Read the previous installation in this series!
I’m sad to say that this will probably be my last blog on Duane Litfin’s book, “Conceiving the Christian College”. It has been a source of joy and encouragement for me and, I know, all of its readers.
Chapter 12 is called “Our Place in the Academy: CHALLENGE: To Engender a More Congenial Academic Environment.” Congeniality is the theme of the Chapter.
He begins by explaining how the definition of pluralism (the classical notion of which Litfin embraces with an open heart) has been changed, hijacked by secularists during the twentieth century. Litfin explains this new anti-Christian definition of pluralism as follows: “the right of the individual scholar to work and teach from whatever perspective he or she saw fit was to be held inviolate.” This is the type of uncongenial environment we at Christian colleges oppose.
But Christian colleges need not and must not acquiesce to such a skewed reading of the academic setting. They must offer a winsome alternative, one that will appeal, if not to the ideologues, at least to the fair-minded everywhere.
Here Litfin congenially contrasts the secular ideologues with fair-minded people everywhere. When we argue about our definitions, this kind of congeniality is important and Litfin’s book is full of it.
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. It is only in this environment that new ideas can be completely impossible.
This is the true “classical” pluralism which Christians embrace.
Revelation without coercion
Litfin then begins a discussion of the two ways of gaining knowledge: empirically and by divine revelation. Litfin agrees with Simmias in the “Phaedo” who offers the opinion that divine revelation is “a superior way of knowing”. (Why pagans, to whom divine revelation was unavailable, even discussed this question is a mystery. I guess they mistook their own clever ideas for revelation. Hard to imagine such a mistake.) Litfin also wisely admits that due to its superiority, divine revelation can make one “liable to coercive tactics”.
But we also insist that these dangers are only potential; they are neither intrinsic nor inevitable. Coerciveness may be a Siren’s snare for the unwary religionist, but coercive behavior is by no means entailed in a religious stance. In fact, in the case of Christians who seek to ground their behavior in Scripture, the opposite is true: It is precisely that which Christians consider divine revelation that insists upon the dignity of the other and the integrity of the other’s choice-making.
Here, Litfin is referring to the Bible which clearly and consistently insists, both directly and through its stories, that respect for the choice-making of the other is paramount to other concerns. [note to self: keep looking for Bible references to back this up]
We in Christian higher education repudiate all forms of restricted or coerced ideas as unworthy and unchristian. However subtle or overt the means, attempting to force or restrict a person’s thinking or beliefs violates the fundamental Christian principle of the dignity and worth of individual human beings.
In the foregoing chapters, Litfin has exposed the subtle ways that this kind of coercion has crept into the secular academy. No amount of subtlety can hide coercion from his piercing gaze. And no coercion, subtle or overt, could stand for long at a university where he was in charge.
Sure, the secularists will claim that coercion is the only purpose of claiming divine revelation and that the claim to divine revelation is, by its nature, coercive. When we say, “Thus saith the Lord,” it’s true that reality must listen to us; but not in a coercive way. It is in a voluntary way. When we say “God’s will for you is X,” or “you will go to Hell if you do Y” or “you will be fired if you don’t believe Z” it is not coercive or an appeal to legitimize our own will. This is just the Truth.
Rationalism is imbalanced, too
In the section Dogmatic Rationalism, Litfin attacks the stifling dogma of “autonomous human reason” and it’s about time. Speaking for all of us in Christian higher education, Litfin writes
Our difficulty arises only when we encounter that radical dogma that insists unaided human reason is the only legitimate avenue to knowledge, and therefore that only those ideas discoverable through reason will be allowed into the academic marketplace. This dogma, with its stifling of genuine pluralism, we oppose.
After completely embarrassing anyone who holds an epistemology other than his own, he goes on to argue the obvious: it is not religion that is bad, it is coercing everyone to accept your epistemology that is bad. He explains that that’s what the church used to do and that is what the secular academy is doing now. Now the secular academy dictates the terms of the debate and insists that only rational ideas are allowed and coerces others to start there or pay the price by being considered just another perspective.
But here is the problem: if the only admitted knowledge is that attained by reason (or, one presumes, empirical evidence) then what becomes of the Christian truth claims that are completely independent of reason or our senses? In Litfin’s words: “If all we have is our own point of view, what happens to the ancient claims of the Bible, of the Gospel?”
The stifling dogma of the secular academy refers to knowledge that is attained in unreasonable, unobservable, untestable ways as “one perspective”! What kind of pluralism is that? We cannot accept it. I can understand if you want to deprecate the views of ridiculous Mormons or Hindus because they’re just talking nonsense. But we Christians have access to divine, revealed Truth from the triune godhead revealed through the virgin-born God-man with the sword coming out of his mouth and mediated through the Holy Ghost! Plus the Bible!!
