Cultural Update: The Threat to Christian Colleges; Harvard's Reparations Collapse; Turning the Page on Campus Coddling; A Lesson in Political Shrewdness

Episode Transcript

Rick Langer: [upbeat music] A new federal regulation requiring college graduates to out-earn non-degree holders threatens to defund Christian higher education programs. Harvard's $100 million reparations initiative collapses amid resignations, researcher firings, and the overwhelming complexity of identifying thousands of potential descendants of American slaves. Universities are turning the page on years of campus coddling and rediscovering academic standards and free speech as they respond, in part, to political pressure. And finally, dying Congressman Barney Frank tells Democrats that the key to reaching truly revolutionary goals, like the entire LGBTQ agenda, is starting where people can be moved and holding back on your ultimate goals. These are the stories we'll discuss on this edition of the Think Biblically Cultural Update, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology and Biola University. And I'm your host today, Rick Langer, and joining me is a good friend and colleague, Erik Thoennes. Erik, thanks for being with me.

Erik Thoennes: Good to be with you, Rick.

Rick Langer: We're both filling in together for your regular hosts, Scott Rae and Sean McDowell, who are both traveling this week and for unknown reasons have trusted us to take over this podcast for a week.

Erik Thoennes: [laughs]

Rick Langer: And so, Erik, thanks for doing this with me. Hang in there, and we'll see if we can make this work.

Erik Thoennes: Rick, it's gonna be great. I just know it.

Rick Langer: [laughs] All right. Well, our first story, was published this past week on the Christianity Today website, and it's titled Christian Colleges Call New Federal Regulations an Existential Threat. It turns out that 21 presidents of Christian colleges left their campuses late in April, which is a pretty busy time for a college president, to go to Washington, DC, and meet with lawmakers, and they pleaded their case against the new Department of Education regulation that they said could crater their programs. The regulation would label bachelor's or master's degree programs a failure if its graduates don't out-earn their peers without the degree. Students in these failing programs would become ineligible for federal financial aid. Now, here's the interesting thing about this. By the government's own estimates, 53% of bachelor degrees for religion and religious studies would be considered failing by this new metric. Master degrees are even worse. Up to 89% would be failing. And, the president of the, Association for Higher-- for Biblical Higher Education, Philip Dearborn, made the comment that this represents an existential threat to the future of religious higher education in the US. "I don't think that's an overstatement," he said. "The accountability framework that led to reducing the faith-based school value to future earnings potential of graduates will minimize or alter the self-understanding and effectively punish those institutions for advancing the service ethos that's driven by their religious convictions," wrote Asbury President Kevin Brown.

Rick Langer: Now, the financial aid, financial outcomes certainly matter, but they don't measure the totality of an education, said David Hogue, the president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.

Rick Langer: And it's, I think, finally worth noting that the, bottom line is that pastoral work is often not, lucrative, and we oftentimes don't want it to be. In fact, we have bad names that we call people who just go into pastoral ministry for the sake of money, and yet their education seems to be measured by its worth, and its worth assessed by whether or not it produces a good financial outcome. And that threat has now become something that could actually deep-six a whole lot of Christian college education. So Erik, what do you think about this crisis that we're facing?

Erik Thoennes: Well, I think that comment is true, that this would have a devastating effect on not just religious studies, but careers that aren't typically lucrative but have great value for society. And I have to think those who are heading in this direction aren't thinking about the broader implications in that sort of way. I have a feeling this is motivated by the recognition that financial aid is going to degrees that really are nonsense, you know, you know, feminist basket weaving sorts of degrees where people can [laughs] study all signs-- s- kinds of crazy things that really don't make a helpful contribution to society and don't position someone to actually pay off their loans once they have jobs, if they are able to get jobs. And so I certainly value higher education needing to contribute to the social good if the government is going to be helping with higher education. I... So I'm all for that. I'm all for thinking through what it means for us to have education that actually makes us capable of serving the social good more effectively. But to limit that to how lucrative your career is, I think is really missing the point of education in general. I was thinking about the swim test requirement that a lot of universities [laughs] used to have a long time ago, and I think the last one was Columbia in 2014 that did away with that requirement, and people think that's absurd. But if you think about it, education used to be seen as helping you become a better citizen, not just-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Erik Thoennes: ... Advance your career and become an individual who grows personally. But just think about how funny it is now to have a swim test requirement, butYou know, if you can't swim, you're a liability in society, and you're not gonna help anybody else who might be drowning. [laughs]

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Erik Thoennes: So I just love that old requirement that a lot of schools used to have, because it was thinking well beyond the individual. So in that sense, I appreciate this intention that higher education be contributing to society, but to reduce it to just financial capability rather than the ability to help in broader ways because of who you are as a result of your education, I think is incredibly shortsighted.

Rick Langer: Yeah. And I do think you made a point earlier on that there's intentions about making sure degrees do lead people to be able to do... Make a meaningful contribution to society, and also that you don't want students to be unable to repay their loans after they've taken out all these loans and they aren't able to get a job or anything that can help them recover that cost. But it is interesting that, I think a lot of this, during the, Biden administration, there were a lot of things that had come up about for-profit, colleges and things like that, and the amount, the percentage of loan repayment, the number of people who are stuck with excess debt, and this may have been part of a broader desire in the Biden administration to have college debt forgiveness or things like that. I don't know what all the agendas were, but there was a lot of talk about this with the for-profit institutions. But it is one of those things where I always worry about legislation that isn't actually hitting the intended target. For example, here you could simply say, "Okay, we're gonna make the metric on this is, are the actual people at this particular institution faithfully paying back their debt?" because that's what we're really worried about. If that's the case, let's make the legislation address that particular issue, not be a generic thing that just says, "Hey, if you don't have an economic payback on your degree, we don't care that you have it." Because I think there are a lot of very good things that are, that don't get you good financial remuneration.

