Education

Recently I have been seeing a lot of reports on how America is falling behind on education. I'm not going to debate whether or not America is falling behind in education; I'm not qualified to make an opinion on that, though based on anecdotes I am sure it probably is. What I do take issue with is how these reports determined that America is falling behind in education. The same statistic I keep seeing over and over again is that Americans are less competent in science and math than South Koreans and Singaporeans.

So what? Are math and science the only two academic subjects?

Obsessions with math and science scores are what really burn me. It is treated as if there two subjects are foundation of all important knowledge. If we don't know the classics of literature, the history of our civilization, or art and music, it's fine. But God forbid if most students aren't apt at math and science. I remember when I was in high school and several schools in the area were forced to shut down their music programs and divert funds to math and science classes. I remember my music teacher encouraging us to do well on our standardized tests - not primarily because he cared about us being scientifically and mathematically competent, but because the music program at my high school could suffer as a consequence!

The obsession with math and science scores rubs me personally. I am not at all good at math and science. When I was getting ready to apply to grad school I took the GRE's. I scored in the top tenth percentile on the verbal section, but was in the bottom quarter in terms of the math. A similar fate befell me on my SATs (though not quite as lopsided; the GREs came after three years of mostly humanities/social sciences and little math). If I took a math/science competence test today I am sure that the majority of students from South Korea would make me look silly. Whoever does the reports on American education would probably idiotically assume that the American education system failed me, despite the fact that I graduated cum laude with high honors from college.

I remember when one of my professors shared an anecdote with my seminar class (It's something that humanities students do; it's where you are forced to make arguments and express ideas amongst your peers and your professor. It requires you to be smart, lucid, and well-spoken, and it doesn't require bubble sheets). He told us that once he went a lecture by the very prestigious scholar Peter Brown, where Brown shared a story from his childhood. He said that one day the headmaster at his school noticed that he was an especially bright young man (amazingly, he was able to do this without a standardized test) and called him into his chambers. The headmaster asked Brown what plans such an intelligent boy had for his future. Brown replied that he thought of becoming a scientist. The headmaster shook and his head and said, "No, no lad. A bright young man such as yourself shouldn't waste his intellect doing that."

That was in the 1940s. Much has changed since then. Primarily Western civilization, and America specifically, has been technocratic. It is assumed that if we pool enough scientists and bureaucrats together we can solve the world's problems through policy. Man is treated as if he were an object rather than a subject. We think that material bounty and prosperity, produced by social engineering, will usher in a utopia. American's especially are drawn into consumerism and technophilia. We just want a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington or, if lean further to the right, a bunch of venture capitalists and techno-wizards in the Bay Area, to find a technocratic solution to all of our problems.

Dr. T. David Gordon's analysis of technophilia

Thus the really important subjects are those that produce bureaucrats or scientists or software engineers or bankers; math and science. The humanities are treated as something nice to be added on top of a solid math/science based education. . .if it doesn't distract too much. . .and if you are into that sort of thing.

I think (and of course I am being very biased in this, though if you studied humanities you would find that an unbiased opinion is impossible) that the whole way education is viewed in this country is topsy-turvy. Humanities at are the core of an education; science and math are at the peripheries. Now, I'm not saying that physics and biological majors ought to drop out of their programs and become art history majors. What I am saying is that I think that the humanities are central to our understanding of humanity (as the name implies) and thus of ourselves. The real problems that face humanity involve human beings! Technocracy hasn't come near to solving our problems and never will, because the real devil isn't in the world, it's in us. I'm not saying that science, math, and technology aren't important, because they are. They can eliminate many evils in the world such as disease, malnutrition, and water contamination. They can also create new ones such as the maxim gun, poison gas, the atom bomb, and cyber bullying.

The point is that any real wisdom concerning the human condition involves the study of the humanities. I don't mean to say that the humanities will make us more humane; I've met enough humanities scholars to know that immersing yourself in history or literature does not automatically make you wise or a good person. There are other components necessary for wisdom and virtue, but I think knowledge about humanity is an integral part.

