Yes, I do have a propensity for long titles.  That admitted, I want to talk about Rachel Held Evans’ perspective on Christopher Yuan’s visit to Bryan College this week. In an article that Rachel wrote on the dangers of using one story to define how we see a whole set of people, she referenced Yuan’s visit to Bryan College:

“Indeed, my alma mater, a conservative Christian college that has shied away from bold conversations around homosexuality, will be hosting Christopher Yuan as a chapel speaker next semester. Yuan’s testimony is about how he indulged in a promiscuous, drug-fueled lifestyle with multiple same-sex partners and contracted HIV until encountering Christ and turning his life around.

Now, I don’t want to cast doubt on Yuan’s story; it’s an important one to hear. But I fear that if his remains the only story presented about what it means to be gay…or what it means to have HIV, for that matter…then it will continue to perpetuate the sort of stereotypes that prove seriously unhelpful in this conversation.”


I can relate with Rachel’s desire to inform students of different perspectives on life; that’s one of the reasons that I pursued further academic study in ethics. However, there is a time and place for pulpitting (not a real word) other perspectives and belief systems, and then there is a time to make sure what is pulpitted does not cause tension and doubt that is not immediately addressed with mature and informed guidance.  Rachel’s blog might be ready to address any number of topics at any given time, but education doesn’t work that way. Nor does parenting for that matter. Parents entrust Bryan College and other colleges with the responsibility of introducing new perspectives and ways of life with wisdom and caution.

There are different educational options at Bryan College that offer more exploration than can be responsibly achieved in the large group chapel setting that we have three times a week. A couple of years ago one of our counseling professors brought a self-identified transgendered friend into her class to offer a different perspective. The counselor’s class was a great place to introduce this young person and her story because the counselor could then walk with her students the remainder of the semester as they wrestled with the complexity of the new information. The same could be said about a class on the bible and sexuality that we offer, or my Introduction to Ethical Thinking course. Conversely, dropping that young person’s transgendered testimony on the heads of 95% of our students who have not been prepared to have that discussion would seem really unwise. All of our faculty would have to be ready to address that specific issue from a well-informed perspective in order for us to be responsible with the young men and women that parents and guardians have entrusted to us.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t have a range of speakers that share a common foundation. Last year we invited Dr. Mark Yarhouse from The Institute for the Study of Sexual Identity. He presented some of his research to our faculty in a training session and then spoke to our student body on a more culturally-informed level afterwards. I suspect that his views don’t line up perfectly with Christopher Yuan’s, but based on my interaction with them they seem to share a common foundation and approach to the issue.

Whether some Christians want to admit it or not, we hold to general assumptions that need to be rock solid in order to have a healthy life in Christ. We differ on what those assumptions are, and that’s where the tension rises. I’m reminded of the character Will Hunting in the movie Good Will Hunting when I consider the strategy that Rachel Held Evans and others have taken in confronting more “conservative” perspectives on Christian values than those she holds.

There is a scene in the movie in which Will Hunting is meeting Robin William’s character Sean Maguire (a counselor) for the first time. The dysfunctional Will is looking for a way to sound competent and superior (in response to his insecurity) in relation to Sean, the well-educated counselor who has been through many more life experiences than Will. Will walks around Sean’s bookshelves and subversively questions whether he has read them all. Sean responds that he has (a question that I couldn’t answer “yes” to in my own office, by the way). Not finding a vulnerability there, Will built up his sense of value by suggesting that the best history book to read is the one that Sean hadn’t read yet, Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States. Although I use Zinn’s history book for youth in my own children’s education, I also know that it’s a deconstructive history book. It’s built on subverting the status quo in U.S. history.

I get the sense that Rachel Held Evans approaches Bryan College and most other institutions and people she views as more conservative than she is in a similar way as Will approached Sean: if we would only read all the books. If we would only read the book that devalues our perspectives. If we would only read more of her blog posts. If we would only bring in the speaker that would help all those young people in our chapel service see that Rachel’s views are more progressed.

At best this sounds like deconstructionism, and at worst her version of indoctrination. This ‘pie in the sky’ idea that there is an unbiased form of education that could and should be taught at all institutions is nonsense. Even when moral relativism drives an educational institution, there is still a bias in place...one that validates moral relativism. Human beings desire to find unity within community. The more savvy among us know how to move more effectively people towards their position. That doesn’t make them evil, but it doesn’t validate their position either.

The continental philosopher Jack Caputo wrote a book on deconstruction that lays out a deconstructive worldview akin to that towards which we see our culture gravitating. Caputo puts forth 6 characteristics of this way of looking at the world that I believe have greatly informed (directly or indirectly) bloggers like Rachel Held Evans. There are four out of the 6 that relate even more than the other two. They are:

1. “Community without community”
2. “Justice”
3. “The Messianic”
4. “Say ‘Yes’”

The principle about community makes the point that we should relate to the perceived boundaries of our community very loosely, so as to not leave anyone out. This principle, without the accompaniment of the others, wouldn’t be that troublesome. But add in a sense that justice requires that we continuously question our foundation in order to make room for the unidentified and unnamed savior, or messiah, that is always and never coming, and you have yourself a dangerous philosophy that is literally anti-Christ. I’m not saying that Rachel is anti-Christ, but I am saying that her efforts to subvert historically orthodox interpretations and actualizations of Biblical truth leads young people to “say ‘Yes’” to ideas without spending significant time researching the issues within an educated community of mature Christians.

There are definitely differing perspectives and traditions at Bryan College that make relating what we teach to students more complex. I routinely find myself discussing variant viewpoints with students in my class when they inform me that they heard something different in another class. But overall, Bryan College believes that the trajectory of the education that it offers should place “Christ Above All.” It’s not talking about the Christ of Mormonism or The Jesus Seminar; it’s landed on a view of Christ that is grounded in the evangelical tradition. If you can’t articulate the Christ you believe in, how do you know where your faith resides?

So when Bryan College decides to bring men like Christopher Yuan to campus, it is in a way letting you know where it stands. As a faculty member of Bryan College, I believe that we have an obligation to hold firmly to where we stand while learning more about those that disagree with us so that we can approach them with grace. But hopefully we will not be ignorant to the fact that stories are strong things. In the hands of a skillful practitioner they can make angels of demons and victims of predators. As long as I can help it, we will continue to provide students space to engage other beliefs, while testing them thoroughly to see if they fit into a right relationship with Christ.