III. SAFE’s Goals and Positions
Q: Do SAFE’s contributors and editors believe that most Erskine faculty members are not Christians? How can they judge another person’s commitment to Christ?
A: In fact, we have never made that charge! What many have said is that (at minimum) a strong majority of Erskine faculty members do not integrate Christian faith and learning in a meaningful way. This is what we mean when we raise concerns about the “commitment of the administration and faculty to Christ”; and, by the way, this does not mean that we think a professor has to cite a Bible verse in each class! (For a helpful explanation of faith-learning integration, cf. Dr. John Wingard’s talk on the Christian liberal arts. For an institutional statement, cf. the ARP Philosophy of Christian Higher Education.) This situation caused concern because Erskine’s mission commits it to the “integration of faith and learning” (1991 Overarching Mission Statement for EC and ETS) and to the “integration of learning and biblical truth” (current Erskine College Mission Statement). That is to say, our intention is not to judge the hearts of professors; rather, the intention is to raise an institutional concern: is the Administration hiring faculty who are on board with the mission? If not, how can Erskine be faithful to its mission and fulfill the directives of the Board of Trustees and of the ARP General Synod?
Q: Won’t the SAFE agenda commit Erskine to anti-intellectual academics and a legalistic campus environment?
A:First, again the “SAFE agenda” is no mysterious conspiracy; rather, it is an appeal for Erskine to faithfully embrace and implement the Erskine College Mission Statement and the ARP Philosophy of Christian Education. Second, both of those documents call for rigorous academics. The Mission Statement calls Erskine to aspire toward an excellent liberal arts education, while the ARP PCHE makes the following statement:
Faculty members who believe in the enduring relevance of the Christian orientation have a relation to their subject matter and an involvement with the learner which are significantly different from those found in secular settings. Freedom of inquiry should prevail; however, faculty members should be chosen who are sympathetic to the goals of the College and who are concerned with the quality of the day-to-day life of the campus.
So there is nothing in the “SAFE agenda” that requires the closing of the mind to a rigorous interaction with the entirety of God’s truth and with the diversity of perspectives both within and without Christianity.
However, the distinctiveness of a Christian liberal arts education lies is its commitment to the authority of Scripture as the inerrant and infallible Word of God and to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all things, including academics. This does not mean that professors should only teach Bible verses, or that they should not present influential ideas and theories within their discipline (whether those ideas and theories are Christian or not). On the contrary, the integration of biblical truth with learning means that learning requires rigorous engagement with the relevant subject matters of each discipline that is integrated with a commitment to seeing how human thinking needs to be not only affirmed but challenged and redeemed by a Christian worldview under the Lordship of Christ and the authority of His Word in Scripture. As the ARP PCHE puts it, an Erskine education is to fulfill the “Biblical mandate to redeem all of life, especially man’s moral and intellectual life, under the authority and Lordship of Jesus Christ.”
Lastly, such a commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ commits Erskine institutionally to the exact opposite of legalism: it commits Erskine to the Gospel of God’s grace in Christ. It is that Gospel that we hope will become more central at Erskine in terms of how the College implements its mission.
Q: But aren’t faith and reason opposed to each other? Or, at least, radically separated?
A: This is certainly a perspective many hold to in our contemporary context. However, Erskine’s institutional documents commit it to integrating Christian faith and learning, to seeing them as fitting together under the sovereignty of God. The Christian liberal arts is to be a quest of faith seeking understanding; but to be faithful in that quest, there must be some defined standards for faith to be faithful to! Erskine accepts the ARP Church’s Definition of an Evangelical Christian (which includes a commitment to the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture) as providing a definition of Christian commitment expected of administrators and faculty. The ARP PCHE and the Mission Statement further define the basic standards for what the integration of faith and learning mean at Erskine.
Q: Won’t the “SAFE agenda” weaken scientific study at Erskine, making it difficult for students to be accepted into medical school and graduate school?
