Is There are a Barack Obama-David Brooks Bromance?

"A bromance or 'man-crush' is a close but non-sexual relationship between two men, a form of homosocial intimacy. "--Wikipedia

Check out Gabriel Sherman's essay "The Courtship: The Story Behind the Obama-Brooks Bromance" on The New Republic website. Brooks is a conservative columnist that even liberals can love. Though he is often critical of the Obama administration, he seems to have fallen head-over-heels for a president who can go toe to toe with him on the intricacies of political philosophy.

Sherman does not mention this in his article, but you may remember that Brooks was the first reporter to call attention to Obama's fascination with Reinhold Niebuhr. (Brooks and E.J. Dionne recently discussed Obama and Niebuhr with Krista Tippett, the host of American Public Media's "Speaking of Faith."). Though Niebuhr would not have recognized the term "bromance," he was clearly the cupid who brought the columnist and the president together.

Brooks's Obama-love is not lost on the president or his staff. As Sherman points out, a pro-administration column from Brooks provides proof that Obama is "fundamentally post-partisan." David Axelrod even comes to meetings with Brooks carrying a copy of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Meanwhile Brooks has said: “I used to think conservatives were right about the big things--the Soviet Union, economic growth...Now, on a lot of issues, I think liberals have been right about some big things, like rising inequality...."

Three cheers for the independent thinking of conservative David Brooks.

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

A few things on-line that caught my eye this week:

Peter Berkowitz reviews Patrick Allitt's The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History

September 2009 issue of Historically Speaking.

Preservationists lose the second Battle of the Wilderness. Wal-Mart wins.
Back to school--courtesy of the Baltimore Sun.

Jim Cullen reviews Louis Masur's Runaway Dream: Born to Run and Bruce Springsteen's American Vision and Masur reflects on Springsteen's interest in American history.

Patrick Deneen: Were the anti-Federalists right?

Who attended Ted Kennedy's funeral?

What's the Matter with Kansas?: The documentary.

For those parents with "tween" girls: Is Selena Gomez the new Miley Cyrus? Salon.Com wonders.

The Pope and the death of Ted Kennedy.

Randall Miller reviews Kevin Kenny's Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment.

Jason Byasse visits the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte. There are no books.

The Woodstock set-list.

Historians reflect on Ted Kennedy's life and legacy.

Facebook and religious belief.

Bryant Simon on Starbucks

Starbucks seems to be a popular topic for writers, historians, cultural critics, businessmen, and sociologists. Business writers praise the company's ingenuity and talk about how the "Starbucks Experience" can turn the "ordinary into the extraordinary." The CEO of Starbucks wants to tell you his secrets about how to be a successful entrepreneur. The company's founding president offers lessons in leadership from his role in building the company. Starbucks saved Michael Gill's life.

Taylor Clark has written Starbucked, a book that many readers on Amazon seem to think is a fair and balanced journalistic treatment of the corporate giant. Leonard Sweet writes about the Gospel According the Starbucks and Paul Copan gives Christians tips on how to share their faith in a Starbucks. There is even a Starbucks novel!

I could probably count on one hand the number of times I have set foot in a Starbucks. I don't drink coffee and the store's non-coffee drinks or either too sugary or give me a brain freeze. I prefer Dunkin Donuts or the local bakery to their expensive pastries. I don't know how anyone can do serious work in a Starbucks, especially writing. Too many distractions. And I must admit that I am a bit intimidated by the people who go to Starbucks. I am not as cool as they are. I don't know how to behave in their midst.

But I am interested in what Starbucks tells us about America, especially since I have family members who seem to have a mild addiction to the place. This is why I was glad when I heard that Bryant Simon--a scholar who I have never met, but whose work I have grown to admire--was turning his attention to Starbucks.

I was first exposed to the work of Bryant Simon through his fascinating book Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America. As a native of New Jersey who has spent a lot of time at the Jersey shore and a fair amount of time in Atlantic City, I was riveted by Simon's attempt to move beyond the nostalgia (Monopoly and the Miss America Pageant) and dive deeply into questions of race and class. It is a great book.

Simon's latest book is Everything But Coffee: Learning About America From Starbucks. It will be released in October. While you are waiting for its release, I encourage you to watch a presentation he gave at a 2007 conference on Taste. The video of the presentation is available here. There is also a book podcast at Red Room. If his writing in Boardwalk of Dreams is any indication, I am sure that Simon, the director of the American Studies Program at Temple, will offer an account of Starbucks that is scholarly, thoughtful, and accessible to general readers. I look forward to reviewing it here soon.