Erik Thoennes: Yeah, and I also think it's important for those of us who are in religious education, for lack of a better term, to not think about the government making that possible for us. I think there are times where the church needs to think, "Well, even if this does happen, we need to ante up and be able to equip and train leaders in the church to do what they need to do." If... And it maybe that'll mean enabling them to pay back loans they took out or make it so they don't have to take out loans. And so I don't wanna have this government-dependent mentality for religious education, and at the same time, wanna see that this is a valuable kind of education for our society to care for people. And it's not just religious education, it's other liberal arts especially, disciplines that tend not to be lucrative. And, and the other part of this is you have to be lucrative within a certain amount of time. I think there's a two-year test and a four-year test.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Erik Thoennes: And sometimes different careers, you don't start to really [laughs] make much money until you're into it for a while. You do internships, and you scrape by for a while until you start to get some headway in that area financially. So there're a lot of problems with this as I read through it that I would hope once they start to see the ramifications of a shortsighted policy, they would do something about it.

Rick Langer: I'd like to pick up on one thing you just mentioned about if it's really valuable, the church should be willing [laughs] to help make it happen. I think of a parallel with this. You and I both served as pastors, and, I remember there's been lots of conversations about whether or not, religious donations should be tax-deductible or not, and I do think it's a good thing that they are, but the bottom line is, I would argue for Christians, it shouldn't matter- [laughs]

Erik Thoennes: Right

Rick Langer: ... If your, [laughs] if your donations are tax-deductible or not. You're giving to the Lord, and if you're getting it back from the government, that's not a discipleship issue for you. This, this should be a thing that you say, "I need to give," and I think the church is, in a similar way, should be thinking about this with education. But even more so, one of my worries, Eric, is as we look at our society as whole, what does it say about our society as a whole that the only thing we can imagine being valuable in an education is that you become a better employer, a better employee, that you can do work, that you can make more widgets? That is the only metric that we see. Scott Rae and I have just done this book on mission-driven colleges, and we spend a lot of time talking about, you know, the framework of the book was kinda what is a university for, what's a Christian university for, and then what is our particular Christian university for, and encourage people to think about that. But when we talked about what's a university for, this was actually one of the big issues we talked about, is a university just for the sake of jobs? And the answer to that is absolutely not. [laughs] Wendell Berry has a great line that he says, "The thing being made in a university is humanity-

Erik Thoennes: Man

Rick Langer: ... Not just trained workers or knowledgeable citizens, but responsible heirs and members of the human culture."

Erik Thoennes: That's so good.

Rick Langer: And I think that's a great line that we're saying, man, we're trying to produce flourishing, thriving human beings. And for us as Christians, we might even say we're simply trying to produce faithful, flourishing, thriving disciples of Christ. But the point is, that is the goal, is to make us more human, more flourishing, and so more fully human, one might say, by the process of education, and that seems to be completely missing in this whole calculus.

Erik Thoennes: Yeah. And I have this tension every time I talk to a prospective student and her parents sitting in my office, because on one handI certainly appreciate this looming thought of being $100,000 in debt after this, or more, after this child finishes this education, because higher education's increasingly expensive, and you want this child to be gainfully employed when he's out of school [laughs]

Rick Langer: Yeah

Erik Thoennes: And I understand that, but I do have such a burden when I'm looking them in the eye and wanting them to say, "Look, you don't come here so you make more money." Actually, if that's your only goal, I don't think I would encourage you to go to university these days. You come here to become someone you wouldn't be otherwise. And for us at Biola, it's become more like Christ and more effective in serving Him in the world. And so there is a tension there that I do appreciate the practical realities of the cost of higher education. And, and it ma- just makes me think places like Biola are gonna be the ones that are able to survive, because if it's just about making money, it's increasingly hard to justify the kind of investment that you're making in higher education, especially if you're in the, in the liberal arts rather than engineering or something like that. But-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Erik Thoennes: ... But, tho- the character formation and becoming someone you wouldn't have been otherwise because of this experience where you think well and you read well and you speak well and you're the kind of person an employer would want to hire, you can teach skills, but you can't teach somebody to have character without the kind of investment we're talking about here. So, so yeah, I couldn't agree more, but there is a tension. And part of me grieves over the fact that universities have become places that recruit students because of the climbing wall they have and the-

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Erik Thoennes: ... Amazing facilities and it's become this massive thing where you need these pristine, beautiful campuses instead of really bearing down on what it's about, and that is becoming men and women, as we say at Biola, to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and become like Him. Without all that universities have had to become through the years and the as many... I wonder if there's gonna be a simplifying of the whole thing in a way where you can cut down on costs rather than constantly adding to what a university has to be.

