CHURCH OF CHRIST COLLEGES: IS ANYTHING WRONG?
by ROBERT R. MEYERS

Several thousand youngsters each year attend colleges operated by Churches of Christ. They receive a great deal of benefit and considerable harm from this experience. Believing that it is possible to increase the benefit and lessen the harm, I present here some views formed as a result of association with three of these colleges.

I am eager to say at once that the benefits are in many ways immeasurable. It would be naive and mean-spirited not to admit this. Many faculty people work in these colleges who are utterly devoted to their tasks and who make personal sacrifices to stay on the job. The student body is made up of the very finest young men and women. Their sharing of devotional exercises and campus experiences cement friendships that often last a lifetime. They benefit mutually from these lasting ties, and from their exposure to many splendid traits in the men and women who teach them.

Unfortunately, the harm done to many is also incalculable. This is true even though the mischief done is not always clearly perceived, even by those who are the victims of it. It consists of a narrowing of the spirit, a pinching of the sympathies, a diminishing of that eager curiosity which is the surest sign of a healthy and growing mind. These serious defects result from a falsely narrow interpretation of two phrases used extensively in advertising the colleges, and from the total college atmosphere which is created by the misinterpretation.

I refer to the twin claims made in the printed and spoken inducements of most of these schools that they are “liberal arts Christian colleges.” As I understand these terms there are important senses in which the colleges are neither “liberal arts” nor “Christian.” To the degree that they are neither, to that degree are students harmed. I should like now to address myself specifically to the interpretation these schools give to the term “Christian.”

ARE THE COLLEGES CHRISTIAN?

To the uninitiated, the claim that the college is distinctively “Christian” may convey the idea that the college seeks only to surround the youngster with aids to Christian thought and action, meanwhile encouraging him strongly to make a lifelong commitment to Christ in deep faith. Nothing, of course, could be better than this. The trouble is that the word “Christian” is defined quite differently. What it really means on the campus is that a very sharply limited group of people who possess certain explicit knowledge and practice precisely the correct forms are called Christian. All others are non-Christians. Rigid lines are drawn and statements are frequent to the effect that “we have the truth and all others, no matter how well-intentioned, are wrong and will be lost.” Knowledge, not faith, becomes the instrument of salvation. And although verbal gymnastics may disguise the fact from many, the truth is that few on the campuses will admit the possibility that their knowledge of God’s will may conceivably be as imperfect as that of others.

This is not Christian education at all. It is sectarian education. It provides the student with a narrow, bigoted, party-spirit approach to Christianity. It does this so thoroughly that even a lifetime of later reading and study may be insufficient to counteract it.

I realize that my definition of what is Christian will not correspond with that of many of my friends. I think no less of my friends for this, since they may be right and I may be wrong. I do hope for a similar attitude towards myself. I have come to define the word Christian in a way different from what I once did. If I am now correct, then the definition given at these colleges is inaccurate.

It seems to me that genuine Christian education would always answer “yes” to Elton Trueblood’s question in his book, The Idea of a College: “Do people come out of this community more compassionate and more unified in their lives than they were when they entered?” Yet I know for a fact that hundreds and thousands of youngsters emerge from the schools I am discussing with less compassion for the beliefs and trials and integrity of others than they had upon entering, and with less wholeness of spirit.

I have seen many students plunged into uncertainty and confusion when the full significance of the college’s position became clear. They struggle to accept what those in authority preach, although in their hearts they know that this view is too narrow and does not square with observable facts. They lack the vocabulary to make their protest vital and effective, so their public docility is often taken to mean full acquiescence in the narrow religion which is preached to them. Their spiritual growth is stifled while a civil war goes on in their hearts. I am speaking now for those who have come to me by the dozens, trying desperately and intelligently to solve this crucial problem in their religious lives.

One may argue that for those students and parents who want this narrow kind of Christianity, the harm is not so great. Such an argument is questionable, since we all know that people often want what is not best for them. But I am most urgently concerned with those other students, the ones who have generous, sympathetic and potentially Christian spirits, and who suffer intensely from the sectarian approach to Christianity.

Often, when they leave the college, these students react violently against the narrowness they encountered. They sometimes become so bitter against the college and against the church which supported it, that they refuse to have anything more to do with either. There is a conspiracy of silence about how many ex-students really feel this way, but I am convinced that the number is large enough in quantity and quality to merit serious attention. It is understandable, of course, that no comments from these disappointed persons appear in the college propaganda. The letters of appreciation read each year to chapel audiences and printed in advertisements are from students who have absolute faith in the authoritarian approach to religion. Quite naturally they praise the school which confirmed such a faith, and they will continue to do so. The disillusioned, on the other hand, feel that no one in power will listen to them and that it is useless to write and complain. They know that they will only be accused of “drifting from the faith” and of having been “corrupted by secular education” somewhere else.

