These Christian Colleges Are Taking On Today’s Hot-Button Social Issues

A group of Christian colleges is pursuing an agenda of pressing social issues, including immigration, criminal justice, and racial/ethnic diversity. It’s an ambitious set of policies, and it’s noteworthy because the stance of these colleges is in marked contrast to the ultra-conservative narrative associated with the evangelical church’s recent embrace of the right-wing, nationalist politics of Donald Trump.

The colleges are members of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), an organization comprised of about 180 institutions worldwide, with approximately 140 in the U.S. Representing 37 different Protestant denominations, CCCU schools enroll over 500,000 students. You can view the full member list here.

All CCCU schools have missions defined as Christ-centered, rooted in the historic Christian faith. Although many self-identify as evangelical, the defining doctrines for member institutions are that they:

• Integrate what they regard as biblical truth not just into the “spiritual” aspects of the institution but throughout the academic enterprise. Their faculty accept that God is the author of truth, a belief with implications for every academic discipline.
• Commit to the moral and spiritual formation of students. They seek to form students who practice Christian virtues such as love, courage, and humility.
• Seek to graduate students “who make a difference for the common good as redemptive voices in the world.” They regard their graduates as “hopeful realists” who can “play a redemptive and restorative role in the world as doctors, teachers, marketers, engineers, parents, soccer coaches, and in a host of other ways.”

Many of the nation’s leading private colleges and universities originated as religious institutions affiliated with a specific denomination within the broad Christian tradition. Duke is an example, as are Emory, Yale, and Wesleyan University. And while some private schools still accept funding from the church of their founding, many no longer hold any religious expectations for students, nor do they align their curriculum or extra-curricular offerings with particular religious beliefs or practices.

In contrast, CCCU colleges are devoted to fostering Christian commitments in their graduates. They develop curricula, expectations for student behavior, hiring of faculty and staff and co-curricular programs with that goal in mind. Most do so within a liberal arts structure.

“We believe Christian higher education produces committed, compassionate, convicted citizens who want to engage deeply in this world, not in spite of their faith, but because of their faith,” said CCCU president Shirley V. Hoogstra. “We know that education isn’t just about what students learn, it’s about transforming them into the ethical, values-driven leaders God has called them to be. Christian colleges & universities shape students who act for the public good—often at a cost to themselves—out of a love for Jesus Christ and for the world around them.”

CCCU colleges are also tackling some of the major social issues of our times, ones that often lead to sharp policy differences between political progressives and conservatives, especially those associated with more fundamentalist churches and leaders. So it’s newsworthy when CCCU colleges adopt policies that go against the grain staked out by many vocal evangelicals, as well as when they join secular institutions and Catholic colleges and universities in official advocacy.

Immigration

Take immigration for example. The Christian Broadcast Network, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson, has frequently stoked fears about the dangers of immigrants pouring across the southern border of the U.S. A 2018 Washington Post/ABC poll found that 75% of white U.S. evangelicals described “the federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants” as a positive policy, compared to just 46% of Americans overall. And a Pew Research Center poll that same year found that 68% of white evangelicals believed America had no responsibility to house refugees, 25 percentage points higher than the national average.

What’s the CCCU position? Through its work with the Evangelical Immigration Table, it supports bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform. It’s also advocated for Dreamers and DACA recipients and supports a permanent solution for these young people and their communities. It praised last year’s Supreme Court ruling that allowed DACA to continue. Here’s its recent statement supporting the Dream Act: 

“We believe a bipartisan, permanent legislative solution for Dreamers from Congress is the best means to provide a long-term solution for these young people and their communities.

Many of these young people in our country who were brought to the United States as children are now students on college and university campuses, and we feel the urgency of this issue for our students, along with their families, employers, churches, and communities. We also feel a moral imperative to support stability over insecurity for these vulnerable young people.

As Christians, we are called to care for those who are most vulnerable. Jesus says in Matthew 25:40, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” There is hardly a population who better fits this description than young people without a legal home who face an uncertain future.”

