Category: Academia

20Jul

A House Divided: The Evergreen State College Meltdown

Jesus famously said, “A house divided against itself shall not stand”. For those who would seize or destroy an institution, this is not merely descriptive but prescriptive. In recent years the outside world has watched in amazement as a vocal minority of activists has effectively seized control at a liberal institution of higher education. Disturbingly this may be only be the beginning of a new and uglier phase of the culture battle, in which a newer and more virulent strain of leftism finishes off the remnant of conservatives and begins to feed on its own political allies.

At Evergreen State College in Washington, student protests ultimately drove out two well liked liberal professors, who, their heads still reeling, wrote a postmortem on the chaos that descended. After the new president stopped protestors from derailing a convocation, he then reversed course and apologized for doing so, and opened a door to more of the same:

Even so, assume for the moment that Evergreen did have racism running rampant. Even under those conditions, would apologizing to students for asking them to respect the college and its invited speakers be the right move? Of course not.
What happened next was predictable. Protests became more frequent and intrusive. Protesters showed up at the swearing-in ceremony of the new campus police chief, Stacy Brown, and shut it down…Soon thereafter, protesters showed up at another ceremony, the dedication of a campus building to the last president of Evergreen, Les Purce. Purce happens to be black. Protesters grabbed the microphone and read an epithet-rich announcement claiming that the school is “unsafe for marginalized students.”

Much of the blame is placed upon the new president of the college who allied himself with the social justice warriors, encouraging ever more vocal protests, and shaming any who would dare question the new order.

A meeting was held in 2016 to “discuss” a new “Strategic Equity Plan”; no “discussion” was offered other than an invitation for attendees to come up onstage and step into an invisible canoe. Most did, to the sounds of Native American drum rhythms and recordings of surf. Prof Bret Weinstein chose not to go into the invisible canoe, and he circulated an opinion questioning the tactics as being intimidating. In turn, he received hate-laced emails.

The environment on campus deteriorated. Weinstein was denounced as a racist. Later a mob of protesters disrupted his class and held him hostage for a while.

Two of his students, neither of them white, attempted to defend him to the angry crowd. They were shouted down. Not following the faux-equity party line meant that you would be informed that you were wrong, that you were a traitor

The climate on campus deteriorated rapidly. Protestors stormed the last faculty meeting of the year, shutting it down. Then they blockaded the library. Thugs began patrolling the campus looking for Professor Weinstein, who was forced to hold class off campus. The police chief later resigned. Finally Prof Weinstein and his wife were asked by the administration to leave.

The irony is that they were (are) themselves from the political left, and had been protestors in their youth. This was a blow to them, and they wrote:

Why are we being advised by the social justice crowd that we shall not focus on the content of our character, but instead must focus primarily on the color of our skin (and our gender identification, sexual orientation, and various other signifiers of intersectional oppression)? This would be MLK’s nightmare. Why is it being handed a megaphone?

We agree. This portends a possible intellectual dark age coming to academia.

Source:
Heying and Weinstein (2017) “Bonfire of the academies: Two professors on how leftist intolerance is killing higher education.” The Washington Examiner. Online at https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/bonfire-of-the-academies-two-professors-on-how-leftist-intolerance-is-killing-higher-education

01May

The Light Triad

Researchers have recently announced a corollary to the “dark triad” that marks extreme psychopathy and criminal behavior. The “dark triad”, as you may have encountered in school or from outside reading, represents the worst of humanity: Narcissism, Psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. These are the Hannibal Lectors and Jeff Dahmers and mobsters of our world. They are self absorbed people, with low empathy, who are antisocial and manipulative. Not all of them are criminals, but they still damage those around them. As Wikipedia summarizes well: “People scoring high on these traits are more likely to commit crimes, cause social distress and create severe problems for an organization, especially if they are in leadership positions.”

What then is the “light triad”? Authors Kaufman and colleagues have developed a “light triad scale”:

The LTS is a first draft measure of a loving and beneficent orientation toward others (“everyday saints”) that consists of three facets: Kantianism (treating people as ends unto themselves), Humanism (valuing the dignity and worth of each individual), and Faith in Humanity (believing in the fundamental goodness of humans).