I might add here that many students do not wait to leave these colleges before they rebel. I have never known a school year which did not have a group of highly intelligent and keenly religious young men and women in revolt against “the system.” We must not be misled by the fact that the rebels are always few in number. The really important fact for us is that they are high in quality. They are the thinkers, the searchers, the askers of questions. To lose them is to lose a remarkably promising group of leaders. Yet every year, in every major Church of Christ college, such a group exists, makes its protest, is whipped into subjection and told not to ask dangerous questions, and is finally embittered at the massive refusal of those in places of power to admit the need for fresh insights into God’s truth. I shall refer to these students again later.

ARE THE COLLEGES LIBERAL?

The other claim is that these colleges offer “liberal education.” If my understanding of liberal education is at all correct, they do not. In fact, the peculiar nature of their approach to religion absolutely prohibits genuine liberal education. The two are mutually antagonistic and cannot live together.

My point will be clearer if I pause here to define my concept of liberal education. I think of it as an education which seeks to enlarge the mind and introduce it to new ideas. It encourages people, in that trite old phrase, to think for themselves. It does not seek to pass on a ready-made set of beliefs, but presents evidence for and against various ideas and systems and urges students to come to their own convictions. It believes that convictions arrived at in this way will be powerful enough to sustain students through life. It is an “open” system, by which I mean that it assumes that truth is forever being found and that the thinking student may himself make a valuable contribution to man’s knowledge of truth, even if he should have to contradict the cherished beliefs of his teacher.

The exact opposite of this is the propagandistic approach which is concerned mainly with preserving a system of ideas. Men employ this method who want above all else to inculcate a particular set of doctrines without fear that someone will modify them. The techniques used are ancient. Speakers weigh all arguments and presentations in favor of their point of view. Lip-service is often paid to a fair representation of the views of the other side, but those opposing views are not, in fact, accurately or sympathetically stated. Anyone knows this who has gone from the “straw man” kind of argument held in many Christian college Bible classes to talk freely and at length with an intelligent man who holds the opposite point of view. The strength and persuasiveness of his arguments will be at once apparent, and one is delivered from that simple and heart-hardening opinion that only fools could so believe.

In this propagandistic approach, truth is represented as simple rather than complex. It is talked about as something fully possessable, rather than as an ideal to be forever reached after and constantly tested for validity. It is a “closed” system, by which I mean that it assumes that truth has been grasped once and for all, that any questioning of it is heresy, and that the most noble activity of man is to hand it down, untouched, from generation to generation. This view guarantees that no one will break through with any new insights; it is a husk, lifeless.

ATTITUDE TOWARD TRUTH

I will try now to illustrate more elaborately what I mean. One day last year I sat for a time looking at a remark one of my sophomore students in a rather severely orthodox Christian college had written above a medieval religious idea. She had said, “Maybe they didn’t have the exact concept of it, but they were getting close to the truth.” This language may seem moderate, but there is a disturbing implication in her words. Despite her very limited background of experience and reading, she felt perfectly confident to measure all strange religious ideas and make quick judgments about their worth.

This conviction on the part of a raw and unpolished sophomore (who failed the examination for lack of specific knowledge) that she could pass glib judgment upon a complex religious idea is not new to those who have taught in the more rigidly authoritarian Christian colleges. Product of a system which sees itself as the sole possessor of the entire truth, this girl had not doubted for a moment that she could decide who was, and who was not, right. Her tiny shreds of knowledge, coupled with encouragement from many preachers she had heard and some Bible teachers, had led her to think that she might speak with perfect boldness about how close a certain life-long student was to “The Truth.” The unconscious arrogance of such an assumption is the despair of any conscientious teacher trained in the tradition of liberal education.

It is this arrogance, this blissful confidence that no one else could possibly be right, which passes over from the religious approach and destroys any real hope for genuine liberal education in these schools. For how can real intellectual honesty and humility be fostered in an institution which puts its primary emphasis on a rigid orthodoxy and supports that orthodoxy by the most flagrantly anti-intellectual techniques?

Or laboring to be quite clear, let us put it another way: Can students who are constantly bombarded with propaganda devices in the inculcation of their narrow faith avoid carrying this warped approach to truth into their other intellectual disciplines?

