Liberty University is anti-science. They prefer the idiotic magical creationism fantasy instead of evolution. They teach students how to be stupid.
The WSJ book review:
‘Fundamentalist U’ Review: Believers in Higher Ed
Nondenominational Christian colleges have often defined themselves less by their religious doctrine than by their position as outsiders. Naomi Schaefer Riley reviews “Fundamentalist U” by Adam Laats.
By Naomi Schaefer Riley May 6, 2018
A year ago, when President Donald Trump gave the commencement address at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., he told the assembled faculty and students of the Christian school: “Relish the opportunity to be an outsider. . . . Embrace that label . . . because it’s the outsiders who change the world and who make a real and lasting difference. The more that a broken system tells you that you’re wrong, the more certain you should be that you must keep pushing ahead.”
A great deal has been made of the absurdity of a thrice-married adulterer with a foul mouth being honored by a staunchly religious university. But in this part of his address, Mr. Trump hit on a personal theme that also meant something to his audience. As Adam Laats notes in “Fundamentalist U,” nondenominational Christian schools like Liberty have often defined themselves less by their religious doctrines than by their position as outsiders.
The “system” in the view of these schools was broken long ago. By the early 20th century, conservative evangelicals looked around at the world of American higher education and saw what historian George Marsden has called an “empire in ruins.” As Mr. Laats writes: “Once-evangelical schools such as Harvard, Yale, Chicago and Princeton had taken radically new directions. They had embraced modern notions of truth, knowledge and scientific inquiry. As a result, they had tossed out older structures for student life and study.”
The reaction of fundamentalists—the branch of Protestant Christianity that grounds its beliefs in biblical literalism—to this development was not to “rebuild their old empire” but to “imitate its successful conquerors.” Leaders of schools like Bob Jones University (in Greenville, S.C.), Biola University (in La Mirada, Calif.) and the Moody Bible Institute (in Chicago) “did not simply deny the value of modern knowledge, science and academic inquiry,” Mr. Laats writes. “Rather, they insisted that their dissenting forms of science and knowledge represented better science, truer knowledge, and more modern inquiry.”
The debates over evolution followed this pattern. Different strains of thought developed at different institutions. “Evangelical scholars themselves fought ferociously about their visions of proper creationism,” Mr. Laats writes. “Did real Christian faith suggest that God had created life in different time periods, with long ‘gaps’ of time between creations? Or did the ‘days’ in Genesis really refer to long geological ages?” The methods of hashing out these disagreements paralleled the discussions at other universities, with dueling academic papers and public debates at conferences.
The higher-education marketplace, which had expanded in the postwar period with the G.I. bill, required that even schools with sectarian missions maintain an air of academic respectability, Mr. Laats notes. The schools wanted students to see that they were committed to the pursuit of knowledge and ready to prepare them for careers. So their curriculums expanded to include not just religious studies to prepare students for evangelism or missionary work but also majors in liberal-arts fields. The schools offered four-year degrees and sought accreditation so that graduates could show future employers that their training was legitimate.
Mr. Laats, a professor of education and history at Binghamton University, takes a topic that could easily be treated with condescension and turns it into the occasion for a fascinating and careful history. His discussion of the racial policies of these schools is especially enlightening. Wheaton College, in Wheaton, Ill., “had the most dramatic past as a racially integrationist institution.” Mr. Laats writes. “Unlike the newer crop of fundamentalist schools, [it] had been founded by radical abolitionists.” By the 1930s, though, the administration had become, in the words of one historian, “none too eager” to admit African-American students. Then its policy changed again, though not out of a religious rationale. Rather, Mr. Laats says, the school’s president “hoped to improve the reputation of fundamentalism by turning Wheaton into an impeccably respectable college.” Ultimately, as Mr. Laats tells it, it was the desire for respectability that turned many of these schools back to racial inclusion, not to mention a desire for “diversity.”
There are a few off-key observations in “Fundamentalist U.” Mr. Laats suggests, for instance, that though Ronald Reagan ultimately didn’t support Bob Jones University’s segregationist policies and did support the IRS judgment denying the school tax-exempt status—a decision that was challenged in court—one can see BJU’s influence in the fact that Reagan did “appoint William Rehnquist —the only Supreme Court justice to have voted in favor of BJU—to be chief justice of the Supreme Court.” Surely there were many more powerful reasons for Rehnquist’s appointment.
Ultimately, Mr. Laats is right about the big themes. “Fundamentalism” he writes, “was defined in practice, not on paper.” The fundamentalists were pragmatists at heart. Their schools evolved with American higher education. When it came to addressing various debates and policies—from teaching evolution to deciding whether women should be allowed to wear trousers on campus—they sometimes followed the judgments of strong-willed leaders (e.g., Jerry Falwell ) and sometimes of prominent figures beyond the campus, who, say, had heard a rumor that student life was not as chaste as families might want.
Indeed, the schools’ lack of denominational affiliation—the absence of religious governing bodies of the kind that guide schools like Brigham Young and Baylor—has made things more variable and fluid. Caught between the vast changes in American higher education and the religious families they are supposed to serve, fundamentalist colleges have had to be especially attuned to which way the cultural winds are blowing. Which may occasionally get them some incongruous commencement speakers.
