Christianity today as a rule has excellent editorials. However, in the issue of December 7, 1962, one appears which is good, but not good enough. It places the finger on a very grave evil, but does not go far enough in condemnation of it. The article is entitled “Academic Duty as Important as Freedom for Faculty Members,” and cites the case of Dr. Harold Lindsell, vice-president of Fuller Theological Seminary, who declined “…an invitation to the presidency of an evangelical institution because he lacked personal sympathy for its rigid dispensational orientation,” Dr. Lindsell must have stated, “Every institution…has its own specific image, created in most instances by the founders of that institution. The president of a school is ethically obligated to perpetuate that image enthusiastically.” Since he could not do so, he declined the invitation.
Editorially Christianity Today remarks,
This point of view has much to commend it. So much is being said about academic freedom that the question of academic responsibility seems seldom to be discussed. Academic freedom should at all times be tempered by a comparable sense of academic responsibility, lest a lack of feeling for academic duty lead to academic delinquency.
COMMON SCANDAL!
It is more than high time that attention be called to this abuse, and we are grateful to Christianity Today for doing it. But this evil should be exposed as a scandal, which is committed frequently in our land. Of course, Dr. Lindsell is to be honored for his decision -it is fair and decidedly ethical and Christian. 1t is, however, a most deplorable fact that in academic circles many do not display this same sensitivity. In fact, this evil is covered by an appeal to academic freedom, so that positions of influence, administrative and others, are employed for the dissemination of views and principles directly contrary to the intent of the founders of the institution. One institution of learning after the other has allowed itself to be altered and debased in that way, so that today this evil practice has become so general that its culpability goes almost unnoticed. For that reason, it seems to me, the language of the editorial is too mild. The time has come, and is even long past, that this offense against plain justice be condemned openly and in no uncertain terms.
Had Dr. LindseJl, his theology being what it is, accepted the invitation mentioned in the editorial it would have been a wrong act. However, much worse things occur repeatedly. The disparity between Dr. Lindsell and the institution extending the invitation is, I admit, important. Yet both parties in this case can be said to occupy identical starting points. Both, I take it, are Bible-believing Christians. But time and again positions of influence are occupied in educational institutions by men who openly deny the very truths upon which and for which the institutions were founded. That occurred just recently, for instance, at Princeton Theological Seminary. A professor who openly denied the virgin birth of Christ was appointed to the faculty and accepted the appointment. Protests were brought to ecclesiastical assemblies, but to no avail. The professor continues to teach at Princeton and his position appears to be confirmed. However, everybody knows that Princeton was founded upon the basis of an evangelical, not to say Reformed, confession, which includes the virgin birth of Christ. The persons responsible for the appointment know this, and the professor appointed knows this. They all know that the teaching of the professor is subversive to the principles of the institution, and for which many have donated all or part of their wealth, creating large endowments. Of course, I know that each man must answer to God for his conduct, but the abuse is so glaring that one cannot suppress the question how men of honor and integrity are able to live with their consciences under such conditions. Moreover, this is but one case among a great many. In fact this “leaven of the Sadducees” has subverted not only persons and teachers, but a number of colleges and seminaries. It is a horrible thing in the land.
FREEDOM IS NOT LICENSE
This condition and its prevalence should alert all of us, in order that the trend may be reversed and no more institutions be victimized. For no institution is immune!
Was it not Marie Antoinette who said at the time of the French Revolution as she was about to be guillotined, “O Liberty! Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!” Something similar might be said in connection with the appeal to academic freedom. Such an appeal is regularly made whenever deviating views are being advocated. Of course, we admit that within the framework of the constitution of an institution or of the express intent of the founders there is such freedom. But the editorial in Christianity Today rightly suggests that this freedom was never intended to degenerate into license, unfettered and unrestricted. Let such administrators and instructors as cannot subscribe to the bases upon which and for which an institution is founded use their “academic freedom” to resign their positions and seek employment where no conflict exists between their views and those of the institution they serve. Only then shall we be able to understand that they can live with their consciences.