In historical research, for example, can we expect a student to apply rigorously the methods of unbiased study, evaluation of sources, and allowances for prejudices due to position or emotional bias, when in his religious study he is not only never taught to apply such methods, but is in fact discouraged from doing so?

If religion is the most important thing in life (and I believe that it is) and if one is taught to approach religion with intellectual and emotional blinders on so as never to shy from the many disturbing facts along the way, then is it not inevitable that one will carry this same narrow, one-sided and overly simple approach into other (and less important) studies? If he does, he cannot get for himself a liberal education. And if he does not, he becomes unhappy over the contrast between his study of religion and his study of other subjects. It is this last conflict within him which fractures his peace of mind, leaves him fragmented rather than united, and often embitters him toward the very thing he should love most.

A PROBING QUESTION

In an effort to find out how faculty and students in such schools really feel about their primary purposes, I often asked this question: Do you think of your college as primarily a liberal arts college with a strong emphasis on religious training, or do you think of it as primarily a group brought together for purposes of religious indoctrination and only secondarily offering a number of academic subjects?

I found considerable uncertainty among both students and faculty on this matter. Quite contradictory replies were given over a period of several years. The results of the contradiction is an odd sort. of tension which exists on almost all these campuses, and which I think is detrimental to both scholarship and fellowship.

In view of the emotions aroused by some terms, I should like to pause here long enough to say that there is nothing wrong with “religious indoctrination” as such. But if the indoctrinating process uses anti-intellectual techniques, then it has a poor place in a college which claims to sharpen the intellect and provide a broad, liberal education.

I have had personal talks with examiners from national accrediting agencies who have examined these schools. They are often concerned over the difference between what these colleges claim to offer (liberal education), and what they do indeed offer (religious orthodoxy). Some have felt that the schools were really extensions of the Sunday School, that they were not really interested in educating liberally but in advancing the cause of a specific and very exclusive religious sect. I have gathered from their remarks that they think it unfair to advertise as a liberal arts college and not give liberal education. These critics have said that Church of Christ colleges guard their special traditions and their orthodoxy with such passion that they stifle intellectual initiative in both faculty and students. This is not completely true, but it is true enough to give us pause.

ANTI-INTELLECTUAL METHODS

I want now to be more specific in substantiating my repeated statement that the methods used in indoctrinating students religiously are basically anti-intellectual. This, after all, is at the heart of my contention that the colleges cannot give liberal education; more thought must be given to it.

One evidence of anti-intellectualism is that a most careful choice of texts is made to guarantee that no opposing view will get a really sympathetic hearing. Bible teachers certainly discuss opposing religious views, but it is a widespread practice to hold up the opponent’s weakest arguments to exposure, ridicule and triumphant banishment. Students wonder how on earth intelligent people could believe such things. So they are taught at once both superiority to others and contempt. In the backs of their minds there is a vague uneasiness, because they wonder how all the brilliant and truth-seeking people in the world can be so stupid as not to see what their Bible teacher just made so clear to them. But they have only two alternatives: they must believe that all others are less wise than they, or that they are less sincere. To say that this set of alternatives must inevitably result in an arrogant, loveless kind of Christianity is to state the obvious.

To discourage questioning and to explain why students who do not go to Church of Christ schools often become disillusioned with Church of Christ religion, these schools teach most strenuously that secular colleges are intent upon destroying faith. They even include religious colleges supported by other groups than their own. There is never an intimation that perhaps the student found his faith terribly deficient in an intellectual basis and that the fault lies with our preachers and our “system” rather than exclusively with secular colleges. There is no inclination to ask this question: “How do we fail boys and girls who grow up in our churches for many years, may even spend time in our Christian colleges, and then spend some time in a state school and change their minds about all we’ve taught them? Could it be that our own teaching has been defective, that we have taught such a narrow and unintelligent faith that it will not stand the scrutiny of honest eyes?” No matter what the answer to this question is, is would be refreshing just to hear it asked. I never have.

It is also significant that in these colleges you can get an energetic “rise” out of most students only when a religious issue, however remote, comes up in class. Students who have been dull and passive in history, English, economics and science classes, will leap into feverish concern in a moment when some religious issue is injected.

In other words, material that is basically vital to the course may bore them, but even an incidental reference to religion awakens them at once. Why? Because they have, been ardently taught that they are the guardians of a rigidly defined system, and that anything that seems to threaten it must be pounced upon at once. This is so thoroughly drilled into them that many students spend much time watching carefully for signs of heresy in one another and in their teachers. They lay traps with amazing energy for any who may be “straying” from what they call “The Truth.”