Currently, we are in a world that desperately needs wisdom. It is telling that the white collar crimes and corporate greed that helped precipitate the current economic crisis did not generate reflection on the what we as a culture valued, but rather calls for more government regulation of the markets. Most people have a naïve view of humanity and the human condition. Most alarmingly, the citizens of our Republic are incredibly ignorant of our civilization's history, of the kinds of law and government that govern our country, or of human nature generally. As technology, especially biotechnology, pose difficult ethical questions for us, most Americans are ignorant of ethics and lack moral guidance.

Again, studying the humanities will not provide a golden ticket to good future. There are other elements, not the least moral and religious elements, that are also required. However, a greater emphasis on the humanities, or at the very least the avoidance of a utilitarian descent into a math/science dominated educational system, might help to re-orient our culture's values. It might encourage us to look to the good, the beautiful, and the true, rather at the materially gratifying. It might give us a more nuanced view of the world and of humanity. It might make us a little more discerning when it comes to politicians and their policies. And it might make us better citizens.

The Weakness of American Evangelicalism - Part II

Continuing discussion of why Evangelicalism is weak culturally in America today. In the last post I identified the conflict model, anti-intellectualism, and populism. Now we look at the last two character traits of Evangelicalism that contribute to this weakness and offer conclusions as to why this matters for Evangelicals.

Consumerism - This trait is to some extent the result of populism. With the over-arching emphasis being on numbers, churches have focused on policies that bring in the masses. Evangelical churches tend to emphasize the portion of the great commission in which Christ calls his Church to spread the gospel to all people, but ignores altogether Christ's command for us to make disciples. The result is that marketing takes precedence over spiritual formation. Church becomes a business and the gospel a product. This trend is not lost on non-believers. I heard one skeptic say recently that the Church is merely another business that is out to get people's money by peddling the greatest product possible; hope for life after death. The irony is that the shallow consumerism of Evangelicalism is one of the biggest turn-offs to potential converts. The mega-church pastor is an oft-ridiculed stereotype in modern American culture (for my critique of the stereotypical suburban mega-church pastors, see my blog post from last October: http://spicey-spiceitup.blogspot.com/2010/10/charlatans-and-gospel.html). Though I do not have solid data to back this up, I observe that most of the large "successful" churches drawn not from the mass 0f unbelievers, but from other churches. In any case, the result is that American Evangelicalism has become materialistic (of which the health and wealth gospel is an outstanding example) in order to draw in 'giving units.' It has primarily become about feeling good, managing your money, or merely being entertained. The end result is a Christianity that is utterly worldly. Paul in his epistle to the Colossians tells his audience to focus entirely the things above, where Christ is seated. Paul does not mean by this that Christians are to be other-worldly and Platonic. Instead, it means that we are to desire higher and eternal things such as beauty, love, peace, joy, hope, and the knowledge of God. These are manifested in God's creation and so we should enjoy them through the creation; I do not want to pose a spiritual/material dualism. But modern Evangelicalism has a knack for watering down these heavenly things into base substitutes. Love becomes sentimentality, peace and hope becomes feel-goodery, and joy becomes mere entertainment and amusement. The most immediate danger is that this is idolatry; unlike the heavenly blessings, which point to Christ, these things point only to the worldly. More to our purpose, they make Evangelicalism culturally weak, because it means that Evangelicalism focuses exclusively on the base rather than high. Is it any wonder that film, art, literature and music so dominated by secularism? Secularism dominates these areas when Christianity produces kitsch sentimentalism manifested in praise songs, Christian romance novels, and simplistic and shallow Christian movies. Ideas like existentialism and relativism are so influential today because they are manifested in art, literature, and film rather than in poor mimics of Hollywood blockbusters or chick flicks. Thomas Kinkade art and sentimental Christian novels are poor substitutes for the Sistine Chapel and Paradise Lost. The overall issue is that Evangelicalism becomes something that stoops down to the most base and vile elements of consumerism, instead of something that seeks to lift people up to the heavenly realms. Christianity teaches that humanity has a nature that was created good, which desires partake in higher things such as the beautiful, the good, and the true. But because of sin this original nature has been corrupted into a sinful nature in which people now desire the pleasurable, the self-serving, and the useful; yet the original nature has not been completely eradicated. It seems obvious which nature Christian outreach out to tickle.

