Did they get it right?
‘Like a lot of Christian colleges in the United States, Biola has in recent years made serious efforts to compete academically with secular and more mainstream religiously affiliated colleges. That hasn't meant a reduced emphasis on religious teachings. If anything, the school has intensified its commitment to cultivating devout Christians. But it does mean that the school has expanded its curriculum in areas of study like psychology, bioethics and popular culture, and that it is encouraging a new level of engagement with the secular world.’
[Quoted From The New York Times Magazine]
On Sept. 5, the New York Times Magazine featured a six-page article about Biola University titled “All God’s Children.” The article’s publication coincided with the launch of Biola’s new vision, giving the University an opportunity to advance its goal of becoming an influential evangelical voice that addresses crucial cultural issues. Here, Biola Connections expands on aspects of the article that have provoked thoughtful discussion among the evangelical community.
by Holly PetersSamantha Shapiro — the reporter who spent two and a half weeks living on Biola’s campus — cited two signs of advanced academic work at Biola: the large number of graduates who’ve been placed in the nation’s top philosophy Ph.D. programs and the school’s advanced degree offerings.
The presence of strong academics at a university might not typically be newsworthy. But it is when one considers that the development of the mind hasn’t been a priority within much of the conservative Christianity of the past century. Shapiro hints at this in her article where she makes a distinction between those she calls “fundamentalists” (who advocate separation from the world and view certain academic fields as secular) and “evangelicals” (who believe the biblical way to reach the world for Christ is through engagement and that “all truth is God’s truth”). Shapiro properly identifies Biola as evangelical (although Biola is firmly committed to the fundamentals of the Christian faith).
Biola’s desire to engage the world, according to Shapiro, was reflected in its shift from a Bible college that prepared most students to become pastors, missionaries and church workers to an accredited liberal arts university that also prepares students for a full range of vocations. It is also reflected, she said, in Biola’s philosophy of education.
Dr. Cook elaborated on this philosophy in an interview with Biola Connections. He said that, while Biola is committed to teaching truth, the faculty seeks to accomplish this by exposing students to opposing viewpoints. That’s because a true education, he said, allows students to question ideas and wrestle with them so they can make them their own. For example, Biola students don’t only read books written by Christians. They’re also assigned texts written by agnostics, Buddhists and people representing other non-Christian viewpoints.
Of course, there’s always the risk that students might buy into false viewpoints. That was the fear of a parent who made his son leave Biola when he learned the library has books by Karl Marx. But Dr. Cook said that if Biola is going to provide a real education, then the school has to be willing to take that risk. Besides, Christians needn’t fear exposure to other views, he said, because truth can withstand scrutiny.
“In the long run, it’s better for students to be challenged at Biola where their professors can help them wrestle with their questions and internalize their beliefs,” Dr. Cook said. “Otherwise, when students go out into the world and have their beliefs challenged, they might leave their faith.”
Dr. Cook admitted there is a tension between keeping Biola on track theologically and upholding what Shapiro refers to as the “academic ideal of free inquiry.” The tugs from outside Christianity (secularism and other religions) can be easier to resist than the subtle pulls from within Christianity. For example, a growing number of Christian scholars are abandoning the doctrine of biblical inerrancy and are adopting forms of Darwinism and postmodernism. In response, Biola’s commitments to inerrancy, the Genesis creation account, and absolute truth have been re-emphasized in faculty interviews and in the doctrinal statement signed by faculty and staff members each year.
This resolve has paid off, according to Dr. Cook. “I think Biola has shown that you can be uncompromising in your Christian commitment and still be academically respectable,” he said.
Ted Olsen, an editor for Christianity Today, agrees. He was quoted by Shapiro as saying that Biola, “pretty much falls dead center in the middle of the evangelical movement.”
In a later interview, Olsen told Biola Connections what he meant by his comment: “Biola’s evangelical commitments are solid, but it is also very much devoted to a liberal arts higher education and is very much engaged in the world.” This combination, he said, has made Biola one of the top Christian colleges in America.