A: Again, none of the SAFE contributors and editors asserts that evolution should not be presented in the classroom at Erskine. None of us have advocated a forced, legalistic teaching of 6 Day Creationism without presenting evolution. What several contributors have pointed out is a persistent failure to integrate the biblical and historic Christian confession of the sovereignty of God as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe into the teaching of science at Erskine. To say so does not close our brains off from wonder; rather, we yearn for more integration of faith and learning precisely from a standpoint of wonder at the glory of God and what He has made!
Q: Weren’t the criticisms of SAFE contributors inaccurate when they said that Erskine changed its motto to, “Forever Connected”?
A: Technically, it is true that the College’s official motto – “Knowledge joined with morals” – did not change. No one has alleged that that official motto was changed. While one of the students on the SAFE video did reference the changing of the motto, she was referring to the phrase “Christian commitment and Excellence in Learning.” And, indeed, the advertising motto or slogan used by Admissions, “Christian commitment and Excellence in Learning”, did change to “Forever Connected.” It was this change that was referred to by some of the SAFE contributors. Some students referred to the Admissions slogan in its precise technical sense as a slogan (see, for instance, this letter) and some did not. Ultimately, the way those concerns were expressed represented those of the individual contributor (though the editors sought as much accuracy as possible in the editing process).
It is important to point out that when the new Admissions slogan was first unveiled it did not occur with the full line – “Forever Connected – Christ, Learning, and Life” – that the Vice-President for Enrollment Management suggested would be used at the Student Forum. That, combined with the generally fuzzy understanding of the Christian liberal arts presented by Admissions, caused the level of concern among some students that came out in certain letters (and in the comments of the one of the contributors to the student video) on SAFE.
Q: Does SAFE want Erskine professors to be only Reformed Evangelicals?
A: Once again, that is not our position nor is it that of the petition effort. We simply affirm the ARP Definition of an Evangelical Christian and the Erskine Mission Statement, and desire to see the institution hire administrators, faculty, and staff who adhere to and implement those standards.
Q: Why does SAFE publish material attacking or criticizing by name Erskine Administrators and faculty?
A: The editors purposely tried to edit articles so that criticisms would be as broad as possible and would not attack individuals as individuals and would avoid names. We desired to do this because: 1) These are institutional concerns, not concerns about personal grievances or personality conflicts and 2) It is more appropriate for the commission to sort out the more specific details of the issues in question, rather than for them to be aired in public. However, in some cases to illustrate the general problems at Erskine the contributors found it necessary to mention the policies, decisions, and statements of administrators and faculty in order to keep their concerns from being unduly vague. In most cases the issues in question were either on the public record, matters of record or dispute within the institution, or concerned an on-the-record conversation, and did not center on merely private or personal concerns. In some cases, the Editors removed a reference to an individual before the letter was published online, in other cases a reference was removed later after more reflection, and in other cases the judgment was made to maintain the reference for the sake of the integrity of the content of the contributor’s letter.
Q: Do SAFE or the petition signatories want only ARPs to teach or attend Erskine?
A: Again, absolutely not! In fact, as stated above, several of the SAFE contributors, one of the SAFE editors, and many of the petition signatories are not ARP at all! However, since Erskine is the College of the ARP Church, we recognize that Erskine, through its Board, is ultimately accountable to the ARP General Synod. Nonetheless, it is important to note that the Synod’s standards – such as the Definition of an Evangelical and the ARP PCHE – do not add burdens to Erskine beyond those of other confessional or evangelical denominations.
Q: Why does SAFE publish lies about Erskine?
A: That is a loaded question, isn’t it? While the content of each letter is the responsibility of the contributor, we edit articles with an eye toward accuracy and truth. Accordingly, if someone alleges that a letter published on the website contains a falsehood, we would like to dialogue via email with that person and make a public correction on the website on the page that that letter was published if the person raising the concern can demonstrate that a letter contains a factual inaccuracy or a falsehood. (We would ask in such instances that the letter writer be contacted first.)
-The Editors