This brings us to today, when we are faced with an economic crisis and subsequent financial difficulty that, save for the Great Depression, is without precedent in our history, and which has the distinct possibility of re-shaping the very foundations of this institution. Our endowment has diminished by nine-figures, and cuts have been made to our faculty, programs, and other facets of the College. In truth, these catastrophic happenings could change this institution as it has never changed before. However, no matter the difficulty, Wabash has always fought its way through, dedicating itself to the core element that has always made this College truly great: the betterment of the individual through the liberal arts. While this institution must respond to the challenges we currently face, in so doing we must remain true to this principle lest we fade into the sunset of mediocrity and lose the very essence of what makes Wabash College the renowned institution that it is.

As part of a recent class assignment, I was given a transcript of an address by one of Wabash’s great former-Presidents, Louis Hopkins – a speech that I found so relevant to today that I was rather taken aback. The address was given in the late 1920s/early 1930s, as part of a comparison of the curricula of five great universities across the nation. Among these institutions were such names as Columbia, Harvard, Swarthmore, the University of Chicago, and (last, but not least) Wabash College. While comparison to such schools as these seems, at first, to be a bit far-fetched, what President Hopkins went on to portray in his address illustrates quite plainly why such a comparison was merited, and why a Wabash education was one truly comparable to the elite universities in the country.

As he went on to discuss, in the late 1920s/early 1930s, though small, Wabash was not ineffective or poorly situated. At that time, the College had an “enrollment of 400 students,” a “faculty of 32 members,” and an endowment of “$2,200,000”. Translating these figures, this means that there was a student-teacher ratio of 12.5:1, and that the endowment, in today’s value (thanks to dollartimes.com), was upwards of $26,000,000. While numbers such as these might not have been impressive or uncommon, there was something else that made this tiny little school in the midst of the Hoosier Heartland so different from the other institutions across the nation, meriting its comparison with the Ivy Leagues and other highly-ranked schools. As President Hopkins put it best, what made this place special was Wabash’s focus on “…offer[ing] the opportunity for the highest possible development of the individual…” – most specifically, through the study of the liberal arts.

As President Hopkins stated, Wabash’s “curriculum…is designed with the purpose in mind of rendering the greatest possible service to each student.” The liberal arts, President Hopkins continued, was the best possible means of reaching this goal, since “[a] liberal arts education, is not so concerned with the discovery of knowledge as with the gaining of understanding,” and thus, the comprehensive betterment of the individual. As he reckoned, while “it may be that knowledge can be pumped out or pounded in by the clock, and measured in quarts or pounds…understanding comes as a process of growth in appreciation and experience, and is dependent both on the individual’s capacity and on his environment.”

Thus, the curriculum of Wabash during the 1920s and 30s sought to provide an environment that would not drill information into the heads of students, but would instead deepen their understanding of the world about them. Beginning with the Freshman Tutorial, students would be introduced to the liberal arts – to study a subject about which they might not otherwise learn, and to broaden their outlook upon life itself. Teaching each respective tutorial would be a faculty advisor, who would meet with and guide each student through his academic career. Following the Tutorial, there were then to be “certain definite requirements…that all must meet,” in order to provide a wide frame of knowledge for each student. Yet, these requirements were designed to allow for a certain amount of flexibility, since “…there [are] marked individual differences in the students who are admitted,” necessitating “…that the requirements [be] made as flexible as they are for individual cases.” Further, during the Sophomore and Junior years, each student would be required to meet individually with the Dean of Students and the President of the College, to discuss his desired area of concentration and his educational experience at Wabash.

In this manner, the Wabash College of the 1920s and 30s sought to provide a comprehensive education, focused on the development of each individual student, and the increasing of each one’s understanding through the liberal arts. While this curriculum sounds strikingly similar to that of today, we would be amiss to note one crucial fact: this was the College’s goal, and its method of reaching that goal, both before and during the Great Depression. During the greatest period of financial difficulty this country has ever seen, Wabash College remained committed to focusing on the development of each individual student, keeping the student-teacher ratio low, and emphasizing the connection between each student and both the faculty and the administration of the College. In spite of the financial difficulties the College faced, and in spite of the changes that were necessitated during this period, one could count on a Wabash education to prepare him to succeed.

Enter the modern era. Today, our curriculum remains much the same – and so does our focus on the betterment of the individual. Members of the faculty every year welcome a new class of freshmen to the College, with each taking a small group of freshman into their tutelage in their respective Freshman Tutorials, ranging from (to name a few) Dr. Hadley’s “Fly-fishing: the Liberal Art”, to Dr. Webb’s “Christianity and Popular Culture”, to Dr. Butler’s “Baseball, America, and the World” – none of which fit into their specific disciplines precisely, but which are instead geared toward exploring a topic of interest to both them and their students, using it as an opportunity to engage the topic through the lens of the liberal arts. Also, the Sophomore Interviews remain, connecting each student with the Dean of Students by providing for a one-on-one discussion of the student’s educational needs and desires. Further, the student-faculty ratio has narrowed impressively, to the benefit of the students, hovering around 10:1.

New features tailored to achieving this same goal have also been added since the days of President Hopkins, with the Sophomore favorite “Cultures and Traditions” course providing a chance for students to view ancient texts and cultures through the lens of different disciplines, in order to broaden each one’s understanding of various cultures. Study-abroad opportunities – whether on a short-term basis such as immersion-based courses, or on a long-term basis such as the Semester Abroad programs – have also been developed, that the student might have an opportunity to learn first-hand of cultures, traditions, and places that he might not otherwise have been able to know of, even further broadening his understanding of the world. Finally, at the end of one’s Wabash tenure, the Senior Comprehensive examinations – though a requirement for graduating in President Hopkins’ day – have been given an increased importance today, for it is in these that each student must not only explain his knowledge of his chosen major and minor, but also demonstrate the breadth of his understanding to the faculty through the interview portion of the examinations. Thus, Wabash remains focused on providing an education centered on the growth of the individual student and his understanding.

In spite of this noble commitment, however, with the recent financial crisis Wabash College has undergone and will necessarily be undergoing quite a few significant changes. With multiple professors and staff members either being let-go or forced into retirement, the curriculum will be changing. Certain courses might no longer be offered, the number of courses might decrease, and even the student-teacher ratio might increase past the 10:1 ratio of which the school is so proud. Similarly, study-abroad opportunities will change, as funding for immersion trips and semester-abroad programs will decrease in reflection of the school’s overall decreasing financial means. In truth, the way in which this College responds to this crisis will determine its make-up and character for years to come.

Yet, change need not be considered a bad thing, but an opportunity for improving on what we already do well. Regardless of the necessary re-shaping that this College will soon undergo, if we retain our focus on bettering the individual and increasing each student’s understanding, Wabash College will endure as it has endured times of testing far worse than this. I have the fullest confidence that our current administration and faculty have this idea at the forefront of their minds; yet, we would all be wise to step back and consider once more what truly is the essence of Wabash. In the words of President Hopkins, may the goal, purpose, and practice of this institution be forevermore that, “Wabash College will continue, therefore, to offer a liberal arts education designed to lead to an understanding of contemporary life, and…encourage each student enrolled in our courses to strive to the limit of his capacity to perfect himself according to the abilities that God has given him.”

