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The most recent issue of Books & Culture, with an editorial, column, and essay on Christians, public life, and academe [September/October 2002], set me back in my office chair at Calvin College and inspired some thought about the project of "thinking Christianly."
Do we Christians really want to be "Sean Wilentz's worst nightmare"? In his editorial column, "Stranger in a Strange Land," John Wilson cites a New York Times op-ed in which Wilentz deplores what he describes as Justice Antonin Scalia's frustration with democracy, his identification of governments with God's divine authority, and his insistence that Christians ought properly to obey church authorities without question, perhaps even if it means violating the law.
For Wilson, Wilentz's despair is a Christian intellectual's proud statement of faith. We do not pretend to think for ourselves, like foolish secular humanists. Because we recognize that our mental "equipment is damaged and that we badly need help," we turn to God and Scripture, and perhaps to our religious communities and traditions, for the wisdom necessary to true thinking.
While I agree with John that our wisdom is not ultimately our own, his proud raising of Christian intellectual colors misses Wilentz's point. In citing the colonial American dissenter, Roger Williams, Wilentz points to the long Christian tradition of resisting the identification of any government with divine authority. Even if government is a creational structure, no particular set of institutions or laws and no particular ruler is infallible or necessarily from God. Is Wilentz's point anti-Christian, or is it a secular humanist restatement of old-fashioned, dissenting Christian wisdom? In a pluralist society such as the United States, is it appropriate to identify the powers that be as ordained of God, as Scalia wants to do? What do you do when people elect a president you don't like?
In expressing frustration with those who, out of lamentable and often silly habit, dismiss all Christians as intellectually benighted or politically reactionary, do Christians often commit the same folly regarding so-called secularists? "Force of Habit," the article by Christian Smith, provokes the question. Anecdotally, many Christian intellectuals can give examples of statements by non-Christian academics that are prejudiced, ignorant, or paradoxical—as in a defense of pluralism that seems to exclude conservative Christians. So what. Really. So what. Smith notes the vibrant interest in religion in American academe today and the influence of Christian thinkers in various disciplines. This is a generation's worth of work that deserves to be celebrated. And he concedes that he is happy working with thoughtful, pleasant colleagues in a setting that is largely collegial to Christians. Yet he focuses on a few instances of habitual, thoughtless hostility. Why? Are we Christian intellectuals still so defensive? One hopes that it is merely an old habit.
What is more, are Christian intellectuals so delicate? Shouldn't we take our lumps, as do feminists, Marxists, postmodernists, Afrocentrists, and others who demand room for their ideals and scholarship? Look around at academia. It's a rough and at times brutally dismissive, critical culture. Not just for Christians. And, look at the treatment sometimes received by these "other" intellectuals in public forums that are popular among Christians. We play the same rough game. Aren't there sometimes good reasons for non-Christians to dismiss Christians out of hand?
Here's the rub. Do Christians want fair and equal treatment in academia and public life? Or do we demand special treatment? In many discussions of how difficult it is to be a Christian in academe, I get the feeling that Christians want special treatment. Do we deserve it?
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