Case’s Law #2: Customer Service is Bad for the Student

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(This is Part 4 in a series of blogs I am doing entitled “Why It Doesn’t Make Economic Sense to Run Education like a Business.”)

A story.  During my first semester at Malone I was asked to teach a course in European history.  The problem was that I had little graduate training in European history.  But the department was going through some transitions and we did not yet have a historian in European history, so I was tapped to fill in.

This made me rather nervous.  I felt a bit out of my depth. I worried that the students wouldn’t get what they needed.  Furthermore, I wanted to make a good impression on the students and the department, since it was my first semester at Malone.  And I knew that students would be filling out evaluations of my class at the end of the semester.

The result?

According to the student evaluations, this was the best class I ever taught.  The scores were higher than just about anything I have taught in the fourteen years since then. Whew.  Happy ending!

Wait a minute.

Why did I receive the best scores for a course that I was least qualified to teach at a moment in my career when I was least experienced as a professor?  Have I regressed as a professor since that glorious moment in the fall of 1999?  Do I really do a worse job in subjects that I know and understand the most?

No.

I know what that European history class looked like from my end, particularly in comparison to other classes I taught.  Since I didn’t have much graduate school expertise to draw upon, I dipped back into my old materials when I taught European history in high school.  I pulled out some old stories and jokes that I used to use, which was fun.  More tellingly, I did not require as much critical thinking, ask as many challenging questions, or raise as many difficult issues as I did in my other classes.  And I did not feel that I could grade as tough as I did in other classes, because I believed I would be punishing students for my lack of experience and expertise in this area.

In other words, this may have been the easiest, least challenging class I have ever taught in college.   But from a customer service standpoint, it was a big hit.

And that helps explain why customer service is bad for the student.

New Picture (1)Before I go further, allow me to pull out an old professorial trick here by saying that I need to qualify Case’s Law # 2.

There is a type of “customer service” in which professors care deeply about the academic excellence, character development and well-being of their students.  They might even tell a few jokes in class.

That kind of customer service, however, runs on different dynamics than our economic model of customer satisfaction, which is built upon that old American motto, “the customer is always right.”  That motto, which was popularized by department stores like Marshall Field in the early part of the twentieth century, was intended to inspire employees to do what they could to satisfy customers who were buying skirts and shoes.

Education, though, is a different animal.

The department store model of customer service encourages professors to look for ways to grant short-term happiness to students. The easiest way to make most students happy in the short term is to make the course easy and hand out good grades.  Professors know this.  Consider the following, from an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education of September 5, 2008:

“For faculty members, the pressure to grade generously comes not only from anxious students and ‘helicopter’ parents, but also from promotion-and-tenure committees that look carefully at end-of-term student evaluations.  ‘It’s easier to be a high grader,’ says (one professor). ‘You can write that A or B, and you don’t have to defend it. You don’t have students complaining or crying in your office. You don’t get many low student evaluations. The amount of time that is eaten up by very rigorous grading and dealing with student complaints is time you could be spending on your own research.’”

What we have here is a variation on Barlow’s Law.  This is why we need to understand grade inflation better – the data that shows that grades in higher education have been getting higher and higher in the past four decades.  Some observers say that it is not a big deal and a few people even say it doesn’t exist.  But most observers and their studies indicate that it is real and it is a problem.  That means we need to think more carefully about these things.

A hypothesis:  our academic standards have gradually eroded over the past few decades because  we have treated education more and more like a business.  I don’t know if that is true or not, but I would like some good researchers to investigate it.

Another qualification: student evaluations do tell us some things.  They are blunt but helpful tools for identifying real problems in the classroom.  At the end of the day, students want to believe that they have learned something, even though they may not want to be pushed very hard.  Truly poor teaching does show up on student evaluations.  In addition, some students truly desire to be pushed toward excellence and will indicate so on their evaluations.

New PictureBut it looks like those good intentions only go so far.  Even very good students who want to get into graduate school will complain that tougher grading (and presumably, the higher standards that go along with it) will hurt their chances to get into graduate school (where, ironically, they will face more challenging standards).  Interestingly, these potential graduate students may be correct.  A recent study actually shows that “admissions officers appear to favor applicants with better grades at institutions where everyone is earning high grades over applicants with lower grades at institutions with more rigorous grading.”