The three major categories noted above were mapped against other paradigms such as the Big 5 personality traits, and compared with the dark triad. On the religiosity tests they found that “religious and spiritual people are more likely to also be high scorers on the Light Triad scale.”

I found the following data to be interesting:

The Light Triad was positively correlated with Oneness Experiences and God Experiences, and these correlations remained significant even after controlling for the facets of Agreeableness and Honesty-Humility. The Dark Triad was also positively correlated with Oneness Experiences, and this correlation remained significant even after controlling for the facets of Agreeableness and Honesty-Humility. The Dark Triad was uncorrelated with God Experiences.

As an exercise, I decided to pair each positive trait with a biblical passage that represents the trait in question.

1. Kantianism (treating people as ends unto themselves)

”You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39)

2. Humanism (valuing the dignity and worth of each individual)

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:27-28)

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. (Romans 12:15-18)

3. Faith in Humanity (believing in the fundamental goodness of humans).

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16)

But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

I would offer a point of objection that these labels smuggle in a worldview of humanism that isn’t perfectly aligned with Christianity. Christians can be and have been humanists, but certainly “fundamental goodness of humanity” would have to be phrased in a more nuanced way. We could as equally affirm the fundamental evil of humanity. Christianity teaches neither—We generally embrace the idea of an original goodness that has been tarnished or lost, but can be restored again. God has a love that is always seeking reconciliation, and is intended for all manner of people, transcending the puny boundaries of culture, gender, and race.

As Christians we are also to radiate this love. We are to love one another as God has loved us. “Walk in love as Christ loved us…” says the old Book of Common Prayer, echoing Ephesians 5:2. Nevertheless, we are called to love not blindly (by pretending that something is what it isn’t), but rather to love as God does, despite the flaws of that love’s object. And we are to realize the sacrificial nature of love. The rest of the phrase goes like this: “…and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.” By the way, the very definition of Christian love, “agape” in the original Greek, means not merely to be self effacing, but primarily to be other-enhancing.

Furthermore, a word to parents. From a Christian perspective, the goal of parenting is not shepherding your children into the right colleges, teaching them to survive in business, or making sure they want for nothing. “Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” says Paul (in Ephesians, 6:4). A good portion of that task is character development.

For further reading

Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad

Kessler, SR; Bandeiii, AC; Spector, PE; Borman, WC; Nelson, CE; and Penney, LM 2010. Reexamining Machiavelli: A three dimensional model of Machiavellianism in the workplace. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40, 1868–1896

Schley, Lacey, April 5, 2019, “The Light Triad: Psychologists Outline the Personality Traits of Everyday Saints”, Discover Magazine.
Online at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2019/04/05/light-triad-traits/#.XMM8ShYpCEf

Kaufman, SB, et al, “The Light vs. Dark Triad of Personality: Contrasting Two Very Different Profiles of Human Nature”,
Front. Psychol., 12 March 2019. Online at https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00467/full

Bible references are from the New Revised Standard Version.

15Oct

Varieties of Christian Thought on Creation

Coincident to reviewing the old story of Jacob’s Ladder, I am teaching a small group that is taking on the opening chapters of Genesis. This surely ranks among the most contentious areas of Scripture. We don’t advocate a particular view here, but offer the following information as a helpful resource.

Michelangelo (1465-1564), “The Creation of Adam”

Varieties of Christian thought on Creation, with Sources of Further Information

I. Young Earth Creationism:

—Teaches that the Universe is young, being created by God in six literal days.
—Clearly an orthodox Christian position, and the view dominant until the advent of Darwin and modern geology’s clues that the earth may be very old. Currently, it is held by about 30% of Americans. Recent proponents include:
—Ken Ham, “Answers in Genesis”: https://answersingenesis.org
—Dr. Henry M Morris, Institute for Creation Research: http://www.icr.org/homepage/

II. Old Earth Creationism

Gap Creationism:

