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Uncommon Decency

NY Times: Colleges and Evangelicals Collide on Bias Policy

Colleges and Evangelicals Collide on Bias Policy by Michael Paulson (NY Times, 6/10/2014). Note: Article screen shot. In the print copy, the article began in text in the middle of the front page.

Yesterday, Colleges and Evangelicals Collide on Bias Policy ran on the front page of the NY Times.

For 40 years, evangelicals at Bowdoin College have gathered periodically to study the Bible together, to pray and to worship. They are a tiny minority on the liberal arts college campus, but they have been a part of the school’s community, gathering in the chapel, the dining center, the dorms.

After this summer, the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship will no longer be recognized by the college. Already, the college has disabled the electronic key cards of the group’s longtime volunteer advisers. . . .

Michael Paulson’s insightful piece gives attention to significant Campus Access Concerns faced by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and other campus ministries across the United States.

. . . At Cal State, the nation’s largest university system with nearly 450,000 students on 23 campuses, the chancellor is preparing this summer to withdraw official recognition from evangelical groups that are refusing to pledge not to discriminate on the basis of religion in the selection of their leaders. And at Vanderbilt, more than a dozen groups, most of them evangelical but one of them Catholic, have already lost their official standing over the same issue; one Christian group balked after a university official asked the students to cut the words “personal commitment to Jesus Christ” from their list of qualifications for leadership. . . .

“It’s absurd,” said Alec Hill, the president of InterVarsity, a national association of evangelical student groups, including the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship. “The genius of American culture is that we allow voluntary, self-identified organizations to form, and that’s what our student groups are. . . .

If you have not already done such, I encourage you to take the time to prayerfully consider and discuss Colleges and Evangelicals Collide on Bias Policy. The below material is a distillation of what I have posted on Facebook (InterVarsity Faculty Ministry and InterVarsity Emerging Scholars Network) and received through InterVarsity’s ministry as a whole. Pray for God’s continued granting of discernment. As you have particular prayer concerns, please share below and/or drop me a line. May this article signal “a changing tide in matters of public policy and faith, principled pluralism and freedom of association”. To God be the glory!

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“Uncommon Decency” in the context of Pluralism

Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World (Revised and Expanded) by Richard J. Mouw (InterVarsity Press, 2010).

Christian hearts must be open to other people. God wants that of us. That is what I have just been arguing. But just how open are we supposed to be? We live today in the midst of many lifestyles, many systems of thought–don’t we run the risk of having our hearts pulled in so many different directions that we finally have no center of our own?” — Richard J. Mouw, Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World (Revised and Expanded, InterVarsity Press, 2010), 80.

It’s not surprising that Richard J. Mouw moves from the “Open Heart”, with a strong emphasis on empathy and an exploration of the spiritual underpinnings of Christian civility, to the “red flag” of and important daily realities of pluralism. Pluralism is an important topic which we have explored a number of times. I particularly appreciated Mouw’s brief exploration of What’s good about pluralism? (Ch 7):

  • God and diversity
  • Pluralistic consciousness
  • Pluralism and idolatry
  • Cultural diversity.

After a consideration of the framework offered in the first seven chapters of Uncommon Decency, I can imagine a campus context in which a weekly discussion group/dialogue delves into: [Read more…] about “Uncommon Decency” in the context of Pluralism

Cultivating empathic sensitivies vital to “Uncommon Decency”

Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World (Revised and Expanded) by Richard J. Mouw (InterVarsity Press, 2010).

Civility requires that we reduce the psychological distance between ourselves and others. We need to develop a sense of commonality with people who initially strike us as very different from ourselves. One important means of doing this is by cultivating empathy.

“Empathy” literally means “in-feeling” — it is to project myself into another person’s feelings so that I begin to understand what it is like to have his experiences. If I want to gain empathy for a neighbor who is consistently defensive and insulting, I can try to imagine what it is like to be torn by the hurts and fears that give rise to his antisocial behavior. In doing so I may find links between his inner life and my own; or I may use my imagination to explore feeling that I myself have never experienced directly.

Obviously, we cannot develop empathy toward each of our fellow citizens on a one-to-one basis. But we can cultivate empathic sensitivies toward people in general by concentrating on some of our commonalities.

I’m highlighting the need for empathy here because I believe that the enlargement of our empathic sensitivities is an important part of becoming more human. When we break out of the bonds of self-centeredness, entering into the experiences of other people, we come closer to fulfilling God’s puposes for human beings. and we become more Christlike, since the incarnation is the ultimate ministry of empathy: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

Empathy is good for our character development, but that is not its only value. It is also important for our evangelistic efforts. Christian groups that empahsize the need for “relational evangelism” recognize this point. They know that forming genuine friendship with unbelievers — so that we enter into their lives in order to learn about their uniquely individual hopes and fears — establishes a healthy basis for introducing them to the person and the work of the Savior.

