Category: Education

I admit I’m disappointed in Wheaton College’s choice of Philip Ryken as their new President, but I guess I am not really surprised. I was one of the alumni that were encouraging the college to move forward as an institution with academic integrity in our increasingly globalized world by choosing a woman or a minority to head the college during these turbulent times. To remain a prophetic and respected voice within the Christian community, in my opinion the college needed the specific qualifications of those who have lived on the margins of power and privilege within the religious world. These voices are no longer minority voices and can no longer be silenced and ignored within the Christian community. Wheaton would have benefited from proactively and symbolically embracing the realities of our changing world. Instead they chose a leader to navigate them into this future who actively resists listening to minority voices and insists on women having no voice in the church. It is disappointing, and I feel that Wheaton cannot remain the “Harvard of the evangelical world” in choosing such a path. But, like I said, it isn’t surprising.

Philip Ryken fit a role. The college wanted someone conservative and Reformed and he fit that part. What I find interesting is that a majority of the Twitter responses I am reading about his selection are along the lines of “Praise God! Wheaton will remain faithful to orthodox Christian truth!” I find it most interesting because when I mentioned the selection of Ryken to my conservative evangelical family and friends, their response was “why is Wheaton abandoning biblical truth in this way?”

I live in Texas where Dispensationalism is still in favor. Fifteen years ago when I chose to attend Wheaton one of the main reasons I chose the college was because with dispensational Duane Litfin at the helm, I (and my parents) were sure the college would uphold “orthodox biblical Christianity.” As we saw it, Christianity as interpreted by Ryrie, Scofield, and Moody was the one true way it had always been forever and ever amen. And at the time, just a few years after Litfin’s appointment, so did most of the evangelical world. In the 1980’s and 90’s Dispensationalism was the trendy pet theology of evangelicals (although we referred to it simply as “Absolute Unchanging Truth”). The time was ripe for Wheaton – the voice of the evangelical world – to choose a dispensationalist to lead them (and for science fiction books about the end times (presented as biblical truth of course) to become nationwide bestsellers).

But a lot changes in fifteen years. Dispensationalism is no longer the precious darling of the evangelical church. Absolute Unchanging Truth has shifted and a different faction is now in favor. No longer are our views of the end times and the Holy Spirit the litmus tests of our faith, but instead whether or not we sign the dotted line in agreement with Calvin and penal substitutionary atonement. Not that Reformed theology is necessarily anything new, it just has never been so popular to be young, restless, dogmatic, opposed to women, and reformed. The shift to following this trend is so pervasive, that apart from my Texas dispensationalist friends who are horrified at Ryken’s appointment, most evangelicals are praising God that “orthodox Christian truth” will be upheld at Wheaton. If I had stopped to think about these popular trends in evangelicalism, I should have expected the appointment of someone like Ryken. (actually I did briefly consider it, but thought they would go with a different alum and Reformed celebrity – John Piper. But I quickly suppressed thinking about that possibility).

The thing is, Wheaton is no stranger to riding the shifting waves of “orthodox Christianity.” The college was founded as a Wesleyan institution, and became Wheaton College in 1860 when abolitionist Jonathan Blanchard in his postmillennial social gospel passion dedicated the college “For Christ and His Kingdom.” The purpose of the college was to work for the kingdom of God here on earth – to right the wrong of slavery and establish on earth as it is in heaven. But of course that particular theological perspective fell into disfavor after the First World War. The college even changed its Statement of Faith to then support premillennial eschatology. When I attended, I was told that the school motto “For Christ and his Kingdom” referred strictly to heaven, since the Kingdom of God could never actually be among us. So I really should not be surprised that the college once again is changing its theology by affirming the reigning popular theory of the day (which of course will always be designated “historic orthodox Christianity”).

I’m personally no longer Dispensational, and I’ve never been Reformed, so those are not my orthodoxies – which perhaps helps me have a bit of perspective on this event. So like I said – I’m not really surprised, but I am disappointed.

So apparently this week (Sept 29 – Oct 6) is Banned Books Week. In light of the recent controversies surrounding the purging of religious books from prison libraries in the name of “security,” the freedom to read is once again a significant issue. While I hope we are still a long way from government enforced book burning, the challenging and banning of books is still an ongoing problem. There is the occasional church that hosts a good old fashioned book burning – usually involving fantasy fiction such as Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, but the most controversy these days occurs in schools and libraries as certain interest groups attempt to get books removed. Apparently if a book has anything meaningful to say at all someone will disagree with it. But many people go beyond disagreement and assume that if they don’t like something it has to be banned for everyone.

The list of frequently banned books can be surprising at times. With some, like Catcher in the Rye, I’ve heard about the controversy, but others just don’t make any sense. A Wrinkle in Time? Where’s Waldo???? How seeped in fear does one’s life have to be to try to get books like those banned?

