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Chapter 11 of Duane Litfin’s book, “Conceiving the Christian College”, is an elaboration of his argument for why colleges like Wheaton should resist any kind of change. The main reason is that if they change, then they will be different from the way they are now. “Thus it has always been at Wheaton College,” he writes, “and thus is remains today.”
He also addresses the question of allowing Wheaton to become an ecumenically orthodox Christian university (EOCU). He has two answers to this. First, the EOCU model is not stable so such a university is what he calls a “will-o’-the-wisp”, in fact, not a single one exists. Second, there are so many EOCUs that the world doesn’t need any more.
There is no such thing as an EOCU
A “mere Christianity” location along the continuum may prove to be a difficult place to stop. In fact I cannot think of a single independent institution of Wheaton’s vintage that has managed to move to “mere Christianity” and then halt there. Some can be documented to have passed through this stage, but always on their way to somewhere else.
Yale! Harvard! Princeton! I’m looking at you!!! These institutions are not what they used to be! They are now different from what they were before! “Given these realities,” Litfin continues, “it appears to me that Wheaton is thriving as what it is; why would its leadership experiment so dangerously with an institution that has worked so well for so long?” The danger of being different from what Wheaton is now is too much of a threat to be taken lightly.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” says the homely aphorism, and there is wisdom here, especially for 150-year-old Christian colleges. The farmer who killed his golden-egg-laying goose under the illusion that he had a better idea proved to be profoundly mistaken, and so could we. I fail to see the justification for introducing what could be such a hazardous and disorienting change to a place like Wheaton.
Conservativism is a virtue in itself. Well-off people in positions of power, like Litfin, know better than anyone that change is hazardous and disorienting. We should listen to them.
Litfin also knows his slogans. He knows which ones have outlived their usefulness and which have not. He knows which ones need to be retired and which ones are still powerful. These slogans apply to 150-year-old Christian colleges… well, to Wheaton at least.
So, firstly, the ecumenically orthodox Christian university is not a stable model, according to Litfin. Such universities never last long. In fact, Litfin can’t think of a single one.
There are already too many EOCUs
But secondly, there are already so many of them! And here is the basis for Litfin’s second argument for why Wheaton should not become one of those.
In other words, that market is being served… Why then should a place like Wheaton give up its distinctiveness, leaving much of its constituency behind, to attempt something so fraught with institutional danger, only to become just another member of the crowd?
Not only is change itself fraught with danger, what’s the point of joining such a huge and successful crowd? Those schools are not distinctive. Wheaton is.
He continues, “Why wouldn’t such a move both diminish Wheaton’s uniqueness and impoverish the universe of discourse to which Wheaton contributes its distinctive voice?” Those of you with a strong constitution can try to imagine the impoverished universe of discourse that lacks Wheaton’s contribution. My stomach is not that hard.
Litfin addresses some of the reasons other schools change from being distinctive, like Wheaton, to being ecumenically orthodox Christian universities: “Because there are barbarians at the gate, and we Christians must join forces in order to endure? My reply is that this is a worthy, indeed a necessary, goal, but achieving it need not demand a dramatic reconfiguration of institutional identity.” As important as Litfin concedes it is to hold back the barbarians at the gate, change is not an option. That would essentially mean surrender.
Change from within—Entropy Intercepted
In the final section of the Chapter, Litfin addresses the following possibility: what if a member of a university like Wheaton, who still believes in the statement of faith, comes to “think those provisions ought not be part of the college’s definition of itself.” “This is not a happy scenario,” writes Litfin. Litfin imagines such a person “using whatever influence” he has to “press the college into broadening.” The question then is “what is the president of [the] college, whose task it is, among many other things, to preserve the identity of the college, to do?” Here Litfin rightly divines the president’s task: preventing change. But what is to be done?
“I don’t have a definitive answer to this question,” he writes. But the title of this section gives away his answer: “Entropy Intercepted”. He refers to entropy as a “tragic decline” from order to chaos. Only those “who carry the appropriate responsibility” can make changes to an institution without chaos resulting.
But this still doesn’t answer the question about what a president is to do about, say, a faculty member who wants to destroy the university by changing it. He finally does answer the question and the answer is subtle. He tells a story about a faculty colleague of his at a different institution in the past. That colleague was in just this situation and he did the “wiser” and “more godly” thing. He left the institution. “That was twenty-five years ago, but I have never forgotten my colleague’s wisdom. He was right, and I was wrong. His response was a model of Christian maturity, a paradigm of how these things should work.”
Litfin here is telling us what a president in this situation should do, subtly and in a recursive manner. What a president ought to do in this situation is to write a book explaining to these subversive faculty that they are unwise, ungodly and ought to just quit. Hear! Hear! But Litfin cleverly says this without saying it! A tip o’ the Royal hat to you, Duane!
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[...] He goes on to explain the historical notion of pluralism in which it was not individual professors who are free to teach from whatever perspective they see fit, but in which institutions are free to tell their professors to teach what the institutions see fit. In the truly congenial and plural academic setting, scholars must work from the perspective predetermined by the University and must never change their minds. [...]
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