Customer service:  it lowers our standards and gives us the incentive to produce an inferior product.

Is that the economic model we want?

Case’s Law #1: You Can’t Buy an Education.

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(This is Part 3 in a series of blogs I am doing entitled “Why It Doesn’t Make Economic Sense to Run Education like a Business.”)

My brother is a mathematician at another college.   As it turns out, students don’t always get great grades in math, especially if the flavor of math happens to be calculus.  My brother once received a phone call from a parent who was upset that his son had received a poor grade.  At some point in the conversation, the father asked, “Do you realize how much we are paying for this education?”

Now, how was my brother supposed to respond?  If the student really is a “customer,” and math is the “product,” I suppose he should have said, “Oh, that’s right.  I’m sorry.  You have paid full price for your college tuition and that means your son really did get all of those problems correct. I’ll just correct the gradebook right away and I promise it won’t happen again.”

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Here’s a great cost-saving idea for medical school! Since students are “customers” and education is a “product,” let’s stop pouring money into medical schools and just sell our degrees in surgery to the highest bidders! Let the market solve the problem!

This, of course, would be an absurd response.

But we are a bit absurd these days.  It’s more than a few complaining parents who tend to think that an education is something that can be purchased.  We don’t usually state it in these terms, but if you look closely you will see that many of our educational polices are built on assumptions that view education as an economic transaction.  In many policies in which money is invested in education, (either through tuition payments or government allocation) it is solely up to the provider to insure that students demonstrate academic mastery.  This can be seen in initiatives on higher education from the federal government.  Obama’s plan to lower the costs of higher education places almost all responsibility on academic institutions while doing very little to consider the role students play in the educational process.   The most famous Republican policy from the past decade – Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” – is guilty of the same problem in the way it emphasizes standardized testing.  These policies make sense if education really can be run like businesses, for the economic self-interest in capitalism pushes businesses to deliver better products at cheaper prices.

Education, however, is a different animal.

Now, it is true that some academic systems are better than others.  Some teachers are better than others.  All educators need to be held accountable to high standards.  And somebody has to pay for it.

It is also quite possible that my brother is a hack of a teacher and is failing at his attempts to teach his students calculus.  I hesitate to draw that conclusion, however.  For one thing, my brother has been able to consistently beat me in one-on-one basketball, tennis, golf, horseshoes, baseball trivia, Rack-O and War ever since he did every one of those things in the summer of 1982 when I was twenty and he was seventeen.  So I’m a little afraid that he might beat me up if I tell everyone he is a terrible teacher.

But I also hesitate to draw that conclusion because I know from other sources that he is a very good teacher.  I also know that his students do very well at math.  And I know that in the class with the aforementioned student, most of the other students were getting good grades and demonstrating that they were learning calculus.  Since they all paid tuition and were in the same class, how could it be that they received an inferior product than he did?

The answer:  education is not a product that you can buy.  This is Case’s Law #1.  My brother’s student was not going to master Calculus III simply because his father paid a lot of money for his tuition.

Education cannot be run like a business because purchasing a product demands nothing from the customer except money.  Education, however, makes demands on students.  And those demands come in many forms.

Education demands that the student master virtues and practices – or in common terminology, study habits.  Many students procrastinate, study sloppily, study too little or get distracted when they study.  Weekly intoxication hinders the academic performance of many of our college students. However, a person who purchases a Big Mac at McDonald’s owns that hamburger as soon as the clerk slides the tray across the counter.  One does not have to read, write, solve problems, or practice extensively to master the ownership of that Big Mac, much to the relief of the millions and millions who have been served.

Other demands are actually beyond the abilities of the student, regardless of his or her study habits.  I think it is fair to say that in the field of mathematics, for instance, every person reaches a level beyond which the math is just too difficult to master.  Many of us reach our limit with calculus.  Some cannot get beyond geometry.  But even the most gifted mathematicians reach limits.  Arguably, none of the most intelligent mathematicians alive today, including my brother, are as brilliant as Isaac Newton was.  Meanwhile, one needs no talents, skills or abilities to purchase a big screen TV.  Big screen TVs can even be purchased for two-year old who cannot yet talk, which may also help explain why they will later fail to master calculus.

