Bill Walker | Blog

I went to Baylor University and loved it.  I cheer for the football team despite how one-sided that relationship can be sometimes.  I don’t know if there’s an institution offering a better college experience with such wonderful people.  Of course my family heritage there makes me biased, but nonetheless I’m proud of the school for so many, what I think are good, reasons.  I would recommend it to almost anyone who has the means to afford it and cares about the intangible benefits it offers (some people just want a degree, and they should look elsewhere), and to anyone who receives a substantial scholarship.

There’s a problem though.  People call Baylor “Christian” to distinguish it from other more secular institutions in the Big 12 for example.  This is where things get hazy.  I’m sure the percentage of committed as opposed to nominal Christians at Baylor is substantially higher than that number at other state and even private schools of its size.  And of course there are policies in place like requiring chapel and taking certain religion classes, or hiring professors that confess to be men and women of faith.  General Christian ethics are enforced in the dormitories.  Chaplains are hired to reside and minister in these residence halls.  There’s even an on-campus ministry as part of the Department of Student Life.  Some of the best Christian scholars teach in the classrooms and publish from Baylor’s halls.  And, the founders seal contains the following Latin phrase: “Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana.”  This would all seem to indicate that Baylor and universities like it are “Christian.”

Nevertheless, to convincingly say that an institution as large and as bureaucratic as Baylor is Christian might take something more foundational than the external dressing I’ve just described.  Consider an alternative perspective: first, Baylor competes at the national level in sports and spends an exorbitant amount of money on these activities, including paying several coaches over a million dollars each year to figurehead Baylor’s place in this massive entertainment industry.  There are plans to build a new stadium on campus that would cost at least 175 million dollars, even though there is a perfectly suitable stadium a few miles away that is never filled to capacity, which only serves to highlight the priorities of certain administrators and alumni.  Furthermore, in the moments that Baylor has success in sports, affiliates tend to boast quite loudly about it, reflecting their hunger for the respect in the eyes of spectators and critiques that it has been starved of for so long.

At athletic events, students and fans behave in roughly the same manner as those at other “non-Christian” schools.  The girls on the cheerleading and dance teams sell sex by wearing the same promiscuous outfits and performing the same provocative numbers as any other secular university.  Media and television ads are no different in their appeal.  By all appearances, as an institution or fixed structural entity located in the capitalistic market of higher education, Baylor cares for, safeguards, and values what the world values – namely money, influence, and recognition as a top player in the college game. The only difference is that the additions already mentioned are then cited to allegedly “Christianize” the project as a whole.

Like any endowment-based organization, so much is political.  Alumni with money and influence have a much bigger say in decision-making than families for instance of the students who are barely paying the bills.  Baylor does allow non-Christian students to enroll, but they are required to attend worship services once a week just like the Christian students.  Insofar as Baylor actually serves the interests of the Church, from an evangelistic perspective, this is kind of like saying to visitors on Sunday morning, “You too are expected to put money in the offering plate!”

The 100 million dollar science building is one of Baylor’s main attractions and selling points.  It’s as nice as any other at competing colleges in the region, and maybe even in the country.  It reads on the outside, “By Him all Things were Created” as if to tell the pagan world, “see, we can build it too!”  This symbolic gesture is not unlike the multi-million dollar mega-churches built by rich Christians (this also might be an oxymoron) to decorate the Bible Belt landscape.

The biggest difficulty, however, has yet to be mentioned.  I’m referring now to student body, and I would count myself among the guilty in this category.  One might expect the students at a large Christian University to live especially Christ-like lives during the time of their most formative young adult years, but anyone who has ventured to a fraternity party or two in their day knows better than this.  I hear from my Christian friends at big state schools that, in order to actually be a Christian, you really were forced to stand apart from the crowd because of the sharp contrast in lifestyles.  At Baylor, however Christianity is the “norm,” so everybody fits in.  I wonder if the institution’s ambition to be measured as great by competitors’ standards is any cause or reflection of the likewise lukewarm student populace?

There are obviously exceptions to what I have outlined, and there is no doubt a strong minority of godly graduates from Baylor and institutions like it, among whom I for one can at best only one day hope to be counted.  Nor does what I am saying necessarily mean that good ministry and transformation doesn’t happen through Baylor.  There are many positive things happening there all the time, even including work that contributes to building up the kingdom of God.  But make no mistake – the allure of wealth, power, and fame preys on the best of intentions, and it seems to me that Baylor as a whole – taken somewhat apart from its constituents and supporting family – and other institutions like it, have long since and maybe always fallen victim to these deceptive ideals.

Bearing the title “Christian” for Christians should be the most extraordinary and difficult responsibility imaginable.  Can anything that is not human be “Christian”?  If not, this would suggest that the word “Christian” in adjectival form is essentially always inappropriate.  It would be a noun or nothing, and in this way, the same assessment could be applied to the church. To the extent that church takes on a life of its own apart from the people who make up the body of Christ and the Spirit that guides them, it too becomes devoid of vitality.