I recently had an encounter with a student who expressed irritation with “judgmental Christians” who tell people they are going to hell. This attitude is common on college campuses. Therefore, our brief conversation nicely illustrates how we are largely failing to grow thoughtful, self-aware young adults. To use academic speak: we are not teaching students how to think critically, even though we talk about critical thinking all the time. Dirty little secret: “thinking critically” often turns out to mean demonstrating agreement with the professor on tests and in papers. Students figure this one out quickly.
I know that colleges and universities all have professors who don’t fit what I just said. They are careful, compassionate, pedagogues. But let’s not miss the forest for the trees.
Walk with me, for a moment, through the conversation. After telling me how bothered the student was by those judgmental Christians, I replied (trying to prompt thought), “So, you have an opinion about other people having an opinion. What makes your opinion superior?”
I don’t want to get sidetracked on the theology of this question. I know that thoughtful people disagree about people’s eternal destinies. And I am not one who thinks going around telling people they’re going to hell represents a good Christian witness. Rather, I want to look at the logical problem this student has.
It became clear to me that the student could not recognize that her opinion was not self-evidently true. Merely making the assertion seemed sufficient to settle the matter. Again, I don’t have a problem with the view. I have a problem with the student’s inability to articulate reasons for thinking it superior to the one she was criticizing.
Why? Not because she is intellectually slow (in fact, she is quite intelligent), but because most of us have lost the ability to have a truly open dialogue. She assumed some moral high ground without having to think about whether this assumption is defendable. She has learned – surreptitiously – that telling people they’re going to hell is wrong and offensive. She learned this, most likely, not through careful thinking, but through rhetorical power plays from people she admires and respects. They are her teachers, whether they hold the title or not. (And we should remember what the book of James says about teachers. See 3:1.)
In higher education, we are supposed to be in the business of helping students learn to think well. This is not all we’re supposed to do, but certainly it is one of our main jobs. We are to help students become self-aware and reflective about how they develop their opinions, where they get their ideas and how they support them. We are to give them the intellectual tools to evaluate well their own thinking. Then they’ll be able to fairly evaluate others’.
But we do not teach them. Maybe we don’t have time. Maybe we don’t care. Good dialogue requires real tolerance and respect, not the mere mouthing of these words. For all our talk about tolerance (which I support wholeheartedly), I see precious little of it on college campuses. It’s more like we’ve declared a truce. We don’t, in fact, tolerate each other, we just co-exist in the same general space. We may call this arrangement “tolerance,” but it is a sham tolerance. We tacitly make a deal not to talk to each other about controversial things. Instead, we divide into self-selected groups and talk only to those who already agree with us.
So, nobody has to think critically, not even the professors.
To the extent that what I have said is true, to that extent we are failing to educate young people. God forgive us.
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