The demands of life situations beyond the student’s control can also hinder education.  Students get sick.  Sometimes they have tragedies or conflicts at home that undermine their education.  Mental health problems very often first afflict individuals in their early twenties, when they are in college.  And yet, people in all of these situations still are able to buy iPhones, shoes and Netflix subscriptions.

I don’t know why the student in my brother’s math class did not receive the grade his father wanted.  It might have been poor study habits.  He may not have had the same ability as others in his class.  It might have been things in life beyond his control.  It might have been a combination of these things.  But tuition dollars alone were not going to make him solve the calculus problems correctly.

Educational discussions, proposals and policies will fail economically (and academically) if they assume the problems can be fixed simply by sharpening the economic incentives of academic institutions and educators.  We also have to consider demands on the students, demands that cannot be gained through an economic transaction.

Yeah, money can’t buy me love.  Or knowledge.  Or skills.  Or understanding.  Or wisdom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barlow’s Law: Students Don’t Want To Get Their Money’s Worth

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(This is Part 2 in a series of blogs I am doing entitled “Why It Doesn’t Make Economic Sense to Run Education like a Business.”)

We’ve all been students, so we recognize this scenario:  a professor announces that the next class will be cancelled.  Our reaction?

Of course, if we students are really “customers” and education is a “product,” then we are just pretty stupid consumers.  Think about it.  If we had purchased an 8-day package vacation in Aruba and the travel agent called us up on the beach and told us that one day of the vacation had been cancelled and we would have to fly back early, we would not be happy campers.  Or sun-bathers, as it were.

Then why are we so happy to miss a day of education, especially when higher education is so expensive?

Education is a different animal.

Students don’t want to get their money’s worth.  Barlow’s Law seems so common-sensically obvious (at least in American culture) that I probably ought to call it Barlow’s axiom, which would make it a self-evident truth.

Teachers know that they can please their students by giving them less instruction or less demanding education.  If a professor cuts an assignment, reduces reading, or eases up in any way, many students are happy.  Many students will try to sign up for easy professors.  Many figure out ways to get a decent grade with the smallest amount of work.  Many cheat. If we are let out of class early, we are happy.  Meanwhile, if extra reading and writing is required, we “customers” will complain and protest that the professor is being unfair.

Imagine striking a deal for a new Lexus and getting excited when the dealer says he will have to cut out the heated seats or the air conditioning.  Imagine complaining and protesting that the dealer is being unfair if he throws in a sun roof at no extra cost.

According to Adam Smith, society benefits under capitalism because self-interest leads businesses to produce better and cheaper products which is what customers, in their self-interest, want.  The problem is that self-interest is a complicated thing.  Yes, we know it is in our self-interest to get a good education.  But we also have immediate self-interests that run counter to the long-term habits required to obtain a good education:  we would rather play video games or hang with friends or eat nachos or check Facebook or sleep than study.  A truly stupid show on Comedy Central suddenly becomes absolutely fascinating when we have a paper to write.  Socialized from childhood as a consumer (see “Trix: cereal”), what’s a “customer” to do?

New Picture (1)Now, it is true that there are students who sincerely want the very best that an academic course can give them.  Many do not want easy professors or classes where they learn little.  In fact, most of us have probably gone back and forth between desiring a good, challenging class and wishing it were cancelled.  Usually, though, true academic desires and virtues are cultivated over time from parents or a great teacher along the way, but not from our economic system.  The desires for a challenging class stem from impulses opposite of those intensified by consumerism, such as immediate gratification, entertainment, comfort and self-indulgence.

You might point out that the economic desire for a well-paying job motivates many students to do well.  True, but I would question whether this is really the best kind of education one can get.  In fact, not all ambitious, highly motivated students deeply desire the best education they can get.  An undefinable number of hard-working, ambitious students highly desire the status or connections or economic opportunities that an education can give them, as opposed to the education itself.  In other words, many are more interested in a diploma from a prestigious institution or good grades than they are in what a given course will actually teach them.  And they will pay a lot of money for this.  A few years ago, a college in Pennsylvania did nothing but increase its tuition by a significant amount (several thousands of dollars) under the theory that students would perceive the school to have more prestige with an increased price.  Their applications from high-achieving students went up.

