What if Christian colleges—and churches—stopped being driven by fear?
In this episode of the Future Christian Podcast, Loren sits down (literally, in person) with sociologist and Substack writer John Hawthorne to talk about his new book The Fearless Christian University. Drawing on nearly four decades in Christian higher education, John outlines why so many institutions have slipped into what Andy Crouch calls "zombie mode"—defined more by inertia than imagination. This conversation moves fluidly between Christian universities and local churches, asking critical questions about sustainability, fear-based culture wars, institutional loyalty, and what it looks like to center the real questions of a rising generation.
Together, John and Loren explore:
-
Why Christian institutions often default to fear and control
-
What it means to be a “zombie institution”—and how to wake up
-
How schools and churches can move from protecting tradition to cultivating belonging
-
The importance of legitimizing doubt and centering student (or congregant) questions
-
Whether it's possible to hold onto theological identity without gatekeeping
-
How online church and online education can erode or support community
-
Why belonging may need to come before belief
John Hawthorne is a sociologist who spent nearly four decades in Christian higher education. He served as faculty member and academic administrator over the course of his career, spending time in five different Christian universities. He writes a Substack that often deals with issues in Christian higher education and has been regularly interviewed for Christianity Today, Religion News Service, Sojourners, Inside Higher Ed, and the Associated Press. His publications include A First Step into a Much Larger World: The Christian University and Beyond.
Mentioned Resources:
📱 Follow https://bsky.app/profile/jwhawthorne.bsky.social
📖 Book: https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802884565/the-fearless-christian-university/
🌐 John's Substack: https://substack.com/@johnhawthorne
🎧 Jeff Keuss: https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-8wu23-1703189
Presenting Sponsor:
Phillips Seminary Join conversations that expose you to new ideas, deepen your commitment and give insights to how we can minister in a changing world.
Supporting Sponsors:
Restore Clergy If you are clergy in need of tailored, professional support to help you manage the demands of ministry, Restore Clergy is for you!
Kokoro Join in for heartfelt journeys that challenges the way we see ourselves, each other, and the world we share.
Future Christian Team:
Loren Richmond Jr. – Host & Executive Producer
Martha Tatarnic – Co-Host
Paul Romig–Leavitt – Associate Producer
Dennis Sanders – Producer
Alexander Lang - Production Assistant
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Loren Richmond (00:07):
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast, your
source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in
the 21st century. At the Future Christian
Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors,
and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical
wisdom to help you and your community of faith
walk boldly into the future. Whether
(00:27):
you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member
of your faith community, this podcast is
designed to challenge, inspire, and equip
you with the tools you need for impactful ministry.
And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode.
>> Martha Tatarnic (00:44):
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today,
Loren Richmond Jr. Is in conversation with
John Hawthorne. John is a
sociologist who spent nearly four decades
in Christian higher education. He
served as faculty member and academic
administrator over the course of his career,
spending time in five different Christian
(01:05):
universities. He writes a substack that
often deals with issues in Christian higher education
and has been regularly interviewed for
Christianity Today, Religion News Service,
Sojourners, Inside Higher Ed, and
the Associated Press. His publications
include A First Step into a Much Larger
(01:26):
World, the Christian University, and Beyond.
A reminder. Before we start today's conversation,
please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast,
leave a review and share Future Christian with a
friend. Connect with Loren, Martha and Future
Christian on Instagram. Shoot us an
email@laurensonatemediapro.com
(01:49):
with comments, questions, or ideas for future
episodes. We appreciate your voice
in how we faithfully discern the future of the
church.
>> Loren (02:06):
All right, welcome to the Future Christian Podcast.
I am actually joined live and in person
with John Hawthorne and
dogs recording from my house. So if there's some dog
noise in the background, please forgive us.
John, anything, um, else you want to say about yourself?
>> Speaker D (02:26):
Um, so the reason I live here,
uh, is that our uh,
daughter and family, uh, our daughter
came to grad school at du,
uh, uh,
a couple of decades ago and
uh, met her husband and then they
(02:47):
have two girls and settled in a
neighborhood. And so when we.
I retired in May of 2020, uh,
in the throes of COVID I went home on
March 13 and went back one day
to pack my office.
>> Loren (03:03):
Wow.
>> Speaker D (03:04):
And um, so then a
year later when things looked like they had calmed down a little bit,
we sold the house in Michigan and we're able to buy a house
here and have the good fortune of living,
uh, 4/10 of a mile from my daughter's
house. Walkable distance for,
you know, granddaughter can ride the bike over and,
(03:24):
and uh, and that's, that's been great.
Uh, and uh, I'm now
the board president of
my oldest grandchild's Charter
school in North Glen. So.
So that keeps me
kind of busy, but not terribly so.
>> Loren (03:45):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (03:46):
Um, so yeah, that's. I grew up in Indiana
and as we'll. We may get to,
uh, moved around a lot.
Um, you given
a. My decision to be in Christian universities
and more importantly my decision to go into
administration, which meant more mobility than
(04:06):
kind of taking a teaching position and staying there for 35 or
40 years.
>> Loren (04:09):
Right, right.
Anything you want to say about your faith journey? What that looked like in the past,
what that looks like today?
>> Speaker D (04:14):
Yeah, I don't want to get too. You
too deep. Um, grew up in a
kind of faith adjacent home,
which meant my grandmother's kind
of avid Presbyterianism.
Um, but, um, mostly not
so much. But through influence of friends
(04:35):
and other things, I became,
uh, a Christian in high
school.
Um, I actually flunked out
of college after my first year,
uh, and went home at
their request. Uh, and
uh, back in Indianapolis. Wound up getting involved
(04:57):
at a church, a Nazarene church
that was
pretty fundamentalist even for Nazarene
churches. Uh, and
always felt that was good for me at the
time, given lack of discipline,
all the things that contributed to looking at a
(05:18):
school.
Um, and over the
years the notion of
grace became more and more prominent.
Uh, which is one of the reasons that I am
a Methodist today. Uh, is
that that just notion of the free gift of
grace kind of has
(05:39):
kind of taken the place of that earlier.
Somewhat more. Never really good
fundamentalist, but somewhat more fundamentalist leaning.
Um, is kind of big. The big transition, I think of
my faith journey. We bounced back
and forth between Nazarene churches and Methodist
churches. Uh, and then,
(06:00):
uh, upon moving,
uh, from California
to Michigan, that was kind of. We've been
Methodist ever since and kind of owned.
Owned that. But I've always been in more. In more
or less Wesleyan kind
of big family spaces.
>> Loren (06:19):
Yeah. Because Nazarenes have a Wesleyan.
>> Speaker D (06:20):
Nazarenes have. I was at a Church of God school, Church of God
Anderson School, uh, which also is there. I did
spend, uh. I did spend a few
years. Uh, the second institution I was at
is Sterling College in Kansas, which is a
Presbyterian school, but I went
to the Methodist Church.
Um, so. Yeah.
>> Loren (06:42):
Cool.
Any spiritual practices that you really like
to keep maintaining?
>> Speaker D (06:49):
Honestly, I'm not real good at that. Um.
Um, I keep trying to kind of get
into regular rhythms.
>> Loren (06:56):
Ah, Practice practicing.
>> Speaker D (06:58):
Exactly. And I'm never. They never. They take
for a bit and then they don't. Yeah. Community M
is important. Being with other people,
uh, kind of reflecting Even reflecting on what
I'm reading, even if it's not,
uh, particularly a religious topic, is, you know,
kind of feeds that broader sense of understanding
(07:19):
of the world.
>> Loren (07:19):
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.
Well, I'm fortunate to be talking again
live and in person with John this
morning as we're recording. And um, we're talking about
a little bit around his book. John's the author of
the Fearless Christian University. No subtitle, right?
No subtitle. He brought a copy. My copy is
upstairs. Uh, but we're going to talk kind of around this
(07:41):
topic and then more broadly around
institutions, particularly Christian institutions in the church.
But do you want to start off kind of just what led you to write the book? What
inspired it?
>> Speaker D (07:51):
So as I just mentioned,
uh, I got into
Christian higher education because
my wife was a graduate of Olivet Nazarene,
um, which was where my first job
was. Uh, and so through her
networks I was known when I was in grad school
(08:12):
and they called up out of the blue and offered me a job.
Um, and so I went and taught
there. But I learned by the
end of. I was there nine years and by the
latter part of that period I was kind of itching
for something else more to do
and felt led.
(08:34):
I think I could say that I don't know if call is too strong, but
definitely led to
exercise some administrative um, gifts I thought
I was sensing. Uh, and
it wasn't going to happen there. So
if I was going to pursue that, it required moving.
I mean they weren't like, opposed to me. It was
(08:55):
like the person who was my department chair was
department chair another decade. And it was
just like the amount of time necessary
to wait to make that move was going to be
endless. Ah. And
um, so I moved and
uh, taught sociology
at Sterling College in Kansas.
(09:17):
Then in
two um, years into that the college
had uh, acquired a non
traditional program. Uh, one of those
classes for working adults that meet at night, one night
a week. And uh, that actually
operated in Missouri.
(09:38):
Uh, and I was the chair of the faculty
committee that gave oversight to that.
Well, the president fired the VP
and I became acting VP
while they did a search. And then after they
did a search I became permanent vp.
And I was VP for that from um,
(09:59):
the middle of, well from late
92 through 95.
And
um, and
it had some challenges to it, um,
but I was enjoying what I was doing. I was,
I thought accomplishing the right kinds of things. But I
didn't want to spend my career in non
(10:20):
traditional education. And I figured
if I stayed too long that was
going to be a problem.
>> Loren (10:27):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (10:27):
Uh, and as it turned out, the President
nominated me for an opening,
uh, at Warner Pacific College in Portland,
Oregon, which is a Church of God, uh,
Indiana Church of God, Anderson, Indiana
Affiliated College. And
I took the role of the title,
eventually became Vice President of Practical affairs.
(10:50):
And I did that for a decade, uh,
and then, uh, spent a year
in transition as Assistant to the President and
then moved to Point Loma Nazarene in San
Diego where I was provost for four years.
Uh, and that ended badly. And
then, uh, I wound up
(11:10):
eventually in Michigan, back in the classroom
teaching sociology at Spring Arbor University Free
Methodist School.
>> Loren (11:17):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (11:19):
So I knew I was
retiring in May of 20,
made that decision early on,
um, the year before.
And
um,
two months before I retired, I sat down and I
wrote myself a memo, 30 page, double
(11:40):
spaced on, well, here's how my career
went. And as I looked over
that memo I said, oh, maybe there's something here.
Maybe there would be a series of essays
that I could write about Christian higher education.
And I actually met with
uh, one representative who happened to be here for
(12:02):
in, happened to be here in Denver for the
uh, Evangelical Theological Society.
And we had coffee and I said, here's what I've got.
And he said, oh, said my wife who teaches
at a Christian college, she'd like this, but I don't know
how much of a bigger market there is than her.
And I said, okay, fair enough. And
(12:23):
so I kind of set that aside.
But the first of those
essays became
the first chapter in Fearless Christian University.
And what I wound
up doing was
writing what I came to see
(12:43):
is the affirmative case for a different approach
to Christian higher education rather than just,
oh, here were some important lessons from my past.
Those lessons you could still find
through the pages of the book.
