I can't muster much optimism that private Christian colleges will resist the pressure. More likely, I think, will be the kind of response that Prof. Du Mez got when her speaking engagement was cancelled: "We know the accusations are untrue, but our hands are tied..." The cavalry won't be coming over the hill to help. We will have to make…
I can't muster much optimism that private Christian colleges will resist the pressure. More likely, I think, will be the kind of response that Prof. Du Mez got when her speaking engagement was cancelled: "We know the accusations are untrue, but our hands are tied..." The cavalry won't be coming over the hill to help. We will have to make this stand on our own, and there will be casualties. Professors will lose their jobs. Students will be deprived of honest teaching and learning opportunities. Dissidents will be persecuted. This is more a time for Revelation theology: Hold fast and keep the faith, because God's love and justice win in the end.
Not only this, but with wealthy conservative donors to these private colleges and universities, there is a trend toward keeping them happy to survive the recent financial downturn. Our local Northwestern College (RCA) has curved back toward a tighter and more aggressive treatment of LGBTQIA+ students.
For context, Northwestern (origins of Robert Schuyler) is in Orange City, IA and Shelbyville with Dordt College/University in Springfield/Sioux Center. The RCA is considered the most liberal of about 6 reformed denominations in this historic Dutch colony founded directly after the natives were removed. The CRC is considered marginally less liberal. Their big disagreement historically has been over public schools. The RCA is OK with them. The CRC and RCA are so small they have had to unite under one North American administration to share resources and lower costs. They have some ecumenical engagements with each other (pulpit sharing, men and maybe sometimes women clergy) but this is always contested ground. Currently there might be some challenges keeping the Canadians (who think they are the most liberal but not by much) on board!
Both schools compete for the same dwindling pool of ethnic legacy students and others who trend very conservative. The homeschooling parents (who are as organized as a group as the Iowa gun owners/same people) know they have the power to play off the colleges against each other and negotiate deals for their quiverfuls of kids by raking administrators over the coals for this or that slip of Darwinism or lack of hostility to Muslims, gay people, etc. It's completely true and the established reality that the President Business characters in charge and their subordinates will do everything they can to seem and sound as reactionary as the home school moms like, but do they actually believe anything anymore? One wonders.
The problem with having the institutions and instruction aligned with the way you think it should be is that you're playing the same game as the people you say you oppose. It envisions schools mostly as good for indoctrination. Smart, sensitive, capable, and willful individuals always hate this stupefying paternalism and authoritarian streak in schools, churches, groups of any kind. From very very young ages too. The more pressure put on them, the stronger they will get. And most will sensibly walk away to freer pastures.
This is partly why the religious right fills up with increasingly incompetent people even as it seems to be an electoral success. In a defective culture, the defectives become popular.
The problems you chronically see in religious ghetto institutions has to do with their parochial, petty intergenerational family dysfunctions where parents cling to children and feel entitled to dictate their intellectual, vocational, emotional, physical, and spiritual outcomes. It is satanic beyond the dreams of Stalin. What we should worry about with these people in power is their lack of capacity to actually wield it with such fragile, anxious minds and incapacity to deal with complexity, multivariable systems, paradox, contradiction, and uncertainty. Without the anti-intellectualism and racist monomania of Hitler, Germany might have won.
I can't muster much optimism that private Christian colleges will resist the pressure. More likely, I think, will be the kind of response that Prof. Du Mez got when her speaking engagement was cancelled: "We know the accusations are untrue, but our hands are tied..." The cavalry won't be coming over the hill to help. We will have to make this stand on our own, and there will be casualties. Professors will lose their jobs. Students will be deprived of honest teaching and learning opportunities. Dissidents will be persecuted. This is more a time for Revelation theology: Hold fast and keep the faith, because God's love and justice win in the end.
Not only this, but with wealthy conservative donors to these private colleges and universities, there is a trend toward keeping them happy to survive the recent financial downturn. Our local Northwestern College (RCA) has curved back toward a tighter and more aggressive treatment of LGBTQIA+ students.
For context, Northwestern (origins of Robert Schuyler) is in Orange City, IA and Shelbyville with Dordt College/University in Springfield/Sioux Center. The RCA is considered the most liberal of about 6 reformed denominations in this historic Dutch colony founded directly after the natives were removed. The CRC is considered marginally less liberal. Their big disagreement historically has been over public schools. The RCA is OK with them. The CRC and RCA are so small they have had to unite under one North American administration to share resources and lower costs. They have some ecumenical engagements with each other (pulpit sharing, men and maybe sometimes women clergy) but this is always contested ground. Currently there might be some challenges keeping the Canadians (who think they are the most liberal but not by much) on board!
Both schools compete for the same dwindling pool of ethnic legacy students and others who trend very conservative. The homeschooling parents (who are as organized as a group as the Iowa gun owners/same people) know they have the power to play off the colleges against each other and negotiate deals for their quiverfuls of kids by raking administrators over the coals for this or that slip of Darwinism or lack of hostility to Muslims, gay people, etc. It's completely true and the established reality that the President Business characters in charge and their subordinates will do everything they can to seem and sound as reactionary as the home school moms like, but do they actually believe anything anymore? One wonders.
Ugh... Tighter and more aggressive in what ways? I'd be curious to know.
The problem with having the institutions and instruction aligned with the way you think it should be is that you're playing the same game as the people you say you oppose. It envisions schools mostly as good for indoctrination. Smart, sensitive, capable, and willful individuals always hate this stupefying paternalism and authoritarian streak in schools, churches, groups of any kind. From very very young ages too. The more pressure put on them, the stronger they will get. And most will sensibly walk away to freer pastures.
This is partly why the religious right fills up with increasingly incompetent people even as it seems to be an electoral success. In a defective culture, the defectives become popular.
The problems you chronically see in religious ghetto institutions has to do with their parochial, petty intergenerational family dysfunctions where parents cling to children and feel entitled to dictate their intellectual, vocational, emotional, physical, and spiritual outcomes. It is satanic beyond the dreams of Stalin. What we should worry about with these people in power is their lack of capacity to actually wield it with such fragile, anxious minds and incapacity to deal with complexity, multivariable systems, paradox, contradiction, and uncertainty. Without the anti-intellectualism and racist monomania of Hitler, Germany might have won.