That points to another unsettling possibility: treating students as customers may actually be increasing the cost of higher education.  In their competition for “customers,” colleges feel the pressure to build single-person dorm rooms, lavish student centers, hip dining halls, and numerous support services to attract students.  Sometimes I ask non-athletes if they would be willing to have our college cut all intercollegiate athletics, if it would save them $1500/year on their tuition.  Most would not want to change – they would rather pay more to have athletics on campus, even if they are not competing themselves.  Socialized from childhood as consumers, (see “Trix: cereal”), students want a particular lifestyle in college.

When we treat education as a consumer item, we end up with an inferior product at a higher price.  This seems to be what “customers” want.

So, does it really make economic sense to run education on a business model?

Why it doesn’t make economic sense to run education like a business

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If you have sent a child to college lately, or gone yourself, you know that high costs are a problem.

This situation has led a lot more people today to think that education ought to be run more like a business.  At first glance, this makes sense.  Education is expensive.   It often produces students with questionable academic qualities.  Businesses, meanwhile, are very good at cutting costs, increasing efficiency, and innovating to produce better products.  So, it is thought, we should think about students as “customers,” and education as a “product.” Apply business principles to education, and we will bring costs down and produce a better product!  Everybody wins!  Happy ending!

Nope.

Apply business principles to education and we will produce a worse product.  In fact, right now we may be producing a worse product and making education more expensive because we are increasingly treating education like a business.

"Student" or "Customer?" Stay tuned for the answer.

“Student” or “Customer?” Stay tuned.

Education is a different animal.  Yes, there are economic dynamics to education that we need to think about carefully.  But if we actually take a close look at how things work on the ground – in the classroom – we will see that students don’t behave like customers in a capitalist society.  Nor do we improve education in the same way that we improve economic products.

Adam Smith should be taught but not implemented in the classroom. Adam Smith (as you all remember very well from your history courses, right?) was the Enlightenment thinker who laid out many of the essential principles of modern capitalism.  According to Smith, all of society benefits if businesses operate with a free hand in a system of competition.  Because a business owner wants to make more money, he or she (Smith did not think about “she,” actually) will do what can be done to lower costs, increase efficiency and produce a better product.  Customers will get lower costs and better products.  The business owner makes money.   “He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention,” wrote Smith.  Everybody wins!   Happy ending!

But that doesn’t work in the classroom.  (Some would argue it doesn’t really work that well as a system of economics, but that’s a different issue).

To keep the reading more manageable, I’ll lay out my arguments over the next few blogs.  Tomorrow, I’ll post Barlow’s Law:  “Students Don’t Want Their Money’s Worth.”

(It’s my blog, so I was going to name the law after myself.  But I have to admit that I first remember hearing this phrase many years ago in a conversation with the late Jack Barlow, who was a history professor at Huntington University.  So I shouldn’t really name it after myself.  Rats.)

How Mad Magazine helped my Christian faith

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I watched too much TV in my youth.  I know that now, because I have a frightening number of commercials from the 1970s branded into my head.  And they won’t go away.  A very small sample from this corner of my brain:

“When it’s time to relax…(when it’s time to relax), one thing stands clear…(beer after beer)…Mil-ler tastes too good to hurry through…”

Parrot squawks:  “Ring around the collar!”  Voiceover: “Those dirty rings.  You try scrubbing them out.  You try soaking them out.  And you still get…” Parrot, again:  “Ring around the collar!”

“It’s the Pepsi generation!  Comin’ at ya.’  Goin’ strong.  Put yourself behind a Pepsi.  You’ll be living.  You’ll belooooooong.”

Yes, when I’m 97 I’ll be able to sing the lyrics to a Mustang II commercial from 1974 but I won’t be able to remember the names of my daughters.  The fact that these ads are indelibly lodged in my brain is just one indication of how consumerism seeps into our souls.

