The Troubled Insecurity of Evangelical Higher Education

I entered into the public evangelical conversation about human origins in 1988 with the publication of a short essay titled “Trustees of the Truth,” the first pro-evolution piece to appear in the denominational magazine of the Church of the Nazarene, my religious affiliation at the time. I wrote it in response to an anti-evolution piece that I thought undermined the work of the Nazarene colleges, most of which were quietly teaching evolution.

I was teaching science at Eastern Nazarene College (ENC) at the time. The president of the college reviewed the piece and sent a letter asking me not to publish it, as he thought it would create problems for the college by upsetting fundamentalists. I made only the small concession that my by-line would not identify me as a professor at ENC. The editor of the magazine told me later that my pro-evolution piece held the record for hate mail for over two years and was only eclipsed by a controversial piece related to sex that appeared a few years later. Nothing on the topic has appeared since.

I published my first book—and the denomination’s— on this topic in 1993, with the denominational publisher. It would have appeared earlier but it got caught in a firestorm of controversy, with powerful leaders of the Church of the Nazarene seeking to block its publication, even though a contract had been signed and the manuscript approved by the editorial staff. The chairman of the publisher’s book committee, the Church of the Nazarene’s leading theologian the time, lost his position for his role in the project, which included writing a foreword.

My history in evangelical higher education as a spokesperson for evolution continued this checkered path. Various evangelical leaders attacked me personally for my views and criticized ENC and then Gordon College for employing me. The issue was not so much that I taught evolution in my classes for evolution was the only view taught in the science classes, which was appropriate. The issue was that I became a public figure, writing books and speaking widely on the topic. Evolution was supposed to be taught in secret so people wouldn’t know what was going on.

In remarkable and disturbing contrast, young earth creationism was taught in the teen Sunday school class in the ENC college church by a right wing fundamentalist. When I passed along my daughter’s complaints about this, the pastor—no fan of creationism—was unwilling to do anything to address it.  “Sunday School teachers are hard to find,” he said. This drove my daughter out of the church and into that growing group of “20-something former evangelicals.” 

I became increasingly bothered by the way that it was not possible to be “too conservative” in the Church of the Nazarene, but woe unto him who would be evenly slightly too liberal. 

By the time I left the Church of the Nazarene in 2010, I felt beaten up and pessimistic about this conversation, at least as it occurs within the evangelical world. I had spent countless hours defending well-established science against attacks from people who knew nothing about science, beyond the challenges it posed to a literal reading of the Bible. Although the Church of the Nazarene explicitly rejected biblical literalism and its scholars were almost unanimous in endorsing evolution, the grass roots hostility to evolution was overwhelming—and leadership was simply unwilling to stand up for science. I was constantly subjected to negative attacks from fundamentalists, most of them deeply influenced by biblical literalists like Ken Ham. On many occasions pastors would write me letters demanding I explain my views and insisting that I was a leading students astray. The reaction when I responded that they could find my views in books I had written was that they would certainly not be buying my books and providing me with royalties.  God forbid that they educate themselves on this topic.

I have trouble envisioning progress on evolution in evangelical higher education, given the political climate. The playing field is strongly tilted in the direction of the fundamentalists, and many of them—as donors, trustees, and pastors—wield considerable influence. In contrast, scientifically informed voices are close to non-existent and, where they do exist, are viewed with suspicion.  I am unaware of a single controversy within evangelical higher education precipitated by a faculty member being too conservative but many controversies have erupted by being too liberal in the eyes of some non-academic theological watchdog.

When I left ENC after 27 years—against my will—I moved to Stonehill College, an academically selective Catholic liberal arts institution, where I teach Science & Religion. My experience there has been eye-opening and I now understand why Catholic colleges are so much stronger academically—think Notre Dame, Georgetown, Boston College, Holy Cross—than their evangelical counterparts: Catholic institutions do not appear to be afraid of threatening ideas. They demonstrate a confidence in their tradition that it does not need to be protected from challenges, whether those challenges come from protestants, members of non-Christian religions, atheists, or even disenchanted former Catholics who write negatively about their experience growing up in the church.

Stonehill is unashamedly Catholic. The president and other leaders are priests and clerical collars are everywhere in evidence; there are multiple masses every week; there are Catholic General Education requirements and a strong Catholic influence in the mission statement and strategic plan. A new college logo just unveiled this fall has a cross on it. And yet the faculty includes atheists, Jews, and Buddhists. One of Stonehill’s most beloved emeritus faculty—with a lecture series named after him and frequent appearances in their alumni magazine—is Chet Raymo, a disenchanted Catholic who writes books with titles like When God is Gone, All is Holy.  While at ENC I wrote a much tamer book titled Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution that won a major recognition as a “Best Book of the Year.” But the news did not make the ENC alumni magazine, since the title would likely upset many influential readers. My public face was considered a liability and ensured that I would never receive “emeritus” status.

My students at Stonehill—mostly Catholic—are much like my former students at Eastern Nazarene College—mostly evangelical. Both groups of students are thoughtful young people on spiritual journeys. But the evangelical students are, in most cases, receiving a pre-packaged set of ideas, with “right answers” already specified on topics like gay marriage, Adam & Eve, the truth of Christianity, the existence of God and so on.  All professors are required to affirm a package of theological ideas and those who expand the conversation beyond the boundaries of the approved package run the risk of losing their jobs. Students whose spiritual journeys take them outside those boundaries end up leaving their faith traditions. The Stonehill conversation is much broader, with room for students to wander in and out of faith, without having to explicitly reject the faith of their childhood.

The evangelical mind remains in crisis, despite the warnings of Mark Noll, in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind or Randall Stephens and I in The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age. Somehow—in ways that I cannot see clearly—evangelical higher education needs to loosen up and embrace the truths of its mission statements with the sort of confidence that welcomes dissenting views into the conversation and even onto the faculty.