Did Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin Believe in Intelligent Design?

It seems that they did. Or at least believed in something similar. And it would be difficult to find anyone in early America who disagreed with them.

I first thought about the connection between the founders' view of creation and contemporary defenders of intelligent design when I read Steve Waldman's Founding Faith. Here is a blog post in which Waldman explores this idea.

Last week I was reading some of Jefferson's thoughts on religion and was reminded of what Waldman wrote. On April 11, 1823, Jefferson wrote to John Adams:

I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in it's parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of it's composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces, the structure of our earth itself, with it's distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles, insects mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organised as man or mammoth, the mineral substances, their generation and uses, it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their preserver and regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regenerator into new and other forms. We see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power to maintain the Universe in it's course and order. Stars, well known, have disappeared, new ones have come into view, comets, in their incalculable courses, may run foul of suns and planets and require renovation under other laws; certain races of animals are become extinct; and, were there no restoring power, all existences might extinguish successively, one by one, until all should be reduced to a shapeless chaos. So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent that, of the infinite numbers of men who have existed thro' all time, they have believed, in the proportion of a million at least to Unit, in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a creator, rather than in that of a self-existent Universe.

From this passage it would be hard to argue against the idea that Jefferson believed in an intelligent designer who created the universe. It also seems that Jefferson's beliefs have not been lost on modern-day defenders of intelligent design.

Ben Franklin was not as specific as Jefferson , but in “On the Providence of God in the Government of the World,” [1732], he made it clear that he believed the universe bore witness to a creator:

It might be judg’d an Affront to your Understandings should I go to prove this first Principle, the Existence of a Deity and that he is the Creator of the Universe, for that would suppose you ignorant of what all Mankind in all Ages have agreed in. I shall therefore proceed to observe: 1. That he must be a Being of great Wisdom: 2. That he must be a Being of great Goodness and 3. That he must be a Being of great Power. That he must be a Being of infinite Wisdom, appears in his admirable Order and Disposition of Things, whether we consider the heavenly Bodies, the Star and Planets, and their wonderful regular Motions, or this Earth compounded of such an Excellent mixture of all the Elements; or the admirable Structure of Animal Bodies of such an infinite Variety, and yet every one adopted to its Nature, and the Way of Life it is to be placed in, whether on Earth, in the Air or in the Waters, and so exactly that the highest and most exquisite human Reason, cannot find a fault…

Franklin assumed that God created the world. He was more interested in what the world told us about God.

I think those who argue today that intelligent design is religion and thus should not be taught in public schools as science are probably right. I wonder if Jefferson and Franklin would agree with me?

Here We Go Again

First year students began arriving on campus today. I normally try to stay away from the college on this day--no place to park and too many people. But today I had to pick up some books from the library (William Wirt's 3 volume biography of Patrick Henry) and my eight-year old daughter needed something to do, so we made the two-mile commute to Messiah College. Messiah has a beautiful campus nestled along the Yellow Breeches Creek (a tributary of the Susquehanna River) in the village of Grantham. Anyone who has visited Messiah knows about the trademark red covered bridge that extends over the Yellow Breeches and serves as a gateway between two Pennsylvania counties--Cumberland and York. In September and May the campus is especially beautiful. The grounds crew works hard to impress the hundreds of parents visiting the college during these months. Everything seems so green and clean.

It was an incredible day today in south-central Pennsylvania--sunny with the temperature in the mid-70s. Messiah College was buzzing. Most people moved around campus in groups of three--Mom, Dad, and child. Many needed directions to the dining hall or the gym. Everyone was carrying paperwork of some sort. The bookstore was packed. Free food was everywhere. My daughter and I were greeted by smiling Messiah students and staff on at least four different occasions. They just assumed we were visitors.

As we walked across campus we overheard anxious parents talking about bedspreads and lofts, roommates and mini-fridges. I decided to give my daughter a lesson about the rhythms of an academic life. I mentioned how I had been "starting afresh" each September since kindergarten. I told her how I have been in school my entire life--either as a student or a professor. I tried to express the gratitude I felt to be able to live and work in such a way. She was not as moved as I was. It was getting close to lunch and she was too hungry to listen to Dad wax eloquent. We decided to leave campus and get some grilled cheese.

