of evangelicals from campus ministry is news to me and shocking to this Catholic with a number of good evangelical friends. How did that woman justify it?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I am a GU grad and long ago stopped supporting the school.<<<

Me, too: SFS 76. it helps to remember that Georgetown is a Jesuit, not a Catholic school. Those two concepts were mutually exclusive even thirty years ago. Fortunately for me, I was NOT a Catholic back then, so my faith was not adversely affected by the experience.

Another observation: It must have been more than forty years ago that Bishop Fulton Sheen advised Catholic parents that if they wanted their children to lose their faith, they should by all means send them to a Catholic university.

[smh]

The paradigm I have drawn in the blog is a rough diagnostic sketch, the erection of the signposts being somewhat arbitrary. There are no doubt other ways to look at the phenomenology of declension that would be just as good or even better. Hardly ever will one find any school fitting it neatly. There will always be exceptions to the rules, and frequently, as in the case of Wheaton, one will find several phases coexisting. Reality is always more complex than its analyses, but that doesn't mean analyses have no truth or use.

Wheaton will no doubt become a liberal school, but its liberalism will be, at least in the General Religion phase, of the peculiar sort that is now becoming more highly developed among the Evangelical intelligentsia. It will be thoroughly egalitarian; its theology and anthropology will be wholly corrupt, and yet it will strongly claim to be orthodox because it still believes in winning people to "Jesus" and the fundamentals of the faith (et daemones credunt!). What defining doctrinal pillar or unified tradition or founder does generic Evangelicalism have by which some hero could clean house at Wheaton? I know of none. What will save it from what George what Marsden has noted as the customary fate of the Evangelical college? Miracles happen, but not often. They can be prayed for. But God usually appears to let people lie in, and die in, the beds they make for themselves.

What I am attempting to chronicle is the general track of an institutional mind or spiritual consensus that leads from two points that have undeniably existed in the lives of thousands of institutions--a point where they are strongly, confessionally Christian, possessing enough strength of conviction to undergo the very considerable rigors of birth and early survival, and a point where they are no longer Christian at all.

It should be clear from the way I write that I would probably have difficulties with most schools at each of the stages--difficulties that increase as the school becomes more hypocritical and less Christian--but am trying to take the Pauline way of approving those that hold to and teach the doctrines of the faith in good conscience, even if their methods, motives, and way of thinking are "sectarian." This is very "Touchstonish." I received a good deal of help here from the work of John Williamson Nevin.

In the case of a "Catholic" university like Georgetown, Rome cannot shut it down, but it can give its Jesuit administration orders which, if not followed, could result in disavowal of its status as a Catholic institution--what Protestants would call "disfellowship."

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>In the case of a "Catholic" university like Georgetown, Rome cannot shut it down, but it can give its Jesuit administration orders which, if not followed, could result in disavowal of its status as a Catholic institution--what Protestants would call "disfellowship."<<<

Good luck with that!

[William Tighe]

I, too, am a graduate of Georgetown (C'74), and when I was hired at Muhlenberg (1986) I gave Georgetown a gift of $1000 in order to testify my gratitude for the good education that I rec'd at it. Ever since then, though, I have refused to give it a penny, telling telephone solicitors (before they gave up) that they would get nothing from me until the university once again gave "obedience and submission" to the Catholic Church.

In my day there, the Campus Ministry staff were, with the odd exception, the most consistently liberal element on Campus, outstripping even the Theology Department. I remember being told a story by the now-deceased Fr. Paul Cioffi, SJ, about how the Catholic Chaplain and the Protestant chaplain(s) used to have a kind of prayer service-cum-Agape together, and how on one occasion they decided to have a (private) "ecumenical eucharist" together. The "principal celebrant" turned out to be a lady Lutheran pastor, but everyone received. However, the Catholic Chaplain later confided in Fr. Cioffi (who would never have rec'd communion at a Protestant service, although he openly encouraged and even solicited Protestant students to commune at his Masses) that "I said the words (i.e., Words of Institution) under my breath, and so that made it okay." That Catholic Chaplain later became the parish priest of the neighboring (Jesuit) Holy Trinity church, and under him it became a hotbed of agitation for women's "ordination" even including prayers for it in the General Intercessions. Eventually Cardinal Hickey ordered the practice stopped, and when his letter to the priest mandating this was read at Sunday masses, a large proportion of the congregation stood and turned their backs while it was being read. I have always wondered why more of this type of Catholic don't become Episcopalians.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I, too, am a graduate of Georgetown (C'74), and when I was hired at Muhlenberg (1986) I gave Georgetown a gift of $1000 in order to testify my gratitude for the good education that I rec'd at it. <<<

William,

You must have been among the last. By my year, I could discern a notable slackening of standards and the beginning of a proliferation of puff courses.

