Let’s start with two quotes.
A weary grievance from the Bible: "Of making many books there is no end" (Ecclesiastes 12:12). The same can be said about endless journalistic articles trying to figure out what's with U.S. evangelical Protestantism in the age of Donald Trump -- saith The Religion Guy himself.
"A successful political movement must incorporate both elites and the people. Only intermittently, however, has the American right been able to achieve such a synthesis. That is why its victories have been so tenuous." So writes Matthew Continetti in "The Right," his new opus about U.S. political conservatism.
The Guy has taken Continetti's view regarding U.S. conservative Protestantism and is far more interested in the gap between its intellectual elite and the grassroots than e.g. the current hullabaloo over The New York Times describing worship mingling with Trumpified politicking by a segment of evangelicals (see tmatt post here).
Which brings us to a must-read article entitled "The Five Emerging Factions in Evangelical Higher Education" by Daniel K. Williams (contact: 678-839-6034 and dkwillia@westga.edu). He's a history professor at the University of West Georgia and author of "God's Own Party" (2010), and "The Politics of the Cross" 2021).
Williams reflects on the recent convention of the Conference on Faith and History, an association of Christians who teach this subject at both secular and religious colleges. Crucial: He writes only about diverse camps among evangelical scholars and schools. But does this breakdown characterize U.S evangelicalism as a whole? He depicts five factions.
Culture warriors -- These political conservatives actively oppose socialism, critical race theory, feminism, the new sexuality and "cultural liberalism in all its forms," while embracing "Trumpist conservative partisanship." Such teachers at e.g. Bob Jones, Liberty and Regent Universities; Patrick Henry and Saint Andrews Colleges; and elsewhere rarely interact with "the rest of Christian academia."
Anti-nationalists -- These evangelicals mostly agree with the culture warriors on the issues but don't want to be "adjuncts of the Republican Party" and are anti-Trump. They shun the "pro-choice Democrats" and proponents of the sexual revolution, and though opposed to critical race theory express "genuine concern for racial justice."
Half and halfers -- This is another mixed-bag category, progressive in fighting "Christian nationalism" and "structural racism" but also gender "complementarian" and favoring old-fashioned restrictions on women in church and home. This small faction of thinkers has outsize influence in e.g. the Presbyterian Church in America, pockets of the Southern Baptist Convention and the membership of the Conference on Faith and History.
Gender egalitarians -- These evangelicals and "confessional" Protestant conservatives believe the Bible teaches "egalitarianism" between the sexes. But they are alienated and pressured from secular academia due to their traditional beliefs about sexual morality. This approach is present or dominant at influential institutions like Baylor University, Calvin University, Fuller Theological Seminary and Wheaton College,
LGBTQ+ advocates -- Some scholars who self-identify as evangelicals now endorse same-sex marriage and full LGBTQ+ inclusion in ministry without requiring celibacy. Williams predicts we'll see more of this at campuses that have been evangelical bulwarks. But can such a "middle ground" between evangelicalism and liberal "mainline" Protestantism be considered evangelical any longer? And how will donors, parents and trustees respond?
Now, here's a related story idea about two organizations that many journalists have ignored.
The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), founded in1976, calls itself "the leading national voice of Christian higher education" (which here means Protestant, not Catholic). It reports membership of 185 accredited campuses, including some in 19 countries outside the U.S. and Canada with 520,000 cumulative enrollment, listed here.
The council says member schools are "Christ-centered and rooted in the historic Christian faith," and believe the Bible is "divinely-inspired, true, and authoritative." Its president since 2014 has been attorney Shirley Hoogstra, former vice president for student life at Calvin University (contacts: media@cccu.org and 202-546-8713).
Also Protestant is the International Alliance for Christian Education (IACE), which emerged three years ago. It upholds "the truthfulness and authority of Holy Scripture," the "uniqueness of Christ" and the "importance of confessional Christianity" including the doctrines affirmed by the ancient Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon.
The alliance's founder and president is David S. Dockery, longtime president of Union University, a former president of the CCCU board and now a theology professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (contacts: ddockery@swbts.edu and 817-923-1921). The schools that formed this organization are listed here.
The two organizations look similar and united with Orthodox Jews and 32 individual schools in a federal appeals court brief (.pdf here) supporting Fuller Theological Seminary's right to require standards of belief and moral conduct from students.
Here is a question for journalists: What was it about CCCU that produced IACE? Reporters should dig into recent CCCU history and ask Dockery and Hoogstra to explain.
Working hypothesis: This reflects growing tensions among evangelical camps cited above, especially as demonstrated when the CCCU briefly attempted to finesse a quiet compromise on doctrines linked to LGBTQ+ issues. In particular, it likely involves debates — especially among faculty members — about sexual conduct policies that each campus in the U.S. and Canada is coping with in its own way.