Editor’s Note: Mr. Stephens’ article originally appeared as an op-ed in The Erskine Mirror, Erskine’s student newspaper. Mr. Stephens was the Executive Assistant Editor of the newspaper for the 2008-09 year. It is reprinted here by permission.

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Here at Erskine we are hearing that we have money, admissions, and retention problems. If you haven’t heard, we do, and the administration is scrambling to figure out how to solve these admittedly big problems. While I cannot claim that this article contains all the answers, I do submit that it identifies a central one. The answer is quite simple: students arrive with a perception of the college that is not accurate at all. Once they find out that Erskine is, in reality, quite different from what they were sold on, they become dissatisfied and frustrated. Some feel lied to, some let down, some attempt to change the institution to what they were originally told it was. If this scenario was the fault of the students, we should expect to see just a couple leave each semester of their freshmen year. However, this is not the case as we all know. The students are not mistaken, they are deceived.

The answer is actually a choice. Erskine should either actually act and be Christian or drop “Christian” from its description. It must choose one or the other (secular or Christian) and act and speak of itself accordingly. Both secular wisdom and Christian wisdom affirm that you cannot please everybody, and by trying to please everybody, you please nobody. If nothing else, perhaps we can all agree on this.

Suppose you are in a class that presents the material in a secular fashion and then adds in some superfluous moralistic slant on top of the teaching; both Christians and non-Christians are put out. The Christians are frustrated because they see through the attempt at placating them and aren’t convinced by the cheap watered-down gimmick. Non-Christians are frustrated because a bunch of religious moralism was added to what they thought was perfectly good teaching. This teaching, trying to please both, is neither Christian nor secular, and both groups deserve better. So don’t bastardize Christianity or inject religious overtones into secularism!

But this is not the whole story. Those who are convinced by the bastard-teaching cause Erskine to fail in a different way. Erskine cannot truthfully claim to be a liberal arts college. Because the school takes the position of trying to please everyone and takes a non-existent middle ground, it teaches its students to be divided against themselves. Erskine fills their heads with contradictions (that do not get along), so the students are forced to live with two competing voices in their head. This education-induced schizophrenia is a far cry from the liberal arts goal of educating the whole person!

Is Erskine really not Christian? It does have a mission statement mentioning Christian commitment. However, just because you have a mission statement saying that you are Christian does not make you Christian. I can say that I am six feet tall all I want, but it does not change the fact that I am not six feet tall. Does changing the wording of the mission statement, putting it in a picture frame, or in every tuition increase letter make Erskine Christian?—only as much as me changing the definition of six feet to 72 inches or telling people every day how tall I am. No matter who I tell, no matter what I write, unless I grow six inches, I will never be six feet tall.

How many professors or administrators would be comfortable, nay, overjoyed to say “Jesus Christ, the son of God, came into this world, was crucified, died, and was resurrected for the salvation of sinful humans”? I submit to you not many at all. Sure, many might say “I believe in God” or “I believe in Jesus,” but merely “believing in God (or Jesus)” is not Christianity. It is American moralistic deism. “God exists and redeemed creation through his son Jesus” is Christian. It is a fact, a declaration (of good news), not therapeutic belief. It carries cognitive content and makes factual assertions about history and humanity; it is not simply believing in some distant grandfatherly God.

Yes, there are professors and administrators who are genuine Christians, and they are to be admired for their tenacity, faith in their vocation, and care for not only students’ minds, but their soul as well. However, having some Christian professors does not make a college Christian. Clemson and Carolina are great examples of that. Having a mission statement mentioning an aspect of Christianity does not make a college Christian. Harvard’s motto has been “truth for Christ and the church” and I don’t think anyone would dare to call them Christian.

I write this because I do not want to see the college slip further away from excellence, and I especially do not want to see Erskine fail. Brian Habig and Les Newsom write, “A loss of identity within a Christian institution can be fatal to its faith and life. A Christian institution with a clouded understanding of herself is bound to suffer from lifelessness, confusion and apathy among its members.” Erskine claims to be Christian, and Habig and Newsom’s description of a confused institution is shockingly like Erskine.

Maybe if Erskine College stopped lying about what it is, retention would be less of an issue, and the people that came here would come for what is actually here and not a projection that does not reflect reality. Maybe, just maybe, the solution to the money problems at Erskine does not include holding tighter to two horses headed in opposite directions, but choosing to mount and ride only one. It is time Erskine took itself and its troubles seriously. It has two choices for survival. It can either actually be a Christian college and continue to advertise itself as such, or it can cut the vanilla moralistic crap, be secular, and advertise itself as secular.

I do not want a new mission statement or more pressure to add “morals” into teaching. I want a college that claims to be Christian to actually be Christian or a college that is secular to have no qualms about calling itself secular. The practical issues of retention and money are pressing, but they are caused by a deeper crisis. “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” (Rev. 3:15-16)