But in my misspent, spent and well spent youth, I did have a resource that helped counteract the mind-numbing effects of consumerism:  Mad magazine.

For most of 6th, 7th and 8th grade I had a paper route that provided me with extra cash.  I chose to spend a certain proportion of that money on a Mad magazine subscription.  I also read every Mad  book from the 1950s and 60s that I could get my hands on.

Little did I know that this would help my Christian faith.

One may not think of Mad as an encouragement to holiness.  But God works in mysterious ways.  I read Mad because I thought it was funny.  But unbeknownst to me, it slowly sharpened my sense of satire.  Mad was the only place that I encountered a satire of consumerism and advertising.

Satire can be a useful thing, because it helps to point out the absurdity in things that we would not notice otherwise.  Mad developed in me a sense that there were certain aspects of American culture that ensnared us in ways we did not recognize — the lure of status symbols, the sweet deception that materialism will deliver a fulfilling life, the incessant banality of ads heard over and over, the subtle but powerful manipulations embedded in advertising – these are things that are really difficult to recognize.

In “My Fair Ad-Man,” Frank Sinatra is transformed from a beatnik to a Madison Avenue ad executive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mad made me laugh at them.  My younger brother and I then made our own jokes about these cultural forms:  who was Rula Lenska, anyway, and why should we think we should buy VO5, just because she said so?

I should point out that Mad magazine did not, by itself, strengthen my Christian maturity in this area.  Several other factors in my life played key roles, including an education at a Christian college and six years of living in a culture (Kenya) that had not yet been inundated with wall-to-wall consumerism.  And Mad also probably stoked my sins of cynicism and self-righteousness.  But I give it credit for giving me a lens that enabled me to see things in American culture that I might have been blind to, otherwise.

To put it in biblical terms, I’ll pull out Romans 12:2:  “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”  Christians are not supposed to be conformed to this world.  Among other things, I take this to mean that completely conforming to consumerism can be harmful to our souls, our minds and our society.

This is a problem we all face.  Consider what emerging adults (ages 18 to 24) think about consumerism.  A study by Christian Smith finds that 61% of emergent adults are very content with consumerism and see no real problems with it.  Another 30% have some concerns, but believe that there is really nothing anybody can do about it.   That means that 91% are essentially conforming to this part of the world.  They do not see any reason why they should not unthinkingly embrace consumerism, or do not have any sense that there is anything that can be done about it.  Most emergent adults believe consumerism just makes them happy and that they’d be happier if they could afford more things.  Of course, those of us who are older cannot lay the blame for this on emergent adults, for they are reflecting the culture they live in.  This is us.

Some telling quotes from the study:

“If you want it, buy it.  There’s certain things that are just, I think, unnecessary. But, you know, if you think it’s necessary in your life and you can afford it, more power to you.”

“I think everyone has what they like…If you have a thousand shoes, that is all you.  If you want a thousand shoes, cool, that is all what you want…I don’t want to judge someone else and say you can’t or shouldn’t have that.”

“I guess I don’t really think about consumerism as far as its effects on society.”

 

I’m telling you, kids these days should be reading Mad magazine.

 

 

The Impact of Trix Cereal on Christianity, Marriage, Civil Life, Education and Just About Everything Else

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In 1954, General Mills introduced Trix cereal to the American public.  This was the most significant event of the 20th century.

Really? More significant than the 1952 election? More significant than the 1929 stock market crash? More significant than Watergate?

OK, I’m overstating things here, but I’m actually pretty serious about this.  The introduction of Trix cereal may rank in my top ten list of most significant events of the 20th century.  Maybe the top five.

Why?  Because Trix was the first multi-colored breakfast food.

Get it?  Probably not.

Think about why General Mills produced a multi-colored breakfast food and why they marketed it with that advertising campaign familiar to all Americans, “Silly Rabbit, Trix are for kids!”

Get it?  Not quite, I’m betting.

Think about this:  why did General Mills think that it would work to advertise to 4 year-olds during Saturday morning Bugs Bunny cartoons?  Do 4 year-olds have the means to run out to the grocery store and buy Trix?  Do 4 year-olds make the decisions about how the family income is spent?

