awenanl lalll!!!I! l •ar1erlI PUBLISHED BY COVENANT COLLEGE, LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, TENNESSEE · WINTER ISSUE, 1970 .... .- .·_, t . .: ·. : i ·_r ; ·.- ·==-:::. .::: .. ·/i - ..... -- .,··.. : -----· ' . - ---- --- ,_.. ..· -~---~-.-- --·•- ~- AMERICAN NATIONAL BA NK Corporate Partners in Christian Tflf j{flY5TAl Higher Education See the back cover to find out if your company is among ·them Champion Papers TROTTER PONTIAC COMBUSTION ENGINEERING Provident i!i=i#·ikl•i·i331•J#41 American Can Company ''THE REVOLUTION IS HERE ...'' Or. Francis Schaeffer, noted lecturer and student leader from Switzerland, returned to the Covenant College campus in November. As is the case wherever he goes, there was a stir among students, faculty, and a host of visitors. To say that there was both an intellectual stir and a spirit­ ual stir might casually reflect some of what ba'ppened during the busy week. But it would also directly obscure what was at the heart of that which Dr. Schaeffer said and what is at the core of a Covenant College education. Most of what Dr. Schaeffer said was related to man's error in divorcing "spiritual reality" from the rest of his experience. As he has done in his several books-especially in Escape from Reason and The God Who Is There-he showed examples in the fields of art, Iiterature, philosophy, and theology of man's increasing tendency to divide life into an "upper story" and a "lower story." Two of his evening lectures concerned epistemology, or the science of knowing. "Modern man," said Dr. Schaeffer, "no longer knows how to know-he isn't sure he does or can know-and the line between reality and fantasy is gone." "The generation gap is an epistemological gap," he went on. "it isn't just that the new generation cannot communi­ cate with the older generation. They have trouble communi­ cating with themselves. 'I have no sense of reality,' young people say, and when they say that, they are really saying why they cannot communicate." Dr. Schaeffer noted the relationship between such an out­ look and the drug culture, but he insisted that drugs are merely an evidence of this generation's frustration in its efforts to find reality. "We could snap our fingers and re­ move all drugs from the scene, and even then-on the basis of where rationalism and humanism have brought us-we wouldn'tbeabletodistinguish between reality and fantasy." He said that everywhere a _person turns today, he is con­ fronted with the message: "You cannot know." Novels, cinema, television, music, and art combine in their effort not only to discredit absolutes in morality, but also to dis­ credit absolutes in ways of knowing. "Man has wiped him­ self out as an observer," Dr. Schaeffer said. Even in this context, however, said Dr. Schaeffer, evan- gelicals are pleading with their young people to maintain He also showed how the historic vocabulary of orthodox the status quo. "But the status quo doesn't belong to the Christianity has been explicitly used to deny the ethics and Christian in this post-Christian era." value systems that it once affirmed. The liberals presently Dr. Schaeffer's final lecture was devoted to a description have the continuity of both the language and organization of American society in a post-Christian era, and a look into of the church to persuade the public of their position." the future. It was by no means an optimistic look. "The elite have the tools to work with," Dr. Schaeffer "The revolution is not going to come ... the revolution said. "They have already begun their work. All they need is here. It's not a game-it's the stuff out of which blood to complete it is the apathy of those who know the truth." runs." In a moving conclusion, Dr. Schaeffer called not simply Dr. Schaeffer described two totalitarianisms, either of for a return to intellectual assent to Christian truth, but for which he considers to be potentially able to overtake Amer­ an application of the absolutes of Christ's gospel to every ican society. "These are not future," he said. "They are area of society and its problems. with us now, but not yet in power." All of Dr. Schaeffer's addresses during his week-long visit The first which he described has grown from the hippie­ are available from the Covenant College tape service. Full free speech movement. It has developed, he said, into anarch­ information is included in the listing below. ism, and finds its logical end in the kind of groups that follow Herbert Marcuse. Marcuse's philosophy, according to Dr. Schaeffer, is that an apathetic majority is directed NEW PROGRAM LISTING by an elite minority. That minority presently belie\/eS COVENANT COLLEGE TAPE SERVICE that society is so bad that anything else would be better­ Eight new programs have been added to the collection of and that is why they feel no need to present a plan for the tape recordings which may be ordered from the Covenant