Faithful Learning and the Christian Scholarly Vocation.

Faithful Learning and the Christian Scholarly Vocation. Edited by Douglas V. Henry and Bob R. Agee. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003. 178 pp.

The Baptist and Christian Character of Baylor. Edited by Donald D. Schmeltekopf and Diana Vitanza with Bradley J. Toben. Waco: Baylor University, 2003. 183 pp.

These two books reflect the new concerns and thrusts among Baptist educators in the South and beyond to address the concerns and themes of evangelical America and intentional Christian higher education. Baylor University is the common denominator and much light is shed on its own recent torturous pilgrimage.

Faithful Learning and the Christian Scholarly Vocation is a very worthwhile book, edited by Douglas Henry, who directs the faith and learning program at Baylor, and Bob Agee, who is on the staff of the Association of Southern Baptist Colleges and Schools. Their book is a compilation of the best of the H. I. Hester Lecture Series that is annually delivered to the Association of Southern Baptist Colleges and Schools. Included are fifteen topnotch essays from theologians, missiologists, historians, and philosophers, including Richard Hughes, Martin Marty, and Denton Lotz.

In the first section, the editors have arranged a potpourri on theological reflection. Hughes compares a Reformed model with Anabaptist, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic examples and concludes that the Baptist tradition possesses some of the richest theological resources for sustaining the life of the mind. He is especially fond of E. Y. Mullins and soul competency, though his reflections on Mullins are somewhat out of context. Within the Reformed Tradition, C. Stephen Evans emphasizes the importance of the calling and vocation of a scholar-teacher. His article is helpful in that he does not believe all Christian scholarship has to be distinctly Christian and he wants Christian scholars to be principled pluralists. Marty's essay is my favorite. He argues that secularism is more complex than the evangelicals understand it to be, and he thinks one of the best results of Christian higher education is building Christian community. Joel Carpenter makes a good case for a "gospel epistemology," and Nathan Hatch, after tracing the heritage of Christian higher education in America, reminds educators that institutions are not renewed, people are.

In a second section, older, less current lectures include Arthur Holmes's (Wheaton College) classic apologetic of the theocentric unity of troth and his case for a Christian college; Denton Lotz speaks of the arrogance of the West and the role that Christian colleges have in the conversion of the West and East; and Anthony Campolo describes "radical" Christian colleges that are intentional about their profession of the faith and are places whose graduates do not fit into the social system comfortably but who can bring about nonviolent social change.

I highly recommend this book as an introduction to Christian higher education issues, especially relevant in a Baptist context. Its only limitations are a dependence upon the secularization theory, now largely abandoned, and the painful downfall of the once-proud denomination where the Hester Lectures had their initial impact.

In sharp contrast, The Baptist and Christian Character of Baylor is a collection of sixteen short essays essentially prepared for the retirement of Donald D. Schmeltekopf as Baylor University provost in April 2003. Schmeltekopf is a member of a well-known Texas Baptist family that stretches back generations from the German Baptist tradition. The essays (or more properly conference papers) were contributed by a select group of Baylor faculty and alumnae.

In part one, six papers lay a foundation for the more particular ones to follow. Readers will especially note Schmeltekopfs own contribution in which he sets out to provide a historical treatment of what it means for Baylor University to be Christian and to be Baptist. His reference point is John Henry Newman, but nowhere does Schmeltekopf define what it means to be a Baptist institution in Baylor usage, except to say it was a matter of "common sense." Instead, Schmeltekopf is uncritically tied to the secularization hypothesis and thus expresses great fears that Christian colleges which do not integrate faith and learning will collapse from within. Here he is much indebted to George Marsden.

The second paper of note, to which others respond, is that of C. Stephen Evans, formerly of Calvin College, a Kierkegaardian specialist now at Baylor. Evans argues that being a Christian university is a legitimate ideal, and he is indebted in Richard Hughes in the Reformed Tradition, among others. He brushes very faintly his idea of Baptist particularity (missionary urgency and believer's baptism), but moves to what Baptists have in common with ,other Christians. Evans follows the lead of colleague Ralph Wood and, distantly, James McClendon in wanting to shape a university by the narratives of the Christian story. There is much to ponder in Evans's paper that resuscitates many ideas from Arthur Holmes of a generation ago.

In another paper, James Benninghof warns that there is likely to be stiff resistance to what Baylor is trying to accomplish. Mariana Busch, Gerald Cleaver, and David Rudd seem in indicate that there is no inherent problem with doing science or social science at Baylor in the context of a strong religious conviction; and Baylor may well be the best example of a true "uni-versity."

In part two, the reader will want to pause. The first essay by Mikeal Parsons, a New Testament specialist, may be troubling to Baptist historians. Parsons ventures into Baptist identity by labeling it a matter of "style," which he in part justifies by a misguided reference to Walter Shurden and a recent series of pamphlets issued by the Baptist History and Heritage Society. He, too, accepts uncritically the secularization hypothesis, indirectly dubbing proponents of "freedom" and "toleration" in higher education as "insipid." Instead, he favors the "Great Tradition of the Christian Faith" (with full references to creeds), and what he refers to as a "robust" faith that he never adequately defines. Parsons goes on to advocate the Notre Dame "significant contribution" method now involved in Baylor faculty hiring and promotion, and he includes useful documentation and insights into Baylor's personnel processes. Other contributors in this section attempt to deal with the nature of a "community" of scholars, discipline, and support expected from faculty in a Christian institution, and some cautionary notes that might spell something akin to coercion of conscience. Readers will find Ralph Wood's "cosmic" essay intriguing in his sweep of personalities from C. S. Lewis to Peter Gomes (Wood advocates building a "cathedral" in the midst of the campus and calling the ordinances "sacraments"), and Truett Seminary's Roger Olson calls for a "Center of Baptist and Free Church Studies," which seems disingenuous in view of Baylor's recent dismantling of its Program in Baptist Studies.

What this volume signals more than anything else is Baylor's movement toward the half-century old Christian college agenda pioneered at small evangelical colleges like Wheaton, Calvin, and Gordon. The issue of what is required of a research university is left unanswered, and one is left to ponder what future contributions Donald Schmeltekopf would have made to that project had he have remained as provost. On the positive side, this set of essays will become a valued primary source not only to historians of Baylor, but to others intrigued with Baylor's tracking in this generation.--William H. Brackney, professor of religion and director of the Program in Baptist Studies, Baylor University, Waco, Texas.