Related posts:

1. The Liberal Arts, the Mission Statement, and Teacher Education at Wabash
2. Despite the Change: Why We Still Are a Liberal Arts College
3. On the Liberal Arts

However, we are only going to be writing about a particular quality of Wabash and its students that is not necessarily as discernable as the other qualities we know. Several weeks ago, Dr. Bost gave a Chapel Talk discussing this particular quality. During his talk he discussed men, women, and the particular relationships they have amongst each other. Dr. Bost rightly pointed out that women tend to have greater intimacy in their friendships than men. This is due mostly to the content of their conversation. Women are more willing to talk about deeper, more sensitive issues then men are. Dr. Bost mentions “machines” as an umbrella term to reference the content of conversation between two men. I doubt many could disagree that men amongst other men are more willing to talk about their recent fantasy team trades than their current girlfriend problems. To generalize it a bit more, men are more willing to talk about things that do not necessarily get to the core of a fellow human being. This of course leads to less intimate, if not shallow, relationships among men.

Dr. Bost was also quick to point out that because Wabash lacks the presence of females, Wabash men may run into the problem of feeling as if people do not care about them because we, as men and not women, are not asking the “intimate” questions. Although it is true that at Wabash there may not be men asking other men the “intimate” or “important” questions as women may do, the cultivation of deep friendships among men is still present. In such a small, tight community of just men, the ability for men to cultivate deep friendships among other men becomes much greater in fact. Wabash, as stated before, is a unique place and a unique experience. Simply being a Wabash man thrusts one into a network of friendship that only other Wabash men have the ability to understand. We are different; that cannot be argued. We choose to go to an all-male school, we choose to subject ourselves to the rigorous academics, and we choose the life of a Wabash man—a challenging one. Wabash can be compared to a fraternity pledgeship in some sense. Take men who do not know each other and put them in the same situation that is both demanding but attainable and they instantly are connected through their common struggles and common goals. This connection brings men closer than any “intimate” conversation ever could. Perhaps there is a reason why women talk about “relationships” and men talk about “machines.” It is how men and women are. Perhaps the thing the makes men at Wabash close is the very fact that Wabash men are not forced to emasculate themselves in an attempt to fulfill societal expectations brought by the constant presence of women.

This is by no means a bash on women, of course, but rather a meditation on the differences between to two sexes and how perhaps maybe those differences are not a bad thing. Let us remember that Wabash has been the way it is for a long time and will continue to be the way it is long after we are gone. It will continue to not just cultivate men but cultivate the friendships among men that are so very difficult to find anywhere else. So in the end, a thank you to Dr. Bost is in order. Thank Dr. Bost for pointing our yet just one more quality that makes Wabash such an amazing place.

Related posts:

1. On Friendship
2. Co-ed Never: Reflections on the Core of Wabash Traditions
3. How Many Women Should Teach at Wabash?

To set the scene: Ms. Bruce, while respecting traditional marriage as the will of the people, believes that same-sex relationships should be recognized as marriage, and that recognizing those relationships as marriage would not affect the institution’s dignity. “It’s not changing the definition,” she argued on Fox News in a recent debate with Governor Mike Huckabee, “it’s adding to it.” Of course, Dr. Farrow believes that an addition is a change—and that one change can lead down a slippery slope to many others. If we can “add” homosexual relationships to the definition of marriage, he asked, then why not polygamous or incestuous relationships? Ms. Bruce has referred to such comparisons as demeaning to homosexuals, asserting that gay marriage does no harm, while the others do.

But setting aside these seemingly irreconcilable differences, at the base of their arguments Bruce and Farrow share certain fundamental assumptions about the roles church and state ought to play in a healthy society. In their talks at Wabash, both expressed the belief that government does not belong “in the bedroom” of its people—both opposed bans on sodomy in their respective countries. Both urged vigilance against the ever-increasing power of the state—Bruce spoke of the state’s creeping control over thought; Farrow spoke of the state’s creeping control over family. Both have reverence for tradition, and lamented its decline. Bruce even criticized some of her fellow gay marriage advocates for not being respectful in their arguments of the traditions of religious adherents.

If common ground is to be found amongst conservatives on this issue, it has to be on the secular side. Dr. Farrow proved in his lecture that a secular—almost libertarian—case can be made for traditional marriage—which may come as a surprise to many in the United States, where arguments for traditional marriage tend to be focused more on the morality of the homosexuals who want the change of definition than on the power of the government that would do the changing.

Farrow is a theologian by trade and has definite religious views on the subject, but acknowledges that making a secular case is a “reasonable strategy” (For more on Farrow’s theological views, see Robby Dixon’s interview on page 16). In his book Nation of Bastards, Farrow disregards the morality of the issue and focuses his critique squarely on issues of government power. He sees the redefinition of marriage as ceding control of the family to the state. Family, he claims, has always been defined as “natural,” even in secular documents like the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. By redefining the institution, the state is stepping into new territory—territory hitherto considered defined by nature, but whose definition is now based entirely on the whims of those in government power. By replacing natural parenthood with legal parenthood, he argues, we are all becoming wards of the state—a nation of bastards.

On the issue of marriage, the staunchly conservative thought that marriage and family are not creations of the state still stands. On that plank, Tammy Bruce and Douglas Farrow would definitely agree. The state be¬came involved with those issues to pro¬mote social order and prosperity. But what happens when marriage ceases to be about stability and becomes a government power grab?

Yes, it would take a lot to reconcile Tammy Bruce’s views with those of any social conservative who stands in opposition to gay marriage. But by setting aside religious arguments and focusing on the power of the state, Douglass Farrow makes as convincing a case as we will ever get.

Related posts:

1. Lecture by Dr. Douglas Farrow on Defining Marriage a Success
2. A True Foundation: On Christianity, Equality, and Tammy Bruce
3. “Unabashedly Theological”: An Exclusive Interview with Dr. Douglas Farrow

WCU: What’s your insight on the different ideas of “color” and “race”?

JCP: Color is real. There’s the human race. People talk about being “color-blind.” That’s not something I look forward to or advocate. I don’t want to be invisible. I’m not asking to be invisible. You know, I have dark skin. My wife has red hair and freckles. To pretend she doesn’t, to pretend she doesn’t have a lighter complexion than I have is to ignore an essential part of her. The thing with race is when you begin to put value on that color or complexion…when certain complexion or color is of greater value or worth than another, that is a problem. What I talk about and what I’d like to see is a world, certainly a nation, where we can recognize there are differences among people but as far as government goes, we are treated equally and that our rights to life, liberty, and private property are protected with equal vigor.

WCU: What’s your take on affirmative action?

JCP: I support affirmative action but I oppose racial preferences. The problem with our debate when it comes to affirmative action is that people are not clear, sometimes purposely so, as to what they’re talking about. Racial preferences are when someone’s color is given value over someone else’s. My understanding is that some affirmative action programs are of value and worth. In my conversations with Ward Connerly (who visited Wabash in fall of 2007), I think we’re on the same page in that we support various affirmative action programs that have started to treat people fairly without regard to race. But in many cases it’s been turned on its head so that now we must treat people with regard to race. That’s what racial preferences are. Texas A&M is a good example of affirmative action at work without regard to racial preferences….They looked around and saw they weren’t attracting enough minority students to campus and they asked “Why?” They found that a lot of the students that were accepted were black students who were not choosing to attend. The students said they thought the college was a dead town…no night life, no cultural activities. So they reached out to their black alumni association and said “Well, listen. Can you speak to the kids and let them know what’s going on in the school for them?” They also moved their recruitment stations. They asked themselves what schools they had been recruiting at. They loosened purse strings of financial aid. They began to treat some of the academically gifted students as they treated their athletically gifted students. Just like at Berkeley…the San Francisco Chronicle reported that one of the reasons black students weren’t going there was that Berkeley is an elite school…so the black students getting in there had their choice of a number of schools to go to; a number of other elite schools who were offering them more money. Berkeley was being cheap! So they said “We’re going to entice you to come.” So they did all these things and they were able to increase their enrolment. Black students being accepted were deciding to go and they weren’t using racial preferences! Other schools in Texas used racial preferences and weren’t able to get the same results. So that’s the long answer to your question.