The WSJ book review:
‘Fundamentalist U’ Review: Believers in Higher Ed
Nondenominational Christian colleges have often defined themselves less by their religious doctrine than by their position as outsiders. Naomi Schaefer Riley reviews “Fundamentalist U” by Adam Laats.
By Naomi Schaefer Riley May 6, 2018
A year ago, when President Donald Trump gave the commencement address at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., he told the assembled faculty and students of the Christian school: “Relish the opportunity to be an outsider. . . . Embrace that label . . . because it’s the outsiders who change the world and who make a real and lasting difference. The more that a broken system tells you that you’re wrong, the more certain you should be that you must keep pushing ahead.”
A great deal has been made of the absurdity of a thrice-married adulterer with a foul mouth being honored by a staunchly religious university. But in this part of his address, Mr. Trump hit on a personal theme that also meant something to his audience. As Adam Laats notes in “Fundamentalist U,” nondenominational Christian schools like Liberty have often defined themselves less by their religious doctrines than by their position as outsiders.
The “system” in the view of these schools was broken long ago. By the early 20th century, conservative evangelicals looked around at the world of American higher education and saw what historian George Marsden has called an “empire in ruins.” As Mr. Laats writes: “Once-evangelical schools such as Harvard, Yale, Chicago and Princeton had taken radically new directions. They had embraced modern notions of truth, knowledge and scientific inquiry. As a result, they had tossed out older structures for student life and study.”
The reaction of fundamentalists—the branch of Protestant Christianity that grounds its beliefs in biblical literalism—to this development was not to “rebuild their old empire” but to “imitate its successful conquerors.” Leaders of schools like Bob Jones University (in Greenville, S.C.), Biola University (in La Mirada, Calif.) and the Moody Bible Institute (in Chicago) “did not simply deny the value of modern knowledge, science and academic inquiry,” Mr. Laats writes. “Rather, they insisted that their dissenting forms of science and knowledge represented better science, truer knowledge, and more modern inquiry.”
The debates over evolution followed this pattern. Different strains of thought developed at different institutions. “Evangelical scholars themselves fought ferociously about their visions of proper creationism,” Mr. Laats writes. “Did real Christian faith suggest that God had created life in different time periods, with long ‘gaps’ of time between creations? Or did the ‘days’ in Genesis really refer to long geological ages?” The methods of hashing out these disagreements paralleled the discussions at other universities, with dueling academic papers and public debates at conferences.
The higher-education marketplace, which had expanded in the postwar period with the G.I. bill, required that even schools with sectarian missions maintain an air of academic respectability, Mr. Laats notes. The schools wanted students to see that they were committed to the pursuit of knowledge and ready to prepare them for careers. So their curriculums expanded to include not just religious studies to prepare students for evangelism or missionary work but also majors in liberal-arts fields. The schools offered four-year degrees and sought accreditation so that graduates could show future employers that their training was legitimate.
Mr. Laats, a professor of education and history at Binghamton University, takes a topic that could easily be treated with condescension and turns it into the occasion for a fascinating and careful history. His discussion of the racial policies of these schools is especially enlightening. Wheaton College, in Wheaton, Ill., “had the most dramatic past as a racially integrationist institution.” Mr. Laats writes. “Unlike the newer crop of fundamentalist schools, [it] had been founded by radical abolitionists.” By the 1930s, though, the administration had become, in the words of one historian, “none too eager” to admit African-American students. Then its policy changed again, though not out of a religious rationale. Rather, Mr. Laats says, the school’s president “hoped to improve the reputation of fundamentalism by turning Wheaton into an impeccably respectable college.” Ultimately, as Mr. Laats tells it, it was the desire for respectability that turned many of these schools back to racial inclusion, not to mention a desire for “diversity.”
There are a few off-key observations in “Fundamentalist U.” Mr. Laats suggests, for instance, that though Ronald Reagan ultimately didn’t support Bob Jones University’s segregationist policies and did support the IRS judgment denying the school tax-exempt status—a decision that was challenged in court—one can see BJU’s influence in the fact that Reagan did “appoint William Rehnquist —the only Supreme Court justice to have voted in favor of BJU—to be chief justice of the Supreme Court.” Surely there were many more powerful reasons for Rehnquist’s appointment.
Ultimately, Mr. Laats is right about the big themes. “Fundamentalism” he writes, “was defined in practice, not on paper.” The fundamentalists were pragmatists at heart. Their schools evolved with American higher education. When it came to addressing various debates and policies—from teaching evolution to deciding whether women should be allowed to wear trousers on campus—they sometimes followed the judgments of strong-willed leaders (e.g., Jerry Falwell ) and sometimes of prominent figures beyond the campus, who, say, had heard a rumor that student life was not as chaste as families might want.
Indeed, the schools’ lack of denominational affiliation—the absence of religious governing bodies of the kind that guide schools like Brigham Young and Baylor—has made things more variable and fluid. Caught between the vast changes in American higher education and the religious families they are supposed to serve, fundamentalist colleges have had to be especially attuned to which way the cultural winds are blowing. Which may occasionally get them some incongruous commencement speakers.
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