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The suffusion of malevolent leftist academic sentiment on the brain bedevils higher education

Canadian Elitist Academic Intolerance



Canadian Association of University Teachers, (CAUT) Canada's monopolist, liberal fundamentalist academic elites are at it again--rather, they've never stopped. Their intent? Not merely to discredit Canadian Christian colleges, but to destroy their standing as accredited, degree-granting institutions.

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Bear in mind that in Canada, unlike the United States, the authority to award academic degrees is granted by provincial government Charter enacted as a Bill in the Provincial Legislature. CAUT, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, a closed shop run by reactionary liberals, doesn't like the fact that evangelical colleges are being established in Canada and that they are flourishing. The leadership of CAUT have forgotten that most university education in Canada's early history was established by Christian denominations, chiefly Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist. Several years ago the splendid academic program of Trinity Western University in British Columbia was challenged, but after prolonged, very expensive litigation Trinity Western has retained its status. More recently the attacks have focused on Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario; Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, Manitoba; and Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick. The strategy and technique are quite straightforward: Deny them accreditation by lobbying provincial government authorities, or drag the process out by engendering bureaucratic stalling, or initiate legal proceedings that exhaust a Christian university's administration and create fiscal burdens. It is easy then to allege that the university's programs are not fiscally viable. What troubles me about such reports is not their secular breadth but their intellectual insularity and prejudice. They complain that Crandall University asks Board members, the Administration, and Faculty to commit to a statement of Christian faith and a chaste life-style? How awful that someone should actually do what he or she professes! What is so bothersome about the Crandall confession of faith? What odd-ball beliefs are named? Well, let's see: Belief in God the Creator revealed as triune. Belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God incarnate and Saviour. Belief in the universal sinfulness of human beings. Belief in the final, righteousness judgments of God. These are really odd, wouldn't you say? They merely represent about 99% of the beliefs of the hundreds of millions of Christians historically and all around the world today of all denominations, whether Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox. And, so far as the sinfulness of human beings is concerned, wasn't that the teaching of the Liberal theological guru Reinhold Niebuhr, and doesn't that belief register Christian commitment to humility in light of our proneness to error, which liberals are so unwilling to concede publicly? Let's consider their comments about Crandall University in Moncton, NB. The CAUT 2010 Report on Crandall makes fascinating reading. I was the President of the school during the early 1980s (Atlantic Baptist College, soon to become Atlantic Baptist University then, last summer, re-named Crandall University in honor of one of its founders). I led it to accreditation. ABC had started as a High School for New Brunswick rural youth who had little or no access to High School, then developed nicely into a Junior College. That was when I entered the scene. My predecessor Dr. Stuart Murray had an earned doctorate from Eastern Baptist Seminary, was a diligent New Testament scholar and effective teacher, and expected the same from his faculty and students. The results were splendid as many in Atlantic Canada will attest to this day. I knew that the future lay in accreditation as an under-graduate, degree-granting institution, but that depended upon legislation and a Charter granted by the Government of New Brunswick. I gathered relevant data and worked for months to get my Board of Directors on track, consulted with the Council of the United Baptist Convention of the Atlantic Provinces (the largest Baptist body in Canada at that time and the ultimate owner of the college), and engaged in discussions with Acadia Divinity College, our sister institution which historically is the mother of Acadia University. The pattern and educational policy we followed at ABC was to offer young people two solid years of arts education and (for those who wished it) biblical studies--including Greek and Hebrew. They then went on to Acadia for the final two years of their undergraduate degree programs. At that time the academic qualifications of our faculty on average exceeded those of some graduate divinity schools. For example, our English professor, a Ph.D. in English from the University of Toronto, was a superb instructor. He led students through many of the classics of English literature, including the plays and sonnets of Shakespeare, and spent countless hours coaching them in grammar and the writing of clear, elegant English prose. In preparation for our accreditation application, I asked the Registrar at Acadia to review the performance of over fifty students who had transferred from our junior college level program to senior studies at Acadia. None of them graduated from Acadia with a degree of less than a "B" average; most earned "B+" and "A" standing. With such data in hand, I approached Richard Hatfield, Premier of New Brunswick. He granted an interview, reviewed my submission, agreed to proceed in light of our history, academic performance and contribution to the life of Atlantic Canada, and quickly put a Bill through the Legislature granting the Charter which made ABC a degree-granting institution. Since then enrollment at ABC/ABU/Crandall has multiplied several times over, a new campus has been developed on land bequeathed to the school years before, additional