So faculty members whose views are not extremely conservative learn to be cautious about what they say, and to whom. Many stay on the faculty by seeing to it that their true views are not known. Some stay by managing to apologize gracefully and by rephrasing their statements so as to make them more acceptable to the guardians, of the party line. A deteriorating and subversive “underground” is almost invariably created. One learns to speak only to those who will not carry tales. Students find out that faculty members and administrative people will often listen and act upon reports of heresy. A spying, inquisitorial, and absolutely unChristian atmosphere is the result.

This will probably sound too strong to be true. Especially for parents and friends who visit periodically and who see the lovely side of the schools. And I would admit that there are many students relatively untouched by the kind of thing just discussed. But many more are harmed by it, and harmed lastingly.

If one ventures to criticize such things, he is told that the Christian seeks to build up his institutions, not criticize them. Over and over one hears in public this plea: “Don’t criticize the school; don’t be a critic.” If one presses the speaker to say exactly what he means, he will usually modify the remark in private, saying that he only means “purely destructive criticism.” But in public, speakers fail more often than not to make this modification and the message comes across powerfully: Don’t criticize!

Yet the very essence of the intellectual life lies in intelligent and fair criticism, openly spoken without fear of retaliation. No institution lives healthily which is fed only on praise, pats and propaganda broadsides about how good it is and how it serves only the greatest of purposes. Objective analyses of merits and defects in even such sacred precincts as Bible teaching are urgently necessary. Many would deny it, but one cannot avoid the notion that the inner circle at such schools really see the college as a sacred thing, and criticism as a form of blasphemy.

It is true, too, that thousands who are connected with these colleges are unable to get excited over them as schools. They are eager to promote their own brand of Christianity and this is precisely what they expect of the school. Despite occasional lip-service to academic excellence, most of them are indifferent to the school’s curriculum.

They are upset when their children come home with even the mildst of new notions stirring in their heads. Quite literally, they send their children to school not to learn new insights, but to be confirmed in old ones. They are forced by certain social and economic pressures to offer standard academic subjects in their colleges and to seek teachers who are qualified in theory, but mainly they feel that the colleges exist to win new members to the church or to see to it that longtime members do not get any new and disturbing insights into God’s will. They approve strongly of that suffocating pressure to be “right” (i.e., to follow the system) in all religious thought and action. They approve of the way in which this pressure penetrates all other activities. They feel that the college does well to stop the inquisitive mind in its tracks and say: “Now, that will lead you into danger. Here are the things which you must believe.”

“HOW ABOUT THE “REBELS”?

I promised to return to the case of the “rebels” who always exist on these campuses. They are not riffraff; it is important to know this clearly. They are among the brightest and most promising, and I could now name dozens of them who are teaching in colleges and universities around the country. Let me give a recent and typical illustration of what is involved here.

Not long ago in one of the Christian college publications, some young men expressed themselves on the editorial page. Their views were mild and remarkably well-reasoned in comparison with what appears in most college papers. The young men are loyal to Christianity and to the church. They are not “modernists” or “liberals” in religion, unless those terms are strained to mean “anybody who differs from me.” They merely pointed out that “the system” is not above defects and that we have wrong emphases in some areas. One of them suggested that there was a certain artificiality in our arrangement of the “Five Steps” in “The Plan of Salvation.” There is nothing new or striking in this; anyone who has considered carefully that particular approach knows of the artificiality. But the sequel to the writing of these articles is interesting, proving precisely how repressive the atmosphere is on such campuses and how strongly students are discouraged from having their own thoughts.

First a preacher from some southern state wrote to complain to the college president that such views were obnoxious to him and that he could not send his child nor the children of his friends to such a school. (Economic pressures, you see, are believed to be effective in such matters and indeed they are, since it is for economic reasons that the Church of Christ schools refuse to obey Christ’s commands. about brotherhood and permit negro students to enroll). Now one would like to think that the president replied like this:

“Dear Blank, As you perhaps understand, we have young men here who are encouraged to think for themselves and to sharpen their thinking by putting it into writing. We believe that any other kind of educational environment is inadequate. We take the risk of their saying things at times that others of us disagree with. But we feel that there is always the chance that they may give us valuable new insights, too. I beg you to be patient with these young men, and all other young men who, like them, are eagerly searching for the truth. We feel that open and free discussion should exist on our campus and in our paper, and that Truth will be served in this way.”