Rick Langer: Yeah. No, great thoughts, Eric. Our next story, may sound at the outset like it also deals with education, but it really does, it's really concerned with another issue. And this story comes from the, free pe- free press, Substack, and it's entitled How Harvard's Reparations Plan Flopped. So in June of 2019, Ta-Nehisi Coates appeared before a congressional committee to make the case for reparations. Advancing an argument he'd laid out in The Atlantic earlier, the article says, "Coates contended that America owed a debt to its Black citizens, not just for slavery, but for generations of plundered wealth." Well, about six months later, Harvard took up this cause, and the president convened a faculty mini- committee to, quote, "Excavate the university's historical involvement in the Atlantic slave trade." And that produced a 134-page report. This is very good university work we're doing here. And then the university decided to establish what it called the Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery Initiative, which aimed to remedy the harms to descendants to our community and the nation and to campus life and to learning. And it committed... Listen to this, Eric. I want you to pause and think for the budgets we deal with at Biola. It committed an extraordinary $100 million to the initiative. Now, here's the bummer: "What followed was a cascade of institutional embarrassments," the article reports. High-profile resignations, the dismissal of an entire research team, a string of HR complaints, and a rebuke from Antigua's ambassador to the United States. And so far at least, its signature effort to find the descendants of people Harvard had enslaved and then to do something for them, presumably financially, has failed miserably. Now, the article kind of unpacks, how all this happened, and it's, worth a read. It's interesting. But let me just pick up on two major things that are kind of, laid bare in the article that I found particularly interesting. The first is what you might call a profound pragmatic practical problem. The university recommended kind of seven things that they do in this process, and several of those they were able to do, but they were all the kinda simple ones. There were a couple of complex things that came up that were really problematic, and the first of these was something that sounded kind of relatively obvious, but it was that they, the recommendation number four was to identify, engage, and support direct descendants. Now, when Harvard was initiating this, they had identified 79 individuals who'd been enslaved by university affiliates but had yet to locate a single living relative. So the first thing they did was they hired a guy named Richard Cellini, and Cellini was actually, he was a Harvard-trained, Wall Street lawyer and also entrepreneur. But the reason they hired him was 'cause in 2015, he had done kind of a similar project for Georgetown University 'cause they'd sold 272 slaves, to retire some institutional debt in the early 19th century. So they wanted to do restoration. Cellini and his coworkers set out to find the people who were the, progeny of those folks, and they ended up identifying 10,000 descendants of these slaves, and I'm not sure how many were still living. But for those, they put together, Georgetown put together a $400,000 annual, kind of stipend for education and community service for people related to this, you know, make some sense of reparations for those who were victims of slaveryNow, the problem for Harvard, of course, was that they had a very clear number at Georgetown of 272 slaves. For Harvard, the slave ownership period spanned over 200 years. And, as Salini and his coworkers set out to find all these folks, the numbers just kept increasing. He took trips and did various things, and by the middle of July in 2023, Salini was kind of at odds with the administration. And he claimed in a office report filed to the Harvard's general counsel that administrators told him not to identify too many descendants, he said, because they expressed fear that if we found too many descendants, it would bankrupt the university. Now, the university's deci- denied these claims, but I just wanna pause and say, oh, now that's an interesting problem. If you've got $100 million designated for that, what does this turn into? Well, by the time Salini and his workers were done doing their work, they had found, I think the number,

Rick Langer: several thousand, I think it was 10,000 descendants. There was at least 500 that were still alive, but they were thinking by the time they were done doing it, they would find 30,000 people, possible living descendants for whom they'd have to make reparations. And that $100 million turns into just a little over $3,000 a person, which isn't very much reparations. So you can see the practical problem here. And at this point, like I say, I'm not making a moral judgment about all this. I'm simply saying, wow, this becomes a huge practical thing. And if Harvard, with a $57 billion endowment, is worried that you could bankrupt the faci- the, institution, how much more almost any other institution in the country? [lips smack] So that was one problem that was there. The other problem was what you might call the theoretical problem, and that was to actually decide what exactly was Harvard's legacy relatively, relative to slavery. And Harvey Mansfield, the article mentions, a Harvard professor for more than six decades, believed that the initiative was built on a false premise. Harvard's legacy, he said, is not one of slavery, but one of anti-slavery. If you go to Harvard, he quotes, there's one building that's more prominent on campus, on the... More-- the most prominent on the whole campus, and that's called Memorial Hall. And Memorial Hall was built in memory of the Harvard graduates who died in the Civil War on the Union side. Those people gave their lives. Meanwhile, the people in Harvard's initiative, he said, have, quote, "made no sacrifices whatsoever to the campaign against slavery." And he added, "It's an excellent example of virtue signaling. They're doing nothing and pretending to be proud of it." [lips smack] So this is an interesting question. What, what really is Harvard's legacy? Does the blood of countless people who died on battlefields in the Civil War to fight on the Union side that ultimately was what, released slaves and emancipated the slaves, does that count for nothing? Does it count for something? How do you assess those kinds of sacrifices? Is, is Harvard an institution that is pro-slavery or anti-slavery? And these sorts of things are not really easy to answer. So you can begin to see the incredibly complex challenge it becomes, both practically and I might say morally, to assess what constitutes reparations and how those things can be done. Now, the good news for our listeners is that we have Erik Thoennes with us today, who will be able to unravel this complex issue, and in the next three to four minutes. So Erik, take it away.

Erik Thoennes: [laughs] Thanks, Rick. What a great setup. Wow. So first thing is I really appreciate any effort to make restitution. Man, the Bible couldn't be more clear that when you have wronged someone, that you should make it right, not just in confessing it, but restoring what you have taken in some way. And so I think that's a very biblical instinct to make things right, practically, financially if need be, restoring it sevenfold sometimes the Bible says. So, so it's a right instinct to make things right and to acknowledge not just the personal sin against individuals, but the way that affects a society when it is at the scale it was during slavery. So first thing I wanna say is I appreciate any instinct to make restitution. But especially when you're talking 200 years later and the complexity of trying to do this in a way that actually accomplishes what you want it to just seems impossible. And it doesn't mean there aren't things you couldn't do. The article mentions, helping historically Black colleges and universities. That doesn't require that you figure out an exact descendant of a slave that you as Harvard particularly had an effect on and, But, but just say let's just do something general to help, Black people in the United States advance in some way. So that sort of thing can be really helpful. But it... There, there is this idea that to me, for these brilliant people to be so simplistic is just fascinating to me. There, there seems to be such a simplistic, and as the article mentions, virtue signaling in this, that is trying to do something that looks so meaningful but really isn't. It, it avoids the whole idea that you can't figure out at this point who was affected in the descendants and how they were affected, if they were affected. It, it's so vague that it's hard to identify anything. And I couldn't help but think of all of the lawsuits and judgments that have come down with schools likeHarvard and Yale and UCLA that have been discriminating against, for instance, Asian students, in the midst of trying to be helpful to Black and Hispanic students. And, and so once you try to start wading into it, not appreciating the individual situations of people, but sort of these broad virtue signaling gestures, I think it becomes foolish and highly impractical, if not impossible, to do it the way they're trying to do it.

