Couch Rights, and the essay that followed

There’s an unspoken rule in the townhouse that whoever gets home first that day has couch rights. Granted, these rights can be relinquished or shared easily enough, but I have found that whoever gets home first tends to be sprawled out on this delightfully comfortable red-and-white checkered lounger by the time I get in. That is to say, I am rarely the one with couch rights. Today happens to be the exception, as Allis is at her sales meetings till who knows when and Sarah, well, still at work at 8:06. (To yell at her on her blog for being such a workaholic, click here).

So here I am, alone with my thoughts and WGMS (Washington’s Classical station with their wonderful commercial-free “Dinner at 8” feature). I would try to sleep but it’s a little early for even me to try that. I guess it’s as good a time as any to get out some thoughts about something that’s been weighing on my heart and mind, and while I’ve done a fairly good job at burying myself in work and other busyness to avoid it, I need to start thinking it though; and for me, thinking means writing, so here it goes.

The recent events of __C have alarmed many but surprised few. From what little I have witnessed firsthand on the matter, the recent break appears to be the product of fault lines long laid but seldom acted upon. These schools could be described in many different ways, and to say it is only ideological seems to oversimplify the matter. No doubt, it is ideological. But there are other considerations. First, the two groups in question largely represent two different functions: administrative and academic. The administrators deal with practical matters, including the necessity to gain more capital. To earn this, they must present __C as the very best it can be; they have to be the dreamers and the visionaries, because, let’s face it, that’s what sells. In a cruel irony, those who must be most practical must, prima facia, be the most idealistic.

On the other hand, academics are freed of fundraising responsibilities, and as such, they have the latitude to say what they really think and believe. That is not to say that the former group is necessarily disingenuous; I know they believe what they are saying. However, they often don’t describe the whole of the matter. Academics can, and the good ones do. And this is where the rift began (from what I understand). When certain professors made the argument that truth exists outside of Scripture, the administrators called it heresy.

This is where I get lost. __C’s statement of faith as well as the statement of Biblical worldview are fairly simply where the Bible is concerned: “the Bible in its entirety… is the inspired word of God, inerrant in its original autographs, and the only infallible and sufficient authority for faith and Christian living.”

Okay. Got that. There’s nothing else in these documents regarding the Bible being the only source of truth. And, when you consider the very fair-sounding Statement of Doctrinal Neutrality, you’d think this matter would be dinner table discussion instead of a college split:

“The College itself is neutral on the doctrinal distinctives which go beyond the points covered in our Statement of Faith and are outside the mission of the College. We want all students and faculty from this wide community to feel welcomed and encouraged. We particularly want parents to have the assurance that __C will not seek to undermine the traditions of their family's faith.”

Now, setting aside for a moment the multitude of problems this author has with the last sentence of the statement, let’s go to the second sentence: “We want all students and faculty from this wide community to feel welcomed and encouraged.”

… okay. So why is this issue any different? Never, to my awareness, has a __C professor failed to teach Biblical truth. Never has it been said that the Bible is NOT true. A discussion is simply being proposed regarding general versus special revelation. This was unquestioned during my tenure at __C, and it is painful to think that those who follow after me may never have that same exposure to this important dialogue. If we can’t talk about this, what exactly is debatable?

It is as G.K. Chesterton once observed, “it is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting. Christianity has been found too difficult and left untried.” Why should we refuse to let our own faith be tried in what is the probably second-most-safe atmosphere on earth (second to our homes)? Do we think it will be easier once we go out into the world? Please tell me this dangerous academic innocence has not been the aim of __C this whole time! Christianity has nothing to fear from other worldviews; that was probably one of the most important things I learned from the professors at __C.

No, there is something deeper here, something that has forced this to come to a head. The time has come for either the administrative or academic worldview to permeate the whole of the thing, namely, the rules of __C. The two schools have been fighting for some time, but it has been mostly sparring until now. But the time has come for the institution to decide whether they will be ruled by external rules or individual morality, by suspicion or trust, by fear or hope. The “two roads have diverged in a yellow wood.” And at this juncture, the Christian libertarians and those who prefer a codified “Thou shalt (not)” Christianity start having little in common in any practical sense, the sort of cooperation you need to run a college.

In discussing this with a friend recently (and I pray she will pardon me for borrowing her excellent point), she stated that __C's motto comes as a single package: Pro Christo et Libertate. It’s not one first and the other second, necessary; it is both, equally. And what allows me to say that is the fact that Christ defines liberty, and is the only way to freedom in this life and the next, and He is not only the Way, but is Himself the liberty we seek. (Think Till We Have Faces here.) This is of course presuming a correct understanding of liberty, but how else will it be understood unless it is carefully considered and lived out?

My pastor has given an excellent analogy in reference to the church, but my mind couldn’t help drawing the parallel to __C. He said that you can build the perfect tall ship, majestic mast and full sails and streamlined body, but if there is no wind, no movement of the Spirit, no room for a big God, it is pointless. “No institution,” he said, “can in and of itself fulfill the will of God.” People, individuals still make decisions before God, and those choices matter. Institutions are not moral creatures; they may foster certain decision making, but they are not sausage grinders. And the more you try to make an institution into such an implement, the more liberty is lost; the more liberty is lost, the less people see the need for it; and the less you see the need for liberty, the less you will seek it for others.

I suppose it goes back to the last line of the doctrinal neutrality agreement cited above. “We particularly want parents to have the assurance that __C will not seek to undermine the traditions of their family's faith.” What exactly is meant by undermine here is important, for in practice, “undermine” has come to mean “question.” And if tradition, as we usually utilize the word in Protestantism, is a practice handed down but not necessary Scriptural (in the truest sense of the word), why are those what we seek to shelter the most from scrutiny? What if a tradition is wrong? Would we rather a tradition persist for its own sake than ask the simple question of, “it is true?”

After all, what is the object… comfort, or truth?