SEMPER FIDELIS? *MARTIN W. BUSH* Co-Editor "Whatever Happened to Ethics," shouts the cover of the May 25, 1987, issue of TIME magazine. One could question whether even two years ago this would have seemed a likely topic for secular debate, much less have received attention of this magnitude from major media. Yet, here it is; bold, brassy, and surprisingly persistent in holding the national attention. TIME's cover copy continues: "Assaulted by sleaze, scandals and hypocrisy, America searches for its moral bearings." The introductory blurb in the table of contents adds: "Disclosures of hypocrisy and moral laxity infect leadership from Washington to Wall Street, tainting even television evangelists and the Semper Fi U.S. Marines. Do the transgressions represent a general shunning of values that Americans have always held dear, or are they merely a temporary blot brought about by the mindless materialism of the '80s?" A case could be made that, among other contributors, the values-clarification emphasis of the last several years participated strongly in this apparent shift toward hedonistic self-ism and "mindless materialism." The view that one is responsible only to oneself has become so deeply ingrained, particularly in young people, that the "I'm ok, you're ok" attitude extends far beyond merely feeling comfortable with oneself. It is evidenced even in the self-legitimizing of personal interpretations of biblical material as well as various other academic subjects (see Dr. Ankeny's article following). When it has become so easy for undergraduate students, encouraged mightily by their public school values-clarification curriculum, to disavow more than a millennia of biblical scholarship and decades of scholarly research in areas of poetics or sociology or other fields (because what truly matters, after all, is what they believe, and everyone is entitled to his or her opinion), it doesn't seem too distant a leap for them to hold that the morality (read "rules") accepted by their parents likewise does not apply to them in any real sense (rules, too, are just someone else's opinion). One has but to step into nearly any public middle or high school in the country to realize that the old rules of behavior and respect for teachers and other adults not only do not count but are openly ridiculed. Substitute teachers, always in a precarious position, particularly in larger, urban schools, now often enter literal battlefields (verbal if not physical) even in small, rural schools. One can't help but think seriously about columnist Georgie Anne Geyer's argument that one of the real threats to the United States, beyond the Russians or other physical adversaries, is cultural disintegration. Because the United States is an artificial construction, not based upon the genetic similarities and common roots of its people, but upon the ideas of universal human value and the creativity which derives from human liberty, it is much more vulnerable to disintegration than other nations might be. She notes that "somewhere along the way, if we as a nation don't care as much about cultural integrity as individual rights...we will simply cease to exist as a nation." (Oregonian, Jan. 25, 1987, D4) Is the problem of immorality really more prevalent than in the past, and is it related to the self-ism resulting from cultural disintegration? Is Geyer accurate in her portrayal of our culture and country as pushing toward the brink of extinction because we have ceased to know who and what we are, and have lost the strength to analyze the deeper societal issues which engulf us? Or is Senator Moynihan (New York) correct in his assumption that this is just a blip on the scope of American behavior?--that all this scandal just happens to have occurred coincidentally. The authors of Habits of the Heart (Robert Bellah, et al., New York: Harper & Row, 1985), don't think so. Through extensive interviewing of Americans they report that the philosophy of radical individualism which has pervaded American society, irrespective of ethnic divisions or socioeconomic levels, has resulted in a vacuum at the core of our collective consciousness. They believe that De Tocqueville was correct in his assessment of 1832, that democracy, which separates each link in the chain of community, would eventually throw man "back forever upon himself alone and [threaten] in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart."1 We do not even know how to speak about what it means to be creatures of a common heritage and culture. Short of a fundamental transformation of American culture, meaningful reform is doubtful. In seeking dialogue on this question, the authors also look for support for educational reforms that might reconstruct a conception of community to `countervail' against the destructive tendencies of radical individualism. Using only as evidence the spate of incidents of moral failure currently reported in the news media, it is apparent that when a person answers only to him or herself, pragmatic self-interest dictates that the answer is usually, "yes." Can the church-related institutions play a significant role in developing a conception of community which might help society recover from the destructive tendencies of radical individualism? Can we help students understand the broader application of Abraham Lincoln's passionate exception to the slavery-justifying philosophy that "there is no right principle of action but self-interest"?2 Can we get beyond the provincial?