Prison Reform

Many evangelicals express support for various prison reforms, grounded in a belief that spiritual redemption is possible for anyone. However, in terms of specific practices, their strongest support has been for faith-based prison ministries that emphasize evangelical proselytizing and conversion.

Although CCCU schools embrace faith-based ministries, they also back other secular efforts.

• About 20 CCCU schools offer prison education programs for incarcerated individuals who can earn college credits for courses completed.
• An exemplary program is at Lipscomb University, which enables inmates from the Tennessee Women’s Prison to study side-by-side with traditional undergraduates through the Lipscomb University Initiative for Education (LIFE) program. Founded in 2007, LIFE involves college courses taught inside the prison by Lipscomb professors, leading to the women earning credits for associate, bachelor’s, or master’s degrees.
• CCCU has partnered with Prison Fellowship to promote Second Chance Month, a national effort to reduce barriers keeping formerly incarcerated Americans from reaching their full potential as they reenter society.
• Following passage of the FIRST STEP Act in December 2018, CCCU implored lawmakers to end the ban on Pell Grants for students behind bars. (When Pell grants began in 1972, inmates were eligible for awards, but that changed in 1994 when Bill Clinton decided to get tough on crime and ended prisoners’ eligibility for Pell support.) CCCU called for removing the ban on Pell grants for prisoners, which Congress did last year, thereby making higher education more accessible for inmates.

Race And Politics

CCCU institutions have taken positions that don’t hew to the conservative line on other hot-button issues dividing today’s America. It recently launched a website featuring a database of more than a hundred racial and ethnic diversity resources for the Christian higher education community.

This weekend the organization is hosting a virtual event, entitled, “Faithful Leadership: Race, Politics and Evangelicalism in America.” It addresses “the deep divides that not only exist in our nation, but also in the Church. Political divisions, racial strife, and deep polarization mark both the Church within the United States and the republic in which it exists.” The conference includes a roster of well-known Christian leaders and intellectuals who will speak on “topics like critical race theory, Christian nationalism, systemic racism, and how to move forward in truth and grace.”

No recent example illustrates the willingness of CCCU colleges to speak out about political affairs and challenge the positions espoused by many evangelicals better than the recent statement signed by hundreds of staff and faculty at Wheaton College, rebuking former President Donald Trump for his role in the violent riot at the nation’s capitol on January 6. (Full disclosure: I’m an alum of Wheaton.)

The statement criticized President Trump for what it called “wicked leadership.”

“The January 6 attack on the Capitol was characterized not only by vicious lies, deplorable violence, white supremacy, white nationalism, and wicked leadership—especially by President Trump—but also by idolatrous and blasphemous abuses of Christian symbols. The behaviors that many participants celebrated in Jesus’ name bear absolutely no resemblance to the Christian teachings or ethics that we submit to as faculty and staff of Wheaton College. Furthermore, the differential treatment displayed by those with a duty to protect in their engagement with rioters who trespassed on the Capitol grounds illegally, when compared to recent protests over police brutality in D.C. last summer, illustrates the ongoing reality that systemic racism in our country is tragically and undeniably alive and well. These realities are reprehensible. Our Christian faith demands shining a light on these evils and the simultaneous commitment to take appropriate action.”

Nor was this the first time Wheaton faculty had sharply objected to Trump and the role of Evangelical leaders who have championed his policies.

Ed Stetzer, Executive Director of Wheaton’s Billy Graham Center, called for a “reckoning” on Trump in a recent NPR interview with Rachel Martin. Responding to one question, Stetzer said, “I’ve been one for years who was saying we need to see more clearly who Donald Trump is and has often not been listened to. But I would say that for many people, the storming of the Capitol, the desecration of our halls of democracy, has shocked and stunned a lot of people and how President Trump has engaged in riling up crowds to accomplish these things.”

Who speaks for today’s evangelical church? Highly political figures like Jerry Falwell, Jr., Ralph Reed, Robert Jeffress, and Franklin Graham offer one option – what some have called a “radicalized Christian nationalism.” But there’s an alternative, one that does not subordinate basic Christian beliefs to a political ideology or a polarizing leader. The CCCU institutions are lifting a strong voice for that alternative.