Abstract
This chapter has what some will consider a bold, perhaps even radical, thesis, namely that the churches and the Christian colleges both could provide much more academic freedom than they do, all within the bounds of historic orthodox Christianity. The church and its colleges have different but complementary roles. The church proclaims the truth that it has found, while the college assumes that there is more truth to be found and it seeks it. The primary function of the church is to catechize the youth, celebrate the good news with all believers, and evangelize. The function of the Christian college is to explore all of revelation and to seek the mind of the author of truth in all things. The church’s role is primarily priestly; the college’s role is primarily prophetic. The priests emphasize loving God with your heart; the prophets emphasize loving God with your mind. The priests and the prophets help each other; the priests and the prophets need each other. The students coming from home and church to the Christian college should embrace all that they can from their heritage and then seek to improve upon it.
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Notes
Barry Hankins in discussion with the author; Barry Hankins, Uneasy in Babylon: Southern Baptist Conservatives and American Culture (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002), 3–10, 200ff;
Arthur Emery Farnsley II, Southern Baptist Politics: Authority and Power in the Restructuring of an American Denomination (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 18–29; Gregory A. Willis, “Progressive Theology and Southern Baptist Controversies of the 1950s and 1960s,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, July 2010, http://www.sbts.edu/resources/files/2010/07/sbjt_071_spr03_wills.pdf; “The Baptist Faith and Message,” Southern Baptist Convention, 2000, www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp.
David Treadwell, “Fundamentalist Baptists Suffer Major Defeat in Georgia,” Los Angeles Times, November 12, 1987, http://articles.latimes.com/1987–11-12/news/mn-20469_1_georgia-baptists; Gerald Harris, “Georgia Baptists Vote to End Relationship with Mercer University after 172 Years,” The Christian Index, November 24, 2005, http://www.christianindex.org/1759.article; R. Kirby Godsey, “To Whom Are Baptist Colleges and Universities Accountable?” in The Future of Baptist Higher Education, ed. Donald D. Schmeltekopf and Dianna M. Vitanza (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2006), 177–185.
Eileen W. Lindner, Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, 2012 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2012), 12, 378; Robert Benne, “The Trials of American Lutheranism: The Torments That the Two Major American Lutheran Churches Have Visited On Themselves,” First Things, May, 2011, http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/the-trials-of-american-lutheranism;
Lawrence Rast, “Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod,” and Robert Kolb, “Lutheranism,” in The Encyclopedia of Protestantism, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand (New York: Routledge, 2004), vol. 3, 1124–1126, 1130–1136; “Academic Freedom and Tenure: Concordia Seminary,” AAUP Bulletin, Spring 1975, http://www.aaup.org/report/academic-freedom-and-tenure-concordia-seminary; James Nuechterlein, “The Idol of Academic Freedom,” First Things, December, 1993, http://www.firstthings.com/article/1993/12/001-the-idol-of-academic-freedom; “Seminary Head to Stay in Post Pending Rulings,” Los Angeles Times, August 26, 1989, http://articles.latimes.com/1989–08-26/local/me-891_1_seminary-pending-ruling.
Terry L. Miethe, “Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)” and “Christian Churches/Churches of Christ (Independent)” in Dictionary of Christianity, ed. Daniel G. Reid, Robert D. Linder, Bruce L. Shelley, and Harry S. Stout (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1990), 253–255;
also see Michael W. Casey and Douglas A. Foster, eds., The Stone-Campbell Movement: An International Religious Movement (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002).
“When Ideology and Indoctrination Are More Important Than Education: The Bizarre Firing of Anthony Le Donne,” Zwingli Redivivus, https://zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/when-ideology-and-indoctri nation-are-more-important-than-education-the-bizarre-firing-of-anthony-le-donne/; Chris Keith, Jesus Against the Scribal Elite (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 2014), xi–xii.
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© 2016 William C. Ringenberg
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Ringenberg, W.C. (2016). Church and College: Complement and Conflict. In: The Christian College and the Meaning of Academic Freedom. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137398338_24
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137398338_24
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