Um, but it shifted my focus
and I was able to speak to kind of a broader issue
(13:03):
which as you say, I hope speaks to
broader issues within
the evangelical church and to extent the
mainline church and maybe to
parachurch organization, all of it.
>> Loren (13:18):
Yeah, yeah.
So let's get into that because I think again your title is
the Fearless Christian University. But I think this is
more, uh, applicable. It seems like to me we're
really in an era perhaps
from my perspective that fear, I think runs
everything. And I was thinking about this a. I
can't remember if it's in your book or if it's in another book I read
(13:39):
where they, they talk about how like the kind of
worldview thing in
evangelical universities has been like the kind of the
boogeyman driver of like, oh, parents, you
gotta invest in your kids worldview.
And I feel like similarly in like mainline or
progressive spaces now it's like, oh, Christian
nationalism, like that's the boogeyman. And not that these
(14:01):
aren't like problematic things, especially
today Christian nationalism, but it seems like,
like everything is kind of reactionary
Fe. And you really try to like, hey,
I guess. Is that a fair.
>> Speaker D (14:14):
Uh, I think broadly. Let
me.
>> Loren (14:17):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (14:17):
Um, so here's how
the first chapter begins.
>> Loren (14:21):
Yeah, yeah.
>> Speaker D (14:23):
Christian universities, much like the evangelical
subculture that spawned them, are characterized by
fear, fear of societal decline,
fear of secular authorities, fear of
apostasy, fear of not being real schools.
In short, they fear losing their way.
>> Loren (14:39):
Yes.
>> Speaker D (14:41):
Um, and I think
that notion about if we
don't hold the line on every little
thing, on the Christian worldview, on the
social ethic, on all these things,
that everything will fall apart.
I have to work to figure Christian nationalism.
(15:02):
See, I think the, the Christian nationalism thing
is also related to fear
of social change. So it's similar in that
way some of
what's fostering that.
>> Loren (15:17):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think one thing that was interesting in your book
and this title or phraseology
doesn't come from you, particularly if
Nandra, Nandra Andy Crouch. But he
used a term from him, zombie institutions.
So talk like what that is and then
how. How do we go about revitalizing these
(15:39):
institutions?
>> Speaker D (15:40):
I meant to look up. I meant to look up the scripture reference
to get it right. But you know, the paraphrase
is the, uh. The form of religion without the essence
therein.
>> Loren (15:49):
Sure, sure.
>> Speaker D (15:51):
And I think that's some of what Crouch was
talking about. It is that
institutions settle into patterns of being
and behaving that have
suited them in the past. And they have this
perhaps bias toward inertia.
Um, and if the
(16:12):
culture around them has changed or the
internal dynamics have changed, they seem
to be unaware of that because
things run on autopilot. They just kind of know how to keep doing the
thing they've always done. And every year looks like
every other year. Um,
and so it's in that sense
(16:33):
that I kind of talk
about in my case, particularly Christian
universities, uh, who
are simply kind of
talking about the same issues, saying the same things
in their admissions brochures, doing everything
they've ever done. Ah. And
that, uh, that is,
(16:55):
limits their ability to
respond to what I argue is
a very,
um,
to a very much changed
cultural dynamic, uh, among
incoming college students and the broader
culture. And so
(17:18):
maintaining that past practice,
particularly,
um, either in A
reactionary mode or at least
in the zombie sense, in the
non reflective mode.
Um,
causes all kinds of problems.
>> Loren (17:39):
So I think what's interesting for me, and again
you were writing primarily from the university context.
I'm thinking about this for a church context,
especially from my situation within the mainline world.
But when I read the zombie institution thing and you
talk about this bias toward inertia, like I feel like
again I haven't been part of mainline Christianity that
(17:59):
long. I'm um, really in many ways an outside
observer, so to speak, because of that. But it
seems like to me that mainline
Protestantism has been kind of just managing
decline for.
I mean really when you look at data from like Orion Burge or
something, it's like managing decline for 20, 30,
40 years.
>> Speaker D (18:20):
Um, um, actually 80.
>> Loren (18:23):
But yeah, sure.
>> Speaker D (18:24):
I mean, no, the peak was 1970.
>> Loren (18:26):
Right.
>> Speaker D (18:26):
Um, and, and
by. Let me go on a detour.
>> Loren (18:34):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (18:34):
The sociology of mainline churches.
Um, so
back in, you know, in,
in the post, in post war America.
>> Loren (18:46):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (18:47):
There is this sort of religious boom, part of which
is a civil religious boom. Church uh,
is a good thing.
>> Loren (18:54):
Right.
>> Speaker D (18:54):
You know, this is where you get Eisenhower saying
uh, that our country makes no sense unless
it's based on a deeply felt faith and he doesn't care
what that faith is.
Um, and
so church became part of social
acceptance, of affiliation, of
recognition that you're a good member of the community.
(19:18):
And that um, I
think fostered the big growth in
the main lines.
Which of course means the main
lines are demographic. Were not true
anymore. Were demographically about a
decade older than the evangelical
churches which explode in the late
(19:41):
70s through the 80s.
Um, there,
there is evidence that the evangelicals are now hitting
demographic plateaus and having their own issues.
There was, there was some sociological research
that argued that mainline
churches got. Mainline
(20:03):
pastors got very much involved in social
action. Uh issues which
created a gap with the population.
Um, there's some truth to
that. I think what is more likely
is that you have a
traditional versus
(20:23):
um, an experimental, innovative.
You know. So while the
mainline church is still in the big old building
downtown with the choir and the robes,
the worship band is going on at the church and they've got
the youth group and I mean there, there is a
cannibalization. I happens
(20:44):
uh, as
there's defection from the main line to the evangelicals.
>> Loren (20:51):
Now.
>> Speaker D (20:51):
Um, the growth is non, non denoms.
>> Loren (20:54):
Right.
>> Speaker D (20:55):
Um, but
um, but that's how I kind of think
about what that looks like.
One of the dynamics of that
kind of historical
Pattern Is that
part of the evangelical
strength? And this relates to the themes of the book. Part
(21:17):
of the evangelical identity is
we're true believers. Those guys don't believe
anything.
>> Loren (21:23):
Right.
>> Speaker D (21:25):
Um, and
there may have been a period of time where
mainline churches soft sold
theology,
but I think that's generally a myth.
>> Loren (21:41):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (21:41):
Um, and so what you find today
in mainline churches, um,
what you find today in mainline churches is
this kind of broader social awareness blended with
a commitment to community both local and
internal and
a kind of Jesus centered
(22:02):
theology. Um, I
was just, uh, my wife and I went to
uh, we went to St.
Simon's Island, Georgia at the end of January
for this event that Diana Butler Bass
puts on. Um, and
uh, it was great. It was just,
it was very white,
(22:25):
um, very middle class.
>> Loren (22:27):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (22:28):
But it was 700
kind of well meaning, faith
filled mainline folks.
>> Loren (22:37):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (22:38):
Um, and it was really encouraging. I mean it's just
to counter that kind of all
the main lines don't stand for anything is, you know,
is really important.
>> Loren (22:49):
Well, let's talk about that because one of the things you
note in the book that I feel like I've seen
broadly speaking within American Christianity is this kind of
like melding of
Christianity into
the progressive wing and the conservative
wing and in the conservative wing
(23:11):
because I think, correct me if this is wrong, but I feel like even
within a tradition like the Church of the
Nazarene that had distinct
rituals and practices, there's kind of this, this
melding into like just evangelicalism writ
large. Uh, and you can correct me if I'm wrong
certainly within, I think within mainland
proselytism. I feel like there's, it's
(23:34):
not quite as distinct but there is kind of this
again this kind of uh, amalgamation um,
into just like one sort of like we're just liberal
Christianity.
>> Speaker D (23:47):
Okay. A couple of things. Yeah, yeah.
M. There is a sense in which,
you know, one of the things that happens in
the evangelical world first
is that
denominational publishing houses die.
>> Loren (24:07):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (24:09):
And they are replaced by whatever Rick Warren
did lately or whatever. Whoever the, the
hot person is now.
>> Loren (24:16):
Now it's ah, you know, I feel like what Cokesbury
is still operating but there are uh,
like whatever. Adam Hamilton for instance.
>> Speaker D (24:24):
Exactly what to put out. But they'll put
that out. But that's different than when
the Church of God press dies
and then the Sunday school. I was at the
Nazarene Church in Portland
and one year we were reading.
Uh, they decided, they kind of bought
the subscription for everybody. So we were going to read
(24:47):
the 40 days of purpose.
>> Loren (24:48):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (24:49):
For Rick Warren. And you read the first page and
say,
this book is theologically not what we
believe, but it's a
big name and it's a popular book. That means everybody knows about it, everybody's
talking about it, everybody's reading all the stuff about it.
And that replaces that
(25:10):
kind of dynamic.
>> Loren (25:11):
Right.
>> Speaker D (25:12):
Um. And so what's distinctive
about a denomination kind of shrinks.
>> Loren (25:17):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (25:18):
Now your
reference to, you know, how do they,
you know, what do you do with kind of all of
the kind of behavioral limitations that often went
along with conservative utilism.
Those soften. I mean, you know, it used to
be there were no car you to play cards, you go bowling,
(25:38):
you go to circus. And Yeah.
>> Loren (25:39):
I was just telling kids, like when we grew up.
>> Speaker D (25:41):
Yeah.
>> Loren (25:41):
Karina wife and I, like, we couldn't go to movies
in college.
>> Speaker D (25:45):
And you know, now, you know, it's like wine with
dinner. Sure. Who cares? I mean, it's,
um. Except
that there has been a move in the last
five years for conservative
animations to double down on
LGBTQ issues.
>> Loren (26:05):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (26:07):
Because what they've done is they said, oh,
these positions that we held, these social
positions, they're doctrinal.
>> Loren (26:14):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (26:16):
And all of a sudden they have just
shut down conversation around
the topic. They don't do that around alcohol,
they don't do that around movies. They, you know,
um, which is tell it. But. So
they're. That's. That's part of the
generic evangelicalism. But then
(26:37):
certain culture war issues rise to the, to the
fore. M.
Um,
I could be, I could be wrong here.
I don't think the mainline church
has had the same amalgamation.
Methodists know that they come from Wesley and they like to talk
(26:58):
about Wesley. Presbyterians,
like, talk about Calvin and Reform
thought. Lutherans, um,
are very much Lutherans. You know, I mean,
so UCC has its own history,
which, which is interesting
to, to dig into. Um, but.
(27:20):
But there are stronger kind of
historical ties. Maybe that's what in the
mainline, um.
>> Loren (27:27):
That keeps it, I think, within this is what drives
me crazy about evangelicalism. Like if I feel like, if I go
to like a mainline church, like, I know why they have a reason for why
they do something.
>> Speaker D (27:37):
Yes.
>> Loren (27:37):
Whereas evangelicals sort of have to like reinvent
the wheel all the time. Because like, I remember going to
like a progressive evangelical church and they're like, they
had communion, but it was just at a
table that you self serve and I was like,
you're throwing insane. Like, no, that's
not. This is not right. Going back to your point about being
(27:58):
fearless, reactionary, it feels like
if I'm understanding what you've read, what you wrote in the
book, this, this
culture war type of
drivenness, influence, like
reaction. Certainly maybe I'm wrong,
but certainly I feel like similar things happen
(28:18):
in mainline process, especially right now in the political season
we're in right now, which goodness knows is
there's some fairness to, but
thinking even bigger picture. Uh, it feels like, and I've been talking
about this with one of my good friends, Dennis Sanders, like, it feels like when,
when all that the, the opposite is known for is
just resisting, there's never any kind
(28:40):
of, um, hopeful
future. And eventually people kind of
wear out of like resisting
and they want like, what's our hopeful future? Like, what are we
offering people? And I'm wondering, like, have you seen
the, a similar dynamic or seems like you've seen a similar
dynamic within Christian evangelical universities.