I have mixed emotions each September. Many of my colleagues prepare for the semester well in advance. Yesterday one of my colleagues told me that he finished his course syllabi in June! Others begin spending full days in the office as early as August 1. As for me, the nature of my work in the summer is so different than my work during the school year that I am often unwilling to surrender the summer to the demands of my life of teaching, committee work, and advising. I am never ready for the school year to begin. I am saddened that I have to give up extended time to think and write and reflect and read and research--the kinds of things that we academics have a hard time explaining to our non-academic neighbors when they ask us what we are doing all summer.

It is not until days like this--as the new and returning students roll into town with so much hope and potential and anxiety--that I sort of "snap out of it" and realize that it is time to become a college teacher again. The more I think about it, the more I realize I would not want it any other way.

Ted Kennedy RIP

Like many others, I am saddened today by the death of Ted Kennedy. It will be strange to think about the United States Senate without him. (I have never known the Senate without him).

I was raised on Camelot, even though I was born during the LBJ administration. My father was in his early twenties when JFK was assassinated. When I was a kid he used to tell me how he heard about the assassination while working on a roof somewhere in north Jersey. My grandparents on my father's side were Italian Catholic working class Democrats. The Kennedy's were not Italian, but they were close enough. As a kid I was intrigued with Kennedy counterfactuals. "What if" JFK and RFK were not killed? I used to do the math in my head--JFK would have been president from 1960-1968; RFK from 1968-1976; and Ted from 1976-1984. As an eight year old this was the best of all possible political scenarios. I thought it would be cool to have the Kennedys in charge for nearly a quarter of a century. I seemed to have no major qualms about the kind of tyranny often associated with such family dynasties.

During my middle school and high school years I followed closely Ted's presidential hopes. I remember being very angry at him when I realized that his unacceptable behavior at Chappaquiddick probably cost him the presidency. I remember watching the 1980 Democratic convention and realizing that another Kennedy presidency was just not going to happen.

About six years ago I wrote an op-ed in the Harrisburg Patriot-News (no longer available on-line) reflecting a bit on the way Kennedy applied his Catholic faith to politics. He fought for the poor and the oppressed. He opposed capital punishment. He supported immigration. He demanded universal health care based upon a belief in the human dignity of all. He started his career as an opponent of abortion rights, but like so many Democrats (Jesse Jackson, Dennis Kucinich, Al Gore) he came to believe that the rights of pregnant women were more important than the rights of the unborn. I know this might get me in trouble with some of my readers, but I think that it was abortion where Kennedy departed from the Democratic Party's political philosophy of fighting for those who could not fight for themselves.

Kennedy was a very flawed individual. In addition to Chappaquiddick there was the drinking, the failed marriage, the use of the Kennedy name to avoid the consequences of his actions (and his extended family's actions). As I watch the television coverage of Kennedy's career today I can't help but wonder if he would be revered as one of America's greatest senators if he was not a Kennedy.

Some, sadly, may be quietly rejoicing today. Kennedy had many enemies and opponents. Yet despite his flawed character, his moral compass remained strong. He fought to the very end for people like my grandparents--ordinary people who needed a champion. I hope that his dream of universal health care will come true.

Is Kennedy the greatest senator in United States history? Maybe. It is probably too early to tell. But I think we can be safe in saying that he belongs in a senatorial pantheon that includes Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Taft, Thurmond, Byrd, Wagner, and LaFollette.

Liberty University's New Ski Centre: College is Not Just About Sitting in Classroom!

Inside Higher Ed reports that Liberty University, Jerry Falwell's school in the hills of Lynchburg, Virginia, is ready to open its four million dollar Liberty Mountain Snowflex Centre. (I am not sure why Liberty opted for the British "centre" over the American "center." Perhaps it is because the facility is modeled after a similar one in Scotland. Shame on Liberty for using an un-American spelling. What would Jerry--that great Christian patriot-- think about this?). :-)

The Snowflex Centre appears to be state of the art. Its slopes will be covered with snowflex--a synthetic snow that can be used year-round. (This explains the August opening of the facility). There are no other snowflex skiing centers in the United States. The Discovery Channel has been covering the construction of the Centre.

Liberty's goal, of course, is to attract new students--in this case Christian snowboarders--to the campus. As one administrator put it: "...college is not just about sitting in a classroom and listening to a professor...."