The quest for empathy can be helped along by a good dose of curiosity. . . . — Richard J. Mouw, Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World (Revised and Expanded, InterVarsity Press, 2010), 58-59.

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The Day for “Uncommon Decency” has come. Let’s embrace it!

Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World (Revised and Expanded) by Richard J. Mouw (InterVarsity Press, 2010).

As Martin Marty has observed, one of the real problems in modern life is that the people who are good at being civil often lack strong convictions and people who have strong convictions often lack civility. I like that way of stating the issue. We need to find a way of combining a civil outlook with a “passionate intensity” about our convictions. The real challenge is to come up with a convicted civility.

Civility is public politeness. It means that we display tact, moderation, refinement and good manners toward people who are different than us. It isn’t enough, though, to make an outward show of politeness. Being civil has an “inner” side as well. . . .

But how can we hold onto strongly felt convictions while still nurturing a spirit that is authentically kind and gentle? Is it possible to keep these things together? The answer is that it is not impossible – but it isn’t easy. Convicted civility is something we have to work at. We have to work at it because both sides of the equation are very important. Civility is important. And so is conviction.

The Bible itself recognizes the difficulty of maintaining convicted civility. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews lays the struggle out very clearly: we must “pursue peace with every one,” he tells us, while we work at the same time to cultivate that “holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14) — Richard J. Mouw, Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World (Revised and Expanded, InterVarsity Press, 2010), 13-17.

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Three Concerns about Anti-Christian Rhetoric

Uncommon Decency
Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World (Revised and Expanded) by Richard J. Mouw (InterVarsity Press, 2010).

Last week, I asked how you handle anti-Christian rhetoric. This week, let me share my three concerns about verbal attacks on Christianity — specifically, those that come from academic scientists like Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers.

Spiritual/Theological: I’m currently reading Richard Mouw’s Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World (InterVarsity Press, Revised and Expanded, 2010), in which Mouw calls for Christians to exhibit a “convicted civility” that honors justice, truth, and the divine image in other human beings. He describes a moment at the United Nations when Palestinians and Israelis traded accusations of genocide:

In the Israeli-PLO debates, both sides raise significant issues, ones that are not easily resolved — questions about ethnicity and nationhood, religious pluralism, national borders and so on. But they set up the conversation in such a way that these important matters were extremely difficult to discuss. (49)

There are significant issues to discuss in the relationship between science and religion. In the case of the AAAS panel I mentioned last week, which dealt specifically with climate change, there’s good reason to believe that the issue at hand can be addressed only if secular scientists and evangelical Christians find common ground. Evangelicals make up over 30% of the US population, and it’s difficult to imagine that any significant climate change legislation could ever be passed without evangelical support. Unfortunately, some scientists thought that it was more important to focus on name-calling.

I know why Myers, Dawkins, et al. use such strong rhetoric — they want to win. Some Christians use the same tactics. Because of my convictions about God and eternity, I worry about the ultimate fate of Dawkins and Myers. Even on this side of death, however, what kind of “victory” is it that results from badgering, mocking, and belittling your opponents? Sure, you might find yourself with the power and authority that you wanted, but what kind of person will you be?

Societal/educational: Second, I’m concerned about the effects of this rhetoric on science education and American society. It’s regularly noted that the US has a strong anti-intellectual streak, and that the scientific literacy of Americans is pretty dismal. One reason I’m involved with ESN is to help Christians better appreciate the importance of higher education and the life of the mind. None of these situations will be improved if Americans imagine scientists to be anti-religious bullies.

Academic/Scholarly: Finally, I’m concerned that this anti-Christian rhetoric undermines the very foundations of the academic enterprise. I love the university, and I especially love the ideals of academic scholarship: carefully crafted arguments, reasoning based on deep reflection, research topics held at arm’s-length so they can be better understood. Academia doesn’t always do this well, and sometimes it can’t let go of these principles at the appropriate time — for example, Wendell Berry has noted that we should learn from great writers, not about them.

Anti-Christian rhetoric like that I’ve cited above, however, doesn’t observe any of these ideals. The complex history of religion is collapsed into gross generalizations — which then become anti-historical myths, like the many falsehoods repeated endlessly about Galileo. Instead of seeking to understand theological and philosophical arguments, these attackers simply mock them out of their own ignorance. Dawkins has often commented that he doesn’t bother reading the arguments of theists, because he knows that they can’t have any value. The questions raised about Martin Gaskell were based on a second-hand rumor about his religious beliefs. This isn’t reason — it’s tribalism.

I don’t mind controversial discussions — inside or outside of academia. Within academia, however, shouldn’t controversies be based on, well, academic positions?

Next week, I’ll cover the other side of the coin: anti-academic rhetoric from Christians. Meanwhile:

What are your concerns about science-religion debates? Do you share mine, or do you approach from another angle?