(29:00):
What do you recommend instead?
>> Speaker D (29:02):
Okay, um, this is the
version of the question that I get.
People say, okay, could you name
a fearless university? Um, and my
answer is I've got some nominees. I
don't know. How will they match my image?
Um, and I won't name them right now.
(29:25):
Uh, but, um, yeah, a
quick side note.
Uh, I had decided while I was
waiting to hear from Erdmans. I knew they liked the
book, but I didn't know where we were in the process that
what I would do is I would add a chapter that would be a field
trip and I would go and visit like three or four of these
institutions I thought were nominees. Well,
(29:47):
when I got the contract on November 1st
of 23, I had a
2-1-24 submission
deadline and the field
trip went away. And so the ninth
chapter is my imaginary field trip.
Um, but the,
um.
(30:08):
So the,
the central thrust of the book
is that there are, and I think I can work this background
at churches. Central thrust of the church is that
there are two critical
dynamics at play and they overlap.
>> Loren (30:28):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (30:28):
In Christian universities,
one is that you've got a set of
leaders, administrators,
trustees, major donors
who are insistent on
wanting to maintain their separation
from the world. The left, the
(30:49):
liberals. That's where all that
comes in. And so they wind
up trying to hold continuity with
the past that isn't
realistic in terms of what's
going on in its surrounding milieu.
Okay.
(31:09):
Uh, the second
dynamic is that
this generation of students,
um, is
very different than what those
administrators and donors and trustees
and denominations see
(31:31):
and think. Um, I have this
whole litany. I won't go through the whole thing. But
a student beginning college,
beginning at a Christian college in the fall of 25
was born in 2007.
She doesn't know anything about 9, 11.
>> Loren (31:49):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (31:50):
She was um, barely alive for
the recession. Barely alive. Doesn't know much of
anything about the Obama administration.
Um, she's like in
elementary school when um,
Trayvon Martin dies, when Michael Brown dies,
when, I mean you go through that whole list. She's 11
(32:11):
when MeToo hits M. The social
hits. Hits the. At church too, following
it.
And um, um, she
has dealt with school shootings
or the fear of school shootings, with uh, concerns about
climate change, with political
polarization. All of that
(32:34):
has happened in her short lifetime.
>> Loren (32:37):
Right.
>> Speaker D (32:39):
And the cell phone in her pocket.
>> Loren (32:41):
Right.
>> Speaker D (32:42):
Has been the dynamic through which she engages all these
topics. And it has been present her entire
life.
>> Loren (32:49):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (32:50):
So that's the dynamic
of the students that are coming in. Even if they're
like evangelical students. These are
the sentiments they're bringing with them.
>> Loren (33:01):
So like the norms of like when we think about the
uh, majority. What was the Falwell.
>> Speaker D (33:08):
Um, Moral Majority.
>> Loren (33:09):
Moral majority. You mentioned 9 11. Like so
many of these kind of culture war issues.
Teletubbies, if you remember that whole thing, like
clueless to her.
>> Speaker D (33:20):
And the issues that are of importance to
her. Diversity,
lgbtq at least respect.
Mhm. Climate, um,
change,
uh, broad sense of community.
>> Loren (33:37):
Right.
>> Speaker D (33:38):
Legitimate discipleship.
>> Loren (33:40):
Right.
>> Speaker D (33:40):
Um, are exactly the issues,
with the exception of the last one that the university
leadership prides itself on in not
focusing on it.
>> Loren (33:52):
Right, right.
>> Speaker D (33:53):
Um, so that's the
central crisis of the book.
And so the solution to that,
which is also going to speak, I think, to what
you want to talk about in terms of churches. The
solution to that is to center
the students questions.
>> Loren (34:12):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (34:14):
As the primary piece of the mission of
the university, that
there is a question. The alternatives
are sort of protecting the brand
versus addressing the needs and concerns and
questions of today's students.
Um, I have a friend,
(34:38):
I, uh, won't name the institution, but I have a friend who
is recently at
uh, a kind of recruiting
event for interested students.
>> Loren (34:48):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (34:48):
And he told me that the admissions department,
because our students had parents present
and the admissions department tells
the parents that the university has
not changed since when they went to school it was
the same institution. And he and I, because
he has known about the book
(35:11):
since early days.
Um, this
is just absolutely the wrong. This is like the
absolute inverse of what I'm arguing in the book
and.
>> Loren (35:23):
Feels like pretty preposterous to think that they have absolutely not
changed. But I can see why you'd say that to a
parent.
Uh, so this is where I want to kind of hit to, because I
think this is very applicable, at least in my perspective. You talk about
centering student questions as the primary
mission. So if we think about that in terms of a church
context, how do we do that? And it's not
(35:43):
necessarily going to be 18 to 20 year
old, 22 year olds in the church context, because
the data suggests they're loosely involved with
church at that age anyway. But, uh, you
may get them at the end of high school, you may get them as they're young
adults or later young adults, whatever the
terminology is now, as they're trying to trickle back and ask
(36:05):
some questions. How do you make
church so that
you're centering these questions, but like not, I
hate to use this word, but for lack of a better word, abandoning kind
of these central tenets,
your core theology, um,
does that make sense? What do you know?
>> Speaker D (36:25):
So I think part of the answer is, and
I don't know how this works structurally, but part
of the answer is first of all
legitimizing questions. Okay,
um, that,
so that's one piece that
it's okay here in this church
to say I'm confused
(36:47):
about this. I don't know what I think about this. I don't know how,
I don't know how to read this passage of the Old Testament. I
don't know how to reconcile these ideas.
I don't know how my lived experience with my
neighbors can be
connected with my gay neighbors can be connected to these
scripture paths. How do you know there's an openness to being
(37:09):
able to at least acknowledge that
those are legitimate questions. I
don't think that's all kind of talk back issues in churches.
Um, I'm not sure that structurally
works, but I think there is a
mode that
preachers can
(37:30):
demonstrate that they have their own questions and the questions
are okay and that we're not afraid of questions.
So that's part of it.
A second component is
to think about what it means
to be,
um,
truly focused on Jesus.
(37:53):
Not just Jesus's words or Jesus's ministry,
but the broader theological understanding of the Incarnation.
You know, what does, how do we talk about
God with us and how do we talk about the broader
theological. We just, we um,
just at our church did a, um,
small group study on Philippians, you know, and
(38:16):
so you got the whole Philippians two, uh,
you know, just massive important passage
which, you know, kind of creates this context
which isn't clearly, which isn't just Jesus was
a good guy who got along with people. I'm, um, you know,
this is again to go back to the sort of
stereotype of mainliners, right, that this,
(38:36):
there's, there's depth there about what the
person Jesus means. A third thing
I would ask maybe, I think it's a third. Maybe it's a
sub point of the first or maybe it's the major point. And the
thing I said was a sub point
I once gave, was asked to give um,
a little staff devotional talk
(38:57):
to um,
at one of my colleges during the
summer. And um, what
I wound up talking about was what it meant to have,
you know, what it meant to trust God
and that. So often we get ourselves in the
evangelical world into this position that says
(39:18):
if we don't hold the line right here,
then we have to be true to God and
say, you know, there are days where
that skates really close to
idolatry, that you think
somehow that you're protecting God from difficult
conversations.
(39:38):
And I don't think God needs to be protected from difficult
conversations. You know,
um, and that's why that relates to that first
point. Uh, and even to my other point about
Jesus. I mean that's
challenging kind of what do we do with this,
you know, Jesus, here's what this person is.
(39:59):
What do we do? Do we do this or do that? Those
weren't easy. Uh, and that's part of the
dynamic.
>> Loren (40:06):
Yeah, I think that's interesting. I'm thinking too,
as we think about, maybe more practically speaking
too, when you think about, certainly in higher ed, you
can speak better this that I can't. But I'm just thinking like I have a
degree on my wall that I did entirely online.
Most of my seminary was completed online. It seems like the,
the shift has been practically
(40:27):
speaking to like online
alternative sort of education models.
I don't know if you want to speak any more to that. And thinking
again applying that to church, like does,
uh, how do we need to perhaps re. Envision
like the structural elements of.
>> Speaker D (40:45):
Yeah, um,
let's see. Um, first of all, let me
say something about the
non traditional programming at colleges.
The degree completion program I was part of or online
programming or graduate programming.
The schools made the move to do that because it was
(41:06):
financially important to do so.
But to argue that those programs
carry the same mission components that
happens with an 18 to 22
year old residential student is just
impossible to articulate. It just doesn't.
>> Loren (41:23):
Because even when I was doing my master's
divinity I
had to be on campus for a few classes. There's a
huge better. I felt so
much more connected and engaged even when I was a week long class.
>> Speaker D (41:39):
Churches already have
the problem of
fostering spectatorship.
>> Loren (41:47):
Right.
>> Speaker D (41:48):
Um, I mean, the best thing we
do at our church every Sunday is the
eight minutes we spend in the passing of the
peace, which really involves wandering all around the
congregation, not just talking to people next to you. People just get up
and move all over the place. It is really the,
um, as a friend of mine from
years ago said, it is the remembering
(42:12):
of the congregation,
uh, that's just
impossible to do in a church of
750. Uh,
and it is absolutely impossible to do
by typing in the chat line on the online
service to say, oh, good to see you all on the
(42:33):
screen. Which you can't see because the camera is only focused at the front
anyway. So, um, that
becomes problematic.
I, uh, think it has a place.
I, uh, think one of the things we learned during COVID
is that it's a nice fallback
for people who
(42:54):
can't travel to the
congregation or as I
happen to know, uh, from people I
know at church. You know, it's, you know,
we got up a little late
and so we're just going to watch today and it'll be. And
I get that, you know. But there comes a point where if that's
all you do, you're not
(43:17):
part of the congregation in the same fashion.
My dissertation, uh,
40 years ago, was about people
who regularly attend church and don't join.
How prevalent was that? Do some
interviews. Why is that? Talk to some pastors. What do they
think about that? That was the dissertation. But
(43:39):
early on I had to decide what
I thought about the relationship between
kind of being in community versus
being on the rolls.
And it didn't take me long to figure out that being in community is the
primary driver of congregational life.
(44:01):
So being online
only online is a step removed from that.
And a step removed from that is being on the rolls and going at
Christmas and Easter. Um,
so that's, I'm thinking too,
somewhere.
>> Loren (44:18):
I have it, there's a book coming out from Think
Baker, A strategically small
church.
Thinking economically too about this. And
I'm sure you can speak to this, you kind of already have, from the
Christian university perspective of going
online was somewhat about scale, I imagine, and financial.
Because again, you can only, from a campus
(44:40):
perspective, only house and
sustain so many students.
Similarly, I feel like certainly in evangelical church, the
megachurch model works because it's like financially
viable. You can keep Bringing in
people and your ministry staff
doesn't really have to expand exponentially.