It is easy to criticize the way Liberty University chooses to spend its money. Why not use the four million dollars for student scholarships or the recruitment of new faculty? When I visited Liberty last Spring I perceived a definite need for more faculty, more development opportunities for existing faculty, and a lower student-teacher ratio. I am sure that these issues are important to Liberty, but I want to ask someone there if they are as important as the construction of a new ski centre.

Here's a theory: Perhaps Liberty's rather rigid doctrinal requirements for faculty might contribute to a campus ethos that gives student-oriented "bells and whistles" priority over important things like faculty development and recruitment. To put it bluntly, there are very few Christian academics and intellectuals, especially in the humanities and social sciences, who could sign Liberty's doctrinal statement. Jerry Falwell once said that he wanted Liberty to be a kind of evangelical Notre Dame. Well, places like Notre Dame (and even Baylor--a school that also has high aspirations of being a first-rate research university) use a lot of its resources to recruit first-rate scholars. Unfortunately for Liberty, the pool of potential scholars available to them is limited by the restrictive theological demands that the university places on its faculty. Perhaps I am wrong about this. If so, I hope someone will chime in and correct me. (I am sure that Liberty does have some very good scholars--perhaps in their their law school or other professional programs. During my visit, I also met some pretty good historians who, at least from my impression, could really use a lighter teaching load, a system of tenure [there is none in place at the moment], and more incentive [$] to produce scholarship).

In the end, Liberty's tradition of building elaborate ski centres, paintball fields, and motocross tracks has surely attracted students to Lynchburg. Liberty probably has some of the coolest extracurricular venues in the country. It has indeed, as the Inside Higher Ed article notes, become "something between a summer camp and a theme park." The university can also brag about its large and growing student body, as if this is a sign that it's a major player in American academic life. Yet I wonder--what if all the money spent on extracurricular activities were used to cultivate what Mark Noll has called an "evangelical mind?" How a school spends its money obviously tells us a great deal about its priorities.

But before we spend too much time criticizing Liberty for trying to attract Christian snowboarders, I wonder how many other colleges--Christian or otherwise--would die for the resources to be able to build a similar snowflex venue. All of our institutions--whether it be Messiah College or Penn State--are not beyond treating students as consumers by trying to provide them with the kinds of (non-academic) goods that will secure parent's tuition money. It is unfortunate, but this what higher education in the United States has become. Liberty is no different than the rest of us. They just seem to do it a whole lot better.

Timothy Wood: The Accidental Celebrity

Timothy L. Wood is a good historian. I first encountered his work on seventeenth-century Puritan views of Roman Catholicism in a 1999 New England Quarterly essay. He followed this up with a solid monograph: Agents of Wrath, Sowers of Discord: Authority and Dissent in Puritan Massachusetts, 1630-1655 (Routledge, 2005). I don't know Wood, but a couple of years ago we were both recruited to serve on a panel focused on trends in colonial American history. Wood had to turn down the invitation, so we never got a chance to meet.

Recently this unassuming early American historian, who appears to have forged a scholarly career by keeping his head to the grindstone producing books and articles on Puritanism, has become the target of one of the worst forms of identity theft.

It all started when Wood realized that an on-line article was attributed to him comparing Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler. He first become aware of the piece when he started getting fan mail from the extremists who read the website that published it. Wood acted quickly. He informed the administration at the college where he teaches--Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri--that he was not the author. The administration supported him and allowed Wood to put a post on its website disclaiming his authorship. (When I read the comments on this post I was suprised to learn just how many people had this piece of political chain mail forwarded to them).

Today's Inside Higher Education is running an essay by Wood about the lessons he learned from this whole ordeal.

How does something like this happen? I am assuming that Wood still does not know how the article ended up with his byline. Moreover, Southwest Baptist is a Christian college. I hope that this false attribution does not tarnish the witness of this school, not to mention Wood's career.

Needless to say, I am sorry that Wood had to go through all of this. I look forward to reading more of his informative scholarly work in the future.

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

A few things on-line that caught my eye this week:

Quarterback Andrew Hatch: From BYU to Harvard to Mormon mission to LSU and back to Harvard.

Was George Washington a "man on the make?"

Joseph Epstein on writing as work.

Myron Magnet on the Lees of Stratford.

John Turner on The Shack.

Thomas Frank on Woodstock nostalgia

Rachel Wheeler discusses her book To Live Upon Hope with Linford Fischer.

