Fear, The Culture Wars, and Education

On John W. Hawthorne's Fearless Christian University

The Fearless Christian University, Eerdmans, 2025.

I frequently write about higher education, since that's where I've planted myself. However, given the topics I sometimes cover here, it may surprise some readers that I have a special interest in what we might call "Religious Higher Education."

I myself, with the exception of one year at a small, Christian college in Ohio, am a product of secular education. I graduated from Kent State University and did my graduate work at Case Western Reserve.

However, I have been offered three collegiate teaching jobs (accepting two of those), and each one has been a religiously-affiliated school. My first job was at a small evangelical school in the South and for 10 years, I’ve worked for a Pennsylvania college founded by the Sisters of Mercy.

My experiences in Christian Higher Ed are yet another example of my habit of living between worlds. It’s a meaningful space for me. I've alluded to having written a novel that I'm shopping around, and it is in fact a campus novel set at a Christian college (if anyone knows anyone who might be interested...call me).

Who cares about Christian education?

Christian colleges have unique concerns and problems, but they can also be a fascinating lens through which to understand contemporary higher ed at large. My anxieties about the state of higher education are in fact perhaps best embodied by the failures of many religious schools.

In short, I inherently see education as a de facto spiritual activity (any other definition, to me, leads only to one form of professional credentialing or another; not a bad thing, necessarily, but also not the work of liberation and the becoming of our best selves). So, I am naturally drawn to the work of religious institutions as I seek out "ideal" spaces of education. (Before I risk any trouble, let me be clear that my current place of employment has, as far as I can tell, comes as close to my ideal as one can reasonably expect. Our "Mercy Values," really do permeate everything we do, and they give us a wonderful frame for meaning-making across our curriculum).

A new book recently came to my attention, and it captures much of my own Christian higher college experience.

The Fearless Christian University, by John W. Hawthorne is a brief book that arrives as a breath of fresh air. It provides a keen diagnosis that gets to the heart of many problems that pester some Christian institutions.

Hawthorne focuses his analysis on schools organized under the CCCU banner (the Counsel for Christian Colleges and Universities). These are the institutions one typically thinks of when imagining the Christian College. They are distinguished by things like confessional faith requirements (for staff, if not students as well), regular chapel attendance, honor codes, and generally conservative theological underpinnings. None of these things are necessarily bad in themselves, but they are often the seeds of academic, political, and social crises that threaten the educational legitimacy (and ultimately the existential sustainability) of these institutions.

It’s all in the title

The genius of The Fearless Christian University is encoded in the book's paradoxical title. At a distance, one might imagine that Hawthorne is writing a call for renewed, evangelical vigilance in the face of an anti-Christian zeitgeist (particularly with the lion logo on the cover). But the book argues precisely the opposite: the problem is not that Christian colleges are not fighting the culture wars fervently enough; the problem is that fighting the culture wars have eroded the educational missions of many of these schools. Hawthorne makes a compelling case that too many CCCU schools are driven by fear, thus the call for the Fearless Christian institution.

Hawthorne is a sociologist (who spent his career at these kinds of institutions) and he methodically, and compellingly, traces many ails to early evangelical movements, spearheaded by figures such as Charles Colson and Francis Schaeffer, that emphasized the precariousness of Christianity in America. These worldviews painted a picture of a faith tradition under attack from all sides, and they urged vigilant resistance; and thus the culture wars commenced.

Hawthorne details the various ways that kind of "worldview" mindset impacts the operations of many Christian institutions to this day. From curricular prohibitions against teaching evolution, to the exclusion of LGBTQ+ students, The Fearless Christian University provides a brief and compelling account of how fear-based engagement in culture war issues have harmed many of these college's educational mission as well as Christian witness.

For me, the most compelling part of the book was his analysis of how some of these colleges' administrations adopt certain authoritarian attitudes toward governance. Hawthorne argues that many of these colleges draw on the governmental structures of their theologically-conservative sponsoring denominations, and thereby marginalize the contributions of their faculties. He argues instead that there should be more of a spirit of "partnership" between faculty and administration, but that fear (of the world and of the judgement of those sponsoring denominations), too often keeps that from happening.

The book is of great interest to those with a concern for Christian education, and it should at least be taken into consideration, even if one doesn't share Hawthorne's critiques of conservative Christian cultural institutions.

In addition, even those working in the world of secular, mainstream colleges and universities might consider giving this short book some attention. After all, fear is not an emotion exclusive to conservative Christians. What impact does it have on the functioning of secular, liberal institutions, which are themselves no strangers to the culture wars? In this moment of utter turmoil across the entire sector of Higher Education, it is vital that we step back and consider the potential consequences of allowing our actions to be unduly motivated by fear.