Centennial Review

Principled Ideas from the Centennial Institute Volume 3, Number 7 July 2011 Publisher, William L. Armstrong Editor, John Andrews

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LEFTIST DOMINANCE OF THE UNIVERSITIES: CAUSES & CURES

By Benjamin Wiker
In acquainting myself with Colorado Christian University, I was interested to learn that two of your strategic objectives are to be seekers of truth and to debunk spent ideas and those who traffic in them. These two obviously belong together. Seekers of truth should root out falsehood.

had to study arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, natural philosophy, grammar, logic, and rhetoric. But this was all undertaken with the firm belief that, since God is the Creator of nature and the human mind, natural knowledge was goodand that natural knowledge would lead to the higher truths of the faith. Thats how the universities began. But we look at the situation today, and it seems quite the opposite. Universities, at least the most famous and prestigious, pride themselves on unbelief, on the conviction that knowledge of the natural world leads us away from belief in God, away from faith. Accordingly, all the great American universities like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, which started out as essentially Christian universities with Christian missions, have one after another disavowed their Christian roots. The same is true of the great and famous European universities like Cambridge and Oxford.

In our present culture, however, that presents a difficulty. Those who accept a Christian understanding of things all too often find that the most venerable institutions Harvard What gives? What happened? How did a charged with seeking the truth, our universities, are started out Christian invention, defined by the Christian dominated by those who are hostile to Christianity. The understanding that we must be seekers of secular left has come to control our universities, and the Christian. truth, get turned against Christianity? prestige of the universities lavishly covers those who Seeds of Secularism are bent on debunking Christianity itself as a spent idea. To make a very long and complex story shortand to The first step in correcting this situation must be a step pick up the thread here in AmericaAmerican universities backward. We must step way back from our current were Christian all the way through the 19th century. But situation, far back from the moiling controversies, and look something very interesting then happened. America did at the larger historical scene. That will allow us the critical not have any graduate schools at that point. If you wanted distance to see how the secular takeover of the universities to get an advanced degree, a doctorate, you had to go to occurred, and even more important, the most effective Europe. strategy for dealing with it. Must Knowledge Erode Faith? When we step back far enough historically we notice something striking. Universities are not eternal (whatever they themselves think to the contrary). They are, in fact, an invention of the Christian Middle Ages, beginning sometime in the latter half of the 12th century. Nothing like it existed before - a definite place where scholars gathered and had a well-defined body of texts to teach students in definite courses with definite subject matters, all of this being part of an authoritative institutional body that granted degrees: bachelors, masters, and doctorate. Although the universities were essentially Christian institutions, they didnt just teach theology. Before you could go on to study theology or law or medicine, you For Americans of the time, Europe seemed to have all the great and venerable cultural resources, including the great secular universities, especially those in Germany. The German scholars were considered to be at the very pinnacle of intellectual achievement. German scholarship was scholarship.
Benjamin Wiker (Ph.D., Vanderbilt) has taught philosophy, theology, and ethics at Marquette University, St. Marys University (MN), Thomas Aquinas College, and Franciscan University. This essay is based on three talks he gave at Colorado Christian University on April 14-15, 2011. Centennial Institute sponsors research, events, and publications to enhance public understanding of the most important issues facing our state and nation. By proclaiming Truth, we aim to foster faith, family, and freedom, teach citizenship, and renew the spirit of 1776.

When I say that the German universities were secular I mean something quite particular. Whether or not they may have had religious roots originally, the secular worldview had, by the late 1800s, come to dominate in them. By secular, we mean the view that Christianity belongs to the age of superstition, and that it needs to be left behind because the age of reason and science has now dawned. Thus when Americans went over to Germanys graduate schools to get their degrees they learned all the latest secular philosophythe philosophy that ultimately defines what we now call the Left. After sitting at the feet of their German university professors for several years, the newly degreed Americans then sailed home at the beginning of the 20th century to become the first generation of European-trained American graduate school faculty. Marx Migrates Westward

formed our universities in the 20th century, the ideas that still dominate nearly all the universities of the West. Still dominate. Thats important, because these bad ideas are not in fact fully spent. Theyre still spending. They wont be spent until Christians show that they are bankrupt. In order to do so, we must again take the long historical view, and get to the roots of secularism. As we have seen, the ideas that formed the secular left were imported to America from Europe in the early 20th century. But how did the European universities, which were originally Christian, become infected with secularism? Thats an even more complicated story, especially as we descend to the political, social, and cultural details. Given the constrained space of this essay, its best to focus on the ideas that did the infecting, rather than try to follow out the actual winding routes by which the transmission of the infection occurred. Eden Surpassed?