Jim Cullen reviews Johan Neem's Creating Nation of Joiners

Heather Cox Richardson's tips for taking essay exams.

Lewis Lapham interviews Gordon Wood (Scroll down a bit).

Canadian Hutterites in search of a home.

AndrewMC of Progressive Historians on the religion of the "founders."

Rodney Clapp on "rural cosmopolitanism."

McNeil Center for Early American Studies Fall 2009 Friday Seminar Schedule

For more info, including times and locations, click here:

11 September:
Kathleen DuVal, University of North Carolina
"The Gulf Coast and the Coming of the American Revolution."

18 September:
Andrew Shankman, Rutgers University, Camden
"Neither Infinite Wretchedness Nor Positive Good: Matthew Carey and Henry Clay on Political Economy and Slavery During the Long 1820s."

25 September
Bryan Waterman, New York University
"Coquetry and Correspondence in Revolutionary-Era Connecticut: Elizabeth Whitman's Letters to Joel Barlow"

2 October:
Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg, Louisiana State University
"The Odd Couple: The Unlikely Partnership of Madison and Jefferson"

9 October:
Nan Goodman, University of Colorado
“To Look Your Bloody Laws in the Face”: The Banishment of the Quakers in Early New England"

16 October:
Jessica Choppin Roney, Ohio University
"A Borrower and a Lender Be: Philadelphia's Voluntary Associations and the Evolution of Commercial Credit, 1750-1775."

6 November:
Eleanor McConnell, Library of Congress
"The Persistence of Scarcity: Controlling Property and Economic Opportunity in New Jersey, 1780-1820"

13 November:
Brian Phillips Murphy, Baruch College and 2007-2008 Monticello-McNeil Dissertation Fellow
"A Man, a Plan, a Canal: Erie"

4 December:
Sarah Dennis, University of Illinois and 2007-2008 MCEAS Barra Foundation Fellow
"The Standard of Taste": Disseminating Aesthetics in the Early Republic."

11 December:
Kenneth Cohen, St. Mary’s College of Maryland and 2007-2008 MCEAS Consortium Fellow
“The Entreaties and Perswasions of Our Friends”: Gambling on Sports and Politics in Early America"

Is Health Care a Moral Imperative?

Over on the Washington Post/Newsweek "On Faith" blog, several religious leaders respond to this question.

Jim Wallis gets the conversation rolling and several others add their two cents. Most of these religious leaders and thinkers, however, write in very general terms about reform and few of them endorse any particular proposal.

I like how Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, puts it: "Jesus didn't exclude those with pre-existing conditions or low income or unemployment. "All" was universal--everyone."

Evangelical Left and Right Come Together on Abortion Health Care Debate

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (Evangelical Right) and Jim Wallis of Sojourners (Evangelical Left) apparently agree on taking abortion off the table in the health care debate. While I think Perkins and Wallis probably agree on a lot of theological beliefs, I think this is the first time that these two evangelicals have agreed on anything related to social policy.

Are You a Springsteen Fan?

If you love "The Boss" and are academically minded, you may be interested in the upcoming (Sept. 25-27) conference at Monmouth University: "Glory Days: A Bruce Springsteen Symposium." This is a follow-up conference to the very successful Springsteen symposium that drew over 330 Springsteen scholars, journalists, musicians and fans to West Long Branch, NJ in 2005.

In addition to tours of Springsteen's Asbury Park, the conference will feature 130 papers and presentations on everything from Springsteen and gender, pedagogy, religion, place, family, war, and class. I cannot make it to the event (I will be speaking at Ft. Ticonderoga that weekend), but I am disappointed I will be missing the presentations of two scheduled speakers: Jim Cullen and Louis Masur. I have never met either of these scholars, but have long admired their work.

I have been a fan of Cullen's work since graduate school when I read his excellent The Civil War in Popular Culture . When I heard that he was writing a book on Springsteen I quickly ordered my copy of Born in the USA: Bruce Springsteen and the American Tradition. (Cullen's analysis of Springsteen's Catholicism is worth the price of the book). Since then I have enjoyed his books on the American Dream (a former student of mine recently told me that she read this book in her graduate program in American studies) and popular culture. If you can't make it to the Jersey Shore next month to hear Cullen's plenary address, you will want to go over to his blog, American History Now, and read some of his thoughts as he prepares the talk.