Um, whereas like
(45:03):
this, you know I often say this like the, the
classic 20, 30 years ago church that we think of like the
150 member church, like that's almost eight. That
doesn't exist now. And it's really hard to maintain because of
giving levels decreasing.
>> Speaker D (45:16):
You know you're right that the, the metrics have
shifted downward.
>> Loren (45:19):
Right.
>> Speaker D (45:20):
Um. And um. But
I used to argue that
up to 125 maybe
you can maintain the metaphor of the church's
family. Uh, and then it
gets really dicey from 125 until,
until I don't know, 250, 300
(45:43):
where you're big enough to have sub components.
>> Loren (45:46):
Right.
>> Speaker D (45:47):
Um,
um.
But there is that, you know what
happens when you're too big and then when you're
very big, when you're really big and you got subco. One of my
favorite little quotes and this is, goes
back to the
early to about 2011 I think.
(46:09):
But one of the books that Robert Putnam wrote, the Bowling
Alone Guy was about kind of community
organizations.
>> Loren (46:16):
Right.
>> Speaker D (46:17):
I used it a class
and one of the community organizations they studied was
Saddleback.
>> Loren (46:23):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (46:25):
And he had this little throwaway
line that there were 152 people
on the mountain biking email list for
Saddleback. And I
always liked that image because that says
where community exists in
the really large megachurch, it
(46:45):
exists in interest pockets,
um, or in the
neighborhood small group. I mean that's. And the
loyalty is there much more than the loyalty is
to um, the
uh institution. There is a parallel there by the way
to the uh, non
traditional programming at Christian universities.
(47:08):
M is that if you talk to
people who do a degree completion or who do a
master's in divinity in
this online program with a cohort, your
loyalty is much more to the people in
the cohort than it is to the institution.
>> Loren (47:26):
I mean that really speaks to the broader cultural dynamics we
are in right now. Right. Where people. Far less institutional
loyalty, it's far more
relational, connectional based. So I guess
what do you advise universities? Uh, what do you advise
institutions? What are they thinking of? Like we know we
can't necessarily like sustain our
(47:48):
model through a purely, you know, in
the university space on campus, in
whatever the terminology is, similarly for
churches or other institutions.
>> Speaker D (47:58):
Part of. Well one, one of
several answers I have to that
um, is
my argument is that the
future of the fearless Christian university
involves a willingness to try
to meet the needs of the
(48:20):
rising generation. Even though the rising
generation, only 9% of them are white
evangelicals.
Um, the, the
interests of
Gen Z, the need for belonging, the
need for security, the need for their lives to
have meaning, the need to have impact, all
(48:43):
those things are very,
those are the kinds of things that
residential Christian universities can provide.
>> Loren (48:55):
I mean frankly, what Christianity provides.
>> Speaker D (48:57):
What Christianity provides, yes to kind of
move on to that. So to
recognize that we are addressing the felt needs of
people, not to prioritize the
individualization of that because that becomes problematic on
its own. But, but yes to
um, say
(49:18):
again. We invite the questions, we recognize the
deeds. We are here to provide belonging and importance
and meaning, um, I
think is possible. That
requires a willingness to
kind of step out of the past zombie patterns.
And rather than saying don't know,
(49:39):
you know, this is an old
argument in the sociological religion,
but is the question about believing
versus belonging and if believing is
primary and you are welcome in this place,
as long as you line up,
then that's
(50:01):
going to be a challenge. Um, and if
belonging is what's important and believing comes
along tailing that,
then that's a different, it's a different dynamic for the church.
>> Loren (50:14):
Yeah. And I'm thinking, um, as I'm right now
believing in belonging. Jeff Kuse,
who had on a couple episodes, a few episodes past,
did a lot of work on this.
Maybe I'm too optimistic here, you can push back, but
I feel like this is possible. Going back to
that point about maintaining
(50:36):
ethos and theological
values. Like it's possible to say like, hey,
this is what your felt needs are. You're looking for purpose, you're looking
for connection. It's just about messaging.
It's like, uh, is that too simple? Is that too pie in the
sky?
>> Speaker D (50:54):
Would say more about what you mean by just messaging.
>> Loren (50:56):
Like it's reframing, it's
reframing to say like,
um,
like so like in my tradition Christian church, Disciples Christ, where
I'm ordained in like our big thing is
the open table communion,
blah blah, blah. Like
(51:16):
the central,
the central component of a worship service
in the disciples gathering. And it's funny
even when like disciples clergy, like you know, you've had what
they call worship is like we've had communion, so
we know we have worship. You know, uh, it's funny because like,
like in evangelical space, like they had.
>> Speaker D (51:36):
Worship when they, when they do the music. Yeah, right.
>> Loren (51:38):
Like they've worshiped. Um, but
I feel like there's a way to like when we get
stuck on like, well, we have to have a central table and we
have to have elders up there and we have to have, you know, the
elder give reflection, like, versus like saying,
what are the, what are the ethos and values
of the table? Everyone being welcome, people included,
(51:59):
God, love and graces for all. Like
translating that and not, not that I want to get rid of
the table.
>> Speaker D (52:06):
Let me, let me add
one piece to that.
>> Loren (52:10):
Yes.
>> Speaker D (52:11):
Years ago, I realized that I
had been socialized to
see communion as this. Now, this
was with passing the little trays.
>> Loren (52:21):
Right.
>> Speaker D (52:22):
But to see communion as a very
introspective moment.
>> Loren (52:27):
Yes.
>> Speaker D (52:28):
Let me take communion and, you know,
let me dig down deep inside.
>> Loren (52:33):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (52:34):
And even with the little trays, I
came to recognize the real
miraculous thing is to be aware
of all of these other people in the room
sipping the little cup and taking the little piece of whatever that
is at the same time.
>> Loren (52:52):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (52:52):
Or now in our congregation,
we go forward to take
communion. The pastor
names us. Um, and I've helped
before. And so I know that the dynamic is, you know,
you are named and you are very
aware not just that this is communion and the table is
(53:13):
open, but this is Loren taking
communion.
>> Loren (53:16):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (53:17):
And I'm even, you know, we
are communing
at the table with Jesus and each other
at that moment. And so that
notion of belonging gets communicated.
The word came to mind is programmatically, which is horrible.
(53:37):
Uh, institutionally,
um, in practice
is, uh. And I think it's
more than just messaging.
>> Loren (53:47):
You're right, because you're getting at. It's a way of saying you
belong through the
tradition, but there's intentionality behind it.
Well, I want to keep talking about this, but we're running
out of time. Let's take a quick break.
We're back. We got the dogs riled up. So,
(54:08):
um, John, we only have a few more minutes. I know you got to run.
So let's take these closing questions, uh, as
seriously or not as you'd like to take them. So I
don't know if you want to think about this, like, maybe not from the
Pope, since that's the traditional question I ask you, but from your
context, like, if you were like, I don't know, what's
the president? Or you could like,
(54:28):
speak for all Christian universities or Christian institutions, like,
what are, what are a couple things. Some things
you'd want to do in that, a, uh, single day.
>> Speaker D (54:37):
Oh, in a single day.
>> Loren (54:38):
Yeah, you don't get a full.
>> Speaker D (54:39):
Oh, you don't have a full year.
>> Loren (54:41):
You got a day.
>> Speaker D (54:41):
Um, let me answer this way.
>> Loren (54:44):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (54:44):
What? What? You know, a Lot
of people say, oh, well, do you really
expect all these Christian universities change their positions?
And I say no, give me one.
>> Loren (54:56):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (54:56):
Give me one for proof of concept. Yeah,
let's, let's just, let's find one and
let's, let's have the conversation about
what it means to be fearless. So
that the last chapter of the book
that I said was my made up field trip. Mhm.
Tells the story of two
universities, both of which I made
(55:19):
up, one of which has fully
embraced what I'm describing.
And I described some of what goes into the components of what
makes that work. And then the
second one was one that would like to do that
and is living in the shadow of another
very conservative university that I nicknamed
Driscoll. Um,
(55:42):
and uh, wants to know how not to do that
and so is kind of moving the other direction. So
I think the first move is
what I would want in a day is
to ask
Christian university presidents
to commit to
(56:04):
seriously engaging the questions their students
have. Uh, and that means they'd have to go
talk to them and they'd have to learn. And it's not just the
subset of people they think are, you know, the
right kinds of students, but just like the
absolute opposite of that. Start at the other end
and spend a day with the most
(56:25):
troubled and questioning student you could find.
And then imagine what it means if the
university was organized to see
that student deepened in faith m and
character and learning and
competence and ethical standing and all of
that. So that's, I feel like this could.
>> Loren (56:45):
Work in church too if, if you're like, hey, we're going to do a
sermon series on um, like the, the
biggest questions. And uh, talk about like
where we believe. Not again from an open,
open perspective. Not like this is the law,
but have like a, you know, an open this
is why we think what we think type of thing.
>> Speaker D (57:04):
Um, the, the, the alternative to that I'm
thinking of, uh, this goes back
a few decades, but James
Dobson's what, What Wives Wish Their Husbands
Knew About Women.
>> Loren (57:18):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (57:19):
And where that book came from is he would go to his big
conferences and he had a preset list
of issues.
>> Loren (57:27):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (57:28):
And then asked them to rank order them in the survey
and then wrote about what they said. But
he came with the issues already. So
if I play off that, the issue is not to say, well, what are the key
questions? Here's what I as the pastor think the key questions are.
>> Loren (57:43):
Oh, that's good.
>> Speaker D (57:44):
But you actually go and talk to the
most.
>> Loren (57:47):
That's good.
>> Speaker D (57:50):
Um, marginal person in the congregation and
say, what are your key questions? And speak to those.
>> Loren (57:55):
Boy, this is good. This is good. Um, I want to keep talking
about that. About time, theologian or historical Christian
figure you'd want to meet or bring back to life.
>> Speaker D (58:03):
Yeah, that was a good question for having dinner
with anybody. I want dinner with the apostle
Peter and John. Wesley.
>> Loren (58:12):
Peter and Wesley.
>> Speaker D (58:13):
I think that would be a good conversation about kind of how
they think about faith and rigidity
and openness and all that.
>> Loren (58:20):
Okay, here's another loaded question that you have to answer shortly,
I suppose. What do you think history will
remember from our current time and place?
>> Speaker D (58:28):
It depends. Um,
history will remember that either
this is the point at which
we were really committed to being
a pluralistic culture,
uh, that recognized the inherent dignity and
value of all people, or
(58:49):
this is the time where a
subgroup of powerful people dominated and
everybody else was left to fend for themselves.
>> Loren (58:56):
Yeah. What are your hopes for the future of
Christianity?
>> Speaker D (59:01):
Um, is
more Jesus, more community,
less machianism,
less dividing everybody into good or evil.
Um, more
of a celebration of the
(59:23):
imago DEI and our
notions of common grace as they are lived out.
>> Loren (59:30):
Well, uh, where can people connect with you? Get the
book, all that.
>> Speaker D (59:34):
Ah, the book's available from all your favorite,
um, all your favorite places.
Um, you could just look up the fearless
Christian University, uh, from
Erdman's or Barnes and Noble or Amazon or
your local bookseller, or probably not your local
bookseller because it's a little niche.
Um, the other thing to find out is I
(59:56):
write a substack, uh, three days a week
with the very profound title of John's
newsletter, um, because
that's what I did when I jumped on the substack and
haven't changed it. And, uh, I
write as usually Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, about
issues ranging from higher ed to politics
to religion, to, uh,
(01:00:18):
obviously Christian higher education, uh,
or to whatever book I just read.
