Southern Baptist colleges and universities must protect themselves from the overt and covert attacks of secularism occurring within the academic ranks at many of America’s Christian institutions, Robert Benne of Roanoke College told the annual meeting of the Association of Southern Baptist Colleges and Schools.
Benne is professor of religion and director of Roanoke College’s Center for Religion and Society and author of the book “Quality with Soul: How Six Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith with Their Christian Traditions.”
He delivered the 2002 Hester Lectures during the association’s June 1-4 sessions in Panama City, Fla.
“Our colleges are reflecting the fragmentation of our so-called universities,” he said.
“This postmodern world has produced faculty and students uninterested in the ‘big picture,’ the comprehensive view of life and education that the Christian tradition can provide.”
In this three-part address, titled “Keeping the Faith in Christian Higher Education,” Benne charged that the covert secularization of many Christian colleges and universities is difficult to overcome since its influence on academia has been in place at several institutions for years.
Institutional characteristics that harbor a covert secularism include a Christian college or university defining itself as being more secular than Christian, not actively promoting its church affiliation, having a weakened relation to its church constituency and those, as Benne put it, practicing “partial Christianity.”
“These people don’t even bring ‘Jesus in their hearts’ to work at the college because they keep Jesus confined to Sunday,” he said.
“They have no inkling that Christianity might be relevant to education, to politics or to business life, for that matter. Their faith relates to the private life of church and family, but it has no crossover to college, they contend.”
Benne also charged that perhaps most common is the secular problem of Christian educators refusing to publicly articulate their Christian convictions in the face of “serious secularization.”
“Perhaps Baptist colleges do not face much overt secularization, but I would wager that the more covert forms are much with you,” Benne said. “Distressingly enough, the covert forms are deep within the Christian persons themselves.”
(BP)
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