WCU: You mentioned in your talk that the events of 9/11 greatly impacted you and made you start being politically active. Were there ever other big contributors that got you started?

JCP: No, I can’t point to anything else. From what I began to write after 9/11 came Newsweek and I became a regular on NPR. I also started getting requests for my column to be in newspapers and on the web. People began to post things on their websites and I thought “How did this get on there?” People started emailing me. Then I also had contact with people who I didn’t know who were very outraged by some of the things I said. Then I was contacted by the Republican National Committee and received a phone call from the Bush/Cheney campaign asking if I’d like to be a part of it and I was like “Wow, sure!” At that time I was still developing, trying to understand exactly what it is that I believed. A lot of us think we know but we don’t give a lot of thought to it. Probably some of you young people who are involved in politics might but it’s so on the surface. “Oh I’m this.” Well then you start digging deeper. Where did this idea come from? What is that grounded in? Where do you chase the genealogy of these ideas? I was still going through that process and before I even thought about it I was out on the campaign trail stumping for the President….It was an eye-opening experience. I traveled, met people I liked, but I maybe jumped the gun a bit. I would have much rather been out there being really clear [on what I believe]. I’m more clear now and it puts me in a better position to be critical of the Republican Party. One thing I’m clearer about now is that Republican is a party affiliation…it’s not a philosophical belief.

WCU: That provides a good segue, because here at The Phoenix we try to be more about conservative ideas rather than a political entity. However, there’s a struggle with conservatism as whole because so many conservatives identify with the Republican Party…but there’s such a diverse group of conservatives within the Republican Party. So what do you see as the biggest problem for the Republican Party or conservatives as a whole?

JCP: There are a lot of problems. The first thing that comes to mind is credibility. Republicans always talk about tax cuts and being fiscally conservative. I think we saw eight years of big-government conservatism. We can now relegate that to the dustbin of history. So that’s put the Republican Party in a position where voters question their credibility. It’s very difficult to have credibility on fiscal matters when you’re spending money like it’s going out of style. Republicans were really seen as “Democrat-Lite.” That to me is a serious problem especially as a conservative. I’m sure it’s a problem for moderates. This is one of my complaints with the Republican Party. These are issues conservatives have talked about for years that we’ve let go of. I’m not politically astute enough to know the “hows” or “whys” of how that is. Healthcare is a perfect example of that. It really irritated me that there’s been this mantra of “Well you guys just want this status quo. You don’t want to change.” That’s not true. That’s simply not true. Conservatives have been talking about healthcare reform for a really long time. But for some reason we were not able through our party affiliation, the Republican Party, to take this issue and make it a Republican issue. The same thing is true for the environment…..I don’t want clean water? Are you crazy? Of course I want clean water. I don’t want clean air? I breathe the same air as you do- of course I want clean air! For whatever reason we have not been able to say “These are our issues” and run with them. We’ve been outflanked on race, education, healthcare and environment, so then our response is to talk about tax cuts. Wait…what?! That’s why I’m frustrated. I’m very frustrated with the direction of this party. I don’t know where the chance is for the Republican Party…I don’t know who is on our bench. I think if Sarah Palin is our bench then that means we have a weak bench. Why would we get in the position of running another 70-year old war veteran when it was clear that people wanted something new? They wanted new, bigger, someone with new ideas (even though we’ve seen it’s the same old ideas). Obama didn’t have to run away with this election. Republicans didn’t put up a fight. Mitt Romney would have run a better campaign but I don’t think he’s the future of the campaign either. You look around and I don’t see where the bench is.

WCU: Is there anyone who has caught your eye? Like our own Mitch Daniels? Rick Santorum? Mike Huckabee?

JCP: I’m very cynical right now. There are a lot of people I don’t know much about that people are talking about. Keep in mind I’m offering these opinions with the knowledge that I may not have all the information. A lot of it has a lot to do with politics in …how people rise through the ranks. We have people who are career politicians…they’ve been there forever. I think it’s a problem with Republican and Democratic districts. The problem is that there’s no new blood. Even when there is, once the new blood gets there, they’ve already been corrupted having spent years and years working their way up in the system by compromising everything. I may wake up tomorrow and feel differently, but that’s where I’m at right now. A lot of the names tossed around are people who have been around forever anyway.

WCU: What’s your definition of conservatism?

JCP: I have a very general definition. A belief in the founding principles, free-market capitalism, limited government, strong faith in American exceptionalism in foreign policy. I think you’ll find some conservative camps that emphasize some of those a bit more than others, but they seem to be pretty universal.

WCU: So how would you describe yourself? Social- Paleo- Fiscal? Since people like to put labels on it, how would you describe yourself?

JCP: I’m a conservative. Plain and simple. I believe in limited (although not as limited as libertarians) but vigorous government whose job is to secure people’s right to life, liberty, and property. I’m also a Christian. I believe our rights come from God. I believe there’s one Truth that’s true for all people for all times. I’m not a multi-culturalist. I don’t think there’s some truth for people over here and some truth for people over there. So I’m a conservative. And I believe in American exceptionalism. This country is the only superpower not because we got lucky or because of serendipity but because of our principles. And when we do it right, we raise exceptional people who can lead…and who ought to lead. That sounds arrogant, but listen, when you’re right, you’re right. So we need to lead from that position. Other countries don’t like it, but if you do what we do and adopt these principles, you might be exceptional too. I’m not making us into a utopia, but when you compare us with other countries throughout history, we’ve been pretty damn good.

WCU: Are race relations better now than when you first started your career? People say with the election of Obama things should be better, but we’re continually seeing things turned into racism.

JCP: Well some people want to make it into race. The “gate-keepers”, those with a vested interest in keeping things about race, are still trying to. But look, we just elected our first black president. Anyone trying to claim things haven’t changed in makes themselves out to sound silly. Obama was elected because white people voted for him and wanted him to be president. Some people that didn’t vote for him didn’t because he was black much in the same way that many black people (and some white people) voted for him just because he was black. The majority of people who didn’t vote for him probably didn’t vote for him because they disagree with him on key issues. Not the least of which is his positions on abortion, homosexual marriage, expanse of the government state, intervention into healthcare, and a sense that he would be weak on foreign policy. But those aren’t based on race. Most people had a substantive problem with where he was on the issues…after all, that’s what we do in an election.
Race issues are much better overall after this election. When people want to talk about Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, people are really reaching. They’re now for the most part out of business…at least for the next three years.

The other thing I was going to say is that you have to be careful when you talk about eliminating racism. A perfect racial society is not necessary for this country to be successful and to work and for black people to find success. There’s an idea that every vestige of racism must be rooted out and destroyed before black people can find success. I don’t believe that’s true. And I’m going to digress again…When you look at what was done here, it’s remarkable. Here in , Barack Obama, a lower middle class black boy with an African immigrant father and white mother rose up to be the most powerful man in the world. It’s funny that people like to talk about all the flaws in but when you look around the world, this hasn’t happened in , it hasn’t been done in , it hasn’t been done in , it hasn’t been done in it hasn’t been done anywhere but here. So to those critics I would tell them to sit down and shut up.

WCU: So on a lighter note, how about a few fun questions?

JCP: Sure.

WCU: What’s your favorite food to cook?

JCP: Soup.

WCU: What was your favorite role to play when acting?

JCP: I loved Justice Ward on General Hospital . I loved that character. But I also liked Morgan Douglas because I got to be kind of a bad guy and I worked with Craig T. Nelson so that’s not bad. But the most fun was when I played “The Man” with the CIA on Las Vegas . I got to work with James Caan. I was like “I’m working with James Caan!”