The reasons most commonly cited for challenging a book include –

* 1,607 were challenges to “sexually explicit” material;
* 1,427 to material considered to use “offensive language”;
* 1,256 to material considered “unsuited to age group”;
* 842 to material with an “occult theme or promoting the occult or Satanism,”;
* 737 to material considered to be “violent”;
* 515 to material with a homosexual theme or “promoting homosexuality,” and
* 419 to material “promoting a religious viewpoint.”

So if a book takes a realistic look at a real life issue it had better not contain sex, or violence, or offensive language or it will be challenged (i.e. real life had better not actually show real life). So much for depth of engagement or intellectual maturity, it’s easier to just ban. And of course, the challenges are quite often led by Christians. They fear a word, or sex, or different belief system, or other culture, or imagination, or difficult life scenario and they move to prevent a book being read. It is not about understanding, or love, or respect, it is about getting their own way and imposing their belief system on others. On that issue, I found this quote from Judith Krug’s article “Harry Potter and the Censor’s Flame” interesting –

The campaign to keep the Harry Potter series out of the hands of children continues, led most recently by a Gwinnett County, Ga., mother who believes the series is an “evil” attempt to indoctrinate children in the Wicca religion. She wants to replace the books with others that promote a Judeo-Christian world view, like the “Left Behind” series. I believe, in fact, that what some parents and adults find most threatening about the Potter series is what engages young minds and fires the imagination of young people- Rowling’s willingness to deal with the truth that adults in children’s lives can sometimes be unthinking, authoritarian, and even evil. The best books always have raised questions about the status quo – and are the most threatening to censors who want to control what young persons read and think about. Like the tyrannical Defense Against Dark Arts Professor Dolores Umbridge, who insisted on providing a “risk-free” education to the young wizards at Hogwarts, they would limit education and information to facts so incontestable that they arouse no controversy at any level, thereby leaving young people unequipped to think about and address larger questions about the nature of our society.

A risk-free, unthinking life is a scary thing. Maybe that’s what Christians want, maybe its what the government wants – mindless, unthinking, unreflective, uncaring drones who do whatever they are told without question. I don’t know. Maybe someone should write a book about that – oh wait, they have and it’s been banned…

So what’s your favorite banned book?

Today’s issue of Parade Magazine featured a short piece on how Bill Gates hopes to change education in America. (if you already threw out the Sunday paper, live outside the USA, or generally can’t stand reading that slice of conservative propaganda, you can read the article here). Putting aside the issue of why we are trusting Bill Gates to tell us how we should reform our schools, the article presented some rather messed up ideas. It states –

While educators debate the value of standardized tests, Gates is adamant that we need such tests and that ours should be tougher and more uniform. “Testing is the only objective measurement of our students,” he contends. “It’s incredible that we have no national standard.” As for those who say this will stifle creativity and lead to dull classrooms that only teach students how to pass tests, he replies: “If you don’t know how to read, it doesn’t matter how creative you are. More than a third of the people with high school diplomas have no employable skills.”

First I find it interesting that he doesn’t deny that teaching to tests will stifle creativity and lead to dull classrooms. Like many testing advocates he seems to think such things are worth the price of adhering to this sort of system. Secondly, since when did creativity stop being an employable skill? Yes, I think everyone should learn to read. But the sort of “reading” skills taught in order for students to pass tests doesn’t often lead to the ability to think creatively or critically. Despite studies that show that students who are allowed to develop all aspects of their intellect (through art and music) actually end up being better readers, there still seems to be the general assumption that things like art, music, and creativity get in the way of real education. I could just try to blame this on Gates being a computer geek and businessman, but this sort of unbalanced approach to education is rampant. Even if people actually think tests are worthwhile (something I highly disagree with), why does it have to be an either/or? If we are seeking to improve the schools and have people like Gates dumping money into them, why can’t we seek a more holistic approach that affirms reading, math, and creativity?

I could rant on that topic for awhile given my general frustration with the pathetic state of education in our country and the even more pathetic attempts to fix it, so I’ll move on for the moment and point of the other really inane thing the article wrote about Gates. Apparently “Gates also believes in small high schools, where students won’t get sucked into cliques.” Okay, I know of schools that had graduating classes of 12 that still had cliques. Size of school has nothing to do with kids getting into cliques. I support smaller schools and much smaller class sizes but not because that will prevent kids from making friends with other people with similar interests. Smaller class sizes lead to more interaction and deeper exploration of subjects. Given a decent teacher (whose purpose is to teach and not to coach students through a test) such deeper interaction will lead to real learning (as opposed to rote memorization) and (dare I say it) more creative and critical students. At least it would be nice if it was allowed to happen, but apparently we are so uncreative and uncritical that we prefer to be told what to do by whoever has the most money.