Since my wife and I left, her school (Ling-Lang) has been demoted to a "faculty" within the College of Arts and Sciences; the Dental School (whence my dentist and his partners came) has been closed, as has the nursing school. About the time I left, Peter Krogh was beginning his infatuation with all things Muslim, the number of full professors was being cut, more basic classes were being taught by TAs and associate profs, and the departmental budgets were being diverted into seminars taught by high-priced celebrity guest profs (Kissinger was the BMOC in my last year). For all that, I did have several professors whose teaching was indispensible to me, including Jeanne Kirkpatrick (seveal years before her tenure at the UN) and Edward N. Luttwak. I note that neither is currently associated with the University. Through them, and a few others, I moved relatively smoothly and painlessly into my chosen career path--but I hasten to note that I received almost no support or formal assistance from the school itself.

[Stuart Koehl]

I thought that before we decry the secularization of the university system and the demise of the Church-sponsored school, it might be useful to remember that throughout the Patristic period, all higher learning was run by pagans and centered on Greek philosophy and literature. It did not hurt men such as Basil, Nanzianzen and Chrysostom to go to the Athenian Academy, the most pagan of pagan institutions. In fact, Basil later wrote an "Address to Young Men on the Right to Study Greek Literature", which can be found in translation, with a useful introduction, at this site:

www.tertullian.org/fathers/

[Bill R]

I agee with Stuart. My wife and I, as well as our children, were educated at public and secular private universities. The parachurch ministries on all the campuses were excellent. None of us expected the colleges themselves to be anything but hostile to our faith: we were grateful when we were simply left alone. Odd as it may seem I suspect it may be easier today for Christians to maintain their faith in a secular, rather than a "Christian," environment.

[Stuart Koehl]

At least at the secular schools, you know who the bad guys are.

[Deacon John M. Bresnahan]

The reason Evangelicals are not welcome at Georgetown is because their strong Christian faith embarrasses the liberal hacks that run that place. Liberal Protestants are no threat because they believe as little --or less --than their Catholic liberal counterparts.
The cowardice and inaction of the bishops to do anything about the corrupt situation on so many Catholic campuses is cut from the same cloth as their cowardice and inaction when first faced with the homosexuality and pedophilia among the clergy of the Church. In a sense the two scandals are related in the "better-to-do-nothing-about-it" attitude among far too many bishops in the past and now.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>The reason Evangelicals are not welcome at Georgetown is because their strong Christian faith embarrasses the liberal hacks that run that place. <<<

Well, duh!

>>>Liberal Protestants are no threat because they believe as little --or less --than their Catholic liberal counterparts.<<<

Please! Georgetown is not Catholic, it is a Jesuit university. There is a difference, these days.

[Ethan Cordray]

Still, what is the solution for institutions that find themselves on this sort of path, but not yet at the bitter end? Are we really going to assert a determinacy in this matter? Are Christian colleges always doomed?

I'm concerned about Wheaton in particular. The current President, Duane Litfin, is highly concerned with resisting this process. I don't think the fact that past institutions have gone the secularizing route guarantees that all others will in the future, particularly as they may have the advantage of the historical perspective of those previous examples.

Dr. Hutchens, in several of your posts now I've noticed your disparaging opinion of Christian higher education. I wonder if you could give a clearer reason for this belief?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Are Christian colleges always doomed?<<<

As long as American higher education looks towards the German polytechnical model, I would say yes.