Evangelizing Is Not An Abstract Ideal
Not surprisingly, the thing that seemed to bother Shapiro most about Biola is the belief that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation. She detailed how this very un-postmodern belief plays itself out in Biola’s dedication to missions and evangelism.
Shapiro seemed struck by how evangelistic Biola students are, saying in her article, “Evangelizing is not an abstract ideal at Biola, or a mission restricted to a few days out of the year.” To substantiate her statement, she described the evangelistic ministries students initiate in their free time. Students and faculty even used their interviews with her as opportunities to share the gospel. According to Shapiro, they went so far as to invite her to watch The Passion of the Christ and offer to pay for her ticket.
In her portrayal of the importance of missions at Biola, Shapiro painted a vivid picture of the annual Missions Conference — which coincided with her visit to campus. The conference theme of social justice showed that Biolans are not only concerned about people’s eternal well being, but also about temporal suffering caused by poverty and injustice. This delighted Karen Di Filippo, a senior, intercultural studies major and the head of Biola’s Social Justice Ministry. Before transferring to Biola, Di Filippo volunteered with Amnesty International at the secular school she attended.
“At the other school, I found that students were often apathetic about social justice and would say they didn’t have time to sign a petition or get involved,” Di Filippo said. “But I’m proud to say that Biola students care about these issues.”
The focus given to missions in Shapiro’s article also pleased Dr. Cook, a former missionary and former president of the missionary organization, Overseas Crusades. During Dr. Cook’s tenure at Biola — first as a missions professor and then as president — he has worked hard to keep missions front and center, including forming the School of Intercultural Studies in 1983, which had previously been only a missions department. He also made the Acts class — which is taught from a missions perspective — a requirement for all undergraduate students and has preserved the Missions Conference, where classes are dismissed and the University focuses on missions.
“There’s a huge need for Biola to continue to send out missionaries as 10,000 people groups still don’t have a viable church and two billion people haven’t even heard the name of Christ,” Dr. Cook said. “We need cross-cultural workers to learn the language of these people groups, develop relationships with them and present the gospel.”
Yet Dr. Cook’s view of missions isn’t limited to cross-cultural work. As America grows increasingly secular, he sees a vital need for Christians to view every vocation as ministry. So Biola prepares students to enter all fields with a missionary mindset.
“Every student graduating from Biola has a ministry whether it’s teaching students, being a homemaker, a nurse, a business person, a philosopher, making films, earning a Ph.D. at a university, or dozens of other vocations,” Dr. Cook said.
No Cheerleaders or Frat Boys
In reporting on student life at Biola, Shapiro observed that “the typical collegiate social hierarchy does not apply. There are no cheerleaders or frat boys.”
Instead, she described a campus where three very different types of students converge: the more “worldly” students who grew up in the public school system; the “sheltered” students who were private schooled and home schooled; and the “wild card” missionary kids (MKs) who grew up in different countries.
The students who spoke to Biola Connections acknowledged truth in these stereotypes. Joshua Warren — a former Neo-Nazi from Lancaster, Calif., who was interviewed and photographed for the article — represented the public-schooled students. (Public-schooled students make up the majority of Biola students, followed by Christian-schooled students.)
In an interview with Biola Connections, Warren admitted that his tattoos and grunge clothing stand out on campus. But he’s always felt accepted by other Biola students who, he said, are able to look past outward appearances and recognize their unity in Christ. Indeed, someone looking only at outward appearances might be surprised at the depth of thought and Christian commitment that come out in a just a short conversation with Warren, a history major who plans to become a historical archivist.
When asked if home-schooled students are awkward — as Shapiro depicts them in her article — Warren said both his MK and home-schooled friends do have very different outlooks on life than the public-schooled students.
“I guess by definition ‘awkward’ just means they don’t fit into the social norm,” he said. “In that sense, there are people from all three groups who are awkward.”