>> Loren (01:00:24):
Okay, we'll have to make sure we get your substack
in the show notes.
>> Speaker D (01:00:28):
Yeah.
>> Loren (01:00:29):
And then when we share this. Well, thank you so much
for your time.
>> Speaker D (01:00:32):
Absolutely.
>> Loren (01:00:33):
Thanks for coming over to my house.
>> Speaker D (01:00:34):
And dogs are great folks in here.
>> Loren (01:00:37):
The clicking and clapping, but really appreciate. And, uh, we always
leave folks with the word peace. So may God's peace be with
you and you.
>> Loren Richmond (01:00:51):
Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast. The
Future Christian Podcast is produced by Resonate Media.
We love to hear from our listeners with questions, comments,
and ideas for future episodes. Visit
our website at, uh, future-christian.com
and find the connect with us form at the bottom of
the page to get in touch with Martha or Loren.
(01:01:12):
But before you go, do us a favor. Subscribe to
the podcast to leave a review. It really helps us get
this out to more people. Thanks and go in
peace.
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast, your
source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in
the 21st century. At the Future Christian
Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors,
and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical
wisdom to help you and your community of faith
walk boldly into the future. Whether
(00:27):
you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member
of your faith community, this podcast is
designed to challenge, inspire, and equip
you with the tools you need for impactful ministry.
And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode.
>> Martha Tatarnic (00:44):
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today,
Loren Richmond Jr. Is in conversation with
John Hawthorne. John is a
sociologist who spent nearly four decades
in Christian higher education. He
served as faculty member and academic
administrator over the course of his career,
spending time in five different Christian
(01:05):
universities. He writes a substack that
often deals with issues in Christian higher education
and has been regularly interviewed for
Christianity Today, Religion News Service,
Sojourners, Inside Higher Ed, and
the Associated Press. His publications
include A First Step into a Much Larger
(01:26):
World, the Christian University, and Beyond.
A reminder. Before we start today's conversation,
please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast,
leave a review and share Future Christian with a
friend. Connect with Loren, Martha and Future
Christian on Instagram. Shoot us an
email@laurensonatemediapro.com
(01:49):
with comments, questions, or ideas for future
episodes. We appreciate your voice
in how we faithfully discern the future of the
church.
>> Loren (02:06):
All right, welcome to the Future Christian Podcast.
I am actually joined live and in person
with John Hawthorne and
dogs recording from my house. So if there's some dog
noise in the background, please forgive us.
John, anything, um, else you want to say about yourself?
>> Speaker D (02:26):
Um, so the reason I live here,
uh, is that our uh,
daughter and family, uh, our daughter
came to grad school at du,
uh, uh,
a couple of decades ago and
uh, met her husband and then they
(02:47):
have two girls and settled in a
neighborhood. And so when we.
I retired in May of 2020, uh,
in the throes of COVID I went home on
March 13 and went back one day
to pack my office.
>> Loren (03:03):
Wow.
>> Speaker D (03:04):
And um, so then a
year later when things looked like they had calmed down a little bit,
we sold the house in Michigan and we're able to buy a house
here and have the good fortune of living,
uh, 4/10 of a mile from my daughter's
house. Walkable distance for,
you know, granddaughter can ride the bike over and,
(03:24):
and uh, and that's, that's been great.
Uh, and uh, I'm now
the board president of
my oldest grandchild's Charter
school in North Glen. So.
So that keeps me
kind of busy, but not terribly so.
>> Loren (03:45):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (03:46):
Um, so yeah, that's. I grew up in Indiana
and as we'll. We may get to,
uh, moved around a lot.
Um, you given
a. My decision to be in Christian universities
and more importantly my decision to go into
administration, which meant more mobility than
(04:06):
kind of taking a teaching position and staying there for 35 or
40 years.
>> Loren (04:09):
Right, right.
Anything you want to say about your faith journey? What that looked like in the past,
what that looks like today?
>> Speaker D (04:14):
Yeah, I don't want to get too. You
too deep. Um, grew up in a
kind of faith adjacent home,
which meant my grandmother's kind
of avid Presbyterianism.
Um, but, um, mostly not
so much. But through influence of friends
(04:35):
and other things, I became,
uh, a Christian in high
school.
Um, I actually flunked out
of college after my first year,
uh, and went home at
their request. Uh, and
uh, back in Indianapolis. Wound up getting involved
(04:57):
at a church, a Nazarene church
that was
pretty fundamentalist even for Nazarene
churches. Uh, and
always felt that was good for me at the
time, given lack of discipline,
all the things that contributed to looking at a
(05:18):
school.
Um, and over the
years the notion of
grace became more and more prominent.
Uh, which is one of the reasons that I am
a Methodist today. Uh, is
that that just notion of the free gift of
grace kind of has
(05:39):
kind of taken the place of that earlier.
Somewhat more. Never really good
fundamentalist, but somewhat more fundamentalist leaning.
Um, is kind of big. The big transition, I think of
my faith journey. We bounced back
and forth between Nazarene churches and Methodist
churches. Uh, and then,
(06:00):
uh, upon moving,
uh, from California
to Michigan, that was kind of. We've been
Methodist ever since and kind of owned.
Owned that. But I've always been in more. In more
or less Wesleyan kind
of big family spaces.
>> Loren (06:19):
Yeah. Because Nazarenes have a Wesleyan.
>> Speaker D (06:20):
Nazarenes have. I was at a Church of God school, Church of God
Anderson School, uh, which also is there. I did
spend, uh. I did spend a few
years. Uh, the second institution I was at
is Sterling College in Kansas, which is a
Presbyterian school, but I went
to the Methodist Church.
Um, so. Yeah.
>> Loren (06:42):
Cool.
Any spiritual practices that you really like
to keep maintaining?
>> Speaker D (06:49):
Honestly, I'm not real good at that. Um.
Um, I keep trying to kind of get
into regular rhythms.
>> Loren (06:56):
Ah, Practice practicing.
>> Speaker D (06:58):
Exactly. And I'm never. They never. They take
for a bit and then they don't. Yeah. Community M
is important. Being with other people,
uh, kind of reflecting Even reflecting on what
I'm reading, even if it's not,
uh, particularly a religious topic, is, you know,
kind of feeds that broader sense of understanding
(07:19):
of the world.
>> Loren (07:19):
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.
Well, I'm fortunate to be talking again
live and in person with John this
morning as we're recording. And um, we're talking about
a little bit around his book. John's the author of
the Fearless Christian University. No subtitle, right?
No subtitle. He brought a copy. My copy is
upstairs. Uh, but we're going to talk kind of around this
(07:41):
topic and then more broadly around
institutions, particularly Christian institutions in the church.
But do you want to start off kind of just what led you to write the book? What
inspired it?
>> Speaker D (07:51):
So as I just mentioned,
uh, I got into
Christian higher education because
my wife was a graduate of Olivet Nazarene,
um, which was where my first job
was. Uh, and so through her
networks I was known when I was in grad school
(08:12):
and they called up out of the blue and offered me a job.
Um, and so I went and taught
there. But I learned by the
end of. I was there nine years and by the
latter part of that period I was kind of itching
for something else more to do
and felt led.
(08:34):
I think I could say that I don't know if call is too strong, but
definitely led to
exercise some administrative um, gifts I thought
I was sensing. Uh, and
it wasn't going to happen there. So
if I was going to pursue that, it required moving.
I mean they weren't like, opposed to me. It was
(08:55):
like the person who was my department chair was
department chair another decade. And it was
just like the amount of time necessary
to wait to make that move was going to be
endless. Ah. And
um, so I moved and
uh, taught sociology
at Sterling College in Kansas.
(09:17):
Then in
two um, years into that the college
had uh, acquired a non
traditional program. Uh, one of those
classes for working adults that meet at night, one night
a week. And uh, that actually
operated in Missouri.
(09:38):
Uh, and I was the chair of the faculty
committee that gave oversight to that.
Well, the president fired the VP
and I became acting VP
while they did a search. And then after they
did a search I became permanent vp.
And I was VP for that from um,
(09:59):
the middle of, well from late
92 through 95.
And
um, and
it had some challenges to it, um,
but I was enjoying what I was doing. I was,
I thought accomplishing the right kinds of things. But I
didn't want to spend my career in non
(10:20):
traditional education. And I figured
if I stayed too long that was
going to be a problem.
>> Loren (10:27):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (10:27):
Uh, and as it turned out, the President
nominated me for an opening,
uh, at Warner Pacific College in Portland,
Oregon, which is a Church of God, uh,
Indiana Church of God, Anderson, Indiana
Affiliated College. And
I took the role of the title,
eventually became Vice President of Practical affairs.
(10:50):
And I did that for a decade, uh,
and then, uh, spent a year
in transition as Assistant to the President and
then moved to Point Loma Nazarene in San
Diego where I was provost for four years.
Uh, and that ended badly. And
then, uh, I wound up
(11:10):
eventually in Michigan, back in the classroom
teaching sociology at Spring Arbor University Free
Methodist School.
>> Loren (11:17):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (11:19):
So I knew I was
retiring in May of 20,
made that decision early on,
um, the year before.
And
um,
two months before I retired, I sat down and I
wrote myself a memo, 30 page, double
(11:40):
spaced on, well, here's how my career
went. And as I looked over
that memo I said, oh, maybe there's something here.
Maybe there would be a series of essays
that I could write about Christian higher education.
And I actually met with
uh, one representative who happened to be here for
(12:02):
in, happened to be here in Denver for the
uh, Evangelical Theological Society.
And we had coffee and I said, here's what I've got.
And he said, oh, said my wife who teaches
at a Christian college, she'd like this, but I don't know
how much of a bigger market there is than her.
And I said, okay, fair enough. And
(12:23):
so I kind of set that aside.
But the first of those
essays became
the first chapter in Fearless Christian University.
And what I wound
up doing was
writing what I came to see
(12:43):
is the affirmative case for a different approach
to Christian higher education rather than just,
oh, here were some important lessons from my past.
Those lessons you could still find
through the pages of the book.
Um, but it shifted my focus
and I was able to speak to kind of a broader issue
(13:03):
which as you say, I hope speaks to
broader issues within
the evangelical church and to extent the
mainline church and maybe to
parachurch organization, all of it.
>> Loren (13:18):
Yeah, yeah.
So let's get into that because I think again your title is
the Fearless Christian University. But I think this is
more, uh, applicable. It seems like to me we're
really in an era perhaps
from my perspective that fear, I think runs
everything. And I was thinking about this a. I
can't remember if it's in your book or if it's in another book I read
(13:39):
where they, they talk about how like the kind of
worldview thing in
evangelical universities has been like the kind of the
boogeyman driver of like, oh, parents, you
gotta invest in your kids worldview.
And I feel like similarly in like mainline or
progressive spaces now it's like, oh, Christian
nationalism, like that's the boogeyman. And not that these
(14:01):
aren't like problematic things, especially
today Christian nationalism, but it seems like,
like everything is kind of reactionary
Fe. And you really try to like, hey,
I guess. Is that a fair.
>> Speaker D (14:14):
Uh, I think broadly. Let
me.
>> Loren (14:17):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (14:17):
Um, so here's how
the first chapter begins.
>> Loren (14:21):
Yeah, yeah.