Admit it. You want this.

Get it?  I’m guessing we’re starting to get there.  Remember what you were like at age 4 in the grocery store and you saw something you wanted?  Or have you have observed 4 year-olds in grocery stores?  It is a fascinating and rather unsettling sight.  Watching 4 year-olds in the grocery aisle with their parents is like watching wildlife documentaries of elks fighting fellow elks for dominance.  The fight may begin and end quickly, but in those short, dramatic moments, we glimpse a compelling struggle of power, will, wits and cunning, as we wait to see who will come out on top.

A little historical background to epic grocery store battles:  In 1854 and 1754 and 1654 (and earlier, in just about everywhere around the world) children were producers in the family economy, but they were not major consumers.  In other words, most children helped the family economy by working at tasks like herding livestock, sewing, gathering eggs, carrying water, etc.  They did not make decisions about how household money would be spent.  By 1954, that pattern was reversing in most middle-class families.  Children produced very little to help the family income while becoming major players in deciding how the household income was spent.  Even 4 year-olds.  Amazing.

In other words, thanks to Trix cereal (and Barbie Dolls and Hot Wheels and Kool-aid and McDonald’s) all of us became consumers at a very young age.

Of course, I am using Trix cereal to represent a whole host of larger consumer trends at work.  Targeting children in advertising began a number of decades before 1954.  Plenty of other companies besides General Mills were joining in on this.  Economic prosperity gave families plenty of disposable income. The growth of new forms of mass media – radio and TV, for instance – made it possible for marketers to reach children in their homes.  But I use Trix cereal and 1954 as my representative example because the 1950s was the decade when all these forces came together in a powerful way in American society.

Sometimes, 4 year-olds choose Cinnamon Toast Crunch instead of Trix. Why? Because they can! They are consumers!

We have to ask an even more important question than the sheer economics of the thing:  what kind of people do we become if we are shaped as consumers from the moment we can comprehend a TV ad?  What does it mean to have a society in which consumerism holds formative influences on us as persons?

It means that we may enter into Christianity, marriage, civil life, education as consumers, rather than as disciples, spouses, citizens and students.  As consumers, we are primarily interested in what we can get out of these things and are less likely to ask what we can contribute to them.  It means we value things primarily on the basis of instant gratification and have little patience for self-sacrifice.  It means that if we get dissatisfied, we may be quick to dump one option and go shopping for another.  Does this happen?  As that big red Kool-Aid pitcher used to say in the ads, “Oh, yeahhhhhh!”

A number of people have commented about how consumerism has affected American Christianity.  Let me just point out one.  Thomas Bergler has written an important book entitled The Juvenilization of American Christianity.  One of the things he points out is that since the 1950s, evangelicals have effectively adapted the faith to the youth culture – a culture that is steeped in consumerism.  As a result, evangelicals have been much more effective than other Christian bodies in attracting youth to church.  The downside is that this sort of juvenile faith has spread through the adult levels of the church (think about all the ways that evangelicals want church to be “fun” and “exciting”).  Christians with this kind of faith have a hard time moving beyond a rather shallow, self-centered faith based on immediate gratification.  Why?  Trix cereal.

Do we tend to view marriage relationships in terms of what we can get out of it?  Are we, as a society, too willing to dump a spouse if we see a better product come along?   I have heard evangelicals blame a number of things for the rising divorce rates of the last half century: the absence of prayer in schools, homosexuality, and something as vague as a “decline in morals,” just to name a few.  We’re looking in the wrong places.  We should start by thinking about our Trix cereal ads.

Civil society?  In 1960 John F. Kennedy said, famously, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”  It was a view of civil society that resonated with many Americans at that time.  In the 2000 presidential debate, an audience member asked the candidates, “How will your tax proposals affect me as a middle-class, 34-year-old single person with no dependents?”  Think about this one.  It implies that as a voter I will make a choice based on a specific policy is tailored to a very narrow slice of the population who are just like me.  And did Americans in 2000 even notice that this is a very consumeristic approach to viewing civil life?  No, because this is an idea of civil society that resonated with many Americans, who all grew up enmeshed in consumerism.  “Silly President, tax policies are for 34-year old single persons with no dependents!”