—Teaches six literal 24-hour days, but there was a gap of time between two distinct creations in the first and the second verses of Genesis, which the theory states explains many scientific observations, including the age of the Earth.
—Thomas Chalmers, a divinity professor at the University of Edinburgh, popularized the Gap theory. He first lectured on it in 1814.
—Popular in late 1800s to 1940s, associated with the Scofield Study Bible which took this position.
—Arthur C. Custance, a Canadian physiologist and anthropologist, wrote a privately published book, Without Form and Void (1970), arguing for the gap theory. This book is considered the strongest and most able defense of the gap theory available.
—The most thorough refutations of the gap theory come from rival creationists. They point out the absurdity of supposing that billions of years exist between the crack, as it were, of the first two verses of Genesis (https://ncse.com/cej/8/3/formless-void-gap-theory-creationism)

Day-Age Creationism:

—Holds that the six days referred to in the Genesis account of creation are not ordinary 24-hour days, but are much longer periods (from thousands to billions of years). The sequence and duration of the creation “days” may be paralleled to the scientific consensus for the age of the earth and the universe.
—Dates as far back as St Augustine, who argued that the days of creation can’t be literal since the sun wasn’t made until day 4.
—Hugh Ross, Canadian astrophysicist, is a proponent, and founded “Reasons to Believe”: https://www.reasons.org

Progressive Creation:

—In this view creation occurred in rapid bursts in which all “kinds” of plants and animals appear in stages lasting millions of years. The bursts are followed by periods of stasis or equilibrium to accommodate new arrivals. These bursts represent instances of God creating new types of organisms by divine intervention.
—Accepts “microevolution” but rejects “macroevolution”.
—proponents include Dr. Robert Newman, astrophysicist and theologian. He writes a nice overview of some of the implications of the different views of origins,
https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1995/PSCF9-95Newman.html

IV. Evolutionary Creation / Theistic evolution

—Fully embraces evolutionary theory, but believes that there is a mind behind it all, namely God
—Dr. Francis Collins, head of Human Genome Project and subsequently named director of the NIH. Founded BioLogos: https://biologos.org
—Howard J. Van Till, Professor emeritus of Physics and Astronomy, Calvin College, author of The Fourth Day.

V. The Framework Hypothesis:

—It starts from Biblical interpretation, and is compatible with many of the above views of creation or evolution. In this view, the “days” in Genesis have nothing to do with historical time; they are literary devices, employed by God in order to communicate the story of the creation in terms that we can understand.
—The activities of the six days of creation are arranged into a “framework” of two triads (days 1-3 and days 4—6), with parallel types of activities in each triad.
—Dr. Arie Noordzij of the University of Utrecht was the first proponent of the Framework Hypothesis in 1924. Nicolaas Ridderbos (not to be confused with his more well-known brother, Herman Nicolaas Ridderbos) popularized the view in the late 1950s. It has gained acceptance in modern times through the work of such theologians and scholars as Meredith G. Kline, Henri Blocher, and Bruce Waltke (Wikipedia)
—The framework view has been successful in the modern era because it resolves the traditional conflict between the Genesis creation narrative and science.

Intelligent Design: Not explicitly Christian, But it is consistent with Creation

—Proponents claim that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”
—ID presents two main arguments against evolutionary explanations: “irreducible complexity” and “specified complexity”. Complexity is an argument for design.
—ID aims to be a scientific theory (and is, on the face of it), but arose initially out of a textbook controversy, and is seen as being closely associated with Christians and Creationists.
—Dr. Steven C Meyer, biologist who then earned PhD in history and philosophy of science; founder of “Discovery Institute”: https://www.discovery.org
—Dr Robert J Marks, (b. 1950), Baylor University, “has emerged as the public face of intelligent design.” (“20 Most Influential Christian Scholars”) His colleague William Dembski at Baylor is a mathematician who wrote The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities and No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence.

Other interesting links:

The American Scientific Affiliation is an organization of Christian scientists and engineers (Note that it is NOT specifically aimed at creation/evolution issues and includes people with all of the above perspectives): https://network.asa3.org

19May

Professor Tries to Boost Grades Based on Gender

In a new salvo of the assault by the warriors of social justice upon the integrity of higher education, a professor was caught trying to inflate grades based on gender. The culprit was Liping Liu, a professor of information sciences at the University of Akron. According to Insidehighered.com:

In an email to students in his systems analysis and design class that has since been made public, Liping Liu reportedly wrote that women “may see their grades raised one level or two” as part of a “national movement to encourage female students to go [into] information sciences.”