Like the MK from Singapore who lives in the dorm room next to Warren: “His views on punishing criminals are really crazy. But in Singapore, if you spray paint a wall they’ll hit you with a cane,” Warren said.
Or like his home-schooled friend with the interesting shopping strategy Warren observed at a thrift store near campus. His friend found the men’s medium-to-large rack, grabbed an armful of shirts, and put them in a basket without ever looking at them.
“He just doesn’t care about a lot of things public-schooled kids value, like being cool and following trends,” Warren said, laughing, but with a hint of admiration in his voice.
Jonathan Olsen, a home-schooled student who graduated from Biola in 2003, is now in a master’s program at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. Olsen agreed with Shapiro’s observation that some homeschoolers are defensive about their education. He also agreed that some home-schooled students, certainly not all, draw attention to themselves with a social uneasiness and lack of style.
“It’s unfortunately common for Biola students to get the impression that all the homeschoolers they know are odd,” Olsen said. “[When] I mentioned that I was home schooled some of my friends expressed surprise because they thought all homeschoolers looked or acted a certain way.” Olsen said he never felt awkward around his public-schooled peers because his parents involved him in community activities while growing up, including drama, Boy Scouts and competitive league basketball.
Joy Peck, the president of the missionary kid society Mu Kappa, agreed with Shapiro that it’s hard to categorize MKs, of whom there are about 170 at Biola’s undergraduate level. Though mostly American citizens, they’ve grown up in diverse backgrounds, ranging from first-world Japan to third-world Africa. Peck — a senior, secondary education major — grew up in a jungle in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
MKs stick together, Peck said, because they can relate to each other (for example, in their shock over American materialism). And “we don’t ask each other stupid questions like, ‘did you ride an elephant to school?’” Peck said.
And most MKs are proud of their background. “When you know a different language and culture, you feel like you have an ‘in’ into two different words,” Peck said. This solidarity has made Mu Kappa one of the largest campus clubs. They go on retreats and help each other adjust to such foreign things as driving on L.A. freeways and using ATM machines.
Living By ‘The Rules’
In any secular article about a Christian college, a list of “the rules” is inevitable. Shapiro’s article, predictably, explains Biola’s prohibitions against drinking, smoking, dancing at Biola functions, and extra-marital sex. The greater part of this section, though, addresses Biola’s policies regarding homosexuality.
John Mark Reynolds — the head of Biola’s Torrey Honors Institute — said he felt Shapiro gave this issue undue emphasis considering the low number of college students, secular or Christian, who are gay. Biola recently participated in a national health study that revealed that only 1.1 percent of college students nationwide identify themselves as homosexual, and only 0.2 percent of Biola students do.
“The reporter took the gay rights issue and made it disproportionately important on our campus because it’s important to her and her [secular] cultural background,” Dr. Reynolds said. “People at Biola aren’t sitting around all the time thinking about how to expel gay students or be mean to them. [But] the New York Times has a really strong interest, right up to the editorial level, in promoting gay rights issues.”
Yet Gary Strauss — who teaches the human sexuality course at Biola’s Rosemead School of Psychology — thinks more students struggle with homosexuality than admit it. The same health study revealed that 1.3 percent of Biola students describe themselves as “unsure” of their sexual identity (compared to 2 percent of college students nationwide).
Students who are struggling with homosexuality are often referred to Dr. Strauss for counseling by the Student Affairs Office or by other faculty members, and some students seek him out themselves. After interacting with a number of students over the years, Dr. Strauss has concluded that there’s a need in the Christian community, Biola included, to become a safer environment for people to be open about their struggles with homosexuality and to ask for help.
When counseling students on this issue, Dr. Strauss said he addresses them individually. That’s because he’s convinced the origins of homosexual behavior are complex, varying from person to person (although he doesn’t believe there’s any conclusive evidence that homosexuality is essentially genetic).
