Larry Arnn Goes Out Of His Way To Prove That Hillsdale College Is Not A Christian College

I appear to have made some people mad by saying a Christian nation is impossible.

 

Bret responds,

I really wasn’t one who was “mad.” I’d more characterize my response as “dumbfounded.” Dumbfounded that someone with this much education as Arnn has could say something both so profoundly dumb and profoundly errant. The passage he cited (John 18:36 – My Kingdom is not of this world) no more teaches that a Christian nation is impossible than it proves that a Christian college is impossible.

Larry Arnn writes;

Let me propose another formulation that I have used often and for years: America is the most Christian nation because it recognizes the principle of religious liberty, which comes from the mouths of the Founders and of Jesus himself, when he says that His kingdom is not of this world.

Bret responds,

Arn still refuses to give up the whole misinterpretation of John 18:36.

Second, America’s and the Founder’s original concept of religious liberty was not what Arnn is advocating for now. Remember, America’s original concept of religious liberty was that there would be no Nationally or Federally sanctioned Christian denomination but that States could themselves (and often did) have state sanctioned Christian denominations. States could be Christian states in the original America.

Does any one believe that Arnn would be OK with Michigan (where Hillsdale college is at) legislating that Presbyterianism was going to be the state approved Christian denomination?

In Larry Arnn’s world, America is a Christian nation precisely because it is not a Christian nation.

Larry Arnn writes,

At Hillsdale we believe that Jesus is the Maker and Savior of all.

Bret responds,

If what Larry reports above is true, then no Reformed person should be sending their children to Hillsdale college since such a confession is explicitly non-Reformed, and therefore non-Biblical. Jesus most certainly is not the Savior of all.

Larry Arnn writes

We also believe with the Founders that no law is good that compels anyone to believe that. Laws that compel belief are what led to centuries of religious persecution and warfare in so-called Christian Europe.

Bret responds,

I agree that no law is good that compels anyone to believe that Jesus is the “Saviour of All.”

Secondly, who has ever argued that statutory law could possibly ever compel someone to believe in Jesus? What straw-man is Arnn fighting against here?

Thirdly, I would recommend that Dr. Arnn read “The Myth of Religious Violence” by William T. Cavanaugh so as to disabuse himself of the idea of religious persecution and warfare.

Fourth, notice how Arnn labels, 1500 years of Christendom as “so-called Christian Europe.”

If you love your children you won’t be sending them to Hillsdale College.