Cedarville University Cancels Shane Claiborne

*Updated Link on 2.19.08*

On February 11^th, Shane Claiborne, a voice of new monasticism and founder of The Simple Way was invited by Cedarville University to speak as a part of their annual student life speaker series. According to an email I received from a faculty member, the series is to provide Cedarville's students with "opportunities to learn to think critically and biblically and engage the issues that are shaping the church and impacting society." Claiborne was invited because "he is a strong advocate for Christian involvement in issues of justice like poverty and racial reconciliation. These are critical issues in our culture, and we wanted our students to engage them thoughtfully and biblically." Kudos to Cedarville on such a great series idea! Unfortunately, Claiborne never got the chance to speak at the Christian university. The event was canceled by administration amidst protests from Christian apologists, which then stirred up the concerned hearts and minds of Cedarville parents… which of course led to emails and phone calls demanding Cedarville axe the already invited guest speaker. The university was backed into a corner, particularly the Vice President of Student Life, Dr. Carl Ruby. "I didn't cancel the Shane Claiborne event because I thought it was a bad idea to have people like Shane on campus, "said Dr. Ruby. Rather, it was "canceled because I hadn't anticipated the hostile attack by so many off-campus blogs. We weren't adequately prepared to respond and it became a distraction from other issues facing the leadership team here at Cedarville." The critics may have forced the hand of the university, but the students happily scurried towards Apex Community Church in Dayton, Ohio who was quick to jump on the chance to sponsor Claiborne for the night.

There is more to this story than just Claiborne being uninvited. This incident is part o f a larger movement of conservative schools, churches, and para-church organizations being pushed to define their identity in the sea of "Emergent" and postmodern developments in theology (for instance, the recent moves by Young Life). A common critique of postmodern circles it that "truth is up for grabs." To counter balance this, those identifying themselves with the label "conservative" come up with non-negotiables, dogmatic treatises, and statements of faith that must be adhered to in order to be in the club. You are either in the conservative club, or you are backsliding towards the pub, where those slippery Emergents hang out. Giving this movement a boost is the availability of information on the web. Anyone can have a voice. People can grab information of this website, combine it with that quote from a few years ago, and call it "evidence" that a school, organization, person, etc… is a heretic according to conservative principles. Furthermore, anyone who sponsors these individuals or groups are guilty by association. Eventually, you will have to either come out and condemn these wanderers or you are going to be lumped in with them. This is the phenomenon that Cedarville is currently battling and one gets the feeling it's been going on over the last year or perhaps even longer. Claiborne was just a public example of this internal tidal wave. The same faculty member from above alluded to this situation in an email I received last week:

Sadly, our intended purpose for the Shane Claiborne event was being overshadowed by accusations about Cedarville's theological commitments…Some attempted to portray this event as an endorsement of the emerging church. We have deep concerns about the theological positions associated with the emerging church movement, particularly positions that do not maintain a high view of the scriptures nor clearly affirm the exclusivity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There must be no confusion about Cedarville's commitment to God's Word and to our historically conservative doctrinal position. Our commitments to the inerrancy of Scripture, to our historic doctrinal statement, and to our conservative theological heritage have not changed.

Cedarville was in an already tight spot getting tighter. Despite that Shane Claiborne doesn't use labels like "postmodern" or "Emergent," despite his fitting of the bill that Cedarville was trying to fill, that and despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of students and faculty on campus wanted to hear Claiborne's thoughts, the university cancelled the event. I can have sympathy for the administration. I know it must have been a difficult decision, with donors, alumni, and conservative watchdogs breathing down your neck. But in the end, Cedarville bowed before the conservative powers that be rather than allowing their students to engage in truth outside the narrow lines constantly being drawn for them. It's ironic to me that "truth" is what a lot of these battles are over, and yet the response from angry bloggers is to suppress ideas and opinions. Particularly disturbing is the admission from Dr. Ruby that these online writers and anxious voices were not in the truth, and were in fact, using information out of context to attack the school. I have to agree with Claiborne's well-stated response: "A small group of people have used an impersonal, indirect means of communication to try and tear down something they disagree with. Unfortunately Cedarville gave validity to this group of bloggers by reacting to their demands." I'm not asking for everyone to become more "postmodern" or "Emergent," but I am asking for an organization to stand up and refuse the label of "conservatism," even it means losing a bit of respect and publicity within their own circle.

If keeping the label of "conservative" is more important than being faithful to the good news of Jesus Christ, we (those of us on the outside of conservativism looking in) apparently are more than heretics—we are idolaters—because we must worship an altogether different God.

Here are a couple of links to the angry conservative think tanks/ "research" centers and their take on Claiborne and his evil New Age religion:

Apprising Ministries

Slice of Laodicea (check out the title of that post! Wow!)

Lighthouse Trails Research

To read a portion of Claiborne's response in Christianity Today (which, by the way, Lighthouse condemns, along with AWANA, The National Day of Prayer, and others):

Braking for Bloggers

Jesus Creed's write up, including Shane's entire response:

Cedarville and Shane Claiborne