academic majors have been instituted and a well-qualified Administrative Staff and Faculty under the leadership of President Brian MacArthur warmly embrace and mentor students. The impact of the student body and graduates in the life of Moncton and Atlantic Canada is significant and growing. Is confession of Christian faith inimical to academic freedom and excellence? Not at all. At Crandall the Board, Administration, Faculty and Staff are committed to academic excellence as judged by Canadian university standards and, as well, are committed to a moral life-style. They do this to honor an admirable Christian heritage, to involve themselves intelligently in the modern world of which they are a part, and to contribute to the well-being of their fellow human beings. No one, and no educational institution, acts outside premises. Evangelicals who are committed to academic excellence such as myself -- however much we succeed or fail out of a good conscience and through diligent study--try to make our case, in whatever discipline, on solid rational grounds. As a Christian engaged in scholarly pursuits I am constantly, freely and willingly open in principle to counter-argument and rational challenge; however, not only Christians, but most scholars who are not Christians, reject the radical secularist premise that only on a non-confessional base can one claim objectivity and be academically legitimate as CAUT claims. Consider: Is it moral for successors in the life of an institution (such as, say, Mount Allison University in New Brunswick) to hold beliefs, require concessions and promote life-styles that are inconsistent with or contrary to fundamental values of its founders and constituency, especially if the institution was founded by private donations and was committed to certain religious and moral beliefs? Would it not be more moral for such successors to buy out the interests of the founders and then develop the institution according to their own inclinations? Have not university departments in our time almost routinely discriminated against faculty applicants for reasons of political correctness that have nothing to do with competence or fitness for the job? Indeed they have. I know of one scholar--Ph.D. from a prominent university, not an evangelical, published author, excellent teacher, but a white male. While short-listed for jobs he was by-passed because priority was given to females, certain skin color groups, lesbians or homosexuals, and other minorities which had nothing to do with academic competence or scholarly output. I recall that when I was a graduate student with honours standing at a prestigious Canadian university the Director of Summer School wanted me to be his assistant for that summer's program. His request was denied by a senior university official because I was president of the Inter-varsity Christian Fellowship Campus Chapter. Ought we not to challenge modern, secular assumptions? These include: The materialist hypothesis that reality consists purely of atoms and the void. The behaviorist need-satisfaction model of human nature. The theory that mind is purely an epiphenomenon of physical functioning of the brain. Relativism that ultimately denies the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong -- value is any object of any interest. Why do secularists find humility unpalatable? Consider those who cannot tolerate the concept of the uncertainties in science of which Karl Popper spoke (Unended Quest) and his contention that the main task of science is not to defend traditional assumptions but is, rather, falsification of received premises that tend to distort the data we claim to understand. Or the cautionary note that Richard Feynman struck about what science cannot do (The Meaning of it All, written in 1963 but not published until 1998, after his death). Why is attention not paid to scientists who are also Christians? C. A. Coulson, world-class applied mathematician at Oxford whose students were in the forefront of thermo-nuclear energy research, openly professed his Christian faith (Science and Christian Belief, 1974). David Livingstone tells the story of evangelicals who defended Darwin's work (Darwin's Forgotten Defenders, 1987). John Polkinghorne, internationally renowned physicist at Cambridge University, is an ordained Anglican priest and has formed a society of Christian physicists. His writings continue to have an impact in the academy and the church. The granddaddy of atheism in our time has been Anthony Flew. That is, until he recently said that he has revised his views--some sort of super-intelligence must have created the universe. The supraphysical--Life, Consciousness, Thought, Self--can only originate in a supraphysical source, a source that is living, conscious and thinking, he wrote. Suddenly some of his protégés and admirers suggest that in his old age Flew is not thinking clearly! A few days ago Jonathan Haidt startled a prominent social psychology conference in the United States when he questioned whether social psychologists are blind to the hostile climate they've created for non-liberals: Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation, but when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations." Academic flat-earthism thrives. I did not discuss my writing of this essay with my former colleagues at Crandall University. They knew nothing about it. But it is time for Canadians to wake up to what they support in some segments of the Canadian higher education establishment. This ideological closed shop needs the strong light of rationality shone into it. Those, who take it upon themselves to mentor Canadian higher education and claim the right and authority to shape its future, themselves need to transcend their illiberalism and embrace the freedom and challenge of a rich variegated heritage.


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Dr. Samuel J. Mikolaski -- Bio and Archives

</em>Dr. Samuel Mikolaski, is a retired theological professor.  His curriculum vitae and published work are on his website: drsamstheology.com</em>


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