We live in bizarre times when Wheaton College, under a conservative Presbyterian president who waged a successful legal attack on Obamacare, is described as having a "leftward drift." So much about this article is silly, but I do think it speaks to a serious issue. 🧵 firstthings.com/god-and-man-... - ThreadSky

dwcongdon.com • 24 days ago

We live in bizarre times when Wheaton College, under a conservative Presbyterian president who waged a successful legal attack on Obamacare, is described as having a "leftward drift." So much about this article is silly, but I do think it speaks to a serious issue. 🧵
https://firstthings.com/god-and-man-at-wheaton/

Comments

trivesbell.bsky.social•24 days ago

Super minor point, but I hate the use of the word “convictional” in articles like these as it seems like an empty vessel.

dwcongdon.com•24 days ago

Much like the equally empty phrase "sincerely held."

revjulieh.bsky.social•24 days ago

May they strive to keep Christ as Lord and Him alone, and not cave to xian nationalism. Lord have mercy.

dwcongdon.com•24 days ago

Wheaton, much like InterVarsity and Christianity Today, belongs to an evangelicalism that largely no longer exists—an evangelicalism that, while very conservative on many measures, was intellectually curious and supportive of traditional democratic political and ecclesial institutions.

stephenwaldron.bsky.social•23 days ago

I've long appreciated @slacktivistfred.bsky.social's label "evangelical faculty lounge."

(My current theory is that evangelicalism in the US is now like a triangle, with Reconstructionism, the NAR, and the faculty lounge as the three corners. An "evangelical" is someone somewhere in that triangle.)

dwcongdon.com•23 days ago

Both the faculty lounge and the triangle are really good metaphors. I think you have it right.

dwcongdon.com•24 days ago

That evangelicalism is, for all intents and purposes, dead. It's not coming back. This puts these organizations in a very difficult position. They can't effectively align themselves with the authoritarian Christofascist drift of the evangelical populace, because others already occupy those spaces.

dwcongdon.com•24 days ago

There are other reasons for not going full on MAGA, but probably the biggest reason is a simple matter of branding and corporate identity. Wheaton can never become a Liberty, nor would it want to. IVP is never going to become Crossway or Regnery. CT isn't going to become WORLD, Charisma, or FT.

dcsmith.bsky.social•24 days ago

The problem at so many Evangelical institutions. They tried to keep one foot with the base while stepping toward prestige/academic legitimacy. As those two worlds drift apart, they're left with nothing underneath them. And for tuition-driven institutions, that's an extinction level event.

dwcongdon.com•24 days ago

(We should add Fuller into this conservation as well, but it's future might be very different from the others.)

On the flip side, though, it's hard to see any of these organizations making a genuine leftward move, because of course that alienates their core base. Always follow the money.

dwcongdon.com•24 days ago

So where is a Wheaton to go? I honestly don't know. Wheaton's administration is well aware that the average student who attends the college is far more progressive than the Wheaton branding might suggest. That's basic sociology. Those with more education and higher income tend to be more liberal.

subhousewife.bsky.social•11 days ago

There was a time in the 70s where they were not charged a bill for water from the city I believe. They couldn’t dance until 2003 and relaxing this was a big deal.

billkoechling.bsky.social•20 days ago

"...the college is far more progressive than the Wheaton branding might suggest." That was my experience and I graduated in 1972.

dwcongdon.com•24 days ago

The trends in evangelicalism and US Christianity don't bode well for a place like Wheaton. This is oversimplified, but higher education and more social safety nets feed secularization by removing some of the basic drives toward religion, so it's no wonder that Trump wants to attack them.

ntd.bsky.social•24 days ago

Such a disconnect bw the administration and avg student. In a past long long ago I did my undergrad at Wheaton’s podunk Indiana cousin, Taylor University. Long story, that. Anyways, the administrator’s were an order of magnitude more conservative than students, even then. Funny pickle.

venerablebidet.bsky.social•24 days ago

A friend of mine went to Wheaton and has been complaining about the current administration being too authoritarian (FWIW, friend's politics are complicated but are have drifted left on many issues in later adulthood). Wheaton does strike me as unsustainable in this environment.

venerablebidet.bsky.social•24 days ago

It always struck me as one of the few US colleges that were both extremely religious and academically rigorous (as opposed to something like Liberty that really shouldn't be accredited as a university)

dwcongdon.com•24 days ago

Wheaton is a really unique place, and much more so today, as many of its former competitors have either abandoned their academic rigor or have shuttered their doors. For all my disagreements with the institution, I do want them to succeed. But I want them to be better.

venerablebidet.bsky.social•24 days ago

I'm an atheist lefty, but I'm all for quality education across the spectrum, and they are a very good school in a unique niche

jasongoroncy.bsky.social•24 days ago

'Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will'. – Joseph Goebbels

'Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda'. – Hannah Arendt

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