improvement of society. College Tape Service initiated earlier this year. All of the programs were recorded during the recent visit on campus But Dr. Schaeffer expressed deeper concern for what he by Dr. and Mrs. Francis A. Schaeffer and Mr. Udo Middel­ called the "establishment elite." In such a totalitarianism, mann, all of L' Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. basic decision-making would take place in the higher eche­ The Tape Service is also interested in learning how many lons of academic circles (especially in scientific areas) and friends may wish to order Cassette recordings of the var­ in government. But even though this alternative would be ious programs available. If you would like such a Cassette more appealing to the general public because of its non­ recording, please send your order-but no money-to the revolutionary nature, Dr. Schaeffer thinks it is just as deadly college. As soon as the level of demand is established, a because it, Iike the less structured movement, is committed price will be announced (approximately the same as for a two-track recording), and the copies will probably be com­ to no absolutes whatsoever. pleted in February. You will be billed at that time. Without absolutes, a society must turn to a dictatorship Program tor stability. Dr. Schaeffer referred to some of the "titanic Number pressures" which confront such a society. Among them: 31-32 All chapel services-Schaeffer, "Christian a loss of any meaningful concept of law; a loss of any con­ Cosmogony," ''The Mark of the Christian"; cept of truth ("we will be no better off than we would be Middelmann, "Thomas Mann"; Schaeffer, "The How of Christian Living"; Middelmann, under communism"); total breakdown in social order and "Silence." 33 Schaeffer, "Students in Revolt" acceptance of responsibility because of regular treatment of 34 Schaeffer, "Ecology" human beings as machines; a population explosion in the 35-36 Schaeffer, "Christian Epistemology" 37 Schaeffer, "Social Manipulation" context of ecological destruction; a "biological bomb," re­ 38 Mrs. Schaeffer, "Hidden Art" ferring to science's advances in the control of heredity and Cost- Two-track tapes $4.00/program personality traits. "Who will make those decisions in a Four-track $5.50 for any two programs society without absolutes?" on the same tape Entire series (above) $30.00 for two-track "Man is following Eve," Dr. Schaeffer observed. "He is $20.00 for four-track doing all that he can do, doing more than he ought to do, even though he is terrorized by it." Dr. Schaeffer then spoke at length of the extent to which such a society already exists in America. He referr3d to the disappearance of absolutes in scientific and historical research, and said that both areas of study rest too much today on "sociological preferences." "The scientist today is free to interpret his findings any way he wants, and so is the historian. History and science are being used by the 'white-coated technician,' whom we have all been taught to believe, to manipulate." Covenant faculty last year. She presently heads the educa­ tion department. Mr. Steensma's work involves major policy direction in budgetary matters, the supervision of the physical campus, and in the months ahead, the substantial task of overseeing the large construction program . Other new members of the •college staff are Mr. Craig Bur- dett of Newark, Delaware, who has become manager of accounting, and Mr. Ray Dotts, formerly of Pinebrook Junior College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, who has become Now fully involved in the myriad of details and responsibil­ superintendent of buildings and grounds. ity that make up the job of vice-president for business affairs is Mr. Richard Steensma, who assumed that title George Lawrence, 1965 graduate• of Covenant and now pro- in August. Mr. Steensma came from northern New Jersey, gram director of the Kirkwood (Mo.) YMCA, was elected where for a number of years he operated his own advertising president of the college's alumni association in October. agency. He also has a master's degree in engineering. He had served as a Chinese linguist with the U.S. Air Force An active member of the Christian Reformed Church for Security Service before joining the YMCA staff. He is mar­ much of his life, Mr. Steensma has served on the boards of ried to another Covenant graduate, Janet Armes, and they several of its agencies. He became acquainted with the Re­ are members of Covenant Presbyterian Church of St. Louis. formed Presbyterian Church and with Covenant College • while doing promotional work for World Presbyterian Mis­ The Covenant campus is still growing. Mr. Paul Carter, orig- sions. inal builder of the Lookout Mountain Hotel where the col­ He came to his new task at the college with some prior lege is now located and donor last year of 228 acres of land acquaintance inasmuch as Mrs.