WCU: That’s a great way to end it! Thanks!

Related posts:

1. Mr. Joseph C. Phillips: Author, Activist, and Common Man
2. The Race Card
3. Joseph Phillips Enthralls Crowd

But who is Ron Bowerman, and furthermore, why should you care?

For the past three decades, Ron Bowerman has worked in Campus Services, dedicating himself in tireless, thankless service to Wabash College. In his time here he has served many duties, watched presidents and professors alike come and go, and touched the lives of many students—myself included. However, effective of December 31, 2009, he will be forced to take an early leave due to the current financial crisis. To say he loves his job is a gross understatement, and to look at Wabash after his leave is to realize that one of the sincerest Little Giants, with one of the biggest hearts, has left the building.

In this article I will attempt to bestow but the tiniest ounce of gratitude to one of Wabash’s unsung heroes. Though you may not know him, please take the time to hear his story. A great philosopher once said that those who put themselves first will be last, and those who put themselves last would be first. Through this man’s thankless service, I truly say to you he is one of the greatest Little Giants to ever grace Wabash’s campus. This is his story.

Ron Bowerman was born here in Crawfordsville on August 16, 1941. An only child, he spent the first four years of his life in Indiana until moving in 1945 to Nocona, Texas, where he would live until his junior year of high school. During that he would move to Perryton, Texas, and from there graduate in 1960. This was when Ron began to exhibit two very important qualities still seen in his life today: his love of serving others and his love for family.

A story Ron often tells from high school is when he bought a car for his father. But this wasn’t any ordinary car; you see, Ron’s father was disabled, making driving with one leg nearly impossible with a manual. Saddened by watching his father shift gears with a makeshift lever, Ron took on several after-school jobs and worked until he was able to surprise his father with a new vehicle—one with an automatic transmission. Nearly fifty years after this impressive act of love, Ron still sheds a tear of joy telling how happy his father was that day.

After graduation, Ron worked a few small jobs while helping his father, until the family moved back to Indiana to be nearer to his sick grandparents. In this time though, Ron started to feel a lack of direction. This all changed in September of 1965, when he was called into service and drafted into the United States Army.
Recompense
Ron attended basic training in Fort Knox, KY, and went on to take his AIT at Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri. Despite scoring a one hundred on his mechanical aptitude test, Ron ended up in the 82nd Combat Engineers as a Combat mostly Engineer, trained to operate heavy machinery. (As Ron told me in his interview, when the Army finds out you like something, you find yourself changing jobs.) In his time overseas, Ron spent eighteen and a half months in Bamberg, Germany, where he helped to build everything from bridges to playgrounds. When asked about his service, Ron solemnly replied that “The Army made me grow up; it made me realize what life’s all about.”

After spending two years in service to his country, Ron left the Army in September of 1967 and within three months married his fiancé, Sue. Using additional mechanical training he received in Germany, he worked at an auto parts store for the next twelve and a half years. In this time he would become a father twice over. On June 30, 1970, Ron welcomed his son, Tim, into the world; and on January 8, 1973, he welcomed his daughter, Tammy. Near the end of this period he started applying for a job at Wabash College, and after three and a half years was finally hired on April 7, 1980.

What attracted Ron to Wabash College was its reputation as the best place to work in Montgomery County, as well as its promising benefits of life insurance, health insurance, and retirement programs. (Not to mention the promise of retiring at sixty-two.)

Ron speaks of his early years at Wabash with great fondness. His duties included rotating between a coal-fired boiler—which helped to heat the campus—and working with the grounds-keeping crew. When it came to the boiler, Ron admits that despite the dirtiness and often physically demanding task of shoveling, he enjoyed the hard work. For grounds-keeping, Ron especially enjoyed mowing around the buildings. On hot days, the staff would come out and generously offer him soft drinks. This is when Ron first felt at home at Wabash. Such a small atmosphere made making friends easy, and in no time at all he felt like part of the family.

In his first years Ron was fortunate enough to work under President Lewis Salter. Here is what Ron had to say about his old friend:

“President Salter. He was such a good person. You could talk with him. I remember one time on the maintenance crew he gave us all a dollar raise. He would come down here with us maintenance people because he loved us; he would even drink coffee with us. His wife, Mrs. Salter, was a super lady. They had parties at the Elston Home. I always enjoyed going to them, and it just made my day. It was a wonderful place to work.”

As the years went on, Ron grew more and more at home at Wabash, until finally being asked to run the storeroom when a fellow employee grew too sick to continue the job. (This is where Ron works to this day.)

In the storeroom, Ron’s duties consist of ordering and databasing both cleaning supplies and office supplies for campus use. This includes copy paper (seen at every printer around campus), ink cartridges, and even the very staples that bind your papers. Besides the storeroom, Ron also covers for the motorpool, and, on occasion, helps to deliver the mail. (This includes going to the post-office, sorting it, and then delivering it to the Chapel, etc.)
But with the storeroom in mind, we look to today’s problem—that is, after twenty-nine years and eight months of service, Ron has become a casualty of the financial crisis. To understand why Ron is leaving, we need to examine how Campus Services employs its workers—something I honestly admit is a little confusing.

The year was 1993, and Andy Ford was sworn in as Wabash’s fourteenth president. As students in the White Era, we all know Andy Ford as the man who drastically updated the Wabash campus. But not all of his decisions were well-received. Not long after taking office, Andy Ford dropped Campus Services from the payroll—effectively eliminating most benefits—and hired them to a contracting company. (Let me make a note here: Campus Services is STILL Wabash. The only thing that changed was the source of their pay.)

Think about it this way: While Campus Services works for Wabash College, Sodexo technically employs them. (As for what this means to its employees, when Ron was hired by Sodexo in the mid 1990’s, it was a little like starting over.)

For the recent financial crisis, on the surface a lower endowment means restructuring academic departments; under the surface it involves Wabash not having enough money for Sodexo’s contract. This means restructuring Campus Services as well. Like the academic departments, the main goal is to preserve the current standard, but with less manpower and more efficiency. In our case, it sadly means letting go a man who is only four months away from thirty years of service.

When I sat down with Ron, he mentioned he had three goals for the year. First was working until the fifth of March, which is his wife’s sixty-fifth birthday. This would allow her to get insurance, which is quite difficult with her medical problems. Second was working until April the seventh, which marks thirty years at Wabash College. The third goal is best stated by Ron himself, who fought very hard to contain tears as he told me in our interview:

“And then the third goal was, I’ve got such wonderful students working for me…that it’s just like family. I love ‘em all, and I…really wanted to work until the school year was over because I love all of you students.”

If I told you that Ron was willing to work a few months past his contract—for free—just to finish out the 2009-2010 school year, would that give you an indication of how much he loves Wabash College?

But, as we all know, when the time calls for cost-cutting, hard decisions must be made, like it or not. The storeroom will effectively be eliminated and moved to the bookstore, while Sodexo will be left in charge of their own supplies. In life all good things come to an end, and Ron was contemplating retirement at the end of the year regardless.

As Ron said, “I’m really gonna miss my students if I have to leave December the thirty-first. It’s basically killin’ me that, you know, life’s not really always fair, but I just pray that my students can continue on. They’ve just shown me so much love, and that’s why I love my job. Period.”

For his plans post-Wabash, Ron recently bought some equipment and plans on opening up a small-time business with his son. In addition, he plans on devoting much of his free time to his two grandchildren, Dereck and Emily. Both are involved in three sports each, and Ron rarely misses a game.

Perhaps in closing, it is best to let Ron speak for himself:

“Oh, its been the best job of my life! I’ve had so many wonderful students, made so many friends; and you know, you could have all the money in the world, but if you didn’t have any friends, you wouldn’t have anything!”

“My students this year are almost like sons to me, and I, I wanna see ‘em go through this year. [chokes up] Because they mean a lot to me.”

Ron, we wish you the best of luck after Wabash. You will be sorely missed.

Related posts:

1. Intellectual Conservatism on Campus: Has Campus Conservatism Lost its Way?
2. Don’t Forget Your Faith: Student Religious Organizations on Campus
3. Leonard Sax: Influential Author, Researcher to Visit Campus in November

That being said, one of the less well known (and least understood) political philosophies that has become synonymous with classical liberalism is growing with popularity around the world. It places it a strong emphasis on limited government, free markets / trade, individualism, and liberty. Libertarianism is not just a political stance one takes, but rather it is an epistemological outlook on the world. Individuals who have taken this stance are often labeled by critics of libertarianism as “radicals” and / or reactionary. Yet, libertarians respond that the United States was founded on libertarian principles. The Constitution defined a limited role for the federal government, a government that was much more limited than it is today. Although the libertarian vision harkens back to the spirit of the foundation of this country, it is by no means backward looking or reactionary. By promoting the ideas of libertarianism, the extension of individual liberty and the proliferation of free trade promises a world where personal liberty is limited only by preventing damage to other people or their property.

Since libertarianism is often misunderstood, misrepresented, and dismissed, many individuals have come forward to stand in its defense. One such person is Dr. Tom G. Palmer, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Born in Germany, Dr. Palmer has been very active in promoting libertarian principles worldwide. He received his B.A. in liberal arts from St. John’s College, his M.A. in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, and his doctorate in political science from Oxford University. He was very active in the late 1980s and the early 1990s in the spread of classical liberal ideas in the Soviet bloc states and their successors. He continues to be active throughout the region through his work with the Cato Institute. Dr. Palmer is currently attempting to replicate in the Middle East some of the work he did in Eastern Europe. He has commissioned the translation into Middle Eastern languages and the publication of works by various libertarians / classical liberals such as Frederic Bastiat, F. A. Hayek, and James Madison. He has a personal blog (tomplamer.com) in which he writes extensively about various topics ranging from his many projects on spreading liberty around the world to current political and economic events.

On December 10, the Wabash Conservative Union will be hosting Dr. Palmer who will be giving a talk on his recently published book Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice. In an interview with Reason magazine, Dr. Palmer described his book as “a presentation of a coherent picture of libertarian ideas with two elements: to respond to [the critics of libertarianism….The other element is that liberty is about doing. It is about implementing freedom. It’s about realizing freedom, not just talking about it. It’s about going out and doing the hard work in changing the world, getting world to realize a more free, a more just society.” Consisting of a series of essays written over the course of two decades, Dr. Palmer presents the theory, history, and practice of libertarianism.

Dr. Palmer explains libertarian theory in a series of chapters devoted to the definition of freedom, clearing up the myths of individualism and the market, justice, rights theory, and the role of institutions and law in economics development. According to Palmer, “the rule of law is the key to freedom.” This has been repeated throughout the ages by classical liberal philosophers and can best be summarized by Frederic Bastiat in The Law: “Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it is the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place…The nature of law is to maintain justice... [by] preventing injustice from reigning.” This is the notion of negative liberty, which is the idea that the people have the freedom from interference by other people. This is the opposite of positive liberty which refers to having the power and resources to act to fulfill one’s own potential. It is interested in action by citizens within the government. These two definitions of liberty have been in conflict with one another for centuries. Palmer seeks to clear up the distortion by using logic to clarify the complexities that surround the debate. Palmer quotes Kant in saying that, “Every action which by itself or by its maxim enables the freedom of each individual’s will to –coexist with freedom of everyone else in accordance with a universal law is right.” Palmer states that, “I have a right to those actions that are compatible with the equal freedom of all others; the sum total of those parts yields justice.”

The history of libertarianism is also discussed, where Palmer traces it from ancient civilizations to the classical liberal thinkers of the Enlightenment to the present day. He starts out by examining the roots of civil society and how it relates to the individual, the community, and, justice. Palmer also explores the history of limited government throughout the past and how its effects lead to order, stability, and justice. He concludes the history section with a section reminding us the collapse of the socialist Eastern European states, most notably the Union of Soviet and Socialist Republics, and why it collapsed.

The final section of the book deals with the practice of libertarianism, where Palmer examines the current world and seeks to illustrate how liberty can be achieved. He investigates the role of culture, globalism, whether or not infrastructures should be public or private, taxes, and the challenges of democratization. The book concludes with a section devoted to the literature of libertarianism, highlighting notable contemporary classical liberals and libertarians of all stripes from Murray Rothbard, F.A. Hayek, Ludwig Von Mises, Ayn Rand, and Robert Nozick.

Devoted to the cause of spreading liberty around the world, Dr. Tom G. Palmer has dedicated a great deal of his life in making sure that the tenants of libertarianism do not perish in apathy, but rather are preserved and strengthened by allowing others to learn and experience it. On December 10, the Wabash Conservative Union will be hosting Dr. Palmer in order to help further his quest in making sure that the ideas behind liberty are still active in the minds of younger generations.

Related posts:

1. Tom Palmer to Give Talk on Libertarianism
2. Dr. Tom Palmer on Realizing Freedom
3. Liberty Unbound: An Interview with Dr. Tom Palmer

Dr. Douglas Farrow: I think avoiding theological terms is a reasonable strategy in order to engage people at a level they are already familiar with. If they don’t understand theology, there’s no point using theological terms. But a philosophy or ideology, or even a strategy, has to be rooted in some kind of worldview, which implies something or other about God – if only, perhaps, that God does not exist – and therefore has a theological dimension. And so at some point, if the conversation is going to remain meaningful, it’s going to have to get to the bigger questions. Certainly with a topic like abortion or marriage, one is dealing with fundamental questions of human flourishing – and human death, in the case of abortion – about which one cannot possibly have meaningful views that do not go to these big questions. It seems to me that you’re not respecting either yourself or your interlocutor if you’re not prepared at some point to engage the big questions.

WCU: Should we make no allowance for those who are concerned about the separation of church and state, then?

Farrow: Well, the separation of church and state in no way implies that matters of state are unconnected to religious issues. Anyone who sees it that way is making a quite elementary mistake, frankly. The state is simply the set of instruments by which civil society runs itself, and civil society is more or less civil because it has certain perspectives on what human beings are, and what their purposes are – Augustine would say, what their “loves” are. The way it organizes itself in terms of the state is going to reflect its worldview. I think it’s silly to say that procedure can be isolated from substance, law from morality, etc. All separation of church and state means or ought to mean is that the state does not control religion, nor religious authorities the state.

The separation of church and state means in the first place that the state doesn’t dictate to the church or the synagogue or the mosque what their religious convictions should be. Now to a certain extent it also means that the church and the synagogue and the mosque don’t dictate to the state how it must act – that is, they don’t control the legislature or the legislation. But the legislature and its legislation are bound to reflect the worldview of the citizens, and the citizens go to the churches and synagogues and mosques, etc., in order to shape their worldview. So there is a proper influence of religion on the state, which doesn’t in any way undermine the notion of separation of church and state.

If the state could do nothing that had any religious implications, how could it legislate on something like abortion? Because whatever it says on abortion implies something about whether fetuses are human and about what a human being is. You can’t address that kind of question without treading onto religious ground. I find it incomprehensible that someone would suppose that the separation of church and state means that one cannot speak religiously or theologically to issues that have an impact on the state itself and what laws it passes and how it enforces them.

WCU: Do you think it’s possible to make an argument based on natural law that makes no appeal to religion?

Farrow: No, I don’t, and I’ll tell you why. “Natural law” has both an adjective and a noun: one has to have a theory of law, and one has to have some idea of what nature is. Whether one’s view is that nature exists because God created it, or that nature is somehow God, or perhaps a Carl Sagan view in which the mystery of nature is a sort of substitute for God, or an atheistic view that nature is simply all there is, one still has to say what one means by nature, and that puts one onto theological ground. Natural law is something that everyone can and should engage. But one cannot talk about it sensibly if one must stop every time one bumps up against a term with theological connotations or a question with theological implications.

You can’t hold all these views simultaneously – you can’t believe what Carl Sagan believed about nature and at the same time believe what the author of Genesis believed about nature. You have to make some decisions about what you mean when you say “nature”, and those decisions are theological. So just as I don’t think church and state separation means you can’t bring in theology, I don’t think natural law means you can do without theology either. We’re human beings and behind our reflection on all of these issues always lurk the big questions that theology and philosophy address. Human life is simply not as rich or as meaningful if we hide from these questions as it is if we embrace them and wrestle with them, as I tried to show in Recognizing Religion in a Secular Society (McGill-Queens 2004).

WCU: If I could ask you to expand on something in your new book, Nation of Bastards (BPS 2007): you mention Humanae Vitae briefly but don’t really go into it. What role do you think contraception has played in the decline of marriage, since obviously it is another way of separating marriage and sexuality from children?

Farrow: Marriage has been shaped by Christianity for two millennia. On the Christian view of marriage, the three goods of marriage – procreation, proles; chastity or faithfulness, fides; and the unitive dimension, the sacramentum – make three strands of a single rope that binds human beings to one another in a fruitful way in the intimacy of marriage: a communion between husband and wife that’s also open to the appearance of children. And of course contraception is about not procreating. When you cut the proles strand by promoting contraception, you do serious damage to the other two goods of marriage as well, and eventually the rope snaps.

The practice of contraception did not take hold on our society in a large-scale way until the 1930 Lambeth Conference (of Anglican bishops) said that a limited use of contraception was morally acceptable. Openness to contraception began to change the face of western culture in dramatic ways. Other factors, from the industrial revolution to the invention of the pill, which was first marketed in 1958, were required for this attitude of openness to contraception to work its way all through western society. The contraceptive mentality, as John Paul II called it, has reshaped our understanding of marriage. The detachment of marriage from its procreative purpose, such that the weight began to fall entirely on the unitive strand, created a context in which same-sex marriage became conceivable. If marriage is just about close relationships through sexual intimacy, then it doesn’t appear quite so obvious any more that marriage is something between a man and a woman.

WCU: On the subject of changing the definition of marriage, do you think allowing homosexual couples to live in so-called “civil unions” could be an answer, since at least that way the name of marriage isn’t being misused, or do you think that would be just as bad as allowing homosexual marriages?

Farrow: The language is important. I don’t think that “marriage” understood in unitive terms only, and therefore as equally open to heterosexual couples and same-sex couples, is really the same thing as marriage under the traditional definition. So is there any advantage in creating the category of “civil union”? Well, yes, in that it eliminates one point of confusion from the discussion. But that raises the question: What is a civil union for? How does it help society to organize itself in fruitful ways? Of course, the conversation is complicated by the fact that the term “marriage” is coveted, because the term “civil union” can never command the same level of approbation.

On the other hand, many of the people who say they want “same-sex marriage” don’t actually want marriage at all. There are many intellectuals who have been clamoring for change who see same-sex marriage as a proximate goal only; their ultimate goal is to deregulate sexual relations altogether and see the institution of marriage disappear. Until we’re all quite clear about that, I really can’t get too invested in their conversation. I really detest the dishonesty in saying “We’ll argue for change in the definition of marriage and we won’t tell anybody what we’re really after.” I prefer the frankness of the people at BeyondMarriage.org.
But consider this: neither same-sex “marriage” nor civil unions (sexually conceived, rather than as practical domestic partnerships) are very useful to society as a whole. So why are we even having this conversation? It wouldn’t be happening if there weren’t quite an interest among heterosexuals as well as homosexuals in deregulating sexual relations generally. There’s a consensus, in some quarters, across “orientation” lines, and I think the main goal is the deregulation of sexual relations rather than the establishment of something called same-sex marriage.

WCU: So you think, then, that promotion of the complete jettisoning of the concept of marriage will follow inevitably from the promotion of homosexual marriage?

Farrow: The disappearance of marriage as a publicly recognized institution is the direction in which we have been moving and will probably continue to move. Hence the word play in the subtitle of my book, Nation of Bastards: Essays on the End of Marriage. I mean “end” in the sense of telos, the goal of marriage, and I have tried to say something constructive about that, but also in the sense of finis – meaning that we’re not going to have marriage anymore, at least for civil purposes.

WCU: How important is it to your theology of marriage, and your idea of how society should recognize marriage, that you are a Catholic, rather than another kind of Christian?

Farrow: I got involved in the marriage question even before I became a Catholic and I know lots of non-Christian people, never mind non-Catholic people, who share my concern about marriage. Anybody, religious or otherwise, who can recognize what the United Nations has generally recognized – that a child needs the support of his or her own parents – knows that this marriage fight is significant, because same-sex “marriage” by definition is closed to procreation and to the question of the care of children by their natural parents. The sociological studies all show that, on the whole, children do not do as well, on any of the major indices, without their natural parents. Of course there are exceptions, especially among children adopted into good homes. But overall, children from broken homes do not do as well as children from homes that are not broken. So you don’t have to be religious, you don’t have to be Christian, you don’t have to be Catholic, to understand that there is a lot at stake here. Do we or don’t we want an institution that binds parents and children?

I don’t deal much with the sociological issues in Nation of Bastards, however. Rather I argue in the book that there’s another important reason for seeing the marriage issue as an absolutely vital one – a reason that has to do with the political liberty, not only of parents but of every citizen, whatever their sexual orientation. For same-sex “marriage” makes the family itself a creature of the state, subject to state control. It eliminates the family as an effective restraint on the power of the state. That is my main concern.

But to return to your question: I think it is true that the Catholic church has amassed the richest tradition of thinking about marriage that exists anywhere, and out of the resources of that tradition have come some of the most profound insights respecting contemporary disputes. I personally have been helped in thinking about marriage by various papal encyclicals and by Catholic theologians past and present, and also by drawing on the life and fabric of Catholic society. So I’m quite happy to say that Catholicism is especially capable of putting a clear and helpful light on these issues.

WCU: If it’s so important for children to be raised by their own natural parents, do you think any adopted children are as much at risk as children being raised by homosexual couples?

Farrow: Such evidence as I am aware of – and there isn’t a lot, because we haven’t had homosexual adoption for very long – suggests that children are indeed more at risk when raised by same-sex couples or guardians. But a child can be raised by the wolves, like Mowgli, and do well in a certain sense of “do well.” We have to be careful not to generalize in such a way that we make assumptions about particular children or adults. Also, children can be disadvantaged, but respond to their disadvantage in ways that make them a better person, and come out stronger and more fruitful as a human being than someone who had all the advantages. But those who go around saying that children are often better treated by adoptive parents, whether of opposite sex or the same sex, are not supported by the data.

Fortunately, the ideal that the child should be raised by his or her natural parents is still pretty much entrenched in readings of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of international covenants; the bond between the child and the child’s natural parents is still regarded as the most natural and intimate of bonds. Some of us, of course, have experienced natural parents whose behavior was abominable; again, you cannot generalize in such a way as to remove the exceptions. But the ideal is not divorce and remarriage and children being handed off from parent to parent to parent, whether those parents are straight or gay. The ideal is that children remain with their own natural parents. The onus is on the person arguing against this to show that this universal instinct is somehow wrongheaded. I think that’s a pretty tough row to hoe.

WCU: In your book, you say that no person can be called a bastard who has God as his father and the church as his mother. Could you elaborate upon that a bit?

Farrow: First of all, let me clarify my use of the word “bastard.” The title Nation of Bastards is drawn from Rousseau, who remarked that a nation or society composed only of bastards could not long continue to exist. But the book is not about the increasing incidence of children being born out of wedlock. It is about the effect on all of us of a new “marriage” regime that cuts procreation and children out of the picture altogether and transforms the institution of marriage, and the family itself, into a creature of the state, robbing it of its natural rights and freedoms. What I’m arguing in the book is that we are actually giving up our independence and becoming wards of the state – bastards in that sense – because the new definition of marriage transforms our natural relations into legal fictions.

But what did I mean by the line you just quoted? I meant that no one – whether a bastard in the political sense I have in view, or a bastard in the sense of being born out of wedlock, or perhaps even created in a petri dish for some inhuman purpose – or for that matter just called a bastard for doing nasty things – no one, I repeat, fails to be an object of the love of God, which is concretely expressed in the communion of the church and is open to us no matter who we are or where we came from. I wanted to make clear that no matter what our own parents do with or to us, or what civil society or the state does to us, or our particular religious community for that matter, there’s still redemption. There’s still hope. There’s still the love of God and a kind of “family” in Christ whose love will last forever.

But there will be no redemption for us as a society, no redemption for our nation or civilization, if we are prepared, in our lust or in our apathy, to cast off our collective birthright and to reject the natural family unit as the fundamental building block of human society.

Here again I will be unabashedly theological. The book I have written is about political destinies, not personal destinies. It doesn’t treat, for example, the question of the morality of same-sex relations, which would have to be the subject of a different book. But in the last analysis it’s not just a political argument. No matter what kind of book I’m writing, or what kind of context I’m speaking in, if I can’t say that there’s a God who made us and who loves us – a God to whose design and purposes for us we do well to pay glad attention – then it doesn’t seem to me that I’ve said the most important thing.

Related posts:

1. Douglas Farrow vs. Tammy Bruce: Can Conservatives Find Common Ground on Marriage?
2. Lecture by Dr. Douglas Farrow on Defining Marriage a Success
3. Iran, Islam and U.S. Foreign Policy: An Exclusive Interview with WCU Lecturer Kamran Beigi

She begins by stating the overt truth of men being elevated and women denigrated throughout history. The book labors to communicate this fact to the reader; Hildebrand is not naively stating that everything has always been fine and dandy between men and women. In fact, she provides an extensive list of famous men’s diatribes against femininity mentioning notable individuals like Luther, Shakespeare and Saint John Chrysostom.

Hildebrand’s first insight is that while Feminists are quick to cite these negative descriptions, they frequently fail to notice the positive ones. When Feminists are eventually forced to face the other side of the coin, Hildebrand says they write off the compliments because only the “virile” qualities in women are being praised. Hildebrand concludes this section arguing that the use of these descriptions is worthless. Even though Feminists have successfully used the malicious statements of men to rally support for their agendas, the descriptions come from individual men and refer to individual women, but this does not in anyway mean the writer speaks for all men or the subject stands for all women.

So what does Hildebrand claim the Feminist agenda to be? She says that, “[Feminists] foolishly want to alter inequality rather than to achieve truth or justice” (10). In recognizing their history of subordination, Feminists believe that they need “… to destroy the tyranny [by destroying] the womanhood” (8). Hildebrand points out that “unwittingly, the feminists acknowledge the superiority of the male sex by wishing to become like men” (10).

Hildebrand then considers why women have always been seen as the inferior sex. She recognizes the root in the “subverted hierarchy of values” found in the human race. Beyond affecting all of humanity by leading it astray, Hildebrand argues that this confusion is “particularly ominous for women”, because “power and dominance are idolized [while] humility and service are looked down upon”(23). With this mentality, it is almost a necessity that society would place men above women. Men,in general, are and always have been physically stronger than women, so of course, if power is prime, than men will logically be put first as well (26).

From here, Hildebrand goes on to acknowledge the sad consequences of disordered values, which have orchestrated the suffering of women for millennia. She adds however that Feminists, by seeking to be the powerful sex, are more pitiful because they promote the same values that lead to their subordination. To be blunt, if Feminists make equality a power struggle, they will never win. Hildebrand offers the true road to equality arguing the mission of women is “to swim against the tide” and “restore the proper hierarchy of values” (26-7). But how are women to do this? Hildebrand answers, “by living up to their calling” (26).

This seems an easy answer, but what is this calling? Hildebrand sees not the strength of women in the physical realm but in the moral realm. Their calling is to love, which most will agree they are far better at than men. Women have a capacity for compassion and self-sacrifice that reaches far beyond the nature of masculinity. In utilizing their natural dispensations they can attain equality and true respect. Many reading this might be appalled at the suggestion just proposed, but this is exactly the dilemma that Hildebrand is talking about. Many women hate being told that their true power is different than the power of men, but according to her, unless society can recover the value of service, humility and true charity, which in the grand scheme are much greater than any physical feat, women will not attain proper appreciation.

Where does the woman’s role come from? Hildebrand argues from her nature. Women have been given by nature the tools they need to fulfill their intrinsic duty— motherhood. A woman’s sexuality is her greatest gift. It embodies her nature of delicateness, creativity andcharity. Differently than men, a woman’s sexuality is veiled; her sexual organs are hidden from the world. Womanhood is to be respected and even protected (82). This is precisely why Feminism is so destructive for women; it urges them to take “control” of their bodies and submit themselves to the fancies of the world. In opposition to this flawed philosophy, women are called to stand fast in their role lovingly nurturing life.

Early in the book, Hildebrand talks about how hard it is to be a woman. “Who would choose to have a body that which, from the time of puberty on, can be burdensome, can cause discomfort and even severe pain?… Who would choose to give birth in agonizing pain?” (2). While women are forced to endure hardships that men will never understand, Hildebrand also mentions that women experience much greater joys. For example, “During pregnancy, [a woman] has the extraordinary privilege of carrying two souls in her body” (63). This observation is simply astounding and honestly unfathomable.

So you might be wondering why I am writing this article with a predominantly male audience. First, it is to provide Hildebrand’s message for women to recover their true power, but I also believe that men possess just as significant a role as women in combating the feminist agenda. Guys, respect all of the women in your lives: mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives, professors or whomever. We must aid women in accomplishing their demanding duty, and somehow along the way help them to realize it is a privilege of being a woman.

Related posts:

1. Feminism Gone Astray: The Good Fight of Christina Hoff Sommers
2. The Wimpification of Modern Academics: Dr. Kubiak’s Response to Gender Feminism
3. A True Foundation: On Christianity, Equality, and Tammy Bruce

WCU: Where did you go for college?
JW: I went to college in MI. The year we moved out to Michigan for my dad to get his ministry training I made some great friends out there – met a nice young lady who eventually became my life. So after high school I spent one ill-advised semester at Bible college in Colorado; a semester that I all but utterly failed in. When that experiment ended, in the spring of ’82, I moved out to Michigan and actually didn’t go to college right away. I went into business with a friend of mine – landscaping in the summer and shoveling a lot of snow in the winter time. I got married. Jane and I were married for about 6-7 years until I decided that I was going to get a degree, and I figured that it might as well be something I was interested in. So I went back to school in Grand Rapids, MI, started at a small Christian school there and then transferred to Calvin College, and I ended up with a double major in theology and philosophy. I did my seminary work at Calvin Theological Seminary.

WCU: What made you decide to pursue graduate work?
JW: Well, because I had an undergraduate degree in philosophy and theology, which is unemployable, and I had a master’s degree, which is almost as unemployable, so the only option for me was a Ph.D. program, but obviously I was interested in the subject matter. It was more than just having nothing else to do. I became interested in particularly historical theology while I was doing my seminary work – particularly the American context [of historical theology]. I really wanted to figure out what it is that makes America this sort of unique place that it is, particularly in matters of religion. And so I applied to several institutions and got accepted at the Toronto School of Theology and Marquette University. Marquette seemed to be the right place to go….They had good scholars in that area [that interested me] at Marquette…. I don’t know if I had plans when I started out college of getting a graduate degree. Just go find a job, get a degree – this was in the old days when the economy was actually good and you could find a job. The interest just stuck with me, and I had a hard time letting it go.

WCU: Has your theology evolved over time?
JW: I think that it’d be hard for someone’s theology not to evolve over time when you’re confronted with the sheer mass of history and options, if you will, and theologies that you read and deal with in your studies. If you figure that you’re going to be going to grad school and college, you’re looking at twelve years or so of studying, so it’d be hard for anyone’s theology to remain pristine and untouched. If that were to happen, it’d sort of be a waste of time of going to school. So in many ways my theology has changed over time. Some ways are more obvious than other. I would suggest on that the basis of the Faith, I remain in essence where I was when I began, in my commitment to the creedal/confessional issues of the faith (such as God the Father, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Church). On all of these things I remain essentially within the confessional nature of the historic Church. But obviously on some the subtleties of the confessional issues, my theology has changed. It’s certainly more broadened than it once was.

WCU: Have any theologians in particular influenced your theology?
JW: Oh yeah, sure. When I first got into theology, the first time in college I read Jurgen Moltmann, I was just blown away. I was blown away by his passion – he’s a passionate theologian, if not always terribly consistent. And his theology comes out of his real life experience. He’s a theologian who served as a youth in World War II and ended the war in a POW camp, and it’s there in the POW camp where he met God. His work comes out of that experience, and this theology comes out of the question of “What is going to come out of these ruins?” “What does the Church have to say to Germany in the process?” That was part of Moltmann’s response, too. His Theology of Hope, The Crucified God, and subsequently God in Creation and so forth, these are all theologies that contain the passion that comes out of one’s personal experiences and the desire to speak to the Church in the wake of the horrible event that was WWII. Moltmann definitely. Barth to some degree, though, when I made that move from being an evangelical fundamentalist to wherever I am now, a lot of us tend to have a Barth moment, but I never really had a Barth moment but Barth was someone I read and appreciated. Because of my dissertation work, [Friedrich] Schleiermacher has been influential in my own sort of thinking as well. [Dietrich] Bonhoeffer as well. For all of these, their biographies and lives have a lot to do with how these particular theologians have influenced me.

WCU: How did you end being a conservative?
JW: I was a squishy conservative for much of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. I didn’t want to be identified with those sort of evangelical conservatives to the degree that Jerry Falwell and James Dobsons were viewed as the icons and leaders of a certain kind of evangelical conservatism in America. I held many of the same views, in particular to matters of life and pro-life issues, gay marriage, sanctity of the family. I was not very outspoken or very willing to stake a claim, so I’d say that I was pretty soft. I reacted quite viscerally to 9/11, and in many ways 9/11 was somewhat of a watershed moment for me ideologically. I saw it as a moment where I had to make a choice as to where I was going to stand on certain issues. I remember thinking with a certain amount of disgust and horror at the reaction of some to 9/11 right off the bat [claiming] this need to look inward and look to where the fault lay within ourselves as the American nation. I found that to be so perversely obscene that, if that set the mark for where the Left was going down this path in reaction to 9/11, I didn’t want anything to do with it – not that I don’t think that there are things in America that need fixing…. This was an instance of pure, unadulterated evil that could not be seen in any other way. 9/11 really did have a solidifying event for me and forced me to take firm positions on things that I had held softly and seriously think about whether those things meant anything to me. And if they did, then I think that there was something about America – something fundamental about the American idea – that was essentially espoused in conservative social and political agenda – broadly speaking…. I simply don’t think that’s the way to go. So 9/11 was turned me into a thinking, maybe hardcore conservative.

WCU: What’s it like being a conservative academic?
JW: It depends on where I’m at. Where I have taught before, it’s been very clear that conservative views are a minority view. It’s not a respected point of view. It’s not important that it’s worth listening to. It’s not worth much airtime. It’s reacted to as opposed to thought or engagement. I would suggest that Wabash is a different type of place in that way. More than other places I’ve been and taught at, while conservative views may be a minority view within the faculty at large, I don’t get the impression that my views are immediately dismissed because they’re conservative. I have had faculty who I know don’t share my political identity treat me with respect and conservatives with respect, and expect themselves to be treated with respect, and that is returned. So in many ways Wabash is unique in that respect, in that it really does take seriously the idea of the college as a world of ideas and those ideas are there for us to discuss and not simply to dismiss because we disagree with them. And that’s even the case in the student body as well. I see a willingness to engage ideas that one doesn’t necessarily agree with within the student body context as well. I don’t feel any kind of pressure about holding my point of view, my views on culture, etc. because they’re conservative. To me as an institution it is pretty unique. It’s too bad that it has to be commended for that, but the fact of the matter is that there are too many institutions that are ideologically narrow and simply refuse to accept the existence of ideas that they don’t particularly agree with. Wabash is not that type of place. Wabash is a much more welcoming place to the world of ideas. It really embraces that discussion and that pushing and pulling and that tension. Here, I have enjoyed that.

WCU: How is Wabash different from other places you have taught at?
JW: There aren’t a lot of women here. That’s the most obvious. It’s difficult to draw conclusions from the all-male campus make up. Perhaps there is something about the all-male context here that makes the educational experience a different experience. The student body here has been much more engaged in the courses than in previous places where I have taught…. Here it’s been more lively, even in those courses that are set up to be more lecture-oriented. I don’t know if I can have a class without a student raising a question about the material. When I do present time for talking and engaging amongst themselves or with me, it’s eagerly taken. It’s a more lively academic place than other places I’ve been to. I’ve not experienced the Greek life at any other institutions where I’ve taught at. The faculty dinners have been interesting. The students’ desire to engage the professors – to know their professors not just as professors but as mentors and as individuals they can seek advice from, as individuals they like to fellowship with. At Wabash kids don’t come here just to get a degree, they seem to come here for an experience that includes education but it’s more than just accumulating grades. It’s engaging ideas, it’s engaging professors, it’s engaging their fellow students in other kinds of ways. It’s a very competitive campus. Most of the students are involved in sports or intramurals. It’s a very active campus socially and civilly. For a campus its size, to bring the speakers and performances that they do bring, such as the Galileo performance and Douglas Farrow’s lecture, that’s impressive. The level of student engagement in those sorts of things is impressive. Those speakers indicated to me that they have not had that experience before in many places. There’s something different about Wabash to make it a unique and worthwhile experience. All the kids I knew up in Michigan, when I told them about Wabash, their first reaction is that “It’s an all-boy’s school. I couldn’t go there.” I think they sold it short. I think if they gave it a chance and came down here they’d probably have thought differently, and that’s the story I hear time and again from students I’ve talked to. They were against it at the beginning, but a visit here was all it took, and they were committed to coming here. It’s a unique place; it’s a great place.

Related posts:

1. One of a Kind: An Interview with Professor Salisbury
2. Set to Light: Sophomore Perspective on Wabash Religion
3. “Unabashedly Theological”: An Exclusive Interview with Dr. Douglas Farrow