Rick Langer: I... Yeah, so I think that's a great point. And I, and I wanna... I just wanna kinda weigh in in agreement with you about there's a good motive behind this and an honest thing to say, you know, there is a place for saying something needs to be done, and it's better to do something rather than nothing. And, and I would wanna commend Harvard on that, on that count. But how you work this out, I think, is actually legitimately difficult. It isn't just that you don't care. It's like, how do you really do it? And as you mentioned, it gets very complex. If you favor one group, then you hurt another. These sorts of problems tend to cascade down through the years, and the debt you owe, you can see this happening in the numbers here. It's like compound interest. And so if it was done 400 years ago in the 1600s when Harvard was first, you know, established as an institution, you're going, how many people come out of that, and how do you assess the damage that was done to them? I read [chuckles] an interesting statistic. Peter Stuyvesant is famous for having bought Manhattan Island from the, Indians who occupied that in, at the time in the early 1600s for $24 and some beads. And, you know, we tell this story like, "Man, he ripped the Indians off." And, you know, let's take a moment and have a pause to think about compound interest. And if you took $24, put it in a bank account for 400 years, you know what? You could buy Manhattan back today.

Erik Thoennes: [laughs] Are you serious?

Rick Langer: I'm serious.

Erik Thoennes: That's great.

Rick Langer: The value of that... I mean, obviously, it depends upon what interest rate you pick.

Erik Thoennes: Yeah, right. [laughs]

Rick Langer: But, y- my, retirement accounts and things like that, you know, you're hoping to get 5 to 6%. So I, you know, do the calculation, 6%, it's over a trillion dollars that is generated by that. And I'm, I'm just pointing it out to see how hard it becomes to imagine who owes who what. I mean, depending upon the interest rate, I think the Indians ripped off Peter Stuyvesant. How do you assess these things when you begin to multiply it by 400 years?

Erik Thoennes: Yeah.

Rick Langer: So that's a big concern.

Erik Thoennes: It also made me think of Billie Eilish, who at the Grammys, this last Grammys, she just made the statement that no one is illegal on stolen land, talking about Los Angeles. And a guy from the Tongva Ancestral Territory, from that tr- that Native American tribe, wrote her a letter and said, "We'll be happy to take your mansion at any point that is also on stolen land. When can we, when can we show up [laughs] and take it over?" But it... So that point in the article is really poignant to me, that these folks leading the way on this haven't personally done anything to own what they feel so strongly about.

Rick Langer: Yeah. So it, the, other thing that is interesting, I think of the language of Abraham Lincoln talking about, you know, the, I think it's the second inaugural address where he's talking about, you know, if God deems it necessary that, this war will continue until this blood has atoned for every l- you know, every lash, I can't remember his language well, but every lash that's incurred to the slaves. And he saw, in some sense, the,

Rick Langer: death of Union soldiers as i-i- partly an atonement for- ... The sins of the Union, so to speak.

Erik Thoennes: Interesting. Yeah.

Rick Langer: It is an interesting thing to think about what actually makes for atonement. And this is a classic example, I think this mindset of saying, "Okay, we need to assess the number of people. What did they lose? How can we pay them back?" All of that. It reminds me a lot of, what was the woman's name? Madame Defarge or something like that in A Tale of Two Cities, who's busy knitting the whole story long, and she's knitting every offense into this garment so they will all be remembered and they will have to be paid for. And it's a vision of a world with justice, but without forgiveness and without atonement.

Erik Thoennes: Yeah,

Rick Langer: It can never be paid for.

Erik Thoennes: That's it, and I think that's the bottom line. It... As much as we need to care deeply about making restitution when it's possible, when it's right, so much of these efforts are not only virtue signaling, they're so graceless. At what point has enough been done? How much time has to go by? How much, how much can we do, should we do before it's finally enough? And I never get the sense it will ever be enough-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Erik Thoennes: ... No matter what you do.

Rick Langer: It... And I think the article kind of, in effect, there's truth to that, right? I mean, I-

Erik Thoennes: Yeah

Rick Langer: ... I get it.

Erik Thoennes: Yeah.

Rick Langer: But that's the problem. You, you kill someone's parents, or you molest a child. How does that ever get paid for? And this is part of the issue of the gospel is realizing there's an element that we do need to make the restitutions that we can make, but once we have done that, there's leftover pieces that have to be atoned for in other ways, so to speak. And ultimately, all atonement is a thing that goes back towards Christ and the work of Christ. So I thinkThis issue is one of those areas where we're, we're, we're losing sight, particularly as Christians, losing sight of the fact there's something bigger than just the justice, even though you don't want to eliminate the, legitimate areas of reparation that can be done

Erik Thoennes: Right. And, and that grace that I think is unique to the Christian gospel is essential here because we trust ultimately that God is the judge of all the earth, and he will make all things right, and there will be no wrong that isn't dealt with by that great judge. And so we're able to rest in that, and that doesn't lead to a passivity or a neglecting of restitution that needs to happen. But at the same time, it doesn't mean we need a pound of flesh, one for one. It, it's eye for eye, tooth for a tooth, which is the old covenant way, not the gospel new covenant way of thinking about things. And-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Erik Thoennes: ... And so even in my own life, you know, if I think I need to right every wrong that's ever been done to me, that is not going to be the kind of life I wanna live 'cause I'll never be able-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Erik Thoennes: ... To do it.

Rick Langer: You'll never be able to do it. Yeah, at some point, you hold onto these damages, and you'd be better off viewing them as what banks call bad debt. And at some point, you just kinda have to write it off the books, which is way easier said than done, but that doesn't make it untrue. [chuckles]

Erik Thoennes: Right. And as- ... As sinners who've been forgiven by a holy God, the idea that we would withhold grace and forgiveness, especially after centuries, just doesn't fit very well with a Christian view of grace and the gospel.