Masur holds a chair in American Studies at Trinity College in Hartford. He has written about baseball, the year 1831, capital punishment, and a famous American photograph. His new book is Runaway Dream: Born to Run and Bruce Springsteen's American Vision. I am hoping that there will be some material in the book stemming from his 2005 article in the Chronicle Review in which he describes teaching Springsteen at Trinity. His description of dancing to "Born to Run" with a college freshman is priceless.

If any of my readers are heading to Jersey next month, drop me a note. Perhaps you might be willing to report on the event here at "The Way of Improvement Leads Home."

Is Anybody Teaching Philip Vickers Fithian This Semester?

Since The Way of Improvement Leads Home appeared in paperback last Spring, several professors have contacted me about using it in their courses.

Are you using the book in your classes this Fall? If so, I would love to hear from you (either on the blog or off the blog). I am eager to hear how the book works with undergraduates.

If you are a student who has been assigned the text I would also be eager to hear from you. Drop me a note at jfea(at)messiah(dot)edu or get in touch with me in the comments section of this blog.

Why You Need to Read Eric Miller

One of my favorite Christian social critics is Eric Miller, a professor of history at Geneva College. (Full disclosure--Miller is a good friend and we are editing a collection together on Christianity and the historian's vocation. He also looks just like the documentary film-maker Ken Burns).

Not only is Miller one of my favorite stylists, but his prose always penetrates deeply into the human condition.

Today I read two of Miller's pieces from Christianity Today. The first is a review of James K.A. Smith's Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. If you are interested in the whole worn-out topic of "Christian World View" you should read Smith's book and Miller's review. The latter is a great example of the historian taking the philosopher to task for failing "to foster a richer, more filial sense of our present connection to previous epochs, persons, and discourses, honoring the organic, earthy realities of our historical lineage and making more evident our debt to those we follow."

I also revisited a piece Miller wrote a few years ago entitled "Why We Love Football." Here Miller is at his best--writing from the earthy realities of his Western Pennsylvania home. He urges us to consider our idolatry and challenges us to find grace in the realities of our everyday existence, including football and his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers.

If you read these essays and find yourself wanting more Miller, check out his award-winning "Keeping Up With the Amish" or his "Alone in the Academy."

Keep an eye open for Miller's forthcoming and much-awaited biography of cultural critic Christopher Lasch. I am predicting this book will get a lot of attention.

Marsden and Mouw on Thriving Christian Colleges

Today I read a short essay by George Marsden, visiting professor of religious and intellectual history at Harvard Divinity School, on the thriving state of evangelical Christian colleges and universities. Most of these colleges and universities are associated with an organization called the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) and they are growing at a rapid rate. Marsden argues that this growth is related to the fact that Christian colleges offer a kind fo education that is no longer available at Ivy League schools, public universities, and community colleges. He writes:

Harvard is driven by so many competing careerist and ideological interests that there is little attention either in the curriculum or among faculty (who are rewarded only for scholarship) to fostering healthy personal and moral growth among its students. If that is the case at Harvard, one can imagine the incoherence of the educational experience at the huge state universities and the many community colleges where the vast majority of America's collegians get their degrees. Most of what students study involves practical skills in preparation for careers. Liberal arts are incidental to most undergraduate experience. The best hope for "community" is found in fraternities and sororities or more likely just in a dorm containing many sub-groups of those who happen to find common recreational interests.

Marsden believes that the educational experience at Christian colleges and universities today is equivalent to the education students received fifty years ago at places like Harvard. Evangelical academics do very good work in the humanities and sciences. As a result, Christian colleges can build strong faculties comparable to most other schools in their regions.

And those who think that evangelical Christian colleges are bastions of conservative politics are wrong. Those who draw these stereotypes should visit one of these campuses--as Alan Wolfe did a decade ago-- and witness for themselves the diversity of political perspectives among students and faculty. It is true that Christian colleges have their share of conservative faculty, but I have found that this creates a very vibrant and diverse political community--a kind of political community that would be hard to find in the faculty lounge at most Ivies or state universities.

Marsden continues:

While increased academic excellence is a factor in the growth of evangelical colleges, probably more immediately important in the decisions to attend such colleges are the coherent supportive communities that provide the context for such education. Being part of a community that is supportive of one's faith is one attraction. But there are many other benefits to being at a smaller campus where there is a strong sense of community and one is likely to find many kindred spirits. Nonetheless, when people are deciding whether to pay the considerable extra cost for such a college experience the fact that these schools are genuinely competitive academically helps justify the decision. Such schools offer curricula that have the sort of coherence that larger and more diverse schools typically lack. Every student, even in specialized technical areas, is likely to have some substantial exposure to the liberal arts. They will also take a few courses in the religious tradition itself. Moreover these academic offerings come as part of a larger communal educational experience that they can share with many who have similar interests and concerns.