Disunity - The fragmentation of American Evangelicalism is one of the biggest reasons why Christianity is so impotent. The Catholic Church puts Protestants to shame for this very reason. Catholics, despite being outnumbered by Protestants 2:1, run the most effective Christian education system (the sole elite Christian research university, Notre Dame, is Catholic), have a far more effective missions program, and give more to charities that Protestants. The reason is that Catholics are united, which means that they can pool their resources effective coordinate their use. Evangelicals are haplessly disunited and, apart from politics, disorganized. Indeed, Evangelicals spend almost as much time wrangling with each other as they do with non-Christian sub-cultures. My own tradition, the Reformed, is fragmented into dozens of small denominations which all strongly resist any unification because of minute differences. Disunity is preserved by a lack of Christian charity and a sense of pride often thinly veiled as "doctrinal purity." Like broader American culture, Evangelicals cannot cooperate towards a common good while agreeing to disagree in love. My guess is that God will chide us all far more strongly for failing to love another and effectively carrying out the Church's mission than He will for us communing with those who baptize infants, disbelieve in predestination, think that communion is merely a memorial meal, or practice a Presbyterian polity rather than an episcopal one. Of course nondenominational churches deserve a fair share of the blame as well. It is difficult to maintain any kind of cooperation between churches when anyone can break away and go its own way. As a result, any attempt to actually forge any kind of pan-Evangelical organization that actually has power to coordinate the resources and activities of Evangelical churches will always remain elusive. As a result, Evangelicals will be hapless in the effort do things such as create a good system of Christian schools, fund a top-tier orthodox Protestant research university, effectively pool resources for charities, or effectively organize missions both at home and abroad. The advantage of cooperation over going solo was not lost on the Preacher in Ecclesiastes: "Two are better tan one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if the fall, one will life up his fellow. . .And though a man may prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him - a threefold cord is not quickly broken (Ecclesiastes 4:9, 10a, 12).

The question naturally arises, of course, why should any of this matter? Why should Christians care about being culturally influential? Some Evangelicals no doubt think that it is best to remain 'pure' from the taint that might result from an attempt to redeem secular culture. Why not let the Spirit do its work? True, the Holy Spirit is the one who truly guides the Church towards the consummation and brings unbelievers to faith. But the Holy Spirit operates through the Church to achieve these ends. The building up the Church does not occur magically, but by the Spirit through the normal spiritual, psychological, and sociological phenomenon that constitute the original creation. Conversion and Church growth do not confound a limited psychological or sociological explanation. To put it simply, it is through the cultural influence of the Church that the Holy Spirit operates. If the Holy Spirit did otherwise, we might as well argue that Christians ought not try to spread the gospel (after all, we shouldn't risk tainting ourselves by interacting with nonbelievers) but instead leave it up to the Spirit to spontaneously convert people. The operation of the Holy Spirit does not make evangelism or a strong Church any less necessary. However, another objection might be levelled, this one from the other side of the aisle, so to speak. Isn't all this talk about cultural power simply a return to the mistakes of Christendom? First, let me say that when I speak of cultural power, I do not mean the cultural establishment of Christianity. I don't suggest that Christians try to imperiously coerce nonbelievers through commanding positions on the cultural heights. I mean something much more organic. I mean that Christians ought to have a strong presence in culturally powerful institutions so that the Christian vision is heard and taken seriously. Christianity is rejected today by secular society, not because it has been understood and refuted, but because it can be ridiculed with ease. Secondly, the goal of cultural strength should not be the Christianization of the artistic, educational, or political institutions. Instead the goal should be the building up of the Church. Christians are called not to conquer the City of the World but to build the City of God. Included in the City of God are those who are the Church's representatives in the artistic, educational, and governmental institutions. If there is to be a Christianization of society, it must only be done by the conversion of society into the Church, not by dominating cultural institutions so that society has a Christian facade. Ultimately our goal should be a cultural strong Church that is able to spread the gosepl of Christ, disciple its members, and effectively cultivate the the good, the beautiful, and the true.