When this blatant effort became known, the university administration praised his “laudable” intentions, but rebuked professor Liu for his methods, and reassured the public that no grades were altered.

28Mar

A Study Challenges the Secularization Hypothesis

An article by Glenn Stanton in the Federalist cites new research calling into question the near dogma that Christianity in America is dying amid a relentless tide of secularization–That the gates of science and progressive politics are doing what the gates of Hell could not, namely prevailing against the Church. It turns out that this is only partly right; It is progressive politics from within the churches, not outside it, that has taken down many of the once great Protestant denominations.

Yes, these churches are hemorrhaging members in startling numbers, but many of those folks are not leaving Christianity. They are simply going elsewhere. Because of this shifting, other very different kinds of churches are holding strong in crowds and have been for as long as such data has been collected. In some ways, they are even growing.

The Stanton article points out growth in nondenominational churches that are Evangelical in outlook, and states that these groups gain five new congregants exiled from the liberal churches for every one they lose for any reason. “They also do a better job of retaining believers from childhood to adulthood than do mainline churches.”

Over time, even as the “nones” increase their share of the population, at the expense of weakly affiliated religious people, the “strongly affiliated” have not only held steady but even grown slightly, and currently number about 40% of U.S. adults. One third of American adults pray multiple times a day, and believe that The Bible is God’s actual word. Stanton points out that church attendance today is higher than at the time of the founding of our nation.

The 2017 study in question is “The Persistent and Exceptional Intensity of American Religion: A Response to Recent Research “ by Landon Schnabel of Indiana University, and Sean Bock of Harvard (Sociological Science, 4, 686-700).

08Feb

Committed Christian Men Are Less Abusive than Nominal Christians

Are Christian men more likely to abuse women (perhaps because of traditional views on gender roles)? No, says sociologist Brad Wilcox, who was interviewed by Christianity Today.

My research suggests that wives married to churchgoing evangelical men are comparatively safe. In the National Survey of Families and Households, husbands and wives were both asked if their arguments had gotten physical in the last year, and, if so, if they or their partner had “become physically violent.” By these measures, churchgoing evangelical Protestant husbands were the least likely to be engaged in abusive behavior.
Research that looks solely at the impact of church attendance comes to similar conclusions. Sociologist Christopher Ellison and his colleagues found that women who were married or cohabiting were significantly less likely to report abuse if they regularly attended religious services. According to their study, “compared with a woman who never attends religious services, a woman who shares similar demographic characteristics but attends several times a week is roughly 40% less likely to be a victim of domestic violence.” Not surprisingly, they also found that “men who attend religious services several times a week are 72% less likely to abuse their female partners than men from comparable backgrounds who do not attend services.”

Interestingly, he reports that the most violent husbands tended to be nominal Protestant evangelical Christians who rarely if ever attend church services. Also, people who attend church for extrinsic reasons (e.g. to look good, or to please a spouse) are more likely to be violent than those men who are intrinsically motivated to attend.

Additionally, he notes that women tended to be happier in marriages where the man is a committed Christian:

Men and women who attend church together are almost 10 percentage points more likely to report that they are “happy” or “very happy” in their relationships, compared to their peers who attend separately or simply don’t attend religious services at all.

11May

At Duke, Leftist Divinity Faculty Devour One of their Own

An interesting conflict has recently erupted within the hallowed halls of Duke University Divinity School. As I understand it, a renowned professor of Catholic theology, Paul Griffiths, was driven to resign, after daring to question the usefulness and political motives of a weekend workshop on racial reconciliation, to which all faculty were invited.

The problem began when he responded to an email circulated by a junior faculty member, Anathea Portier-Young, which sang the praises of the upcoming workshop: “Dear Faculty Colleagues, On behalf of the Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Standing Committee, I strongly urge you to participate in the Racial Equity Institute Phase I Training planned for March 4 and 5. … Those who have participated in the training have described it as transformative, powerful, and life-changing. We recognize that it is a significant commitment of time; we also believe it will have great dividends for our community. Please find the registration link below. Details about room location will be announced soon.”

