In an age of echo chambers, where can we encounter views different from our own?
A decade ago, the dilemma of one Christian student at a secular university graced the big screen. The premise? In a large introductory philosophy course—you know, one of those core classes so many take to satisfy a basic general education requirement—an atheist professor requires every student to sign a statement that “God is dead” on the first day in order to pass his class. When one student refuses—well, you can imagine just how the professor takes this kind of challenge to his authority. Stuff goes down—enough to propel the action of an hour-and-a-half flick.
By now you may have recognized the film: God’s Not Dead, which turned out to be highly divisive even in Christian circles to which it was trying to appeal, with its over-the-top exhortation to stand up for one’s beliefs in public. It was also highly confusing for someone of my age, who only knew Kevin Sorbo as the club-wielding Greek hero Hercules in his Legendary Journeys back in the wild 1990s, to find him suddenly middle aged, bespectacled, and teaching philosophy. Will wonders never cease? At any rate, while many Christians I knew loved the film and described it as encouraging, at least as many found it to be overly simplistic and cringe-worthy.
The whole underlying premise just didn’t seem very believable. You couldn’t get more clichéd than centering a plot around an atheist professor bullying a student over the existence of God. Does this sort of thing even happen on the modern campus anymore? Indeed, a more common accusation of late is that Christian colleges are more likely to be intellectually restrictive and stifling, whereas (the stereotype goes) secular universities are the arena of free intellectual inquiry, organically encouraging the smorgasbord of flowering philosophies, which are freely shared and heard, whether in seminar discussions or over that greasy dining hall pizza that only twenty-year-olds can love and semi-safely ingest.
In response, I have a real-life story for you, this one too from a large introductory philosophy course. Just like in the movie.
A few years ago, when I was still teaching at a state university in Georgia, a Christian student for whom I was faculty adviser had to take a basic introductory philosophy course, which was a prerequisite for a higher-level philosophy course she needed for her major. She was planning to write a senior thesis on a theological topic and wanted to get sufficient philosophic grounding for this ambitious project. On the first day of class, however, the professor announced that he didn’t believe in God and thought theism had no place in his classroom or in the study of philosophy more broadly. He then encouraged anyone who considered belief in God central to their personal philosophy to go ahead and drop the class.
If you’re thinking again of that epic plot about the brave student resisting the narrow-minded Hercules-turned-philosophy-professor, you can drop the dream now. My advisee had no interest in taking a principled stance and fighting with her professor—and I don’t blame her. Who wants to play ball so recklessly with their own sanity and education, not to mention grades? She simply dropped the class. She eventually retook it with a different professor a semester later and went on to write an excellent senior honors thesis. She also graduated at least one semester later than she should have, because having to defer this prerequisite reshuffled her schedule, costing her more time—and money.
Sure, you might say, that’s admittedly bad, but just how often does this sort of thing even happen? Does one such incident even prove anything? Besides, the student didn’t report it, which means it never happened, right? No paper trail. This is how such mild ethical violations happen regularly on college campuses and beyond—most people would rather quietly remove themselves from an iffy situation than make a scene. To be honest, I would probably have done the same. Indeed, in the film all but one student simply shrugs, signs the piece of paper, and goes on with their lives. And while everyone on that fictional campus knows what this particular philosophy professor is about, it doesn’t seem that any complaints ever make their way to the administration. This last part, by the way, is highly realistic.
I have never taught at a Christian college. But based on my fifteen years teaching at state universities, I regret to report that if you think Christian colleges do not respect intellectual freedom, secular universities are no better. Anecdotally, at least, I would hazard to guess that they are worse. The recent anti-Semitic protests at Columbia and Yale are doing nothing to change my mind on this.
The real-life scenario I just described represents something larger than a single professor’s unchecked power-flex. The professor in question was an adjunct, by the way—a curious reminder that one doesn’t have to be a tenured academic to go into full-tyrant mode in the classroom. Rather, what this story shows is a baked-in intolerance of some expressions of intellectual freedom in secular spaces. While “hate crimes” of other sorts are liable to result in complaints and face swift repercussions, hostility to Christian belief finds casual tolerance as simply an expression of freedom of speech.
Let me be clear. The vast majority of my colleagues at every place I have ever taught, atheists and believers alike, were incredibly generous people who moved mountains to help their students. But I have also met my fair share of angry atheists who wanted to evangelize—or, rather, shut down the conversation with which they disagreed. Some of these were professors. Some were students. Neither group seemed open to debate or discussion. After all, what kind of open dialogue did the philosophy professor offer, when he encouraged students who disagreed with his perspective to drop his class on the first day?
I know it has become popular to attack the perceived anti-intellectualism of evangelicals and other Christians—this is, for instance, a central theme in NPR reporter Sarah McCammon’s new book, The Exvangelicals. There is certainly some truth to such claims, and no group can be fully homogeneous—or fully blameless. Also, I don’t really want to get into the “Who is doing it worse?” game. This is not a competition that anyone should wish to win. The existence of public voices opposing any group on religious grounds is not a good look for American democracy—it is a bad sign when people use their power to shut down any potential dialogue with which they disagree before the conversation even begins.
Yet in an age in which secular pluralism is the default solution to disagreements, perhaps such scenarios on a college campus confirm that we still need distinctively Christian institutions, ones that are not ashamed to say that they preach Christ, and him crucified. It is those institutions that will provide a safe haven for students who wish to be able to proclaim this truth in the classroom, openly, without fear, and without having to defer graduation because of their faith.
At the same time, I am loath to advocate outright retreat for religious people from secular spaces. Such is not the path for safeguarding our democracy, and it will only lead to further fragmentation in our society. Secular universities, after all, educate the vast majority of college-bound Americans—and are where students might, for the first time, encounter people with views vastly different from their own.
So what do we need? More than ever, in this age of echo chambers, we need ecumenical dialogue, in-person interactions, and intentional community among Christians and those who hold other beliefs, including atheism. And we need institutions, local and national, that facilitate such dialogue. More pizza probably won’t hurt either.
Nadya Williams is the author of Cultural Christians in the Early Church (Zondervan Academic, 2023) and Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic: Ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity (forthcoming, IVP Academic, October 2024). She is Book Review Editor for Current, where she also edits The Arena blog.
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