[L. Korossy]

Not five miles away stands a school in stark contrast to Georgetown: The Catholic University of America. It does not require its students or faculty to be Catholic, Christian, or even in line with its "conventional pieties." Yet, 85% of the student body is Catholic, and the school is noted for its strong emphasis on Catholic teaching and theology, especially in the renowned School of Philosophy. The campus ministry is exceptional and firmly orthodox. The School of Theology is more liberal than the rest of the university, but is under the eye the Pope, who must approve all appointed deans. The president, Fr. O'Connell, proudly emphasizes that "Catholic" comes before "University" in the school's name. In the center of the campus is the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

CUA only a few years back was at the mercy of liberal priests and professors; the intervention of Cardinal Hickey and the resignation of the former president brought new leadership and a complete overhaul of the university's campus ministry, and with it, a renewal of its mission and identity. The major controversy in the past year was a ban imposed on inviting any speaker to campus who holds views in opposition to the Church's mission, namely, being pro-choice. While students and critics complain about limitations on the freedom of speech and academic freedom, CUA continues to be a stronghold of orthodoxy and tradition. It is a model religious school, and evidence that the five-step secular regression can be stopped and reversed.

[smh]

To answer Ethan's question: I have nothing against Christian education; in fact, in a fundamental sense all education, if it involves searching for and laying hold of Truth, is Christian, wherever it is carried out. But if you are referring to higher education in the modern West that claims to Christian, what I have against it principally its long record of failure.

This generally involves cowardice, laziness, manpleasing, unwillingness to be ill-spoken of by the "people who matter," desperate desire for status, and unwillingness to resist the spirits of any given age--at least the ones that most need resisting.

If Dr. Litfin wishes to avoid being the President under whom Wheaton fell, he needs to make himself as unpopular as Mohler and Moore did at Louisville, or Preus did at Concordia, or Christ did in the temple courts. He needs to identify the heretics, get rid of them, and then unapologetically hold the line for the rest of his tenure. And how much thanks would he get for this from an increasingly worldly Evangelical constituency to which doctrine matters less and feelings matter more with each passing year?

So he has expelled a Catholic. All right, granted, from the historical viewpoint of Wheaton College, Catholics don't belong on its faculty. But what about the egalitarians, under whom the school will loose its Christianity? How can Evangelicalism identify their doctrines as something to be abjured with sufficient force to deny people their livelihoods?

The great irony of the Hochschild affair is that school's historical anti-Catholicism is the very attitude that keeps it from doing what it needs to do, for the instincts that allow one to see clearly why egalitarianism is heresy must be nurtured and cultivated in a catholic atmosphere--a lively intuition of the universal faith of the Church--in which, for example, the appearance of a woman preaching and administering the sacraments (which Evangelicals don't believe in anyway) is so symbolically jarring that it is the appearance of another religion, and the tradition of biblical interpretation that is being overthrown by their exegetes and Bible translators is seen to involve a fundamental alteration of the Christian faith itself.

Evangelicalism is, almost by definition, a place where these instincts are not present. (This is why the ejection of Prof. Hochschild bears far, far greater symbolic weight than simply "Evangelicals fire Catholic.") The movement hasn't the deep strength needed to resist modernism, for it has sprung up quickly and has no depth of root. Even Evangelicalism of the pious sort is a form of modernism. It is for this reason that Wheaton College is doomed, along with all schools of its kind. Even if President Litfin succeeds in fixing it, there is nothing, really, to keep it fixed--unless it begins looking to the Great Tradition, to the Church it does not seem able to recognize, not just for information, but authority.

[David Fischler]

My daughter is a Georgetown grad (2003), and my wife and I have received numerous solicitations over the last three years. I think they've pretty effectively slammed the door on ever getting any more of this evangelical Protestant's money.