The central idea of secularism is rather old. One can find it arising all the way back in the early 14th century with Marsilius of Padua. But it arises with especial clarity and They brought with them the thought of Rousseau, Hegel, power in the early 16th century with Machiavelli, and winds Marx, Comte, the historical-critical approach to Scripture, its way through a number of prominent modern thinkers, the work of the sociologists of religion, the arguments from Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, of Darwin and Spencer, and a host of other foreign ideas and Benedict Spinoza, through the Radical Enlightenment supporting a radical secular revolution. They proceeded to of the 18th century, on into the 19th century with Karl make these thinkers the foundation of higher learning in Marx, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Auguste Comte, America after 1900. Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, JeanSo it was that the first generation of European-trained Look for the Paul Sartre, and so on, into the 20th and scholars became the professors of Americas new now the 21st century. graduate schools. They made the second generation German label. The central idea of secularism is also after themselves, and the second generation made rather simple. The secular revolutionaries argue that the third generationthe professors of the stormy Christianity, with its focus on the next life, ruins our 1960s. The third generation begat another, and so forth. prospects in this life. We could make this world a whole All the begotten fanned out into the various levels of lot better place, so they argue, even surpass the legendary undergraduate and graduate teaching. Eden, if we would only turn all our attention and efforts That is why the universities remain to this day, in America, toward building up and repairing this world, this physical, the bastions of the secular left. Degree-granting authority you-can-touch-it, right-in-front-of-your-eyes world. But and hiring are defined by expertise in, and affirmation this will only happen, they contend, if we give up any of, the various strains of philosophical, political, literary, notion of the immaterial soul that survives death in historical, and yes, theological thought that formed the another, better world. intellectual tradition of liberalism. Thats how the secular left came to dominate the universities, and, largely, how it continues to dominate the universities. CENTENNIAL REVIEW is published monthly by the Centennial Institute at I hope that the importance of the two aforementioned strategic objectives of Colorado Christian University stands out as even clearer and more compelling now. Retaking the university, the cultural institution defined by seeking the truth, depends upon Christians debunking the spent ideas of secularismthe ideas that formed the German universities in the 19th century, the ideas that thereby
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Colorado Christian University. The authors views are not necessarily those of CCU. Designer, Danielle Hull. Illustrator, Benjamin Hummel. Subscriptions free upon request. Write to: Centennial Institute, 8787 W. Alameda Ave., Lakewood, CO 80226. Call 800.44.FAITH. Or visit us online at www.CentennialCCU.org. Please join the Centennial Institute today. As a Centennial donor, you can help us restore Americas moral core and prepare tomorrows leaders. Your gift is tax-deductible. Please use the envelope provided. Thank you for your support. - John Andrews, Director

Every aspect of what we call the Leftas it is formed in the universities and fans out in our culturecan be traced to its purposeful turn to this physical world, to salvation in this world, to finding our ultimate pleasures in this world, to curing all the ills of this world, because for them, this world is all there is.1 The Task for Christians To say that this simple idea is bankrupt, and should be considered spent, is to say that human beings cannot live as if they were merely bodily creatures, as if they had no soul, as if the soul were not the key to understanding what a human being is, what morality is, how our political life should be ordered, and what a sound economy means. The task for Christians is to show that the secular idea of human beings as soulless animals with no other destiny than extinction, and no other joy than physical pleasure and comfort, is an idea that leads toand in fact is now leading tosocial, political, moral, economic, philosophical, and personal degradation and selfAre we destruction. This is the ultimate but soulless debunking.

Voices of CCU

STARS TO STEER BY
Dr. Wikers article alludes to the strategic objectives of Colorado Christian University. Those objectives, drafted by President William L. Armstrong and adopted by the Board of Trustees in 2006, are as follows: H onor Christ and share the love of Christ on campus and around the world; Teach students to trust the Bible, live holy lives and be evangelists; Armstrong B e a magnet for outstanding students and prepare them for positions of significant leadership in the church, business, government and professions by offering an excellent education in strategic disciplines; T each students how to learn; T each students how to think for themselves; T each students how to speak and write clearly and effectively; G ive students significant opportunities to serve our Lord while they are at CCU and to help them develop a lifetime habit of such service; I mpact our culture in support of traditional family values, sanctity of life, compassion for the poor, Biblical view of human nature, limited government, personal freedom, free markets, natural law, original intent of the Constitution and Western civilization; B e seekers of truth; D ebunk spent ideas and those who traffic in them; A sk God to multiply our time and ability to the glory of His great name; B e a servant of the Church; and B ecome a great university.