Rick Langer: All right. Let's pick up one other thought here. And this is again related in some ways to colleges, but also in some ways to a broader issue in American culture. And this is an article from The, Wall Street Journal, in, May 17th, 2026, so just a few days ago. And it's titled, "Is the Age of College Coddling Coming to a Close?" Say that three times quickly.

Erik Thoennes: [chuckles]

Rick Langer: And, this is an article. It talks about the Coddling of the American Mind is a book that was written by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, that argued that academia's efforts to shield young people from discomfort and challenges was producing a generation of bubble kids, and they took aim at the college campus culture, cancel culture, identity politics, safe spaces, things like that. So this was published in 2018. Now, let's fast-forward to 2026 when Jonathan Haidt, who's actually a professor at New York University, was, appointed, was invited to share and speak at the, that year's commencement address. And students protested, and, here's, here's the magic phrase, "They found Haidt's work," quote, "unsettling." They wrote that many students, or many students reported, the article says, feeling disappointment, disgust, unenthusiasm, defeat, embarrassment, feeling that their commencement, intended to be a celebratory moment, has instead become another instance of being misunderstood. Now, you might think that they did all this just to illustrate that Haidt had a point when he wrote back in 2018, but I don't think that was it, and it was interesting to see what Haidt w- actually was allowed to deliver the address despite the protests. And in his speech last Thursday, was greeted with a variety of things, including jeers and people walking out. But in the speech, he, exhorted grads to turn their attention towards doing hard things. He asked them, [chuckles] to listen to the words of two great philosophers, I love this, Friedrich Nietzsche and Kelly Clarkson-

Erik Thoennes: [chuckles]

Rick Langer: ... Who said, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." and his allusion to the German philosopher and the pop singer may have flown over the heads of the audience, but his message seems to actually be taking hold in the minds of the ivory tower leaders this, article mentions. So he points out a variety of things that are beginning to change on this coddling issue. One of 'em, if you listened to the cultural update last week, is, the issue that Princeton faculty, voted to scrap 133-year-old tradition that allowed students to take exams by unsupervised if they sign a pledge that they didn't cheat because they found out 30% of their people were cheating. [lips smack] that was their wake-up call, and they voted to change that. The Yale Committee on Trust in Higher Education last month urged the university to adopt a 3.0 average in a percentile rank metric on transcripts to address grade inflation.

Rick Langer: "I don't want Yale to be seen as a lesser A," said one of their administrators. He cited a public perception that, well, you admit students, they don't have to work, they all get A's, then you help them find jobs, but they haven't actually learned anything in their classes. He disputed that, but that is the perception. Harvard faculty this last week voted on a proposal to limit the number of A's in undergraduate courses to 20% plus four. And the results haven't been announced. Actually, they have been announced, and I believe they did vote that in. This following, university report that A's made up about 60% of the grades in the last academic year, compared to 25% in 2006. So grade inflation has been a long tr- standing trend, but that's a pretty sharp upturn. So such reforms are beginning to take place, perhaps in part in response to some of the backlash that's, been manifested by Republicans in Washington who, apparently are tired of subsidizing coddled minds, this article, this editorial reports. Republicans in Congress last years raised the endowment tax on wealthy schools and capped graduate student debt, and they've also withheld grants from universities accused of violating civil rights. So perhaps the tide is turning in higher education. So that's the, argument thing. What, what do you think about this, report, Eric?

Erik Thoennes: I just think in general as a society we've become soft. [laughs] I actually grieve that the World War II generation is is in no time going to be gone because there just is a lack of a general grit to people and this includes in the intellect. And, and so this idea that, ideas that I may find wrong or even offensive are somehow something that I need to avoid, cancel... You know, it's interesting, Rick, isn't it? You and I are old enough to remember when it seemed like the right and even Christians were the ones who were canceling, boycotting, uh-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Erik Thoennes: ... Fighting against rappers and actually ending up bringing far more attention to, for instance, The Last Temptation of Christ, than it would've ever gotten otherwise. [laughs]

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Erik Thoennes: And, and now it really seems to have swung where the left, is increasingly just unwilling to even consider ideas that don't fit the paradigm they're operating out of, to the point of bullying and terrorizing people and not letting them get out of the parking lot. It's just, it's just a fascinating shift in our lifetime that that's happened. But, but I do think some sort of backlash is going on in light of just this unwillingness to listen. There was an idea that, you know, Christians and the right were the ones who wanted to ban books and not let certain movies or songs get out there, but man, it's, it seems to have swung where the left is leading the way in that sort of mentality now.

Rick Langer: Yeah. Well, I think one of the things that's happened is in our culture, I think we've gotten

Rick Langer: almost to the point where demonizing the other side has become a virtue, and shutting down or silencing the other side is a virtue, 'cause I think there's been some of this that's happened... You know, the pushback that it's identifying from the Republican side, I think has done things that actually remind me of the cancel culture that I was seeing so prevalent in the, in the liberal world relative to, you know, the experience we had in higher education just a few years ago. It's kind of like we're responding with a tit-for-tat-ness-

Erik Thoennes: Yeah

Rick Langer: ... That is crushing, I think, kind of a healthy sense of ability to be able to have free and honest discourse about divisive and different, issues and in a pluralistic society, somehow you gotta figure out how to do that, and I'm worrying that, both sides at this point have become uninterested in doing that at some point, or much less interested in doing that.