The Weakness of American Evangelicalism - Part I

I contend that American evangelicalism is culturally weak. This means that in our increasingly pluralistic culture, Evangelicalism lacks cultural influence. I argue that this is due to six specific traits of American Evangelicalism. If the cultural weakness of Evangelicalism is to be overcome, Evangelicals need to reflect on how the American Church can be transformed into a stronger institution. Despite many improvements, the Evangelical Church at large requires sweeping reform. Nothing less than another reformation will do.


The fact of the matter is that American Evangelicalism was practically culturally irrelevant in the second half of the twentieth century. True, Evangelicals did gain sweeping political influence through the Religious Right. However, politics is only one part of culture, and ultimately not a very influential one. The modern state is increasingly run by bureaucrats rather than elected officials. One only needs ponder the lack of results, despite thirty years of political mobilization on the part of the Religious Right. Evangelicals might achieve victory for a time through politics, but ultimately the state is driven by far more influential aspects of culture. The Religious Right has ultimately done more harm for Christianity than good because it has spread resentment amongst non-Christians (and even some Christians). It has awakened fears that Christians desire a return to the Protestant Establishment in the United States. The reality is that law (politics) does not create cultural change, but rather is the product of cultural change. Law is the expression of the will of the cultural elite. The most powerful cultural centers in modern America are academia, elite media outlets, law schools/public policy schools, the arts, book publishers, literature, museums, etc. It is strength or representation in these areas that determine the strength of a particular cultural movement. And it is in precisely these areas that Evangelicals are the most impotent. This means that the influence of American Christians on contemporary culture is likewise impotent. The reasons for this are complex and I don't fully understand them myself. However, to a great extent they are a result of six traits of Evangelicalism.

Conflict Model - Evangelicals, by and large, don't view the non-Christian culture as a lot of poor souls that need to be won, but as enemy combatants that need to be conquered and subdued. It is telling that Christ commanded his apostles to make disciple (i.e. teach and instruct) the nations, not scream at them or dominate them politically. The conflict model emphasizes antithesis over relevance. It forgets that non-Christian culture contains much good and needs to be discipled , not obliterated and replaced by a "pure" Christian culture. In short, it forgets the common ground between Christians and non-Christians by virtue of the fact that both are still made in the image of God. The inability to connect with the good in non-Christian culture ultimately means that Evangelicals lack all relevance. The early Church fathers were especially good at finding the common ground between Christians and non-Christians, and the early Church was culturally stronger because of it.