[Tony Esolen]

As to the question whether a religious school can reverse the trend toward secularism:

It can happen, but it takes an extraordinary grace to jolt it out of the slide. At my school, Providence College, it took a largely accidental presence of devout Catholic laymen, and then the resurgence of orthodox Catholicism among the younger members of the Dominican Order. The laymen had kept the fire of Catholicism alive at the school, though that was not their primary intention, by their commitment to a long-standing two-year course, required of all students, in the development of Western Civilization. Since the course is team-taught, by members from the departments of history, English, theology, and philosophy, the college had to hire, whether other people liked it or not, the sorts of professors who would be eager to teach in such a program. That meant that many new faculty in English and history arrived at Providence already interested in theology and philosophy, and such people grew all the more interested in those fields after having taught in the program for a few years. Without question, it was those laymen and not the Dominicans themselves who preserved some kind of Christian character at the college, from about 1975-1992, after which a new president enacted hiring measures to make it not impossible but at least a great deal more unlikely that certain departments hostile to Christianity (sociology, political science) could continue to hire angry secularists. That president made some bad mistakes, too, and is far from conservative. We have a more solidly reliable president now, the Dominicans have begun to resume their roles as genuine leaders, and we continue to move, though by fits and starts, towards becoming a truly Catholic and Christian college.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>My daughter is a Georgetown grad (2003), and my wife and I have received numerous solicitations over the last three years. I think they've pretty effectively slammed the door on ever getting any more of this evangelical Protestant's money.<<<

Not a dime from me or mine since 1976.

[Stuart Koehl]

The problem of religious universities is not unlike the problem that confronted the Soviet Union from the 1960s onward: the Kommisars lost faith in communism, and from that point onward they were in it only for themselves. In the case of the universities, when the Churches or denominations that are in charge lose their faith, the rot spreads down to the footsoldiers.

[James A. Altena]

Dear Prof. Esolen,

Your report is encouraging, and we pray for conitnued success.

Dear Dr. Hutchens,

To ask something related to Ethan's posts, and yours -- is it then even possible in principle (let alone in practice) to found and operate a "Touchstone"-style university of ecumenical orthodox Christianity, as opposed to only orthodox sectarian universities, and avoid the pathway of decline you have outlined? Can there be a fruitful and principled (as opposed to embarrrased) reconsideration by an originally sectarian school of certain statements once taken as key principles, that open the door to robust orthodox ecumenicism, as opposed to the pernicious liberal variety, at the institutional rather than merely personal level? Can a Calvinist university with good integrity to the Westminster Confession (or at least Reformed theology in general) drop regarding the Pope as Anti-Christ? Can a Roman Catholic perform a counterpart action toward Calvinists? Could Wheaton have reversed the current situation, and have retained Prof. Hochschild in all integrity while getting rid of liberal Protestants instead, or must it needs be rid of both?

[Tim Bayly]

Here's an article on the Georgetown University debacle: http://timbayly.worldmagblog.com/timbayly/archives/026193.html

[John Fisher]

Dr. Hutchens: The cycle certainly fits my alma mater, the University of the South, in Sewanee, TN. The only university owned by bishops of the Episcopal Church, it has been completely unable (or unwilling) to stem the tide of liberal Protestantism (and has effectively turned its back on its Southern heritage too).

The faculty are liberal, the chaplains are liberal, the faculty of the School of Theology are liberal ...

At least the buildings are nice. But there's no way they're getting my money. Or my children, when that time comes.

[Tony Esolen]

Sewanee is the alma mater of Bishop Vicky Gene Robinson. That, by the way, is the name he chooses to go by; I've read somewhere that his mother expected he would be a girl, and tagged him with the nickname as a kind of emotional compromise. He was, shall we say, a pretty confused young fellow when he matriculated at Sewanee. He expressed interest in becoming an Anglican priest, but he was worried about his inability to accept every tenet in the Nicene Creed. "Don't worry about that," said his spiritual advisor. "Accept what you can accept, and that will be fine." Onward, Christian soldiers.

[James A. Altena]

My "Continuing Church" Anglican bishop, William Millsaps, was the chaplain at Sewanee, and resigned when the liberal tide flooded the place and drowned the Gospel there.

A decade or so ago "The Christian Challenge" (a magazine serving traditonal Anglicans) ran a lengthy story about an annual pornographic film festival held at Sewanee, with students producing the films themselves. That "festival" went far beyond mere smut and various peversions to acts of horrifying blasphemy. In one film a woman masturbated with an upside down crucifx between her legs. Another film claimed that a church steeple and nave is a Freudian construct of a penis penetrating a vagina. In a third, a man proclaims that there are "two Marys" in Scripture -- a "Mary of light" represented by the Virgin and symbolizing virtue, and a "dark Mary" represented by Magdalene as the unredeemed prostituete and symbolizing sin. The man then looks into the camera and said "We serve the 'dark Mary'."