Education?  Don’t even get me started.  I could describe how some students expect course offerings, class projects, and course expectations to conform to their personal schedules.  I hardly need to tell you that many students believe classes ought to entertain them.  Colleges feel compelled to offer a consumer lifestyle – good food, climbing walls, fun activities, stylish dormitories, exciting athletic programs – in order to attract students to come to their institution to get an education.  My daughter once received a postcard from a college whose entire message was that they were “#1 in Food and Fun” in Ohio. The postcard said absolutely nothing about education.  But food and fun?  Ah, yes, that is what college is all about, isn’t it, Silly Rabbit?

Trix cereal:  the most significant development of the 20th century.

Are Evangelicals Effective at Dealing with the Poor?

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Feel free to chime in on this one.  We are going to try to understand evangelicals better.

This is kind of a funny project for me, since I identify myself as an evangelical.  I go to church with these folks.  And I study these people.  You’d think I’d have this figured out.

Well, this is what I do know: evangelicals are good at evangelism.

Granted, we have all probably run into a zealous evangelical or two somewhere in our life who awkwardly thrust a tract in our face or fired off personal questions about heaven and hell in the first sentence they ever addressed to us.  One might question the effectiveness of evangelistic efforts that make the Christian faith look as inviting as a colonoscopy.

But this has not been evangelicals’ main methodology.  Through a variety of other ways in the past couple of centuries, such as revivalism, evangelicals have been very effective in bringing others into their branch of Christianity.  Though evangelicals did not exist in any clear way in 1700, they now make up about a third of American society.  The vast majority of African Americans who have embraced Christianity in the last two centuries have come by way of evangelical churches.  During the last few decades, evangelical churches have been growing while mainline Protestant groups in the U.S. have been in decline.  In Africa, Asia and Latin America, the growth has been even more dramatic.  Evangelicals, particularly Pentecostals, have grown remarkably in China, South Korea, sub-Saharan Africa, Guatemala, Brazil and many other places.  Say what you will, evangelism has been very effective in these regions.

But let’s return to the question I’m kind of avoiding:  are evangelicals any good at dealing with the poor?

This is a more complicated question.  Here are a few different responses that I have come across:

A)  No.  Evangelicals mostly see the poor as people to be evangelized.  With a few exceptions, like the Sojourners crowd, white American evangelicals through the twentieth century looked with suspicion on anything that sounded like the “social gospel.”  And they looked with deeper suspicion upon any governmental programs aimed at the poor.   This “evangelism-only” impulse carried over into the missionary movement, so that Latino and African Christians in the last few decades have upbraided American evangelical missionaries for promoting a partial gospel that neglected issues of poverty.

B)   Yes.  Even though many evangelicals distanced themselves from social causes in the mid-twentieth century, there has been an upsurge of concern and activity since the 1970s.  Those Latino and African Christians who chided American evangelicals were evangelicals themselves, after all.  And no less of an evangelical icon than Billy Graham came on board with their theological arguments at the 1974 Lausanne Conference.  Since the 1960s, we have seen the growth of agencies like World Vision, Compassion International and Habitat for Humanity – organizations that were all founded by evangelicals and still receive the bulk of their support from evangelicals.  And evangelicals had always formed the backbone of older organizations directed toward the poor, such as the Salvation Army and rescue missions.

C) Not really.  Evangelicals often have good intentions, but their effectiveness is limited by an individualistic approach to poverty.  Thus evangelicals will send relief supplies to victims of earthquakes or hand out soccer balls on short-term mission trips, but these are temporary efforts that do little to address long-term systemic and structural issues of poverty.  Evangelicals need a theology that can address issues such as political inequities, class structures, economic systems and institutional racism.  Because they think individualistically and their theology is individualistic, evangelicals often don’t understand the role that structures and institutions play in poverty.

D)  Somewhat, but more indirectly than directly.  When evangelicalism, particularly Pentecostalism, spreads among the poor of the world, it instills certain behaviors among converts that have economic benefits.  Converts develop habits of self-discipline and are transformed in ways that order is brought to disorderly lives.  Evangelical Christianity provides hope for the future, which encourages and empowers its adherents to persevere through difficult economic situations.