Any forum that does not admit a priori the epistemological soundness of our revelation and that the absolute Truth of the absolute Truth is True is not an open forum.
The Rationalists were amateurs
Litfin notes that we Christians are happy that
postmodernism has shown modernity’s rationalism could not achieve the exalted heights the Enlightenment’s children set for themselves. [...] Christians have long been skeptical of the rationalistic hubris that asserted that human reason could rise to such heights on its own.
Indeed, the church has long known that one needs more than just rationalism to attain the heights to which the Enlightenment’s children aspired: one needs divine revelation as well. With those two together with tradition, the church’s power through the Roman Empire was greater than what the Enlightenment’s children ever reached! The rationalists were amateurs!
Relativism
We Christians are confident that if the arena were truly open to us, in the sense that everyone accepted the Truth we present as being absolute, then our ideas would “compete on their own merits”, as Litfin puts it. He writes, “we seek no more than a place in that arena. We are convinced that in a free society’s open forum[...] our ideas will more than hold their own.”
If it weren’t for their coercive tactics and stifling dogma that restrict us from the conversation, we could say, “Thus saith the Lord!” to them and that would be that. But the “open” forum is not open to us and Litfin gives more reasons in the next section, Dogmatic Relativism.
Litfin begins the section by taking exception to the postmodern claim that the Christian truth claims are
worse than false; they are dangerous creeds designed to marginalize and oppress the weak. Truth claims turn out to be mere opinions tricked up as truth in order to legitimize power. Hence those who make truth claims must be viewed as authoritarian zealots.
Litfin makes it clear that their violence is directed chiefly at Christians by pointing out that they single out oppressors who claim their opinions are true and impose them on others. The postmodernists also show their uncongenial attitude toward Christians by reducing “everything to matters of power”. Litfin tries to remind them repeatedly that the sweet grapes of the Christian church’s power have gone sour and now it is the postmodern philosophy that violently holds onto power. But Litfin turns the other cheek to their uncongeniality by congenially reminding them that “such blindness is a danger to an open marketplace of ideas.”
More reasons not to enter their “open” forum
Litfin then warns us again not listen to the postmodern Siren call that says that we Christians are just as welcome in the marketplace of ideas as everyone.
It is here, however, that postmodernism may constitute a threat to that marketplace. Posing as an open system, radical anti-foundationalism—due to its inability from within to recognize itself as merely another contender in the marketplace of ideas, combined with its absolutizing of the perspectival and the consequent tendency to reduce everything to matters of power—in fact demonstrates a bent toward restriction and coercion.
The postmodern marketplace of ideas is open,
but only toward those who have embraced its creed. Voices in the marketplace who refuse to adopt its constructivist presuppositions are demonized as oppressors who claim their opinions are true only in order to impose them violently on others. [...] Ironically, radical anti-foundationalists can justify such violent tactics only by enforcing their constructivist dogma as the “right” one.
By means of this pretended inclusive invitation, the postmodernists are really saying that only people who can listen to others are invited; only those who can handle having people listen to them who don’t accept their assumptions. One must accept their liberal relativism, their consideration for other points of view, and so on. This “invitation” is no invitation at all; not for a real Christian, anyway.
Litfin illuminates the violence inherent in the postmodernists’ “invitation”.
Here’s the conclusion:
- I would be totally unfair to call a forum “open” that required everyone to accept a certain epistemology ahead of time
- The postmodernists almost do this by calling other epistemologies “perspectives”
- Thus we must not enter their forum
- We must only enter fora in which everyone agrees ahead of time that our unique epistemology of the authority of revelation through the Bible is the only way to absolute Truth because only those are truly open
We will not fall for the postmodernists’ violent trick. We won’t enter their “open forum” only to have them smile and violently nod their heads saying to themselves, “that’s just your opinion”. We know their evil thoughts. They don’t accept our words as absolute truth. This is therefore not the “open forum” they want us the believe it to be.
The true open forum
At Christian colleges, we have true open forums. All of the speakers voluntarily sign a statement beforehand stating that they believe the Truth. Then each speaker says, “Thus saith the Lord…” There is no one present who thinks, “well, that’s just your opinion, man!” We all respectfully respond with full credulity. Anything less would not be congenial.
Another reason we should be heard
Litfin highlights the problem of the postmodern stifling of Christian truth claims by including an excellent quote from John Stuart Mill:
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion, is that it is robbing the human race, posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
Christian truth claims must be preserved if only for this purpose.
Conclusion
I close with praise for Litfin’s keen eye for irony. He exposes the postmodernists for the hypocrites that they are by quoting Christian Smith: “Sometimes it is the biggest proponents of self-reflexivity who seem least aware of their own incongruities.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Well, dear readers, perhaps we can dedicate a few comments to other examples in his book where Litfin models the kind of congeniality he is going for in the academy.
3 Replies
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