Yes, evangelical colleges do have their limits. The development of a diverse student body is difficult at these schools. (Yet, I might add, the percentage of minority students at Christian colleges is comparable, if not higher, than elite private institutions. Check out this story about Jerry Falwell speaking at Duke University). Furthermore, students at Christian colleges are not exposed to the advocates of diverse ideas in the way that students at other colleges are. As Marsden notes, Christian colleges can try to remedy this problem through inner-city semesters and study-abroad programs, but it is just not the same.

If it is true that the average graduate of a Christian college is receiving a first-rate liberal arts education, then what will be the effect of this positive trend on evangelical churches? Richard Mouw, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary, is concerned :

What I do worry about in all of this is whether the evangelical churches are prepared to receive and nurture the students graduating from these colleges and universities. On many of these campuses, Lilly-funded programs on the importance of seeing one’s daily work as “vocation” have inspired students to see so-called “secular” occupations as Kingdom service. They are looking for the kind of preaching and sacramental life, as well as continuing education, to which they have become accustomed on their undergraduate campuses. If the evangelical churches fail to meet their expectations, they will go elsewhere. It will not likely be in the direction of liberal Protestantism—more likely they will move toward Anglicanism, Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

This is something for evangelical Christians to think seriously about. As Christian colleges continue to develop intellectually curious graduates--those who are no longer products of the evangelical culture Mark Noll described in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind--evangelical churches are going to have to offer them a theologically-informed, intelllectually vibrant, and historically rooted version of the Christian faith. Are evangelical churches up to the challenge?

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I was browsing some of the new gadgets available on BLOGGER and decided to add a search feature to this blog. Check it out on the left.

Hankins, Marsden, Noll and Schaeffer

Over the past couple of days I have been reading parts of BarryHankins's recent biography of Francis Schaeffer.

I do not consider myself a disciple of Schaeffer, though I know many of his followers and former followers. I have read How Shall We Then Live, The God Who is There, and A Christian Manifesto, but do not remember being particularly moved or inspired by any of these books. About twenty years ago I bought a five volume paperback (multi-colored!) collection of Schaeffer's works, but I do not think I ever cracked it. (In fact, it is still sitting on a bookshelf at my parent's house in New Jersey).

I am, however, interested in the way Schaeffer's life serves as a window into twentieth-century evangelicalism. This is probably why I felt compelled to read and blog about Frank Schaeffer's (Francis's son) memoir Crazy for God and pick up Hankins's book in the first place.

I am intrigued by Schaeffer's life for two main reasons. First, I wrote a M.A. thesis on Carl McIntire, the arch-fundamentalist who led the denomination (Bible Presbyterian Church) and seminary (Faith Theological Seminary) that nurtured Schaeffer. In 1994 I wrote an article on McIntire in The Journal of Presbyterian History and have been collecting materials to someday write a biography of the man.

Second, Schaeffer was a leading force behind the emergence of the Christian Right in the late 1970s and early 1980s and was influential in promoting the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation.

It is on this latter point that Hankins really shines. His chapter on this subject is worth the price of the book. Hankins had access to a series of letters written between Mark Noll, George Marsden, and Francis Schaeffer on the topic of whether or not America was a Christian nation. Schaeffer chided Marsden and Noll for showing too much respect for secular scholarship and Marsden and Noll tried to convince Schaeffer that his view of the founding was utterly wrong. These letters provide the context for Marsden and Noll's book (with Nathan Hatch) The Search for Christian America.

Hankins's biography makes for a quick and informative read. It is a book worth spending an evening or two with.

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

A few things on-line that caught my attention this week:


Jim Cullen reviews Jackson Lears's Rebirth of a Nation.

Theologians and Harry Potter

Daniel Ben-Ami reviews Neal Lawson’s All Consuming.

Lauren Winner reviews three books on the history of cleanliness.

Jon Wiener reviews yet another book on Wal-Mart.

Sean Wilentz responds to his critics.

The enduring legacy of Mario Puzo's The Godfather.

Should the AHA do away with job interviews at its annual conference?