[Rob Grano]

"Sewanee is the alma mater of Bishop Vicky Gene Robinson. That, by the way, is the name he chooses to go by..."

He also had a big disco hit in the 70's under that name with "Turn the Beat Around."

[smh]

To ask something related to Ethan's posts, and yours -- is it then even possible in principle (let alone in practice) to found and operate a "Touchstone"-style university of ecumenical orthodox Christianity, as opposed to only orthodox sectarian universities, and avoid the pathway of decline you have outlined? Can there be a fruitful and principled (as opposed to embarrassed) reconsideration by an originally sectarian school of certain statements once taken as key principles, that open the door to robust orthodox ecumenism, as opposed to the pernicious liberal variety, at the institutional rather than merely personal level? Can a Calvinist university with good integrity to the Westminster Confession (or at least Reformed theology in general) drop regarding the Pope as Anti-Christ? Can a Roman Catholic perform a counterpart action toward Calvinists? Could Wheaton have reversed the current situation, and have retained Prof. Hochschild in all integrity while getting rid of liberal Protestants instead, or must it needs be rid of both? [James A. Altena]

There are three questions here. The answer to the first is, Yes, if someone provides a great, big heap of money to do it with. To the second, I would answer, probably not. There is overwhelming evidence for the reasonableness of pessimism with regard to the survival of any Christian institution but the Church itself. (When the Son of man returns, will he find faith on the earth?) This being said, with God all things are possible, and institutions established in his name may hope and must labor toward being faithful until the end. Who knows—they may be, for we have seen individual Christians finish well; why might not a Christian institution do the same? Nor do we have any choice but to establish these, as necessary for the occupation until he comes.

I sometimes wonder what form Touchstone’s fall will take—what people will be doing in our names in twenty or thirty or forty years that, were we still alive, we would execrate and call upon heaven to curse. Will we become like Christianity Today—spineless wind-sniffers declaring the heresy du jour to be something that good believers in ecumenical orthodoxy should welcome, or at least tolerate, in the name of avoiding divisiveness and speaking to the culture? Will we fall to squabbling with each other on our many points of disagreement, thus demoralizing the project? (This, I think, is the most likely of these possibilities.) Will we die of leadership that is incompetent or visionless or managed by the immature zeal that one finds so often in converts? Or simply not get enough money to survive? Will educational levels continue to fall and entertainment-expectation levels continue to rise so that if we stubbornly continue to produce literate text, the readership will fall below the point where we can attract supporters? All of these things, individually and in combination, are possibilities for the magazine, and for any educational project that is based upon its philosophy. Given all that, however, we are expected by God, I believe, to carry on with any project he sends our way, and indicates his favor upon by providing the money to finance it.

Brief answers to the final battery of questions (for it is time for bed): Can a Calvinist university with good integrity to the Westminster Confession (or at least Reformed theology in general) drop regarding the Pope as Anti-Christ? No. If one does not believe this to be true any more, it cannot simply be dropped, with integrity. It has to be repented of in the face of those before whom it has been confessed. Can a Roman Catholic perform a counterpart action toward Calvinists? No. Rome is the True Church. It can never err in anything it teaches, and therefore can only repent of errors that Catholics have made. It cannot repent of the Catholic equivalent of an article of a Protestant confession, or it would no longer be the Catholic Church. Could Wheaton have reversed the current situation, and have retained Prof. Hochschild in all integrity while getting rid of liberal Protestants instead, or must it needs be rid of both? Wheaton, interpreting its own statement of faith, judged that Prof. Hochschild as a Catholic could not be retained. This does not seem to me unreasonable, and certainly the school is at liberty to do so. To retain Prof. Hochschild with integrity it doubtless would have had to change this statement to include Catholics within its definition of acceptable orthodoxy, which would have involved (if integrity is in view) repentance from past error in this regard. This it did not do. Presumably its charters give administrators the authority to expel those who are teaching doctrines contrary to the Christian faith. To rid itself of the egalitarians, the people who control the college would have to be willing to define egalitarianism as heresy and bear up under the terrible fallout their actions would bring . Wheaton, then (and I think this is a point J. Bottum has made with some force), has retained its integrity as an Evangelical school, by expelling Dr. Hochschild. But it seems that among this group egalitarianism falls within the parameters of the definition of “Evangelical.” If one can be an Evangelical and an egalitarian, then Wheaton would lose its integrity as an Evangelical school by expelling the egalitarians.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>No. Rome is the True Church. It can never err in anything it teaches, and therefore can only repent of errors that Catholics have made. <<<

I call this attitude "We may not always be right, but we are NEVER wrong".

[James A. Altena]

Dear Dr. Hutchens,

Thank you for a most thoughtful and excellent reply. Of course, I expected no less from you.

[Bill R]

"Will we become like Christianity Today—spineless wind-sniffers..."

Dr. Hutchens, you need to copyright that phrase before someone steals it. "SWS" should become our code-phrase for that formerly orthodox magazine!

[Denny D]

Dr SMH (Steve for short) - it is sad to think that the efforts of men fall so short of the Glory of Christ and His design so often. May I put forth our hope and joy in the matter of "higher" education be it at a secular school or an institution more agreeable to the truths of the living Word, will only be realized by those who are His sheep... those who long for His appearing... when He returns and truly enlightens all - to ones detriment or blessing (a bit pragmatic and far sighted to be sure) in the ultimate form of Higher Education.

The president of an institution who actually realizes what he needs to do to turn an environ of lukewarm stagnant floodwaters polluted with men (there I go again, strike men and substitute humans please) full of self will surely need to be overflowing with the Spirit and ready for martyrdom as you've alluded to... Hmmm sound like anyone mentioned in the Bible? Anyone we may know or have known in our lifetimes?

Doesn't it seem notable that at the Catholic University of America, where one does not need to commit to a creed, there is a strong current of orthodoxy present? What is that telling us? Can lead a horse to water but.. How does that go again?

I have taken on a challenge to my own "self" issues that I have given a very simple moniker to: "It's not about me." May we all remember Luke 10, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children..." Oops, I should have de-paternalized de-patriarchialized that and substituted Omni-Neuter(ed)-Being for Father - sorry. We should all remember the simplest truths are the most important (as Pauline as one may try to be sometimes). When anyone out there gets the camel to go through the eye of the needle, excuse me, the new President of George Washington U (with tons of cash to boot) to revive it, let me know the magic formula men have come up with will you? And we are His instruments in this life - more proof of miracles. (I can say all this tongue and cheek because I have worked at a secular university since 1989.. can't I?).

[James A. Altena]

Between the inflated rhetoric and heavy-handed attempts at sarcasm, I'm trying to figure out what Denny D.'s post is supposed to be saying. Particularly, I'm puzzled by the assertion that at the CU of A "one does not need to commit to a creed." Ever hear of the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds?

[Denny D]

Duh.. nop nver herd of any of dos cred things... ask u why?

Korossy said, "The Catholic University of America. It does not require its students or faculty to be Catholic, Christian, or even in line with its "conventional pieties." Hence, the implication it does NOT require adherence to a creed or faith statement. How do you get a creed requirement out of that statement? You don't. Hence, my statement. Correct if someone is wrong - don't belittle. And don't reply unless you are sincere. Thanks

[Denny D]

Apologies for mis-speaking. ("..President of George Washington U.." should have said "..President of Georgetown U.."). in the blog above. I am on Touchstone's side, and am not on the side of men pleasers and those who purport God to be made in their image. What I said was not directed at Touchstone readers themselves, rather those who run secular universities disquised as religious ones. Need I say more?

[James A. Altena]

Denny D,

You might take your own advice about not belittling. I also don't think you have control of this site to tell others that they may or may not post comments.

As for the creeds -- At the CU Of A, individual students are not required to adhere to a creed, but the university itself is and does so adhere. At Georgetown, the latter is also being ditched. Hence the difference.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>At Georgetown, the latter is also being ditched.<<<

It hasn't adhered in years. It had ceased to adhere even before I left.

[Suxfqc]

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