Erik Thoennes: Yeah, and I think social media has added to this. I think, I think that the la... I, m- I had a humanities prof. He loved Kafka. When... I went to a big state university. I was a philosophy major. I didn't have one Christian professor. I didn't even one, have one theist professor. I only had atheists and agnostics [laughs] , and so I was always defending my faith, but I had great relationships with just about all those profs. My ethics professor was a former Roman Catholic priest who was now an active homosexual alcoholic, really didn't like Christians, including me, in his class [laughs] . Loved Nietzsche, but I'm thankful for those interactions, but they were in relationships. I remember one of my profs-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Erik Thoennes: ... Said to me one time, "Thonnes, I would love to have what you have. I just can't commit intellectual suicide to get there." [laughs]

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Erik Thoennes: And those are great conversations that I have. And, and my humanities prof, he used to say the thing he missed most about living in Austria was going down to the konditorei, the bakery, reading the newspaper, and then arguing politics with his friends. But the difference-

Rick Langer: Wow

Erik Thoennes: ... Between arguing politics with your friends over a cup of coffee in a bakery and doing it on social media or lobbing grenades from a distance is a completely different deal, and because there aren't human beings that you have in your own family... I mean, I, some of the people I love most and are in my family and among my friends think I'm completely nuts in the things I believe as a Christian, and I think they're terribly wrong in what they believe, but we love each other, and we en-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Erik Thoennes: ... We enjoy, we actually enjoy each other. I find them funny and, [laughs] and we have a great time. And so to genuinely disagree, understanding and knowing and at the same time loving people you have relationships with is something I think we need to work to get back to so that we don't have a fragility to what we believe and an, a defensiveness about what we believe that that's brittle. It actually isn't a robust faith because we're not willing to be challenged in it.

Rick Langer: Yeah. Yeah. Great, great thought. One final short piece we'd like to talk about, and this one's entitled Frankly Speaking. It's by, Al Mohler. But, it's an interesting piece talking about, Barney Frank, and if you don't know Barney Frank, he's a former congressman. He's now 86 years old, but he served more than three decades in the House of Representatives.

Erik Thoennes: I think he died yesterday actually.

Rick Langer: I was just gonna say.

Erik Thoennes: Yeah.

Rick Langer: I just saw that he actually passed away.

Erik Thoennes: Yeah.

Rick Langer: But he was representing, the, a very liberal fourth district of Massachusetts, and he was an unabashed liberal from the start and became the first member of Congress to come out of the closet as a homosexual, or at least to do so voluntarily. Now, he died yesterday, but as he was facing death, he had written a book and done some thinking about... His work and what he had been able to accomplish.

Rick Langer: And he said he had worked very hard with the gay rights movement and LGBTQ kinds of issues. But here's one of the things he said, "When we were fighting for gay rights, a fight I think we have essentially won, we knew that some issues were more popular than others," he explains. "So we tended to start by trying to win the ones that were most popular, gays in the military, employment issues. We didn't go after same-sex marriage. We didn't make marriage a litmus test until the very end." And this is an interesting point, that the first, Democratic president to be elected who actually at the time of his election, was in favor of gay marriage was actually Joe Biden. And so [laughs] Obama was elected ... Both times he was elected, he was not in favor, nor other Democratic leaders, you know, up until the very end. So, you know, Barney Frank is right about that, about how that issue worked. And in his telling, the key to reaching a truly revolutionary goal like the entire LGBTQ agenda is starting where people can be moved, holding back on your ultimate goals. Right out loud, he admits that when the American people are not ready to accept same-sex marriage, he admits that was the goal all along. The agenda was explained as just being about fairness in the military or in employment. And what comes next is even more important. Frank tells the political left, Democratic Party, and his fellow LGBTQ activists that the current issue, they need to shut up about boys on girls' sports teams and girls in the locker room. In his words, "I analogize that those male to fema- I analogize that to male to female sports. That's the most controversial part of the agenda, the equivalent of same-sex marriage. So put it at the end. If you go at it that way, you'll build support for it, but if you insist on the most controversial parts all at once, you make it harder." and once again, to be clear, note that Barney Frank is definitely wanting the entire LGBQ agenda to be enacted into law, and made potentially a future litmus test for the Democratic Party, but he just wants them to be quiet about it now. What are your thoughts on this story, Eric?

Erik Thoennes: I was actually thinking of the wisdom of this, but the tension between being people of principle and transparent about what we believe and what our goals are, and at the same time being shrewd. You know, Jesus said to be innocent as doves and shrewd as serpents, and I think Christians can err on the side of being innocent as doves and not very shrewd sometimes. I thought of Ben Franklin not voting for independence the first time around, and Adams was incensed with him and said, "I thought you were with us." And Franklin said, "I am, but it was obvious we weren't gonna win, so why make enemies at this point?" So he's doing-

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Erik Thoennes: ... Political maneuvers that are shrewd on the way to having influence. And I was really torn as I was reading the article because I kept thinking, "Well, he's right." You, you don't want to make your goals so principle driven, if you will, and so clear that you're not shrewd in the way you go about bringing about change, because change tends to happen more slowly than quickly. And so I was just thinking, you know what? He's got a really good point, and at what point... And this is what I wanted to ask you. At what point is lack of being upfront and transparent about what ultimate goals are dishonest, and when is it just shrewd? I think, even think of Wilberforce fighting slavery in Britain not by fighting slavery, but by attacking it first through shipping rules.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Erik Thoennes: I mean, that's just smart politics, right? [laughs] And so I was really wanting to hear what you were thinking about that issue to me, 'cause Barney Frank is one thing, but how you approach cultural change politically and otherwise, you know, you can have profound influence through art that's far more subtle than political policies and... Or humor. Humor's one of the best ways to influence people, 'cause you get disarmed with humor. So what, at what point is that kind of shrewd politics dishonest? I was even thinking of the intelligent design mu- movement that sometimes gets accused of having a hidden-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Erik Thoennes: ... Agenda in theism when it's just saying, "We're just doing science. That's all we're doing." [laughs] Well, no, you're ... It seems like w- almost all of you are Christians and really committed to that. You want us to know that God of yours. So, so I... Ev- as we've been thinking about this, I've been really eager to hear what you think about this tension between shrewd but honest at the same time efforts at influence.