Anti-Intellectualism - Most Evangelicals are suspicious (to say the least) of intellectual life. They view the modern university (not without warrant) as anti-Christian. I think that the university is only implicitly anti-Christian - i.e. it educates in a decidedly secular fashion, since most in academia aren't Christians - not explicitly so. However, the continued dearth of religious perspective in academia is the fault of Evangelicals to a great degree. Rather than formulate a comprehensive plan for real educational and intellectual cultivation, Evangelicals have simply retreated from academic life. Academia, at best, is something to be survived. What educational programs Evangelicals do produce are deeply reactionary and typically unscholarly. They don't teach Evangelicals how to think but what to think, and what Evangelicals are told to think (e.g. creation "science") often borders on intellectual dishonesty. Exposure to non-Christian views are avoided, and where there is interaction, Evangelicals are not taught how to critically examine the ideas, but to wave them away as liberal or secular hogwash. They are taught to reject wholesale "secular learning" rather than redeem what is good in it. All of this belies a deep lack of confidence on the part of Evangelicals in the intellectual credentials of Christianity. Additionally, despite the recent prominence of many orthodox Christians in intellectual life (George Marsden, Alvin Platinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Francis Collins, Mark Noll), Evangelicals are typically unsupportive of Christian intellectuals. In part this is because Evangelicals are suspicious of such Christian academics. They are often viewed as "tainted" by their academic pursuits, especially when they hold views (such as those pertaining to evolution) that most Evangelicals refuse to even entertain. While Evangelicals dump millions of dollars into politics, church programs, and popular Christian organizations, institutions that foster Christian learning are left underfunded or ignored all together. The sole research center funded at my undergraduate institution was a political one; the Center for Vision and Values. When reasons were given for giving generously to my Alma Mater, the rich experience of cultivating robust Christian learning was typically not one of them. Even the speaker at my baccalaureate couldn't help mixing Christianity with politics and civil religion. In short, Christian learning is often viewed as a means to an ends (e.g. training the leaders of tomorrow), not an end in itself. This means that Evangelicals are uninterested in the scholarly content of Christian learning, only its utility in the culture war. This devastating for Christian culture. Christians are right to affirm that academia is a critical component of the spread of secular culture, but the lament of Evangelicals to this effect is matched only by their impotence in doing anything to counteract it with a model of true Christian learning.

Populism - Evangelical neglect of culturally important institutions is typically justified by an erroneous understanding of culture. Evangelicals typically think that mass evangelism is the way to win cultural influence. What is ironic is that the rise of the mass evangelism movement runs parallel to the collapse of a Christian impact on culture. This is because cultural influence is not gained by numbers. Christianity, even if reduced to the 40% or so of those who we might say are true practicing Christians (as opposed to nominal - "in name only" - Christians), is still the largest single world view in the country. Yet its share in the culture economy is vastly below this. This is because it not quantity that matters but quality. Think, for instance, of the influence that people of Jewish ethnicity have due to the fact that they are typically well-educated and well-cultured (about 1.7% of the nation is Jewish, but one-third of the supreme court is Jewish). Jews, faced with extreme prejudice through their history in the Western world, had to form a strong culture or else be subsumed by the larger culture. Evangelicalism is typified by a misguided attempt to dominate popular culture. The problem is that pop culture is merely a vulgarized and commercialized interpretation of high culture. If we look at summer blockbusters, pop music, or television sit coms, we see commercial imitations of high culture trends such as existentialism, pragmatism, hedonism, and relativism. Evangelicals are puzzled why, despite the mass production of Christian movies, books, and praise music, Christianity lacks the ability to influence the lives of the average American. Evangelical churches routinely fail to even influence the lives of many of their congregants. The reason is that the Church cannot exist merely as a pop culture institution, because such institutions are inherently weak without high culture support. The average American falls for the ills of American pop culture, such as movies, songs, and TV shows that glorify sexual promiscuity and individualism because they have been prompted to do so through public schools, the media, secular colleges, film, and books published by secular-minded publishing companies. These areas of high culture continually preach human autonomy and moral relativism regarding traditional mores. Without such high culture support, the attempt to be "relevant" in pop culture makes Christianity look kitsch, sentimental, and weird to non-Christians and even many Christians. Often Evangelicalism makes Christianity look shallow and superficial due to its overemphasis on the popular. When this perception is exported through mass evangelism (think of those tracks you always find at the mall), the result can be that more harm has been done than good.

A Grown-up Society

Both of these articles capture perfectly what I had written in a recent blog, that is, until it was aaccidently ereased and I lost it. My point was that Western society needs to grow up. It needs to face reality instead of indulging in illusion. We need to realize the value of hard work and community instead of being individualistic and thinking we are all owed something.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/08/18/hard_work_and_the_real_meaning_of_wealth_111009.html

http://chronicle.com/article/Do-Them-No-Favors-Tell-Them/128583/

Could the US use a 'Big Society'?

