Intellectual Hospitality and the Way of Christ

I began my college education at a state community college in my hometown in Southeast Georgia. I completed all my general education requirements and at the school before graduating with an associate degree in sociology. I vividly remember several courses with professors who were aggressively anti-Christian, even in my small town that was filled with Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, and non-denominational churches. Christians were made to feel like we were backwards hicks for our beliefs. Even when our beliefs weren’t being challenged openly, we were tempted to self-censor,so as not to provoke an argument with the professor. Those classrooms weren’t very hospitable.

That was nearly three decades ago. Over the past twenty years, I’ve taught undergraduate students at three different Christian institutions. From time to time, I’ve had a class where a critical mass of the students enrolled in the course already believed they knew all the right answers and held all the correct views. After all, they were Bible-believing Christians! They were also self-assured and, at times, downright mean towards students who had minority opinions. Over the years, as I’ve talked with those students with minority views, they’ve shared about their tendency to self-censor,their tendency to self-censor so as not to provoke an argument with students in the majority. Those classrooms weren’t very hospitable, either.

In January 2024, I returned to full-time instructional faculty after spending 8.5 years in academic leadership roles in two different universities. With this vocational transition, I began teaching each semester in the Honors Program at North Greenville University. In our Honors Program, we emphasize a lot of values that are common at theologically conservative Christian schools. A commitment to sound doctrine. The importance of Christian worldview formation. The integration of faith and learning. The value of intellectual discipleship. Appreciation for the Christian intellectual tradition.

We also talk a lot about the importance of practicing intellectual hospitality. I define intellectual hospitality as a general disposition of generosity towards thinkers and curiosity towards their ideas. Intellectual hospitality isn’t incompatible with critical thinking, a practice that is championed in higher education. Nor does it deny the importance of truth, a value that we care deeply about in Christian colleges and universities. Rather, it is about our attitude, as a class, towards the individuals and ideas we will engage with critically in our pursuit of truth. I believe intellectual hospitality entails at least three practices, which I strive to model for my students.

First, we must own the vocation of a learner.

While this might sound obvious enough, make no mistake about it: this practice is swimming upstream in contemporary higher education. The vast majority of students have a transactional approach to education, seeing it as a season to develop the competencies and connections needed to get a job. While career preparation has always been part of a college education, and is a major factor in certain fields and the programs of study that are connected with them, authentic education is never merely transactional. It is also about intellectual formation; becoming a thoughtful person who is prepared to navigate life after college, including one’s career(s). This means that students—and their professors, who should still be students of their respective disciplines—are called to be learners.

As learners, we must remain receptive to new ideas, fresh insights, and alternative perspectives. As we like to say in Christian education, all truth is God’s truth. Even when we disagree with some of what we learn, which will inevitably happen, education always entails engaging with ideas. We sift through them. We interrogate them. We adopt some (Phil. 4:8), we discard others (2 Cor. 10:5), and we remain tentative about still others. But we are always intentional in considering how ideas relate to our intellectual formation and, yes, our career aspirations and other goals for life after college.

Second, we must embrace the virtue of humility.

Proverbs 11:2 says, “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.” It is so very tempting for students (and faculty) to believe we have it all figured out—or at least the stuff that really matters. In Christian contexts, there is a particular temptation to think that, because we know what we believe about the Bible or Christian doctrine, we know everything that we need to know about every subject. In almost any education context, many students assume they don’t “need” a particular class because they struggle to understand how it obviously connects to their major and/or career goals.

I appreciate how Solomon connects humility with wisdom, because in Christian higher education, we believe that intellectual formation includes helping students to cultivate the wisdom needed to engage with God’s good-but-fallen creation in ways that glorify him and contribute to human flourishing. A student cannot learn anything without the humble recognition that there are some things he simply does not know. A student will not become wise if she believes she already knows what she “needs” to know before the class even begins. We must remember that, unlike God, we are finite creatures who lack omniscience.

Finally, we must show neighborly love towards those with whom we engage.

This is where the rubber meets the road. Jesus says the greatest commandment is to love God with all that we are, but the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves. In Luke’s Gospel, this foundational teaching about the Christian life is tied to the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-28). This should remind us that we don’t always get to choose our neighbor. Our neighbor might be the “other.” Our neighbor might be the one with whom we have honest and understandable differences of opinion.

The biblical command to practice neighborly love, when applied to an educational context, means that we do not have the right to write off entirely individuals with whom we disagree. Their ideas might be incorrect, or even wicked. But the thinkers themselves are divine image-bearers who are worthy of dignity. Though their ideas might be rejected, they cannot be treated as non-persons. They cannot be disrespected, degraded, or demonized. They are our intellectual neighbors, and they deserve to be allowed to speak, even when we decide their words are incompatible with truth. Even the advocates of the worst ideas still have something to teach us, even if it is the opposite of what they intended for us to learn.

If you are reading this and you are a teacher, I want to encourage you to foster intellectual hospitality in your classroom. If you are a student, I want to encourage you to practice intellectual hospitality, even—especially!—towards those with whom you disagree.