--not in the denominational sense necessarily, but, more-to-the-point, in the national sense. Can we understand truly that Christ's institutions (if that is what "Christian," in the adjectival sense, means) have both serving and prophetic functions to fulfill? Certainly an adequate response to this challenge would not include joining the mainstream institutions in the polluted waters of value-neutrality. Less clear for many institutions, however, is an adequate response to the demand for high tech courses of study which often carry the baggage of yet-unresolved ethical questions concerning life itself, not to mention the more typical freight of failure to address the fundamental human questions regarding loss of meaning and integrity in the workplace through technological development. Yet the market-driven approach to curriculum development seems sufficient to push a great many institutions' educational planners quickly past these questions as irrelevancies. What better forum for discussion of these issues than within the community of church-related colleges and universities. Belief in common, foundational biblical principles provides a solid bedrock for this exchange, and the historical attention to the importance of mooring morality to something stronger than personal whim gives a maturity to the discussion not readily found elsewhere. Through the presentations in this issue of the journal, and in assorted issues to follow, the Institute for Christian Leadership encourages the full consideration of national and community issues in this regard. The decision to retain the capacity for flexibility is one thing which this journal has upheld throughout its relatively short history. Its goal of enhancing dialogue on issues of concern in Christian higher education between and among various faculties has consistently informed this decision. Recognizing that significant ideas are not, and perhaps cannot be, always exchanged in one professional style, it has remained foundational that Faculty Dialogue would respond favorably to different formats, ideas, and presentation styles; thus, articles, monographs, and entire conference proceedings have found their way into its pages. The current issue continues this tradition. Ted Ward, Co-Editor, has been asked to expand the shorter, introductory article in the last issue ["Commonplace or Unique," Faculty Dialogue, Fall/Winter, 1986/87, pp. 1-4.], in which he contended that the rationale for Christian higher education must include more than the tiresome and somewhat thin arguments of education with a "spiritual perspective" or education surrounded by "Christian warm-and-fuzzy" support systems. Here, he reiterates his belief that it calls for: an honest intellectual wrestling with the fact that every aspect of the curriculum is different when it starts with the presupposition that God is the creator, sustainer, and redeemer of the universe. Just how different should the curriculum be? The only answer that will hold up is that the purposes, content, context, and resources of Christian higher education must be carefully defined and designed to work together toward the end of a very uncommon sort of education concerned with the deliberate and redemptive interaction of the biblically grounded value system of the Kingdom of God and the realities of the social contexts of today's world. Dr. Ward presents the argument that theological priorities should call into question for the Christian college the common liberal arts presupposition that it is "the accumulated disciplinary lore of the arts and sciences" which provides the true source for curricular foundation, rather than biblical values. And, often, it is in the lack of distinction between "liberal arts" and "liberal education" that one can find the cause for some of the difficulties in curricular decision-making. In the article by William Bennett, Secretary of Education (Address to the Harvard Club, October, 1986), he rejects the term "values" education, and relabels the effort to form character in the young: education for moral literacy. His arguments have particular relevance for those involved in the training of future teachers, as well as for secular and Christian professors in general, as they seek to add moral depth to their own educational areas. The next group of articles is derived from a conference which the Institute for Christian Leadership co-sponsored with the Sociology Department of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. The conference was designed to allow faculty members from a broad range of disciplinary fields within a single institution to consider the arguments of Robert Bellah, et al., in Habits of the Heart, and, subsequently, to evaluate, write, and discuss what it means to be, or to have, a community; whether community exists for them in this unique environment; and the role individualism plays within community in three specific areas: 1) individualism in American life, 2) individualism in the liberal arts, and 3) the role of the Christian liberal arts college in transforming culture. The results, as illustrated by the collected papers, were candid glimpses of the participants' feelings and evaluations regarding community and individualism at Westmont as representative of the larger Christian college community. The Institute is grateful that they have consented to publish what, in some cases, would be considered "in-house sharing" and private views on institutional blemishes. In some instances, for our benefit as outsiders looking in, authors were even willing to expand upon "Westmont" illustrations so they might be translated more easily into other institutional environments. It is a pleasure to acknowledge such candidness and open self-evaluation as a relatively rare and helpful institutional phenomenon. We also acknowledge our great appreciation for the special assistance of sociologist and conference coordinator, Ray DeVries of Westmont College; Richard Madsen, co-author of Habits of the Heart, and sociologist from The University of California, San Diego, who graciously participated as a consultant in the conference; and sociologist Michael Leming, of St. Olaf College in Minnesota, who was instrumental in the formation and development of the conference. Footnotes 1Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, The Henry Reeve Text, rev. by Francis Bowen, Phillips Bradley, ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), vol. I, p. 46. 2Abraham Lincoln, Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler, ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953), vol. II, p. 255.