Principled Ideas from the Centennial Institute Publisher, Dr. Donald W.
Sweeting
Volume 9, Number 2 February 2017
HOW SHOULD A CHRISTIAN
UNIVERSITY ENGAGE AND SHAPE
THE CULTURE?
Annual Presidents Washington, D.C. Speech
Given at the Heritage Foundation, November 17, 2016
By Dr. Donald W. Sweeting
It is an honor and joy to be the new president of Colorado Christian
University (CCU) with the immense privilege of shaping a new
generation of students.
CCU is in the business of leadership multiplication. That was Bill
Armstrongs passion; it is also mine.
We do this at a critical hour, because we are engaged in an intense
spiritual war. You can sense this conflict in the church, in the culture, in
our nation, and in the Western world.
Critical issues are at stakenot just national issues, but civilizational
issues.
This is not simply a battle of ideas, but a battle for the hearts and minds
of this up-and-coming generation.
As we engage in this conflict, CCU is in a very unique placepoised to
have an extraordinary impact.
However, we have a huge job ahead of us. Even though the Republicans
took the House, the Senate and the White House, this is no time for
false comfort. We live in a 50/50 nation. In the state of Colorado,
the culture of death advanced as physician-assisted suicide passed
by a margin of two to one. The state of Colorado is not even purple
anymore, it is blue. Nationwide, the younger generation is trending
blue. We are losing them on social issues. In fact, if we just counted
the votes of 18-25 year olds in the past election, Hillary Clinton would
have won by 504 electoral votes!
My Story
Allow me tell you a little bit about myself. There have been two tracks
in my adult life, with much overlapa pastor track and an education
track. Ive pastored two churches, during which I was either working
Editor, Jeff Hunt
on a Ph.D. or teaching graduate school classes, and either serving on an
educational foundation or a university board.
Let me tell you about two significant discoveries (or rediscoveries) I
made when I was 25 years oldthat was the year I worked with Chuck
Colson at Prison Fellowship.
First, that year I rediscovered the gospel of Jesus Christ. I had grown
up in a Christian home, so I knew the gospel. But while working with
Chuck, and especially traveling with him to prisons all over America,
I rediscovered the gospels power, and at the same time, I realized the
limits of political change.
While politics is important, I discovered it cant change the human
heart. The deepest changes in the world are not those from the outside
in, but from the inside outchanges of the heart. That is what St.
Paul says in Romans 1:16, that the gospel is the power of God for the
salvation of everyone who believes. I met many inmates whose lives had
fallen apart, who had literally hit rock bottom. I saw them radically
and genuinely transformed by a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
Seeing this made me want to work for those deepest changes that
humans so desperately need.
But then I also made a second discovery. It was a discovery of political
first principles. That discovery came partly by reading Russell Kirks
book, The Conservative Mind, and hearing him speak at the Heritage
Foundation. Kirk always talked about the importance of permanent
things, a wisdom that can help us navigate the issues and controversies
of politics.
While studying political science at a secular university, I was often
exasperated at how grounds of political debate kept changing.
Standards were always shifting. Relativism reigned. There were no
constants. Politics was untethered from first principles. People were, as
St. Paul described in 2 Timothy 3:7, ever learning but never coming to
a knowledge of the truth.
Russell Kirks book and his lecture at the Heritage Foundation helped
give me clarity. Kirk and his six canons of conservative thought
reminded me of standards and principles (conservative principles)
that are not out of date. They are constants that can guide us in
each generation.
The primacy of the gospel and a better grasp of permanent things
(political first principles) became anchors in my thinking and in my
ministry. I look back on that pivotal year in my life with gratefulness,
for being exposed to Chuck Colson and Russell Kirk in helping a young
man think things through.
This speech was delivered by Dr. Don Sweeting at the Heritage
Foundation in Washington, D.C. in November 2016. This marks the first
of a new annual tradition of the Presidents speech in Washington, D.C.
Blog: donsweeting.com Twitter: @dsweeting
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 Political First Principles?
Here are a few first principles that guide my thinking. My short list
reflects Kirks six canons, but Ive expanded on his list.
1. There is a transcendent being and a created order, in contrast
to naturalism, nihilism and absolute autonomy. William Buckley
once said, Conservativism is the politics of reality, reminding us that
there is an ultimate reality we all have to deal with. Of course, as
a Christian, I will make this point even more theologically. There
is a personal God who is Lord and King, to whom the nations are
accountable. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His
throne. Governments must answer to Him (i.e. contrary to statism,
the government is not God).