If the southern preacher who wrote the letter could show me a reply from the school’s president that even vaguely resembled the above in spirit, my heart would leap with happiness and I would know new hope for everyone concerned with these colleges. I know, however, that such a letter would not be written. I know also that the customary procedure would be for the president to write to the editor of the paper and urge him to desist from publishing anything that might cause concern. What this means, in effect, is that the college is held in firm check by the most cautious and ignorant elements connected with it and its course is determined by them. Intelligent and questioning students are told to keep quiet and preserve the peace. This happens year after year, and when one knows it at close hand he is forced to conclude that in such an environment it is difficult, if not impossible, to get education that is either Chrician or liberal.

It is not surprising that from time to time, among the students in such colleges, little papers spring up bearing such titles as “Heretic Detector” or “Modernists Among Us.” They are always trivial and rather foolish little papers and do not bother anyone much, but they are another indication of the kind of spirit which is fostered in some people on these campuses and which is insufficiently rebuked.

OUR TASK AS RESTORATIONISTS

My dream for two decades was to teach in a liberal arts college with a strong Christian emphasis on the principles of the Restoration movement. During those twenty years, however, I came gradually to learn how seriously defective are our interpretations of “Christian” and “liberal education.”

Because I love deeply those who are thwarted and oppressed by a false faith, I want to speak out. It is a matter of profound conviction with me that if I want the truth, no sudden flareup of emotion will serve to squelch that truth permanently. It will prevail. If I am not speaking truth, if my views are not the fruit of careful and honest observation, then my words will not prevail and I shall be happiest of anyone to see them die.

The words of Robert M. Hutchins on liberal education are appropriate here: “The purpose of higher education is to unsettle the minds of young men, to widen their horizon, to inflame their intellects. It is not to reform them, to amuse them, or to make them expert technicians in any field. It is to teach them to think, to think straight if possible; but to think always for themselves.”

This is dangerous, I know, but no great things are ever achieved without danger. And when we fear in our colleges to teach students to think for themselves, we not only do a disservice to mankind, but to that very church which we love and which needs above all else clear, penetrating minds to guide it into more and more truth.

I have tried to say that there is too much intellectual coercion in these schools and too little freedom to search God’s meanings as a private person. This destroys the vitality of any faith and it is always only a matter of time until the lifelessness is apparent to all.

I have tried to say that any system which fosters a sense of superiority and arrogance in students who really know very little is the exact reverse of true Christian education. I shall not be content until more graduating seniors from such schools display notable amounts of humility and compassion and show a deep and abiding respect for all truth-seeking.

Those of us who have inherited the Restoration legacy have a gigantic task. We have a marvelous God and exceptional opportunities. Our colleges can serve a vital purpose in seizing these opportunities. But only if they create an atmosphere where genuine Christianity is confirmed and where students are pointed in the direction of spiritual maturity. And only if they deliver what they promise, genuine liberal education which opens the closed mind and keeps it receptive to incoming truth.

To speak at last a prayer: If Christ is greater than “the system,” if truth is bigger than the party, and if men are willing to open their minds and hearts to God’s constant guidance, the Kingdom of Heaven may yet spread as widely as the Saviour hoped it would.

__________________

Robert R. Meyers holds the Ph.D. from Washington University. He was for five years a professor of English at Harding College. He has been associated with two other Church of Christ schools. He is presently at Friends University in Wichita, and he ministers to a Church of Christ in that city. This journal considers this article by Professor Meyers one of the most sobering challenges to so-called “Christian Education” of our day. It is especially significant in that it comes from within the ranks of Church of Christ institutions. While it speaks to Church of Christ colleges in particular, its challenge reaches all the parochial institutions within discipledom.

 

God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please—you can never have both. Between these, as a pendulum, man oscillates. He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets-most likely his father’s. He gets rest, commodity and reputation; but he shuts the door of truth. He in whom the love of truth predominates will keep himself aloof from all moorings, and afloat. He will abstain from dogmatism, and recognize all the opposite negations between which, as walls, his being is swung. He submits to the inconvenience of suspene and imperfect opinion, but he is a candidate for truth, as the other is not, and respects the highest law of his being.-Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Editorial Note: The foregoing essay by Professor Meyers is deemed so vital and significant that reprints are being made available for the purpose of wider distribution. Order from our publication office at once if you care for extra copies. Price is 15 cents per copy or 8 copies for one dollar.