Calvin University again fills a month with thought-provoking, timely lectures

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by Cynthia Price
Legal News

Calvin College has transitioned to Calvin University, but its tradition of piquing people’s interest and offering food for thought known as the January Series has not changed much since its inception in 1988.

Though Calvin University, with its mission of “equipping students to think deeply, to act justly, to live wholeheartedly as Christ’s agents of renewal in the world,” is a faith-based institution of learning, the topics and speakers are all across the board.

In fact, the well-known author Jonathan Haidt started out his talk Jan. 13 by saying, “I’m Jewish myself and not a believer.” However, he went on to say that he loved speaking to Christian audiences. “Christian communities are among the most thoughtful participants in discussions about society, without succumbing to its moral emptiness.” He continued by extolling the virtues of the mission statement above, but added in response to a statement in the school’s website video, “A Calvin grad is intently curious and fearless about understanding,” that such a goal has gotten much more difficult in the recent past.

“There’s an epidemic of anxiety and depression in young people,” said Haidt, who is a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business and the author of The Happiness Hypothesis and The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.

Driven by curiosity about this increase, Haidt co-wrote his latest book with Greg Lukianoff – The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.

The book might be termed, cynically, a more thoughtful version of what so many “boomers” believe about the “snowflake” tendencies of Gen Z, people who were born after 1996. The book has drawn criticism based on a number of factors: its tendency to gloss over important details of the cases of outrage against scheduled university speakers; the way it ignores the true threat that some ideas engender toward people who do not live privileged lives; and its tendency to “disapprove of” direct action against those who espouse certain ideas, and encourage only genteel discussion.

That said, what seems to interest Haidt most is what caused this trend to overprotection and fragility, and what those societal trends mean.

He notes that the increase has not spread to other mental illnesses, but it does include suicide rates and suicidal ideation. Depression and anxiety have become more prevalent in college-age, school and even middle school people, and in particular, the rise among girls has been very sharp.

Looking backwards, Haidt noted that Gen Z individuals had, statistically, many fewer life experiences than previous generations. In large numbers they put off getting drivers’ licenses, they did not date, they didn’t get jobs, and they didn’t do drugs or drink. “Mostly they came home from school and looked at their phones,” he said.

While recognizing that correlation is not causation, Haidt theorizes that the turning point was the push in the late 2000-aughts for people to engage more with social media - the ability to hit “like ” -  which was addicting for all, but even more for girls, feeding into our culture’s females’ tendency to use bullying in a relational and not physical sense, and girls’ greater FOMO/FOBLO (Fear of Missing Out/Fear of Being Left Out).

This heightened anxiety combined with parental overprotection engendered the documented lack of real-world experiences and the “bubble”effect of social media (in particular as it relates to the wisdom of previous ages, which was the subject of The Happiness Hypothesis) to produce individuals who have little resilience and lack strength and hardiness.

He blamed three untruths that have become prevalent beliefs: 1) What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; 2) Always trust your feelings; and 3) Life is a battle between good and evil people.

Haidt asked the Calvin audience to divide into two groups and say aloud when in their  youth they had first been allowed to go out and play alone: those born before 1996 reported the age as 10-12 and those born after 1996 reported the age as 10-12 and those born before answered age 6-8. He backed Lenore Skenazy’s book Free Range Kids recommendation that we stop trying to protect children from anything negative, and let them go play.

He also talked  about the notion of antifragility as put forth by Nassim Telab, who says that some people and cultures improve in the face of adversity (as opposed to resiliency, where they meet adversity and stay the same, also a positive). Along with practical rules limiting phone time and a social media policy of not allowing anyone to open an account without showing some form of ID, Haidt recommends embracing antifragility.

He ended by showing a clip of CNN Commentator Van Jones, who said, among other things, “I want you to be safe physically and [from abuse]. But I don’t want you to be safe ideologically, I don’t want you to be safe emotionally, I want you to be strong. That’s different.” Jones went on to talk about how strong civil rights freedom fighters had to be.

“I just love that,” Haidt commented.

The law firm of Miller Johnson co-underwrote Haidt’s appearance.

A much different angle was taken Jan. 17 by Bob Fu, distinguished professor on religion and public policy at Midwest University, Editor-in-Chief of the Chinese Law and Religious Monitor, and founder of the organization ChinaAid.

His talk on religious freedom in China was almost exclusively a discussion of Christian religious rights and how the vast bureaucracy in China has increasingly suppressed them.

Though he did acknowledge that Muslims are the majority of the massive numbers of people (estimated at between one and 2.5 million) held in gulag-like conditions in the province of Xinjiang, because he is a Christian, Fu’s concerns are for Christians.

And there is certainly plenty of cause for concern. Fu, who came to the US. after leading a double life as a teacher during the day and an underground preacher by night, talked about the disappearances of Lawyer Gao, who was well-known for representing civil rights of Christians and dissidents, and about the very recent spate of lawyer disappearances including Gao. He also discussed President Xi Jingping (whom he called “Emperor Xi”) cracking down on Christian churches and leaders (and their families) in life-threatening ways – sometimes literally, as in the 2002 death sentences which gave rise to Fu’s China Aid.

Fu decried the process of sinicization or sinification (there are many variations on this word), which could be translated as “China-fication” and is often  currently used as “indoctrination in the ways of Communist China.” He said it is used as a threat to Christian congregations. Churchgoers must sing the Communist anthem before hymns, and hear a speech from a Community party member after their sermons.


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