There are more explanations, but that seems like a good place to start.

What do you think?

 

 

 

 

Brazil, Brazil, Brazil……..

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The pope and I were both in Brazil last week.   I left Rio de Janeiro a few days before he arrived, so we didn’t get the chance to touch base.  Should I try to friend him on Facebook?  I’m just not sure how social etiquette works in this new digital age.

We both seem to have developed an interest in Brazil, though.  Brazil is interesting for a lot of reasons:  soccer, its rising economic power, the 2016 Olympics, piranhas, massive street protests, cool music about beautiful people on beaches, Mardi Gras, flip-flops.  Those sorts of things.

The pope attracted huge crowds in Rio de Janeiro…..

The pope and I, however, are interested in Brazil for other reasons.  You know why the pope was there.  I was in Rio, Brasilia and the Amazon with two dozen American and Brazilian evangelical scholars under a program sponsored by the Council for Christian College and Universities and the Nagel Institute.  Our group was studying the role of evangelicalism in Brazil.  This seems to be a topic on the pope’s radar as well.   If you have been following the news of the pope’s visit, you will know that the Catholicism in Brazil has been losing large numbers of followers in the last few decades to evangelicals, particularly Pentecostals.  Protestants made up 2.6% of the population in 1940.  They are now up to 21%.  This makes Brazil both the world’s largest Catholic country and the world’s largest Pentecostal country.  This is a very interesting situation.

….our group….not so much.

(For those of you who wish the United States were number one in these sorts of things, you might take comfort in the fact that the U.S. leads the world in Methodists, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Baptists, Jews, Churches of Christ, Scientologists, Amish, Nazarenes, and Unarians — who believe that we can communicate with extra-terrestrials by using fourth dimensional physics.  This is also a very interesting situation.  But that’s a topic for a different blog.)

Why, though, has evangelicalism been growing so much in Brazil, particularly among the poor?  A little historical background:

In 1968, in the wake of Vatican II, Catholic bishops from Latin America met in Medellin, Colombia to reexamine the church’s relationship to Latin American society.  They declared that the mission of the Catholic Church was to enact “a preferential option for the poor.”  A number of movements sprung from this action, including the development of liberation theology and the formation of something called Base Ecclesial Communities, which sought to address economic inequities and mobilize the poor for social reform movements.  And indeed, the pope’s message in Rio on Sunday sounded these themes as well.

This is a Christian program that ought to gain traction in Brazil.  For centuries, small groups of elites have controlled political power, owned almost all of the land, directed the economy toward their interests and dictated social norms in society.  Most ordinary people have had little opportunity for advancement and social mobility.  As a result, some of the greatest economic, political and social inequities in the world can be found in Latin America, including Brazil.

But here is where things get a bit puzzling.  As one scholar has noted, the Catholic Church implemented a “preferential option for the poor,” but the poor expressed a preferential option for Pentecostalism.  Why?

There have been many explanations for this, but I haven’t found any of them fully convincing.  In reporting on the pope this week, NPR explained that Pentecostals are much better at advertising and marketing their product.  OK, this may help attract people to church, it doesn’t explain why they stay.

Some people argue that Pentecostal churches preach a prosperity gospel message, promising the poor that God will bless them with wealth if they just commit themselves to the faith.   But this message is not preached by many Pentecostals, and this theology seems to be most prominent among the middle class or those that are already on their way up the social ladder.

Some have pointed out that Pentecostalism is very democratized in its structure, vaulting poor and uneducated members into positions of leadership and influence.  This is true, but Pentecostalism also produces hierarchical churches where charismatic leaders hold authoritarian sway over their congregations.

And why has Pentecostalism succeeded so well in Brazil, Guatemala and Chile, but it has had very little success in Colombia, Bolivia and Venezuela?

There are other explanations for these things, which require book-length studies to explain.  It’s complicated.  And there are still a lot of questions for which we don’t have a complete and satisfying answers.

But given the size of Brazil, religiously, politically and economically, it is bound to exercise increasing influence in the Americas in the decades to come.

So pay attention.