“I do believe that the things we are wrestling with show that we take the confessions more seriously than a lot of CRC congregations that have been hijacked by a generic mega-church evangelical mentality where the confessions are not a living document,” he said. “You can’t just trot out confessions when you want to put up a fence.

A well-executed dance is beautiful. Both partners carry out their own steps while providing space for their partner’s steps. All the while, they cling to each other in an embrace just strong enough to keep them from flying apart.

“You can’t just trot out confessions when you want to put up a fence.”

That is what academic freedom in a Reformed Christian college should look like. The college and the church community that supports it are partners in a dance. Both must give the other enough space, yet they need to cling together in a healthy tension that keeps them from breaking apart.

On paper it can seem pretty clear-cut. But sometimes research by scholars in pursuit of
truth can bump up against the boundaries of Scripture and the Reformed doctrines that both the school and the church community embrace.

When that happens, how do academics, college administrators, and the church communities that support them balance the desire for academic freedom with the desire to remain faithful to Scripture and our Reformed confessions?

How do they stay together in that beautiful dance?

What Is Academic Freedom?

Anthony Diekema, former president of Calvin College, wrote the book on academic freedom and Christian higher education—literally. Many consider his book Academic Freedom & Christian Scholarship to be the authoritative work on the topic.

Diekema defines academic freedom as a sacred trust, one that is granted only to scholars and members of an academic community.

Gaylen Byker, current president of Calvin College, defines academic freedom as “the freedom of both the institution and faculty members to pursue truth without undue restraint,” freedom that is not understood as the absence of constraints but rather freedom to do what is right.

Some would say that the boundaries of the Bible and the Reformed confessions put constraints on professors in our church-related colleges that fly contrary to the whole notion of academic freedom.

But academics and administrators in colleges related to the Christian Reformed Church beg to differ, saying that there are just as many, if not more, constraints on their colleagues in state-owned secular schools. In fact, they feel that they have more freedom even while they are bound to Scripture and the confessions.

James K.A. Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin College, said, “Most of us did our graduate training at a secular public university and it was clear all the things you were not allowed to think, implicit rules and boundaries and limits to what you could think and say. At Calvin, there are parameters, but they are on the table and everyone knows what they are, and they [don’t] sway with the winds of political ideology.”

What Role Do the Confessions Play?

Calvin College, which is owned by the CRC, requires professors to sign the Form of Subscription that officebearers in the church also sign, indicating faithfulness to Scripture and the Reformed confessions.

Other CRC-related colleges are supported by the CRC community but are independent in governance. In some form or another, all of them require professors to sign on to the mission of the institution, which finds its roots in the Scriptures and in the Reformed confessions.

Byker said the confessional commitments serve both a centering and a boundary nction. “Within this confessional context, faculty members are free to engage in intellectual, moral, and spiritual inquiry, to discern the shape of a faithful Christian way of life and understanding of God’s world.”

Steven Timmermans, president of Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, Ill., compares the confessions to a great cloud of witnesses. “The Holy Spirit has guided Christians over the centuries to agree upon biblical interpretation,” he said. That gives the confessionally based college the added dimension of all those Christians over the centuries serving as a “great cloud of witnesses” observing scholars as they pursue their work.

Loren Haarsma, a physics professor at Calvin College, said the confessions provide a central starting point, but sometimes give competing theological concerns. “For example,” he said, “in the last century, debates about card playing and theater attendance pitted good theological concerns against each other: on the one hand, concerns about practicing piety and avoiding worldliness; on the other hand, concerns about the primacy of God’s grace and avoiding legalism.”

Sometimes it is the confessions themselves that come under scrutiny. Lee Hardy, a professor of philosophy at Calvin College who has written about academic freedom, said, “We can speak of conducting research and reflection within the boundaries set by the confessions; but we can also speak of research and reflection on those boundaries themselves. The first thing we should note is that the confessions are not infallible; the second thing we should note is that they (plus their interpretation) nonetheless represent our tradition’s best understanding to date of what is taught in the Word of God. So the confessions should not be immune from critical reflection; but neither should such reflection be undertaken lightly.”

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