>> Speaker D (14:23):
Christian universities, much like the evangelical
subculture that spawned them, are characterized by
fear, fear of societal decline,
fear of secular authorities, fear of
apostasy, fear of not being real schools.
In short, they fear losing their way.
>> Loren (14:39):
Yes.
>> Speaker D (14:41):
Um, and I think
that notion about if we
don't hold the line on every little
thing, on the Christian worldview, on the
social ethic, on all these things,
that everything will fall apart.
I have to work to figure Christian nationalism.
(15:02):
See, I think the, the Christian nationalism thing
is also related to fear
of social change. So it's similar in that
way some of
what's fostering that.
>> Loren (15:17):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think one thing that was interesting in your book
and this title or phraseology
doesn't come from you, particularly if
Nandra, Nandra Andy Crouch. But he
used a term from him, zombie institutions.
So talk like what that is and then
how. How do we go about revitalizing these
(15:39):
institutions?
>> Speaker D (15:40):
I meant to look up. I meant to look up the scripture reference
to get it right. But you know, the paraphrase
is the, uh. The form of religion without the essence
therein.
>> Loren (15:49):
Sure, sure.
>> Speaker D (15:51):
And I think that's some of what Crouch was
talking about. It is that
institutions settle into patterns of being
and behaving that have
suited them in the past. And they have this
perhaps bias toward inertia.
Um, and if the
(16:12):
culture around them has changed or the
internal dynamics have changed, they seem
to be unaware of that because
things run on autopilot. They just kind of know how to keep doing the
thing they've always done. And every year looks like
every other year. Um,
and so it's in that sense
(16:33):
that I kind of talk
about in my case, particularly Christian
universities, uh, who
are simply kind of
talking about the same issues, saying the same things
in their admissions brochures, doing everything
they've ever done. Ah. And
that, uh, that is,
(16:55):
limits their ability to
respond to what I argue is
a very,
um,
to a very much changed
cultural dynamic, uh, among
incoming college students and the broader
culture. And so
(17:18):
maintaining that past practice,
particularly,
um, either in A
reactionary mode or at least
in the zombie sense, in the
non reflective mode.
Um,
causes all kinds of problems.
>> Loren (17:39):
So I think what's interesting for me, and again
you were writing primarily from the university context.
I'm thinking about this for a church context,
especially from my situation within the mainline world.
But when I read the zombie institution thing and you
talk about this bias toward inertia, like I feel like
again I haven't been part of mainline Christianity that
(17:59):
long. I'm um, really in many ways an outside
observer, so to speak, because of that. But it
seems like to me that mainline
Protestantism has been kind of just managing
decline for.
I mean really when you look at data from like Orion Burge or
something, it's like managing decline for 20, 30,
40 years.
>> Speaker D (18:20):
Um, um, actually 80.
>> Loren (18:23):
But yeah, sure.
>> Speaker D (18:24):
I mean, no, the peak was 1970.
>> Loren (18:26):
Right.
>> Speaker D (18:26):
Um, and, and
by. Let me go on a detour.
>> Loren (18:34):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (18:34):
The sociology of mainline churches.
Um, so
back in, you know, in,
in the post, in post war America.
>> Loren (18:46):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (18:47):
There is this sort of religious boom, part of which
is a civil religious boom. Church uh,
is a good thing.
>> Loren (18:54):
Right.
>> Speaker D (18:54):
You know, this is where you get Eisenhower saying
uh, that our country makes no sense unless
it's based on a deeply felt faith and he doesn't care
what that faith is.
Um, and
so church became part of social
acceptance, of affiliation, of
recognition that you're a good member of the community.
(19:18):
And that um, I
think fostered the big growth in
the main lines.
Which of course means the main
lines are demographic. Were not true
anymore. Were demographically about a
decade older than the evangelical
churches which explode in the late
(19:41):
70s through the 80s.
Um, there,
there is evidence that the evangelicals are now hitting
demographic plateaus and having their own issues.
There was, there was some sociological research
that argued that mainline
churches got. Mainline
(20:03):
pastors got very much involved in social
action. Uh issues which
created a gap with the population.
Um, there's some truth to
that. I think what is more likely
is that you have a
traditional versus
(20:23):
um, an experimental, innovative.
You know. So while the
mainline church is still in the big old building
downtown with the choir and the robes,
the worship band is going on at the church and they've got
the youth group and I mean there, there is a
cannibalization. I happens
(20:44):
uh, as
there's defection from the main line to the evangelicals.
>> Loren (20:51):
Now.
>> Speaker D (20:51):
Um, the growth is non, non denoms.
>> Loren (20:54):
Right.
>> Speaker D (20:55):
Um, but
um, but that's how I kind of think
about what that looks like.
One of the dynamics of that
kind of historical
Pattern Is that
part of the evangelical
strength? And this relates to the themes of the book. Part
(21:17):
of the evangelical identity is
we're true believers. Those guys don't believe
anything.
>> Loren (21:23):
Right.
>> Speaker D (21:25):
Um, and
there may have been a period of time where
mainline churches soft sold
theology,
but I think that's generally a myth.
>> Loren (21:41):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (21:41):
Um, and so what you find today
in mainline churches, um,
what you find today in mainline churches is
this kind of broader social awareness blended with
a commitment to community both local and
internal and
a kind of Jesus centered
(22:02):
theology. Um, I
was just, uh, my wife and I went to
uh, we went to St.
Simon's Island, Georgia at the end of January
for this event that Diana Butler Bass
puts on. Um, and
uh, it was great. It was just,
it was very white,
(22:25):
um, very middle class.
>> Loren (22:27):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (22:28):
But it was 700
kind of well meaning, faith
filled mainline folks.
>> Loren (22:37):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (22:38):
Um, and it was really encouraging. I mean it's just
to counter that kind of all
the main lines don't stand for anything is, you know,
is really important.
>> Loren (22:49):
Well, let's talk about that because one of the things you
note in the book that I feel like I've seen
broadly speaking within American Christianity is this kind of
like melding of
Christianity into
the progressive wing and the conservative
wing and in the conservative wing
(23:11):
because I think, correct me if this is wrong, but I feel like even
within a tradition like the Church of the
Nazarene that had distinct
rituals and practices, there's kind of this, this
melding into like just evangelicalism writ
large. Uh, and you can correct me if I'm wrong
certainly within, I think within mainland
proselytism. I feel like there's, it's
(23:34):
not quite as distinct but there is kind of this
again this kind of uh, amalgamation um,
into just like one sort of like we're just liberal
Christianity.
>> Speaker D (23:47):
Okay. A couple of things. Yeah, yeah.
M. There is a sense in which,
you know, one of the things that happens in
the evangelical world first
is that
denominational publishing houses die.
>> Loren (24:07):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (24:09):
And they are replaced by whatever Rick Warren
did lately or whatever. Whoever the, the
hot person is now.
>> Loren (24:16):
Now it's ah, you know, I feel like what Cokesbury
is still operating but there are uh,
like whatever. Adam Hamilton for instance.
>> Speaker D (24:24):
Exactly what to put out. But they'll put
that out. But that's different than when
the Church of God press dies
and then the Sunday school. I was at the
Nazarene Church in Portland
and one year we were reading.
Uh, they decided, they kind of bought
the subscription for everybody. So we were going to read
(24:47):
the 40 days of purpose.
>> Loren (24:48):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (24:49):
For Rick Warren. And you read the first page and
say,
this book is theologically not what we
believe, but it's a
big name and it's a popular book. That means everybody knows about it, everybody's
talking about it, everybody's reading all the stuff about it.
And that replaces that
(25:10):
kind of dynamic.
>> Loren (25:11):
Right.
>> Speaker D (25:12):
Um. And so what's distinctive
about a denomination kind of shrinks.
>> Loren (25:17):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (25:18):
Now your
reference to, you know, how do they,
you know, what do you do with kind of all of
the kind of behavioral limitations that often went
along with conservative utilism.
Those soften. I mean, you know, it used to
be there were no car you to play cards, you go bowling,
(25:38):
you go to circus. And Yeah.
>> Loren (25:39):
I was just telling kids, like when we grew up.
>> Speaker D (25:41):
Yeah.
>> Loren (25:41):
Karina wife and I, like, we couldn't go to movies
in college.
>> Speaker D (25:45):
And you know, now, you know, it's like wine with
dinner. Sure. Who cares? I mean, it's,
um. Except
that there has been a move in the last
five years for conservative
animations to double down on
LGBTQ issues.
>> Loren (26:05):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (26:07):
Because what they've done is they said, oh,
these positions that we held, these social
positions, they're doctrinal.
>> Loren (26:14):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (26:16):
And all of a sudden they have just
shut down conversation around
the topic. They don't do that around alcohol,
they don't do that around movies. They, you know,
um, which is tell it. But. So
they're. That's. That's part of the
generic evangelicalism. But then
(26:37):
certain culture war issues rise to the, to the
fore. M.
Um,
I could be, I could be wrong here.
I don't think the mainline church
has had the same amalgamation.
Methodists know that they come from Wesley and they like to talk
(26:58):
about Wesley. Presbyterians,
like, talk about Calvin and Reform
thought. Lutherans, um,
are very much Lutherans. You know, I mean,
so UCC has its own history,
which, which is interesting
to, to dig into. Um, but.
(27:20):
But there are stronger kind of
historical ties. Maybe that's what in the
mainline, um.
>> Loren (27:27):
That keeps it, I think, within this is what drives
me crazy about evangelicalism. Like if I feel like, if I go
to like a mainline church, like, I know why they have a reason for why
they do something.
>> Speaker D (27:37):
Yes.
>> Loren (27:37):
Whereas evangelicals sort of have to like reinvent
the wheel all the time. Because like, I remember going to
like a progressive evangelical church and they're like, they
had communion, but it was just at a
table that you self serve and I was like,
you're throwing insane. Like, no, that's
not. This is not right. Going back to your point about being
(27:58):
fearless, reactionary, it feels like
if I'm understanding what you've read, what you wrote in the
book, this, this
culture war type of
drivenness, influence, like
reaction. Certainly maybe I'm wrong,
but certainly I feel like similar things happen
(28:18):
in mainline process, especially right now in the political season
we're in right now, which goodness knows is
there's some fairness to, but
thinking even bigger picture. Uh, it feels like, and I've been talking
about this with one of my good friends, Dennis Sanders, like, it feels like when,
when all that the, the opposite is known for is
just resisting, there's never any kind
(28:40):
of, um, hopeful
future. And eventually people kind of
wear out of like resisting
and they want like, what's our hopeful future? Like, what are we
offering people? And I'm wondering, like, have you seen
the, a similar dynamic or seems like you've seen a similar
dynamic within Christian evangelical universities.
(29:00):
What do you recommend instead?
>> Speaker D (29:02):
Okay, um, this is the
version of the question that I get.
People say, okay, could you name
a fearless university? Um, and my
answer is I've got some nominees. I
don't know. How will they match my image?
Um, and I won't name them right now.
(29:25):
Uh, but, um, yeah, a
quick side note.
Uh, I had decided while I was
waiting to hear from Erdmans. I knew they liked the
book, but I didn't know where we were in the process that
what I would do is I would add a chapter that would be a field
trip and I would go and visit like three or four of these
institutions I thought were nominees. Well,
(29:47):
when I got the contract on November 1st
of 23, I had a
2-1-24 submission
deadline and the field
trip went away. And so the ninth
chapter is my imaginary field trip.