Bald Blogger on some new books on W.E.B. DuBois.

Serena Zabin reviews Ellen Hartigan-O'Connor, The Ties That Buy: Women and Commerce in Revolutionary America.

Another "for-profit" Christian college.

Finalists for the Frederick Douglass Book Prize.

Should you put your syllabus on-line?

Houston Chronicle Op-Ed

In case you missed it, on July 26 the Sunday Houston Chronicle ran an op-ed of mine on the debate over the Texas social studies standards. The piece is no longer available on-line, but I have included the full text below.

HISTORY AND THE TEXAS BOARD OF EDUCATION

By John Fea

If you think the “culture wars” are over, think again.

The latest battle is being fought over American history. The Texas Board of Education, which is planning a revision of the state social studies curriculum this summer, is divided over what students should be learning about the nation’s past.

The conservative members of the board have chosen two outside reviewers who want to revamp the curriculum to include more of an emphasis on Christian and conservative themes..

Neither of these reviewers are historians.

One of them, Peter Marshall, is a Presbyterian minister best known for his book The Light and the Glory, a narrative of the early American past that claims to trace God’s providential plan for the United States.

The other reviewer is David Barton, a former Vice-Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas and an opponent of the separation of church and state. Barton is the founder and president of Wallbuilders, an organization that promotes the idea that America is a Christian nation.

Much of the discussion over the standards thus far has revolved around which historical figures should be included and which ones should not.

Both Marshall and Barton suggest removing Anne Hutchinson from the curriculum. Marshall describes her as a woman who “didn't accomplish anything except getting herself exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for making trouble.”

The conservative reviewers are not happy that Texas students are learning about Cesar Chavez, a Mexican-American labor leader and civil rights activist. Marshall’s report states that Chavez “is hardly the kind of role model that ought to be held up to our children as someone worthy of emulation.”

Of course a strong argument could be made for the inclusion of both Hutchinson and Chavez. It could even be advanced from the perspective of the Christian faith that Marshall and Barton hold dear. Hutchinson, for example, boldly stood before John Winthrop and defended liberty of conscience in matters of religion. Chavez’s labor activism was informed by his Catholicism.

But there is a bigger issue at stake here. It goes beyond the debate over who is “in” and who is “out.” It is the place of history in a school curriculum.

The study of history develops civic awareness and provides us with heroes from the past that we can look up to. This is the kind of history that Barton and Marshall want to promote. This kind of search for a useful past makes sense. Our natural inclination is to find something familiar in history—something that affirms our own convictions in the present.

Historians know, however, that not all of the past is familiar or useful. Not all of the past serves our present-day agendas.

Yet we must study it.

Students do not have to see themselves in the past in order to learn from it. The study of history can develop character, the kind of moral and intellectual development that happens when they encounter historical actors who are strange to them.

Real education takes place when students learn to respect the ideas of people with whom they (or their parents) might differ. Historical thinking forces them to lay aside their own biases and enter into the mind of a person from the past who may have views that do not conform to their own.

Such an engagement with the past lends itself to the cultivation of certain virtues—empathy, prudence, hospitality, self-denial—that might just make our students better people. This is the real value of the study of history in schools.

Perhaps the study of Cesar Chavez might help an 11th grade white student from a conservative Southern Baptist home learn something about the plight of her Mexican-American neighbors or the suffering of poor migrant workers.

Or perhaps her classmate, the child of secular atheists, might come to value the way that religion—and particularly Christianity-- was important to the founding of the United States.
History, when taught correctly, has the power to transform us, regardless of the subject matter. It forces us to put aside our own selfishness and see ourselves as part of a human story that is larger than the contemporary moment in which we live.

As educator Sam Wineburg writes about history: “Of the subjects in the secular curriculum it is the best at teaching those virtues once reserved for theology—humility in the face of our limited ability to know, and awe in the face of the expanse of history.”

Let’s hope that the Texas Board of Education remembers this.

John Fea teaches American history at Messiah College in Grantham, PA. He is finishing a book entitled Was America Founded as a Christian Nation: A Historical Primer for Christians.

Back in the Saddle

After a three-week hiatus from blogging, "The Way of Improvement Leads Home" is back. I spent the last couple of weeks in northern New Hampshire trying to make some serious headway on my book on Christian America.

We will be back in full force tomorrow with "Sunday Night Odds and Ends," but in the meantime enjoy some pictures from my temporary writing house: