Who was Charles Malik (1906-1987)? A devout Christian, he’s a man of public service with a distinguished academic pedigree at a time when the academy wasn’t so overwhelmingly sullied in doctrinaire neo-Marxism. Of Lebanese nationality, an escapee from Nazi Germany and move to the US to complete his PhD in Philosophy at Harvard, he taught at the school and other American universities. He returned to his native Lebanon to serve as the country’s ambassador to the US after WWII and helped author the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And he proved to be a prophet of things to come at our colleges.
In 1980, he delivered an address at Wheaton College warning of the moral chaos of the current reign of philosophical materialism and nihilism (rejection of objective standards, the basic guideposts for human flourishing) that he saw conquering the campuses 40 years ago (see #1 and #2 below). He put part of the blame at the feet of intellectual Christians, and Christian leaders in general, who abandoned the academy to the philosophical barbarians. Much of evangelical Christianity embraced political activism – the Moral Majority, et al – but at the same time scurried off into their own social silos, leaving the intellectual training grounds for future generations to be swamped by militant secular collectivists of all stripes. As he put it, “The enormity of what is happening is beyond words.”
The Humanities (literature, philosophy, languages, theology, art, etc.) were mangled beyond recognition. While declining in funding and enrollment, even in their tortured form, they still proved to be influential in shaping the minds of the next couple of generations down to the present day. There is no alternative to the rule of materialism’s atheism from K to grad school. It’s what happens when you abandon the field.
In response, a kind of anti-intellectualism took root in many Christian circles. Honestly, who can blame them after what they’re seeing in posts and broadcasts today from campuses around the country? Charles Malik warned us, though. It’s a consequence of a sin of omission of the Christian community: a surrender of the field to the brutes.
By the faithful’s flight from the campuses, we allowed a takeover that would breed future generations of pillagers of our civilization. It isn’t pretty as the next crop of young people will be robbed of the benefit of a more robust learning experience that more fully enriches our sense of ourselves. Instead, we have encampments that extoll savagery.
Indeed, “The enormity of what is happening is beyond words.”
RogerG
Sources:
1. “The Two Tasks”, an address delivered by Dr. Charles Malik at Wheaton College, 1980, The Charles Malik Institute, at https://charlesmalikinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Two-Tasks-green.pdf
2. Thanks to Joseph Loconte, scholar in residence at New College of Florida, for bringing the subject to my attention in “A Christian Prophet’s Unheeded Warning to the Academy”, National Review, 5/4/24, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/05/a-christian-prophets-unheeded-warning-to-the-academy/