Professor Griffiths apparently rolled his eyes and fired off a provocative, sarcasm laced email that exhorted his colleagues not to “lay waste their time”:

“I exhort you not to attend this training. Don’t lay waste your time by doing so. It’ll be, I predict with confidence, intellectually flaccid: there’ll be bromides, clichés, and amen-corner rah-rahs in plenty. When (if) it gets beyond that, its illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies will show. Events of this sort are definitively anti-intellectual. (Re)trainings of intellectuals by bureaucrats and apparatchiks have a long and ignoble history; I hope you’ll keep that history in mind as you think about this instance.

We here at Duke Divinity have a mission. Such things as this training are at best a distraction from it and at worst inimical to it. Our mission is to thnk, read, write, and teach about the triune Lord of Christian confession. This is a hard thing. Each of us should be tense with the effort of it, thrumming like a tautly triple-woven steel thread with the work of it, consumed by the fire of it, ever eager for more of it. We have neither time nor resources to waste. This training is a waste. Please, ignore it. Keep your eyes on the prize”

Almost immediately he was in hot water with his Dean, Elaine Heath, who fired off her own email, praising the upcoming Racial Equity training and warning all faculty:

It is inappropriate and unprofessional to use mass emails to make disparaging statements–including arguments ad hominem–in order to humiliate or undermine individual colleagues or groups of colleagues with whom we disagree. The use of mass emails to express racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry is offensive and unacceptable, especially in a Christian institution.

The Dean then insisted on a meeting with Griffiths in which he would not be allowed a representative, and he declined, prompting sanctions that include restriction from faculty meetings and no access to research funding.

Subsequently, the junior faculty member, Dr Portier-Young, lodged a complaint of harassment against Griffiths, via the University’s Office for Institutional Equity (OIE). He is accused of “use of racist and/or sexist speech in such a way as to constitute a hostile workplace.”

More information is available at the New York Times and elsewhere. The initial breaker of this story, and principle source of leaked documents is the blog The American Conservative.

This story has begun to reverberate around the web as an example of an ongoing purge of conservatives from higher education, though I’m not sure whether Professor Griffiths fully fits the mold of “conservative” based on other controversial stances alluded to in the New York Times piece. I also see this being mentioned as a parable of the chilling effect of “social justice warriors” on free speech and academic freedom, and this is certainly disturbing. It should be noted that Professor Griffiths wasn’t actually fired, or directly pressured to resign; he could have fought on for his right to express his opinion, rather than quitting and publicizing the emails. Still, he seems to have accurately described the situation when he criticized the far Left’s “illiberal and totalitarian tendencies.” It is dismaying what an intellectual straitjacket one must wear in academic circles just to survive.

Reflecting further on the express purpose of divinity schools, which is to train pastors, it is also dismaying to consider the potential spiritual wreckage of rampant political correctness. How many intellectually and spiritually eviscerated seminary grads are emerging from places like this and being foisted upon the churches of our land?

02Apr

The New Campus Crusade

If it seems like certain viewpoints on college campuses are being enforced with a zeal that is almost religious, that’s because they are. Even as Christian student groups have been getting booted off campuses, a new and intolerant religion has been rising, complete with zealots and a rigid dogma.

NYU Psychology professor Jonathan Haidt has been studying the phenomena. In an editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal, associate editor Bari Weiss discusses Haidt’s view that it is natural for humans to create “quasireligious experiences” out of secular activities. This is having the downside of wreaking havoc on intellectual freedom and freedom of speech, and ultimately releasing students into a workforce that they are ill equipped to handle.

These believers are transforming the campus from a citadel of intellectual freedom into a holy space—where white privilege has replaced original sin, the transgressions of class and race and gender are confessed not to priests but to “the community,” victim groups are worshiped like gods, and the sinned-against are supplicated with “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings”.

Unfortunately, this can also lead to violence. True believers are agitating to purge dissenting viewpoints and punish those who violate the norms.

“What we’re beginning to see now at Berkeley and at Middlebury hints that this [campus] religion has the potential to turn violent,” Mr. Haidt says. “The attack on the professor at Middlebury really frightened people,” he adds, referring to political scientist Allison Stanger, who wound up in a neck brace after protesters assaulted her as she left the venue.

The article is worth a read.