All modern societies operate on two different levels of social organization - the informal level (non-official institutions such as families, communities, churches, private organizations etc.) and the formal level (official institutions, i.e. state and federal governments. My Law and Society professor pointed out that while the informal level of organization accounts for the majority of our social control (personally I dislike this term; it sounds very Orwellian but really means the sum of customs, norms, traditions, and laws that enable a society to live in harmony) Americans almost always appeal to formal social institutions to solve our societies multifarious problems. If there is a natural disaster people immediately call on FEMA, despite the massive amount of aid that private charities and churches provide (such as in the aftermath of Katrina). Conservative Christians, who often despise big government, nevertheless appeal to that big government to further their agendas. Looking to the government to solve social problems is what has caused government to grow so large in the first place. Beginning in the early 20th century, though this effort was most pronounced in the post-war era of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, leading public figures believed that through government societies could be engineered using "scientific" knowledge from the social sciences. Social science research continues to be a huge influence in law-making and judicial decisions. While social science is central to understanding how society functions and how we can make good and effective laws based on moral principles, it has often been accompanied with utilitarianism and a heavy-handed elitism. Efforts to engineer society are almost always aimed not at achieving moral improvement but at creating the kind of society that those in power want.

It is frightening to consider how little influence our elected representatives actually have in the day-to-day operation of our government. Bills that are passed by legislatures are long, complex, and purposely vague so that their actual interpretation and implementation is left to a network of administrators and bureaucrats (who aren't elected) and politicians can deflect blame for programs gone wrong. Many conservatives (or people who style themselves as conservatives) think the solution is a "return" to rugged individualism. This belief among "conservatives" is precisely why I am opposed to movements such as the Tea Party. Individualism has not decreased in America, it has grown rampant. The paradox of big government is that it produces individualism. Since people automatically appeal to giant, impersonal government bureaucracies for help community ties are severely weakened. People are selfish by nature and when big government erodes the bonds of informal social control with increased formal social control the individual is severed from all meaningful social bonds and becomes individualistic and narcissistic. This has been especially toxic since throughout the past 200 years human autonomy has been ideal. Thinkers such as Locke and Thoreau taught people to think of social bonds, not as natural or necessary elements of human existence, but as contracts that people willing enter into and can willing leave.

The death of community that the heavy reliance on formal social institutions has brought about is paralleled by the death of civic responsibility. How often to we seriously care about our communities? How often do we help the poor in our neighborhood, engage in church activities outside of worship, organize community events, or even get to know our neighbor? Americans focus primarily on their own self interest or their political interests. Often, though unwittingly, the lifestyle of average American contributes to the problems that they want to see solved. This lack of civic responsibility has created a culture that is lonely, insecure, self-centered, consumerist, shallow, and trivial.

If these trends are to be reversed (and they can be reversed. Americans need to stop thinking about the inexorable movement of history. We as individuals help create history) conservatives need to stop talking about individualism and start talking about community. This is precisely what conservatives across the pond have been doing with their Big Society initiative. Republicans need, like the Tories have already done, to stop talking about giving individuals back their "rights" and start talking about empowering communities to take over the responsibilities of a bloated federal government. Increased individualism only increases a vicious cycle; individualism, having had their informal community bonds cut by formal institutions, will increasingly look to those formal institutions. I will close with an anecdote which will serve to reinforce my point. 100 years ago, despite the fact that drugs were produced and legal, the US had no narcotics problem. Today, despite a boom in formal, government opposition to drugs through widespread education programs aimed at young people, commercials, and the DEA, the US continues to have an enormous narcotics problem. It is a problem that raises hell for our Latin American neighbors to the south. The difference between now and 100 years ago is that informal social control, the most effective kind of social control, is being replaced by generally ineffective formal social control. The reason I don't smoke pot isn't because it's illegal or a program in high school told me not it. It is because my family and my church has taught me not to.