Rick Langer: So I... Let me say at the outset, I'm not actually a politician, so the, viewpoint, which I do have a viewpoint on this-

Erik Thoennes: [laughs]

Rick Langer: ... But I'm not sure how much it's worth given the fact that it has, you know, no real, vocational claim on my life. I think... And I would argue that Wilberforce would be an example of this. I think it's pretty valuable to just be upfront about your goals. Wilberforce was never shy about what he wanted, but he began by restricting shipping, as you talked about. Then he was like saying, "Okay, no more slave trade," but he wanted all slaves to be free, and honestly, people knew that in 1793 when he first began the project, 1780, whenever it was, almost 40 years before the, emancipation of British slaves actually took place. Everybody knew where Wilberforce was, but he was quite willing to do what I call political tacking. S- using a metaphor from sailboatsUm, because you might think, "I've got a sailboat, but I wanna go west, and the wind is coming out of the west. Oh, I can't possibly do that 'cause the wind is in my face." Well, actually, you perfectly well can do that, but you just never head due west. You go at a 45-degree angle to the wind, and then you go the other way, and you go the other way, and you go all the way across the lake or all the way across the ocean into a headwind, but the boat can make progress as long as you're not demanding to go straight into the wind. And I think that's what Wilberforce tended to do. Everyone knew where he was trying to take a ship, but he said, "I'm gonna take it one step at a time. I'm gonna do the things I can do." But I don't think that involves being disingenuous about what you actually desire. And I think that would be a good thing for us- ... To remember, because one of the things I would argue that we kind of, back to some of the polarization we have, we tend to get really snarky towards other Christians if they make any concession to the, quote, "other side." And I think a lot of times all people are doing is saying, "Well, gee, we can get something, but we can't get everything. So let me take the something, and once we've got the something, of course we'll keep working for more." And I don't know where it will all end up, but I don't plan on giving up on, you know, politics. And honestly, what's happened with the abortion rules in America is a great example of this, where we fought for 30 years as if the only thing that would be important to us would be repealing Roe versus Wade. But Roe v. Wade has been repealed, and abortion rates haven't gone down. And you realize the practical outworking of things often doesn't correspond with your idealized view of the cause and effect relationship that's leading to the abortion rates. And if your desire is really to see abortion reduced, you need to have a pragmatic element in saying what actually does reduce the abortion rates, not what theoretically would, but what practically would. And this is one of these issues that I think we get kind of bad at when we get overly, when we get exclusively idealistic. I don't want anyone to give up on their idealism. I just want them to think beyond that and also think prudentially, not just ethically, in saying, "What is it that can make things better?" And sometimes when we demand, you know, we ask, "What would Jesus do?" Sometimes it'd be better asking, "What would be better? What would move us towards what Jesus would desire?" Because if, "What would Jesus do?" Well, he'd do a miracle, and he'd become the guy who rules and reigns with a rod of iron on the throne of David. How's that gonna work for us? I don't think it'll work at all [laughs] . So we're gonna have to figure out other ways to move things towards what Jesus would want and be okay with incremental movement, sometimes never getting what we want but always getting something more than, what we had before, and I think that sort of-

Erik Thoennes: That's so helpful

Rick Langer: ... A little compact-

Erik Thoennes: That's so helpful, Rick. Yeah, I think that's right on the money, that idea that you're not being dishonest about what your actual beliefs and goals are, but you're willing to make compromises along the way to move in that direction. I think that's so helpful. W- the thing I'm wondering about- ... Though is if Wilberforce in the climate of our day could have been successful. Because in our day, if you're upfront about what you believe, you're considered a horrible person, and you're not allowed to even have a voice very often because you believe such horrible things, right? So it's one thing to say be upfront about what you believe, but these days, that'll put you in a category of evil for a lot of people. So if you believe in Christian sexual morality, for instance, you're just a horrible, bigoted person. And so even the allowance to make incremental moves isn't on the table anymore. That, that's what I'm wondering about, that are things viewed-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Erik Thoennes: ... In such a way now where that approach is so much more difficult to accomplish because of how dismissive people are of someone who has those stated goals.

Rick Langer: Yeah. Well, and I think there's some of the work that we sometimes view politically that I say, actually, there's a spiritual work that has to... We have lost broad cultural battles for the mind, and therefore, you're right. Certain things I think are wildly plausible and genuinely true have become implausible within our culture. The idea that we can fix that by political force I think is nuts [laughs] . It isn't a political issue. It's an intellectual issue. It's a cultural issue. It's a worldview issue. It's a social imaginary issue. And we have to work on it at that end, and there, it's gonna be a long process because it took a long time to lose the ground that we've lost.

Erik Thoennes: Yeah.

Rick Langer: It'll take a long time to win it back. But we need to be discerning again about what battles are best fought intellectually, theologically, social good kind of battles versus political law kind of battles.

Erik Thoennes: Yeah.

Rick Langer: And I'm not sure we've taken that into consideration very well.

Erik Thoennes: I just long for the day when Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan can be enemies during the day and two Irish guys in the evening having a beer together like O'Neill said to him and-

Rick Langer: Hangin' out at the pub [laughs] .

Erik Thoennes: Yeah, and O'Neill goes and prays the rosary over Reagan when he gets shot and where you can have those kinds of relationships in the midst of some significant disagreement. It-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Erik Thoennes: ... It seems we've gotten so far from those days.