Um, but the,
um.
(30:08):
So the,
the central thrust of the book
is that there are, and I think I can work this background
at churches. Central thrust of the church is that
there are two critical
dynamics at play and they overlap.
>> Loren (30:28):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (30:28):
In Christian universities,
one is that you've got a set of
leaders, administrators,
trustees, major donors
who are insistent on
wanting to maintain their separation
from the world. The left, the
(30:49):
liberals. That's where all that
comes in. And so they wind
up trying to hold continuity with
the past that isn't
realistic in terms of what's
going on in its surrounding milieu.
Okay.
(31:09):
Uh, the second
dynamic is that
this generation of students,
um, is
very different than what those
administrators and donors and trustees
and denominations see
(31:31):
and think. Um, I have this
whole litany. I won't go through the whole thing. But
a student beginning college,
beginning at a Christian college in the fall of 25
was born in 2007.
She doesn't know anything about 9, 11.
>> Loren (31:49):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (31:50):
She was um, barely alive for
the recession. Barely alive. Doesn't know much of
anything about the Obama administration.
Um, she's like in
elementary school when um,
Trayvon Martin dies, when Michael Brown dies,
when, I mean you go through that whole list. She's 11
(32:11):
when MeToo hits M. The social
hits. Hits the. At church too, following
it.
And um, um, she
has dealt with school shootings
or the fear of school shootings, with uh, concerns about
climate change, with political
polarization. All of that
(32:34):
has happened in her short lifetime.
>> Loren (32:37):
Right.
>> Speaker D (32:39):
And the cell phone in her pocket.
>> Loren (32:41):
Right.
>> Speaker D (32:42):
Has been the dynamic through which she engages all these
topics. And it has been present her entire
life.
>> Loren (32:49):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (32:50):
So that's the dynamic
of the students that are coming in. Even if they're
like evangelical students. These are
the sentiments they're bringing with them.
>> Loren (33:01):
So like the norms of like when we think about the
uh, majority. What was the Falwell.
>> Speaker D (33:08):
Um, Moral Majority.
>> Loren (33:09):
Moral majority. You mentioned 9 11. Like so
many of these kind of culture war issues.
Teletubbies, if you remember that whole thing, like
clueless to her.
>> Speaker D (33:20):
And the issues that are of importance to
her. Diversity,
lgbtq at least respect.
Mhm. Climate, um,
change,
uh, broad sense of community.
>> Loren (33:37):
Right.
>> Speaker D (33:38):
Legitimate discipleship.
>> Loren (33:40):
Right.
>> Speaker D (33:40):
Um, are exactly the issues,
with the exception of the last one that the university
leadership prides itself on in not
focusing on it.
>> Loren (33:52):
Right, right.
>> Speaker D (33:53):
Um, so that's the
central crisis of the book.
And so the solution to that,
which is also going to speak, I think, to what
you want to talk about in terms of churches. The
solution to that is to center
the students questions.
>> Loren (34:12):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (34:14):
As the primary piece of the mission of
the university, that
there is a question. The alternatives
are sort of protecting the brand
versus addressing the needs and concerns and
questions of today's students.
Um, I have a friend,
(34:38):
I, uh, won't name the institution, but I have a friend who
is recently at
uh, a kind of recruiting
event for interested students.
>> Loren (34:48):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (34:48):
And he told me that the admissions department,
because our students had parents present
and the admissions department tells
the parents that the university has
not changed since when they went to school it was
the same institution. And he and I, because
he has known about the book
(35:11):
since early days.
Um, this
is just absolutely the wrong. This is like the
absolute inverse of what I'm arguing in the book
and.
>> Loren (35:23):
Feels like pretty preposterous to think that they have absolutely not
changed. But I can see why you'd say that to a
parent.
Uh, so this is where I want to kind of hit to, because I
think this is very applicable, at least in my perspective. You talk about
centering student questions as the primary
mission. So if we think about that in terms of a church
context, how do we do that? And it's not
(35:43):
necessarily going to be 18 to 20 year
old, 22 year olds in the church context, because
the data suggests they're loosely involved with
church at that age anyway. But, uh, you
may get them at the end of high school, you may get them as they're young
adults or later young adults, whatever the
terminology is now, as they're trying to trickle back and ask
(36:05):
some questions. How do you make
church so that
you're centering these questions, but like not, I
hate to use this word, but for lack of a better word, abandoning kind
of these central tenets,
your core theology, um,
does that make sense? What do you know?
>> Speaker D (36:25):
So I think part of the answer is, and
I don't know how this works structurally, but part
of the answer is first of all
legitimizing questions. Okay,
um, that,
so that's one piece that
it's okay here in this church
to say I'm confused
(36:47):
about this. I don't know what I think about this. I don't know how,
I don't know how to read this passage of the Old Testament. I
don't know how to reconcile these ideas.
I don't know how my lived experience with my
neighbors can be
connected with my gay neighbors can be connected to these
scripture paths. How do you know there's an openness to being
(37:09):
able to at least acknowledge that
those are legitimate questions. I
don't think that's all kind of talk back issues in churches.
Um, I'm not sure that structurally
works, but I think there is a
mode that
preachers can
(37:30):
demonstrate that they have their own questions and the questions
are okay and that we're not afraid of questions.
So that's part of it.
A second component is
to think about what it means
to be,
um,
truly focused on Jesus.
(37:53):
Not just Jesus's words or Jesus's ministry,
but the broader theological understanding of the Incarnation.
You know, what does, how do we talk about
God with us and how do we talk about the broader
theological. We just, we um,
just at our church did a, um,
small group study on Philippians, you know, and
(38:16):
so you got the whole Philippians two, uh,
you know, just massive important passage
which, you know, kind of creates this context
which isn't clearly, which isn't just Jesus was
a good guy who got along with people. I'm, um, you know,
this is again to go back to the sort of
stereotype of mainliners, right, that this,
(38:36):
there's, there's depth there about what the
person Jesus means. A third thing
I would ask maybe, I think it's a third. Maybe it's a
sub point of the first or maybe it's the major point. And the
thing I said was a sub point
I once gave, was asked to give um,
a little staff devotional talk
(38:57):
to um,
at one of my colleges during the
summer. And um, what
I wound up talking about was what it meant to have,
you know, what it meant to trust God
and that. So often we get ourselves in the
evangelical world into this position that says
(39:18):
if we don't hold the line right here,
then we have to be true to God and
say, you know, there are days where
that skates really close to
idolatry, that you think
somehow that you're protecting God from difficult
conversations.
(39:38):
And I don't think God needs to be protected from difficult
conversations. You know,
um, and that's why that relates to that first
point. Uh, and even to my other point about
Jesus. I mean that's
challenging kind of what do we do with this,
you know, Jesus, here's what this person is.
(39:59):
What do we do? Do we do this or do that? Those
weren't easy. Uh, and that's part of the
dynamic.
>> Loren (40:06):
Yeah, I think that's interesting. I'm thinking too,
as we think about, maybe more practically speaking
too, when you think about, certainly in higher ed, you
can speak better this that I can't. But I'm just thinking like I have a
degree on my wall that I did entirely online.
Most of my seminary was completed online. It seems like the,
the shift has been practically
(40:27):
speaking to like online
alternative sort of education models.
I don't know if you want to speak any more to that. And thinking
again applying that to church, like does,
uh, how do we need to perhaps re. Envision
like the structural elements of.
>> Speaker D (40:45):
Yeah, um,
let's see. Um, first of all, let me
say something about the
non traditional programming at colleges.
The degree completion program I was part of or online
programming or graduate programming.
The schools made the move to do that because it was
(41:06):
financially important to do so.
But to argue that those programs
carry the same mission components that
happens with an 18 to 22
year old residential student is just
impossible to articulate. It just doesn't.
>> Loren (41:23):
Because even when I was doing my master's
divinity I
had to be on campus for a few classes. There's a
huge better. I felt so
much more connected and engaged even when I was a week long class.
>> Speaker D (41:39):
Churches already have
the problem of
fostering spectatorship.
>> Loren (41:47):
Right.
>> Speaker D (41:48):
Um, I mean, the best thing we
do at our church every Sunday is the
eight minutes we spend in the passing of the
peace, which really involves wandering all around the
congregation, not just talking to people next to you. People just get up
and move all over the place. It is really the,
um, as a friend of mine from
years ago said, it is the remembering
(42:12):
of the congregation,
uh, that's just
impossible to do in a church of
750. Uh,
and it is absolutely impossible to do
by typing in the chat line on the online
service to say, oh, good to see you all on the
(42:33):
screen. Which you can't see because the camera is only focused at the front
anyway. So, um, that
becomes problematic.
I, uh, think it has a place.
I, uh, think one of the things we learned during COVID
is that it's a nice fallback
for people who
(42:54):
can't travel to the
congregation or as I
happen to know, uh, from people I
know at church. You know, it's, you know,
we got up a little late
and so we're just going to watch today and it'll be. And
I get that, you know. But there comes a point where if that's
all you do, you're not
(43:17):
part of the congregation in the same fashion.
My dissertation, uh,
40 years ago, was about people
who regularly attend church and don't join.
How prevalent was that? Do some
interviews. Why is that? Talk to some pastors. What do they
think about that? That was the dissertation. But
(43:39):
early on I had to decide what
I thought about the relationship between
kind of being in community versus
being on the rolls.
And it didn't take me long to figure out that being in community is the
primary driver of congregational life.
(44:01):
So being online
only online is a step removed from that.
And a step removed from that is being on the rolls and going at
Christmas and Easter. Um,
so that's, I'm thinking too,
somewhere.
>> Loren (44:18):
I have it, there's a book coming out from Think
Baker, A strategically small
church.
Thinking economically too about this. And
I'm sure you can speak to this, you kind of already have, from the
Christian university perspective of going
online was somewhat about scale, I imagine, and financial.
Because again, you can only, from a campus
(44:40):
perspective, only house and
sustain so many students.
Similarly, I feel like certainly in evangelical church, the
megachurch model works because it's like financially
viable. You can keep Bringing in
people and your ministry staff
doesn't really have to expand exponentially.
Um, whereas like
(45:03):
this, you know I often say this like the, the
classic 20, 30 years ago church that we think of like the
150 member church, like that's almost eight. That
doesn't exist now. And it's really hard to maintain because of
giving levels decreasing.
>> Speaker D (45:16):
You know you're right that the, the metrics have
shifted downward.
>> Loren (45:19):
Right.
>> Speaker D (45:20):
Um. And um. But
I used to argue that
up to 125 maybe
you can maintain the metaphor of the church's
family. Uh, and then it
gets really dicey from 125 until,
until I don't know, 250, 300
(45:43):
where you're big enough to have sub components.
>> Loren (45:46):
Right.
>> Speaker D (45:47):
Um,
um.
But there is that, you know what
happens when you're too big and then when you're
very big, when you're really big and you got subco. One of my
favorite little quotes and this is, goes
back to the
early to about 2011 I think.
(46:09):
But one of the books that Robert Putnam wrote, the Bowling
Alone Guy was about kind of community
organizations.
>> Loren (46:16):
Right.
>> Speaker D (46:17):
I used it a class
and one of the community organizations they studied was
Saddleback.