And this is what I have tried to do, or at least make a start of, in my Ten Books That Screwed Up the World, and Five Others That Didnt Help.2 It covers such works as Machiavellis The Prince, Hobbes Leviathan, Marxs Communist Manifesto, John Stuart Mills Utilitarianism, Charles Darwins, Descent of Man, Friedrich Nietzsches Beyond Good and Evil, Adolf Hitlers Mein Kampf, and Margaret Sangers Pivot of Civilization.

animals?

Centennial Institute
Colorado Christian University

Contrary to the charge sometimes made against it, the point of my book is not to unleach the censors. It is to get people to read these bad books, these profoundly evil booksespecially the clear-thinking people who study or teach in Christian universities like CCU. That should sound a bit ironic. After all, my claim is that these books led to the secular revolution. They are indeed the revolutionary manifestoes of secularism. If they had never been written, then Christianity would never have lost control of the universities. Shouldnt they just be banned? Because you cant fight what you dont understand, and understanding these books is key in getting to know the enemy, in getting to know deeply and thoroughly the secular mind that seeks to displace Christianity once and for all. Needless to say, in Ten Books That Screwed Up the World, I am leading readers through these texts as a Christian, and
1. The word secular is itself derived from the Latin saeculorum, connoting this present age, this world. 2. Regnery, 2008. A companion volume, Ten Books Every Conservative Must Read, Plus Four Not to Miss and One Impostor, was published in 2010.

hence through the historical formation of the secular mind as it is seen from the vantage of Christianity. But the goal is to gain a deep knowledge of the fundamental secular presuppositions about nature, human nature, and God. We cannot mount a successful counter-revolution until we have a deep and strong grasp of the revolution itself. To embark on re-Christianization, we must engage with the ideas that led to de-Christianization. What the Left Wont Admit I advocate book-reading, not book-banning. And there is another reason for doing so, one that adds zest to the whole effort. The secular left has, by and large, a sanitized view of its own intellectual origins. Generally, they dont read the pivotal books that formed the secular mind, but derivative works. If they have read the pivotal works, they dont really want their students or the general public to pry into them too closely, ask questions, and make connections. In short, the secular left censors its own origins, and once you readread very thoroughly and thoughtfullythe central books of the secular revolution youll understand why. They contain an embarrassment of riches in regard to evidently evil ideas, and so the left would rather they remain unstudied. Take the example of Margaret Sanger. She is well known
Centennial Review, July 2011 3

Centennial Review
July 2011

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Leftist Dominance of the Universities: Causes & Cures

By Benjamin Wiker After 1900, Americas centers of learning followed Europes lead to seek worldly salvation and discount the soul. To reclaim the academy, Christians must confront the pivotal thinkers of secularism and refute them.

as the founder of Planned Parenthood. Yet her own book Pivot of Civilization is one that youll never find on sale at the Planned Parenthood website. Why? Sanger was a redhot eugenicist whose aim in promoting birth control was to keep those whom she called the imbeciles, morons, feebleminded, and the otherwise degenerate dead weight of human waste from further flooding the gene pool. By some of her calculations, she considered about 50% of the population unfit, and hence among those who never should have been born. What effect would it have on a Western Civilization course if all students read Sangers work as part of it? Or what about Hitlers Mein Kampf? Everyone knows Hitler is the very epitome of evil, even and especially for the left. But how many people actually read Mein Kampf? In it, you find that the driving force was not simply anti-Semitism; anti-Semitism was part of a larger eugenic, evolutionary worldview inherited from Darwin. Since the left hates Hitler (and rightly so), but loves Darwin, they must present Nazism as if it were primarily an anti-Semitic phenomenon (which they in turn attempt to blame on Christians) while skirting the evolutionary connections. But students will only discover this if they close their sanitized Western Civ book and open Mein Kampf. Darkness in Need of Light Speaking of Darwin, everyone should read his Descent of Man. The left tries to let Darwin off the hook for any connection to the consequent horrors of eugenics, but a thorough reading of Darwins Descent of Man scuttles any such attempt. Darwin makes deadly clear what it means to reject God, and to apply natural selection to the evolutionary development, past and future, of human beings. He is the father of applied eugenics, despite his own impeccable personal morality and his sincere misgivings about the implications of his theory. I could give many other examples, and on a much deeper level, but let this suffice to make the point: Our culture will
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be reclaimed, in great part, by reclaiming the universities. That not only means seeking and teaching the truth as it has been revealed to us. It also means seeking out falsehood and exposing it to the light of day. In so doing, I submit, we have revelation on our side. For it remains as true today as when Jesus first stated it, that everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed (John 3:20). And the counsel of St. Paul for dealing with such malignancy remains valid as well. We should indeed have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness. Instead we should faithfully and fearlessly expose them (Eph. 5:11).

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