The powers that be at Hillsdale College applauded when Chuck Colson delivered his lecture that was, with a nod to Fyodor Dostoevsky, entitled \u201cCan man be good without God?\u201d<\/p>\n\n
But there was one problem. When the Christian apologist reviewed a version of his text prepared for Hillsdale\u2019s \u201cImprimis\u201d newsletter, he saw that all of his references to Jesus were missing. When Colson protested to Lissa Roche, the college president\u2019s daughter-in-law and strong right hand, she said it was campus policy not to \u201cuse the Lord\u2019s name in any of their publications.\u201d President George Roche III finally allowed two references to Jesus.<\/p>\n\n
In hindsight, it was a highly symbolic dispute.<\/p>\n\n
This was long before Lissa Roche shot herself in the head and before George Roche IV said his wife had confessed to a 19-year affair with his father. Then President Roche resigned. Then officials on the Michigan campus began hinting that Lissa Roche had been unstable and delusional. Then, as the media storm raged, insiders began trying to draw a line between \u201cChristian education\u201d and merely \u201cconservative education.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWhat Roche was trying to do at Hillsdale \u2026 was to create a strong pro-family, pro-traditional values institution \u2014 but keep it secular,\u201d said Colson, in a radio commentary. \u201cMany politicians try to do the same thing, giving us the impression that we can create a good and just society on our own, without reference to a transcendent moral authority. \u2026 It just doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The map of American academia is dotted with \u201cChristian colleges\u201d that have evolved into liberal carbon copies of their secular counterparts. Hillsdale offers a rare academic cautionary tale about a secular brand of conservatism.<\/p>\n\n
The key is that \u201cChristian colleges\u201d must not cut the ties that bind them to their churches, according to Father James Tunstead Burtchaell, former provost of the University of Notre Dame. In his book \u201cThe Dying of the Light,\u201d he shows how colleges keep following the same path on issues affecting finances, faculty, morality, doctrine and student recruiting.<\/p>\n\n
In America, most religious schools began as tiny, struggling communities led by clergy and other church leaders who mixed ministry and academics. They had modest goals and emphasized teaching. While they stressed personal piety, they also \u2014 because they needed tuition dollars \u2014 tried not to be too exclusive. \u201cChapel services\u201d were religious, but they were not true church services.<\/p>\n\n
The schools that survived eventually attracted wealthy donors and broader community support. These schools could then afford better faculty, which, by definition, meant ranking prestigious degrees and scholarship above church ties and spiritual leadership, said Burtchaell, during a Washington, D.C., conference on trends in Catholic higher education.<\/p>\n\n
Campus religious life would remain vital, for a few decades, but led by chaplains and campus ministers. Faculty members vanished during services. Later, this faculty indifference on religious issues would turn into cynical sniping and then open hostility.<\/p>\n\n
This kind of college, said Burtchaell, has a head and a heart, but they are not connected. The bank accounts and secular accreditation reports are solid, but the spirit is weak.<\/p>\n\n
As Christian colleges gained \u201csophistication and financial stability, they naturally suffered church fools less gladly,\u201d he said. Besides, defending divisive doctrines was bad for fundraising. Eventually, \u201cworship and moral behavior were easily set aside because no none could imagine they had anything to do with learning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cYou know the battle is lost,\u201d said Burtchaell, \u201cwhen a school has no meaningful ties to a church, no real sense of accountability or communion, yet its leaders keep talking about its religious heritage or some vague sense of cultural values. \u2026 That cannot last. The church is the ground of the faith, not the college.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Meanwhile, Hillsdale has reassured supporters that its work will go on, unchanged.<\/p>\n\n
The first post-scandal issue of \u201cImprimis\u201d \u2014 with its motto, \u201cBecause Ideas Have Consequences\u201d \u2014 ended by saying: \u201cHillsdale is not a church-affiliated college. We do not represent any denomination, but we are an institution that has never forgotten its Judeo-Christian roots. \u2026 We at Hillsdale College consider the sons and daughters who have been entrusted to us for a short while as most worthy of the highest things.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The powers that be at Hillsdale College applauded when Chuck Colson delivered his lecture that was, with a nod to Fyodor Dostoevsky, entitled \u201cCan man be good without God?\u201d But there was one problem. When the Christian apologist reviewed a version of his text prepared for Hillsdale\u2019s \u201cImprimis\u201d newsletter, he saw that all of his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n