Liberals and Conservatives in Christian Higher Education
James P. Danaher
Nyack College
The nature of the academy involves the free exchange of ideas and a tolerance for ideas contrary to one�s own.� Within most religious institutions, however, it is expected that the members of those institutions profess similar religious beliefs.� Thus, the Christian college or university contains an inherent potential for conflict.� How should we understand and manage this conflict?� Are we stuck with choosing between the two?� Must we sacrifice being a Christian institution in order to be truly academic?� Or must we sacrifice being a truly academic institution in order to be Christian?
In trying to understand this conflict, we might initially suppose that the conservative comes out on the side of the religious element and the liberal on the side of the academy.� This is not necessarily the case, especially in institutions where both conservatives and liberals are deeply committed to the Christian life.� In such situations, the problem lies more in what the respective conservative or liberal sees as essential to the truth of the Christian faith.
The conservative generally has a more narrow view of the truth.� They wish to conserve a modern, Enlightenment view of truth after the model of mathematics.� With such a view in mind, their idea of truth is both certain and precise.� Because of this, they believe that we should tolerate very little in the way of diverse ideas concerning the doctrines that represent the truths of the faith.
Liberals, on the other hand, generally have a notion of truth that is more perspectival.� Their model for truth is not that of mathematics.� Especially in regard to their Christianity, they are after a truth that is personal rather than objective.� Indeed, the truth they seek is a person (John 14:6).� As such their idea of truth is open and more of a journey than a series of propositional truths.� Because of this, liberals appear less rigid and are generally open to a greater degree of diversity concerning doctrine.
The attempt to create a Christian institution that brings both conservatives and liberals together often creates a situation where the conservative thinks that the liberal is destroying the foundations of the Christian faith, while the liberal thinks that the conservative is afraid to step out of their comfort zone in order to come more fully into the Christian life.� These are matters that are often hotly contested.� Indeed, in the past Christians killed one another over such matters.
The reason the situation was so much worse in the past was because reality was, for the most part, believed to be a given.� It was assumed that we brought very little to our experience of the world, and even if we did bring something through which to interpret our experience, it was supposed that what we brought was some God-given, universal hardware that we all share.� That was certainly Kant�s view, but since the time of Kant it has become evermore evident that what we bring to our experience is much more than merely some universal, mental hardware.� We now know that the understanding through which we interpret our experience is shaped by our respective culture, history, and even our own individual experiences and judgments.� These are the things that create the unique places from which we each experience this human condition.
Today, even the conservative professor who wishes to reject much of the perspectivalism of recent centuries understands that her liberal colleagues do not take the position they take because of a different truth but because of a different perspective of that truth.� The conservative might disagree with the liberal�s perspective, and may believe that her judgments and experiences are tainted by that perspective of the truth, but it is her perspective of the truth wherein the disagreement lies.� The conservative professor may think that the liberal professor gives far too much place to perspective, and that the perspectival variables are not as influential as the liberal imagines, but it is still a matter of perspective.� From the conservative�s perspective, the truth is seen more clearly, while the liberal sees through thick, perspectival lenses that make any objective truth a cloudier matter.� Such differences are not easily dealt with, and, although they are no longer matters of life and death, they do seem to be a serious obstacle to the creation of institutions that strive to be both genuinely collegiate and Christian.� In spite of this difficulty, however, the mission of the Christian academy demands that we negotiate this difficulty and bring together both conservative and liberal professors.
The reason this is so essential to our mission is because students come to the Christian academy from a vast variety of backgrounds and perspectives.� Some of our students may be new Christians and may need the security of hard and fast boundaries that seem to be an essential starting point for the development of a human identity of any kind.� Some may be battling histories of alcohol or drug abuse.� Such individuals may need a rigid structure of concrete doctrines that the conservative professor provides.
On the other hand, we also have students come to us with sound foundations and boundaries established.� Many of them need to be challenged to step out of their comfort zone and into a less certain but hopefully a more fruitful understanding of the Gospel.� Many of our students are at a place in their Christian journey where they are finding that the Sunday school doctrines they began with no longer explain the things they are learning about themselves, the world, or their relationship with God.
The Christian life generally, and perhaps ideally, begins with conservatism.� We need to begin with boundaries.� Psychologists tell us that we begin in our psychological development with hard and fast rules that establish the boundaries necessary for identity.� With adolescence and increased experiences, however, we come to realize that such hard rules and fixed boundaries do not always explain the reality we encounter.� At such points, two things can happen.� We can either abandon all boundaries and fall into a wild nihilism, or we can begin to develop soft rules and less rigid boundaries that allow us to preserve an identity that continues to be fixed upon the hope we have in Christ Jesus.
Many of our students need professors who can show them the soft rules that can be used to bring them into a less rigid and more personal relationship with God.� Such liberal professors are certainly needed, but their sin is that they can easily come to think that everyone should be in the place they find themselves.� They often lack compassion for students and other professors who do not share their perspective.� There is a lack of humility in their thinking that their position is superior and reflects a more mature Christianity.� This lack of humility comes from a pride in having arrived at such an enlightened position.� The conservative professor, on the other hand, also must combat her pride in thinking that she is the great defender of The Truth.
If the Christian academy is to fulfill its mission, it must meet the needs of its students by providing professors and mentors who can meet them where they are at.� Just as we need female and minority professors in order to provide mentors who understand the perspectives of women and minorities, so too we need both conservative and liberal professors who understand the vast variety of perspectives represented by our students.� We come to the Christian life from a variety of places and with a variety of needs.� We are not all in the same place and we need mentors who can show us how the Christian life can be lived from those different places.
Many students do not receive what they come to a Christian college for because institutions full of conservative professors insist upon narrow doctrines to which many students can no longer identify.� Likewise, other institutions have failed in their mission because, with nothing but liberal professors, they are unable to meet the needs of those who come to them in need of firm foundations.
The Christian life may be a journey, but those at the beginning of the journey need foundations from which to set their course.� Equally, since it is a journey into knowing a truth that is a person (John 14:6), no one has the last word.� If we are to meet our students where we find them in their journey, we need to create Christian academies that have room for both conservative and liberal professors.
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