>> Loren (46:23):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (46:25):
And he had this little throwaway
line that there were 152 people
on the mountain biking email list for
Saddleback. And I
always liked that image because that says
where community exists in
the really large megachurch, it
(46:45):
exists in interest pockets,
um, or in the
neighborhood small group. I mean that's. And the
loyalty is there much more than the loyalty is
to um, the
uh institution. There is a parallel there by the way
to the uh, non
traditional programming at Christian universities.
(47:08):
M is that if you talk to
people who do a degree completion or who do a
master's in divinity in
this online program with a cohort, your
loyalty is much more to the people in
the cohort than it is to the institution.
>> Loren (47:26):
I mean that really speaks to the broader cultural dynamics we
are in right now. Right. Where people. Far less institutional
loyalty, it's far more
relational, connectional based. So I guess
what do you advise universities? Uh, what do you advise
institutions? What are they thinking of? Like we know we
can't necessarily like sustain our
(47:48):
model through a purely, you know, in
the university space on campus, in
whatever the terminology is, similarly for
churches or other institutions.
>> Speaker D (47:58):
Part of. Well one, one of
several answers I have to that
um, is
my argument is that the
future of the fearless Christian university
involves a willingness to try
to meet the needs of the
(48:20):
rising generation. Even though the rising
generation, only 9% of them are white
evangelicals.
Um, the, the
interests of
Gen Z, the need for belonging, the
need for security, the need for their lives to
have meaning, the need to have impact, all
(48:43):
those things are very,
those are the kinds of things that
residential Christian universities can provide.
>> Loren (48:55):
I mean frankly, what Christianity provides.
>> Speaker D (48:57):
What Christianity provides, yes to kind of
move on to that. So to
recognize that we are addressing the felt needs of
people, not to prioritize the
individualization of that because that becomes problematic on
its own. But, but yes to
um, say
(49:18):
again. We invite the questions, we recognize the
deeds. We are here to provide belonging and importance
and meaning, um, I
think is possible. That
requires a willingness to
kind of step out of the past zombie patterns.
And rather than saying don't know,
(49:39):
you know, this is an old
argument in the sociological religion,
but is the question about believing
versus belonging and if believing is
primary and you are welcome in this place,
as long as you line up,
then that's
(50:01):
going to be a challenge. Um, and if
belonging is what's important and believing comes
along tailing that,
then that's a different, it's a different dynamic for the church.
>> Loren (50:14):
Yeah. And I'm thinking, um, as I'm right now
believing in belonging. Jeff Kuse,
who had on a couple episodes, a few episodes past,
did a lot of work on this.
Maybe I'm too optimistic here, you can push back, but
I feel like this is possible. Going back to
that point about maintaining
(50:36):
ethos and theological
values. Like it's possible to say like, hey,
this is what your felt needs are. You're looking for purpose, you're looking
for connection. It's just about messaging.
It's like, uh, is that too simple? Is that too pie in the
sky?
>> Speaker D (50:54):
Would say more about what you mean by just messaging.
>> Loren (50:56):
Like it's reframing, it's
reframing to say like,
um,
like so like in my tradition Christian church, Disciples Christ, where
I'm ordained in like our big thing is
the open table communion,
blah blah, blah. Like
(51:16):
the central,
the central component of a worship service
in the disciples gathering. And it's funny
even when like disciples clergy, like you know, you've had what
they call worship is like we've had communion, so
we know we have worship. You know, uh, it's funny because like,
like in evangelical space, like they had.
>> Speaker D (51:36):
Worship when they, when they do the music. Yeah, right.
>> Loren (51:38):
Like they've worshiped. Um, but
I feel like there's a way to like when we get
stuck on like, well, we have to have a central table and we
have to have elders up there and we have to have, you know, the
elder give reflection, like, versus like saying,
what are the, what are the ethos and values
of the table? Everyone being welcome, people included,
(51:59):
God, love and graces for all. Like
translating that and not, not that I want to get rid of
the table.
>> Speaker D (52:06):
Let me, let me add
one piece to that.
>> Loren (52:10):
Yes.
>> Speaker D (52:11):
Years ago, I realized that I
had been socialized to
see communion as this. Now, this
was with passing the little trays.
>> Loren (52:21):
Right.
>> Speaker D (52:22):
But to see communion as a very
introspective moment.
>> Loren (52:27):
Yes.
>> Speaker D (52:28):
Let me take communion and, you know,
let me dig down deep inside.
>> Loren (52:33):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (52:34):
And even with the little trays, I
came to recognize the real
miraculous thing is to be aware
of all of these other people in the room
sipping the little cup and taking the little piece of whatever that
is at the same time.
>> Loren (52:52):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (52:52):
Or now in our congregation,
we go forward to take
communion. The pastor
names us. Um, and I've helped
before. And so I know that the dynamic is, you know,
you are named and you are very
aware not just that this is communion and the table is
(53:13):
open, but this is Loren taking
communion.
>> Loren (53:16):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (53:17):
And I'm even, you know, we
are communing
at the table with Jesus and each other
at that moment. And so that
notion of belonging gets communicated.
The word came to mind is programmatically, which is horrible.
(53:37):
Uh, institutionally,
um, in practice
is, uh. And I think it's
more than just messaging.
>> Loren (53:47):
You're right, because you're getting at. It's a way of saying you
belong through the
tradition, but there's intentionality behind it.
Well, I want to keep talking about this, but we're running
out of time. Let's take a quick break.
We're back. We got the dogs riled up. So,
(54:08):
um, John, we only have a few more minutes. I know you got to run.
So let's take these closing questions, uh, as
seriously or not as you'd like to take them. So I
don't know if you want to think about this, like, maybe not from the
Pope, since that's the traditional question I ask you, but from your
context, like, if you were like, I don't know, what's
the president? Or you could like,
(54:28):
speak for all Christian universities or Christian institutions, like,
what are, what are a couple things. Some things
you'd want to do in that, a, uh, single day.
>> Speaker D (54:37):
Oh, in a single day.
>> Loren (54:38):
Yeah, you don't get a full.
>> Speaker D (54:39):
Oh, you don't have a full year.
>> Loren (54:41):
You got a day.
>> Speaker D (54:41):
Um, let me answer this way.
>> Loren (54:44):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (54:44):
What? What? You know, a Lot
of people say, oh, well, do you really
expect all these Christian universities change their positions?
And I say no, give me one.
>> Loren (54:56):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (54:56):
Give me one for proof of concept. Yeah,
let's, let's just, let's find one and
let's, let's have the conversation about
what it means to be fearless. So
that the last chapter of the book
that I said was my made up field trip. Mhm.
Tells the story of two
universities, both of which I made
(55:19):
up, one of which has fully
embraced what I'm describing.
And I described some of what goes into the components of what
makes that work. And then the
second one was one that would like to do that
and is living in the shadow of another
very conservative university that I nicknamed
Driscoll. Um,
(55:42):
and uh, wants to know how not to do that
and so is kind of moving the other direction. So
I think the first move is
what I would want in a day is
to ask
Christian university presidents
to commit to
(56:04):
seriously engaging the questions their students
have. Uh, and that means they'd have to go
talk to them and they'd have to learn. And it's not just the
subset of people they think are, you know, the
right kinds of students, but just like the
absolute opposite of that. Start at the other end
and spend a day with the most
(56:25):
troubled and questioning student you could find.
And then imagine what it means if the
university was organized to see
that student deepened in faith m and
character and learning and
competence and ethical standing and all of
that. So that's, I feel like this could.
>> Loren (56:45):
Work in church too if, if you're like, hey, we're going to do a
sermon series on um, like the, the
biggest questions. And uh, talk about like
where we believe. Not again from an open,
open perspective. Not like this is the law,
but have like a, you know, an open this
is why we think what we think type of thing.
>> Speaker D (57:04):
Um, the, the, the alternative to that I'm
thinking of, uh, this goes back
a few decades, but James
Dobson's what, What Wives Wish Their Husbands
Knew About Women.
>> Loren (57:18):
Yeah.
>> Speaker D (57:19):
And where that book came from is he would go to his big
conferences and he had a preset list
of issues.
>> Loren (57:27):
Mhm.
>> Speaker D (57:28):
And then asked them to rank order them in the survey
and then wrote about what they said. But
he came with the issues already. So
if I play off that, the issue is not to say, well, what are the key
questions? Here's what I as the pastor think the key questions are.
>> Loren (57:43):
Oh, that's good.
>> Speaker D (57:44):
But you actually go and talk to the
most.
>> Loren (57:47):
That's good.
>> Speaker D (57:50):
Um, marginal person in the congregation and
say, what are your key questions? And speak to those.
>> Loren (57:55):
Boy, this is good. This is good. Um, I want to keep talking
about that. About time, theologian or historical Christian
figure you'd want to meet or bring back to life.
>> Speaker D (58:03):
Yeah, that was a good question for having dinner
with anybody. I want dinner with the apostle
Peter and John. Wesley.
>> Loren (58:12):
Peter and Wesley.
>> Speaker D (58:13):
I think that would be a good conversation about kind of how
they think about faith and rigidity
and openness and all that.
>> Loren (58:20):
Okay, here's another loaded question that you have to answer shortly,
I suppose. What do you think history will
remember from our current time and place?
>> Speaker D (58:28):
It depends. Um,
history will remember that either
this is the point at which
we were really committed to being
a pluralistic culture,
uh, that recognized the inherent dignity and
value of all people, or
(58:49):
this is the time where a
subgroup of powerful people dominated and
everybody else was left to fend for themselves.
>> Loren (58:56):
Yeah. What are your hopes for the future of
Christianity?
>> Speaker D (59:01):
Um, is
more Jesus, more community,
less machianism,
less dividing everybody into good or evil.
Um, more
of a celebration of the
(59:23):
imago DEI and our
notions of common grace as they are lived out.
>> Loren (59:30):
Well, uh, where can people connect with you? Get the
book, all that.
>> Speaker D (59:34):
Ah, the book's available from all your favorite,
um, all your favorite places.
Um, you could just look up the fearless
Christian University, uh, from
Erdman's or Barnes and Noble or Amazon or
your local bookseller, or probably not your local
bookseller because it's a little niche.
Um, the other thing to find out is I
(59:56):
write a substack, uh, three days a week
with the very profound title of John's
newsletter, um, because
that's what I did when I jumped on the substack and
haven't changed it. And, uh, I
write as usually Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, about
issues ranging from higher ed to politics
to religion, to, uh,
(01:00:18):
obviously Christian higher education, uh,
or to whatever book I just read.
>> Loren (01:00:24):
Okay, we'll have to make sure we get your substack
in the show notes.
>> Speaker D (01:00:28):
Yeah.
>> Loren (01:00:29):
And then when we share this. Well, thank you so much
for your time.
>> Speaker D (01:00:32):
Absolutely.
>> Loren (01:00:33):
Thanks for coming over to my house.
>> Speaker D (01:00:34):
And dogs are great folks in here.
>> Loren (01:00:37):
The clicking and clapping, but really appreciate. And, uh, we always
leave folks with the word peace. So may God's peace be with
you and you.
>> Loren Richmond (01:00:51):
Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast. The
Future Christian Podcast is produced by Resonate Media.
We love to hear from our listeners with questions, comments,
and ideas for future episodes. Visit
our website at, uh, future-christian.com
and find the connect with us form at the bottom of
the page to get in touch with Martha or Loren.
(01:01:12):
But before you go, do us a favor. Subscribe to
the podcast to leave a review. It really helps us get
this out to more people. Thanks and go in
peace.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.