Two More Posts Elsewhere
April 30, 2009
Yet another post for the National Post, this one reflecting on the recent Maclean’s article suggesting Canadians are racists. (I have to gulp, though, at the headline the Post decided to put on it. “Religion Supports Violence” is hardly the main point. But that’s the sort of thing one must endure to write for such media, alas.)
And here’s one on the University of Chicago’s Sightings regarding the continuing responsibility of theologians in the global North-West to serve the world out of the accumulated resources of centuries.
Two Cheers for Darwin on His Birthday
April 28, 2009
My second post for “Holy Post” at The National Post–no, only terrible puns can follow from such a start. So let’s just nip that in the bud.
If you’d like to read my brief reflection on theists and Darwinism, please go here.
When we turn to teaching, several public goods come into view.
Let’s begin with something pretty basic. The Christian university contributes to society through offering university training with funding otherwise not available to governments via taxes or donations. It is a well-established fact that many parents are willing to pay extra to send their children to a Christian university and many donors will support Christian education that will not contribute to the public university down the street. Thus we see that more money is made available for the educational enterprise if Christian education is allowed to flourish. And when one can make the case to government officials that more money is available, government officials tend to pay attention.
“Holy Post” in the National Post
April 24, 2009
I’ll interrupt this sequence on Christian universities to gesture toward a new initiative of one of Canada’s national newspapers, the National Post, which is increasing its coverage of religion at a time when many media are scaling back.
One of the clever ways the NP has devised to do so is to get some people to write for it on the cheap–low-profile, strugging writers desperate for some attention, such as . . . yes, you guessed it . . . your servant.
So here’s my first contribution to “Holy Post” and I hope you’ll encourage the NP to keep on in this new venture–even as you can properly hope that their stable of writers improves, and soon.
Let us begin with the research function of the university, and in my next post, I’ll turn to teaching.
The Christian university contributes to the broader society of which it is a part through research that is of value beyond the Christian community itself. It is likely that some of the research generated within a Christian university will be of interest only to Christians, and perhaps only to those Christians of the same stripe as those sponsoring a particular Christian university. Questions discussed in theology come to mind immediately as an example of such valuable “in-house” research. Most of the research conducted in a Christian university, however, will normally be of interest to a broader audience, and so a Christian university is justified in the eyes of society on the same terms as any other university.
That fact, of course, is also a problem. Why would society want to encourage a Christian university for doing the same thing that a secular university (already) does? To answer this question properly, we will need to convince contemporary society that there are at least two contexts in which good research can flourish.
What (Public) Good Is a Christian University?
April 15, 2009
I’ve just arrived in Liverpool after a bit of a journey (nonstop flight from Vancouver to London, then a few hours in Heathrow before boarding a short flight to Manchester, then an hour’s drive to Liverpool). I’m here to participate in a conference drawing together university presidents, provosts, and professors from several continents to discuss what a Christian university can contribute to a pluralistic society. (Over here they use the word “secular” a lot to describe British society, but I think they’d agree that “pluralist” might be as good a term in some respects as “secular.”)
Canada has a few Christian universities, having seen its once-Christian universities secularize one by one until the 1960s. (Was McMaster or Acadia the last one to give over to the state?) The United States has a lot of them–by various definitions and degrees of “Christian.” Britain hasn’t had any for quite some time, but my hosts here at Liverpool Hope University are (re-)introducing the idea to England.
From a Christian point of view, there can be a number of gifts that a Christian university can bring to the common table. But here are two questions with which I’d like your help:
1. What of those gifts will be, or ought to be, recognized as such by our non-Christian neighbours–or even by our Christian neighbours who see the university as the place in which society in all its diversity works out some of its problems? What are the main contributions a Christian university can make to a secular/pluralist society–in terms that that society will affirm?
2. Even more provocatively, can a Christian university contribute to the public good such that it warrants at least a measure of public funding?
I once encountered a Marxist debater who was slicing and dicing a mild-mannered Christian speaker in London’s Hyde Park. The Marxist was making mincemeat particularly of the Very Nice Jesus being proclaimed by the now-sad fellow marooned on his little box.
“Jesus was not a nice person!” the young Marxist exclaimed, his finger jabbing at a New Testament text in which Jesus is saying terrible things about the Jewish theological professionals of his day, and then at another in which Jesus threatens hellfire for those who ignore his teaching.
I took on my Marxist neighbour in a sort of rhetorical judo: “Of course Jesus wasn’t a nice person!” I agreed, to his confusion. “You don’t crucify nice guys.”
