You’ve heard the old saying from Proverbs “iron sharpens iron.” We feel good about friends transforming one another by principled conversations. Mutual iron sharpening is good stuff.
But what about the sparks? Iron sharpening produces heat. We love the old proverb, but do we love its heat?
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Grove City College has been taking a lot of heat lately. Some of it is understandable though much of it is undeserved. The heat source is a petition by parents about race-related conversations that have taken place on campus over the past few years. The singeing became more intense after a blog writer picked up on the petition. At a contentious time in our nation’s history when many Christian colleges are perceived to have lost their way, the concern expressed by those who love the college for its faithfulness, independence, and academic excellence should not have come as a surprise.
The leftward drift of colleges and universities is all too familiar to parents today. The debate about teaching CRT in K-12 public schools is, as one parent told me, very present. Of course, parents are concerned about what their children are learning, especially in Christian colleges they have carefully vetted and for which they pay a premium over public institutions. “We can get CRT for a lot less at a public university and we know it’s coming,” another parent told me.
I’ve spoken with many parents about the petition and have found two of their assumptions to be understandable yet incorrect. First, the “academic and spiritual foundations that make the school distinctly Christian” are being threatened as the college follows the well-trodden path to the edge of the progressive cliff. Second, many concerned parents and alumni assume the blog writer reached out to the college to discuss how the administration is addressing parent concerns.
Neither is true, but I empathize with both assumptions.
Nothing more needs to be said about the second assumption, but I’d like to discuss the more concerning matter of leftward drift.
For the record, President Paul McNulty stated clearly in his response to the petition that critical theory “has no intellectual home at Grove City College” and “we do not accept it as a proper framework for examining and understanding the real challenges faced in our fallen world today.”
Consider, if you will, there is another explanation for what parents are seeing in race-related issues at the college: Grove City College is seeking to offer the best in what a Christian college can offer students. As we say in our promotional materials, Grove City College is a place where students pursue truth freely, grow in deep-rooted community, and pursue their callings to serve others confidently.
Although Grove City College is well-known for its harmonious academic environment, sparks can fly in the pursuit of truth at the best Christian colleges as students are transformed and become more virtuous. In other words, truth-seeking Christian colleges with leaders who curate academic freedom carefully (e.g., 2 Tim. 3:16) point students to the Celestial City rather than the progressive cliff.
This is what is happening at Grove City College. I have been employed here for 27 years and have known four presidents and many trustees well. Friends, you are witnessing iron sharpening and minds being transformed. It’s a refining process wherein students, faculty, and administrators are transformed. What you can’t see are the conversations taking place in leadership and faculty offices about the legitimate matters of parental concern, but they are taking place. I’ve known of such conversations for nearly three decades and I can tell you that they take place quietly with great care for the image-bearers involved. Grove City does not handle these matters in the blogosphere.
Andrew Kern of the Circe Institute speaks of three reasons students to go to college: 1) to seek personal power via good employment, 2) to seek community power and to become great American citizens, and 3) to seek a “wisdom education” by gazing on Christ and being transformed. Moreover, Kern says that reasons one and two are not sustainable without pursuing a wisdom education rooted in Christ.
Grove City offers a door number three education that delivers the items behind doors one and two as well. Sparks may fly, it’s not perfect, but it is good, and students are being transformed.