“The primary issue is, what does this student want to do about this? If my client wants to work on gaining increasing freedom from the domination of same-sex desires and moving toward heterosexuality then my objective is to do everything I can to help that person,” Dr. Strauss said. Although he is only able to counsel students short-term, he has seen students make some progress.
Students who have adamantly continued to participate in homosexual behavior have been asked to leave Biola “for refusing to live within the community standards they voluntarily accepted,” said John Back, the dean of Student Affairs. But that is a last resort, he said, and any violation of the code of conduct — be it homosexual activity or drunkenness — is considered on a case-by-case basis.
In working with students, the Student Affairs Office takes into account a variety of factors, including what precipitated the behavior, signs of repentance, and a desire to live according to biblical principles. In some cases, students enroll in counseling or sign a contract allowing them to stay provided the behavior is not repeated.
“It’s the behavior we’re looking at,” Back said. “We don’t want to condemn someone who struggles with thoughts of homosexuality. Rather we want to come alongside them and help them with the issues they’re working through.”
The Student Affairs Office encourages students who are struggling with homosexuality to seek help by talking with their resident directors or the Associate Dean of Student Affairs and Community Life, Danny Paschall, who have been trained to sensitively address this issue.
What Does It All Mean?
As it turned out, many Biolans were pleasantly surprised by the article. Shapiro’s treatment — though secularly biased — was thoughtful, her tone friendly. The thrust of the article is the tensions that exist at a school that, on one hand, is firmly committed to the tenets of evangelical Christianity and, on the other, is seeking to engage the larger world with those beliefs.
Biola has long been respected, within the evangelical community, for upholding crucial biblical teachings. A 2003 survey of Campus Lifereaders — a national Christian teen magazine — ranked Biola as No. 1 in doctrinal soundness among Christian colleges and universities. But, for the past 20 years, Biola and other conservative Christian schools have been increasingly engaged in higher academia — something that is rarely acknowledged by the secular media. For this reason, Books & Culture Magazine applauded the New York Times Magazine for its “belated discovery.”
Shapiro seemed to “get” Biola’s vision, even if she didn’t agree with it. While Shapiro describes herself as an Orthodox Jew, her concluding statements revealed a perspective that Christians, or others, are misguided if they believe they have a corner on the truth.
Irene Neller, Biola’s senior director of Integrated Marketing Communications, said the article did a great job of reiterating Biola’s mission, vision and values.
“It clearly states what we set out to do, which is to engage the culture and to become a global center for Christian thought,” Neller said. “By doing that, you are going to confront the world and that’s going to be uncomfortable at times. But we’ve received support from presidents of other Christian universities, faculty from other schools, and parents of Biola students who were really cheering Biola for standing firm and not being apologetic about what it believes to a very liberal media,” she said.
There was even positive response from non-Christian religious researchers who met at USC shortly after the article’s publication, according to Dr. Richard Flory, a Biola sociology professor who serves with USC’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture.
“Several people there had read the article and were favorably impressed with what it said about Biola’s efforts to be intellectually relevant while maintaining its core faith commitments,” Dr. Flory said.
The negative feedback from the secular world — three of the four reader letters printed in the next issue of the magazine — could also be viewed as positive for Biola. The letters said, in essence: “Shame on Biolans for trying to convert people to their religion.” (Hardly an affront to a school whose mission is to train men and women to impact the world for Christ.)
Dr. Flory saw the article as positive in the sense that the reporter didn’t take the “easy route” and present Biola as a “wacky, stereotypical fundamentalist organization.”
He said, “The way [Shapiro] framed the article was: here’s a place that isn’t on the extremes of either end of Christianity, but is in the middle struggling with how to act and be Christian in a world that is somewhat hostile to religion.”
Ideally, Biolans might have preferred that the article focus more on certain issues and less on others. Still, the article did give Biola a platform from which to share a thoughtful evangelical perspective on crucial cultural issues — something that, unfortunately, doesn’t happen that often. Something Biola is seeking to change.
© Biola University 2005