Rick Langer: Well, let's, take a pause here from these, news stories and take a few moments to, hear some audience questions. But before we do that, would love for you to consider, would love you for you to consider starting with us here at Talbot. Erik and I both have, taught at Talbot for years or decades. Even in my retirement, I'm right at now professor emeritus, but I still continue to do teaching there at Talbot in the Th.M. Program. We have several certificate-level programs as well as bachelor's, master's, and doctoral programs in Old Testament, New Testament, theology, spiritual formation, ministry and leadership, intercultural studies, philosophy and apologetics, and a lot more. So we encourage you to come study with us in person or online. Please go to biola.edu/talbot to find out more about that. There's just a lot of things going on here that, I think are well worth doing. I've been continuing to be part of the Winsome Conviction project, and we talk a lot about things like we were just talking about, Erik and I were just talking about with how do we help discourse become more successful. So come and join us and check out the other things that we do. Let me pick up first, a note here from a reader who wrote in, and he said, "I'm part of the 'IVF is never okay' perspective."But let's say hypothetically, number one, that there is a way to perform IVF that's ethically acceptable, and number two, that a couple finds a fertility clinic that is willing to abide by their requirements, so no freezing of embryos, no screening, implanting all embryos, whatever those guardrails might be. Even with those guardrails, wouldn't it still be in- unethical to contribute to the profits of an IVF clinic that is screening and destroying human embryos of other patients who don't share those same convictions? It feels like even with these hypothetical guarantees, a couple would be partnering with and even funding evil. Curious to hear your thoughts. So I'll share s- a quick thought on this, Erik, and you can chime in on some things if you'd like about that as well. This is actually an interesting example of, some of the issues we were just talking about, of when you begin doing ethics and things like that, you tend to have these spreading discourses, what you might call spreading chains of causation. I wrote my dissertation actually on abortion, and one of the things I talked about was the difference between proximate causation and what you might call foreseeable causation or these long chains that happen. And in a sense, we say things like this all the time where we say, "Well, why did this person do it? Well, because their dad, abused them," and things like that. And I would argue there's probably a significant amount of causal explanation for that. But why did their dad do it? Well, because of his dad, and because of his da- And before you're done, you quickly realize there's a, an actual, a real chain of causation of sin that goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. And so once you've realized there's some kind of causal connection to indict the whole package or to pass the blame all the way to the back, I think simply doesn't work. And you need to, again, probably make some prudential judgments about where that line ends in terms of the kind of punishment or refusal to engage in things that you would have. And we've had this happen with, will you buy, sneakers from Nike because they're made by a sweatshop? Well, legitimate concern. But then you go, well, gee, the guys at the sweatshop aren't working at the sweatshop because they're slave labor. They're working because they can't find any other job, and this job pays better than other jobs, so they don't actually want those jobs to go away. What, what do you do with those kinds of things? And I would just like to argue that that always looms behind ethicals, applied ethical practice. And sometimes you get wound up with what you might call theoretical ethics or simply normative ethics, where you're simply thinking about what you believe to be right and wrong, not how that teases out in actual practice. And this to me is one of those issues where we say, yeah, you are in some sense probably contributing, money to some sort of enterprise that's using it badly. But I would argue that any time you spend money in America today, through courtesy of taxation, you're guaranteed to be, supporting some things that you probably wouldn't support. What are you gonna do about those things? So I think this is one of those areas where you kind of have to take a deep breath and say at some point, even though there's no logical fallacy in this argument, you say, "I can't let that be at least the sole consideration for my ethical decision about what to do here." And I would argue this is the kind of thing that I would definitely want people to be able to do a project of forming their own conscience about it and make that decision, because I can see the legitimacy of the argument on both sides. Any thoughts that you'd have to add to that?

Erik Thoennes: Well, I just love that this listener is thinking about these things at that depth and ha- is driven by principle in that sort of way, and I would want to give all the green lights in the world to somebody who's living out those convictions and encourage you to do just that. But I think those broader perspectives are really important that you were just saying, Rick, that, pragmatism cannot drive what we do, but at the same time, we live in a world that's tragically fallen, and navigating it in ways that are wise based on conviction but also the realities of life is the challenge for us.

Rick Langer: One more question, and I'll let you respond to this real quick, Erik, and then we'll probably need to wrap it to a close. This is from a reader who says, I... Or a listener who said, "I've started listening to the Bible on my phone during my morning walks. It's been really helpful for my Bible intake, and I've been noticing that I don't remember catching certain things before when I've read certain passages. I don't plan to entirely stop reading the Bible, but I have found myself reading it less now that I'm listening to it. Can you see downsides," he asks, "to reading the Bible less, even if I might be listening to it more?" What do you think?

Erik Thoennes: Oh, I just love that you are fighting biblical illiteracy in our culture-

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Erik Thoennes: ... By reading it, listening to it, just getting it in your head and heart, feeding on scripture in any way. I [laughs] love that question. I think there are things I miss when I read. I think there are things I miss when I listen. I do both. I think it's important to get big sections of the Bible in your mind and heart. I think it's important to bear down and meditate on them. I don't think there are lots of rules we should feel suffocated by. As long as we're getting Bible intake, get after it. Go for it. I'm thankful. I'm proud of you. Keep it going.

Rick Langer: [laughs] All right. Great. One thing I would point out, basically through three-quarters of church history, it was unimaginable that you could actually be reading the Bible. I mean, somebody out there had a copy of scripture, right? But 99% of Christians were not able to read the Bible until you had a printing press, and even till printed books became cheap and mass-produced. And so we have an imagination that only thinks of Bible reading. Most of Christian history, people have done Bible listening, and the original texts of the Bible were by and large meant to be written, or were written to be read out loud to people. And so I think the hearing of the Bible in some ways is more ancient and a bigger historical practice than the reading of it is. That said, I'm a huge fan of what you just said. There's actually values to both, and we live in an era where we can do both and why not?

Erik Thoennes: Amen.

Rick Langer: So having said that, I think it's time we bring it to a wrap. So, Erik, thanks for joining me with this-

Erik Thoennes: Thank you, Rick

Rick Langer: ... Time. And, we're grateful that you've joined us as well as listeners. It's been the weekly cultural update of the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology. If you want to submit questions or ask questions, submit comments or ask questions, please send them to thinkbiblically@biola.edu. Please take a moment to give us a rating on your podcast app and consider sharing this episode with a friend. And be sure to check in on Tuesday for a regular episode where Scott and Sean will be interviewing Kyle Strobel, Director of Talbot's Institute for Spiritual Formation, about his new book, co-authored with John Coe, titled When God Seems Distant. Thanks for listening, and remember, think biblically about everything. [outro music]