Earlier this year, the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) invited James Davison Hunter, the LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture and Social Theory at the University of Virginia and the executive director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, to its quadrennial global summit to deliver a pre-conference keynote address at a workshop on the integration of faith and learning. His speech offered a rich set of insights into the current cultural logic, followed by responses from three academics and authors, including Joseph Creech, executive director of the Lilly Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities; Margaret Diddams, editor of Christian Scholar’s Review; and Peter Mommsen, editor of Plough Quarterly. The CCCU is pleased to partner with Christian Scholar’s Review to publish James Davison Hunter’s address and the responses with the hope that it will spark conversations through the CCCU and Christian campuses about cultivating and living into the unique vision and mission of Christian Higher Education.
In his address titled “In What Age Do We Find Ourselves?” James Davison Hunter stressed the nature of our post-Christian, post-Enlightenment, and increasingly post-liberal world and the effects of that rupture not only on Western culture writ large but on its institutions, including higher education. The challenge for Christians in an age of nihilism, he noted, is “How do we form the young into our tradition in ways that help them become all that God intends but also in ways that encourage them to be fully and faithfully present as God’s people in a troubled and broken world.” Hunter also noted that while this age of nihilism may seem hopeless, we, as Christians, maintain hope in Christ, and therefore we can continue to provide hope to our students in a changing world.
In response, Creech reflected on how our institutions and vocations have contributed to the cultural nihilism suggested by Hunter and how we might help to counter such nihilism. He also recommended that we carefully consider what type of individuals we hope to form through our institutions. Creech noted that academia tends to reward mastery, research, and competition, which can reinforce cultural nihilism. His recommendation is to educate for community, humility, empathy, and belonging, rather than mere achievement.
Diddams, in her response to Hunter, noted that the rise of nihilism in our academic culture merely filled the vacuum left by higher education’s abandonment of its comprehensive and formative mission. She claimed that academic leadership is critical in helping to shape scholars towards the vision that shapes the institution. In a culture that has stopped caring about meaning and purpose, Christian colleges and universities have the opportunity and the responsibility to cultivate scholarship that is Christ-surrendered, non-nihilistic, and oriented toward a redemptive story that gives it greater purpose beyond academic acclaim.
In the final response, Mommsen suggested that Christian intellectual institutions should answer today’s nihilism not by withdrawing, but by engaging culture with hope and conviction. He recommended three responses: reject resentment and victimhood politics, recover the deepest roots of Christian faith, and present a compelling vision of abundant life in Christ as an alternative to despair, alienation, and power-driven culture.
In reading through their remarks, two comments were consistent across all four speakers. First, a type of cultural nihilism is present in American society today and reflected in higher education, even Christian higher education. Second, and most importantly, as Christians, we have hope, even in a nihilistic world. It is that hope we have in Christ that needs to drive our teaching, scholarship, and service as educators in faith-based institutions.