2. There is a moral law, contrary to what the relativists say. Some refer
to this in terms of natural law. The point is that there are standards
which never change. Issues are not simply left and right, but right
and wrong.
3. Human nature is mixed and fixed, contra the idea that we are all
basically good and perfectible. I affirm the nobility (imago dei),
the limitations, and the fallenness of human beings. People matter
because we are made in His image. But we are in rebellion and cant
redeem ourselves. We need a Savior!
4. While humankind is wonderfully diverse, we are equal in the eyes
of God. Hence we affirm, not equality of outcomes, but equality of
dignity and equality under the law. This is contrary to the idea that
some are worth more than others or that some are above the law.
5. Freedom is a precious gift. True freedom is an ordered liberty, in
contrast to autonomous liberty where everyone does what is right
in their own eyes (the biblical recipe for social disaster). Again,
Scripture says even more: that the truth sets us free, and more
specifically, that the Son of God sets us free. In other words, there is
a vital faith-freedom link.
6. The state is ordained by God to be a servant of God (restraining
evil, promoting justice and the common good) in contrast to statism
where the government usurps the place of God.
7. Politics is a limited activity, contra the political illusion that
politics is everything and can solve our deepest problem. Politics is
important, but it cannot ultimately usher in the kingdom of God.
8. Mediating institutions are immensely important. The state and
society are not identical. The family is the first and foundational
of all institutions. Churches are important and operate in a sphere
separate from the state.
9. Freedom of religion is the first freedom in terms of our nations
history and our constitutional amendments. While conservativism
is not theocratic, it is friendly to faithnot just as freedom of
worship, but as freedom to practice our faith. Besides that, the
state needs prophetic voices calling the state to account. In fact, our
democratic republic, free market system, and constitutional order
depend on the pervasiveness of a Judeo-Christian world view.
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Centennial Review February 2017 2
As a Christian, my conservativism is modified by Jesus Christ. Before
Burke and Kirk, before Calvin and Aquinas, and even before Augustine,
we have Scripture itself.
Here are a few things to keep in mind about Christian conservatives.
1. Our first loyalties are to Jesus Christ and His kingdom. We believe
in a proper patriotism, but not an egocentric nationalism. While we
acknowledge Christs lordship, we do not advocate for a theocratic
state. We are not after religious establishment. We really do believe
in a proper separation of church and state.
2. We have a gospel mandate. The good news of Christ will always
be our first message. Morality is important, but it is not enough.
People need to be made right with God.
3. The church matters and culture matters. Culture matters because
of the first great commission given in the book of Genesis. And the
church matters because of the second great commission given in
Acts and Matthew.
4. Redeeming the culture is beyond our ability. The kingdom of God
is not fully realizable through politics or human achievement. We
await the return of the King for that. However, in history, the gospel
just happens to be the greatest people and culture transforming
power in the world.
5. We aspire to engage in politics and debate with grace and truth
that is, with convictional kindness. We dont hate anyone. We want
to engage with respect.
How Then Should We Engage Culture Now?
Given then these Christian convictions that inform our conservativism,
how then should we engage culture now, in the early 21st century, in a
culture that is increasingly described as post-Christian?
Some advocate giving up any attempt to change the culture. They say
we should simply be a faithful presence in a post-Christian world.
Others go even further and recommend what they call the Benedict
Option, after St. Benedict and the early monastery movement. Isolate,
set up an alternative culture, and hunker down. Still others propose
what I call a full engagement option. There are variations of this:
fight to keep the nation free, or fight to take the nation back. Still
others commend the Daniel optionengage but realize that we are
not living in Jerusalem anymore. We are now living in Babylon. Our
victories will be extremely limited.
My own view? It is a false choice to say, we can only choose one option.
Some of these categories and options overlap. Scripture offers more
than one option for engagement as well. In some ways we are for
culture (affirming what is good), in some ways against culture (raising a
prophetic voice), and in some ways we seek to transform culture.
I think my own life story with its two tracks testifies to this. I pastored
two churches and worked for two schools. The church, the seminary,
and the university all have an important contribution to make.
Therefore, we must give ourselves to multiple levels of engagement,
building the church and engaging the culture.
Colorado Christian University
Which brings me to CCU. What makes Colorado Christian University
different? In many ways, we are like most colleges and universities. We
are nationally accredited. We offer undergraduate and graduate degrees.
We have traditional and adult programs. We have classrooms, syllabi,
faculty, sports teams, and a beautiful campus.
But our heart is very different from most institutions of higher
education. We are not a post truth university. CCU is in the 1% of
all universities that is explicit about goodness, beauty, truth, character,
morality, faith, and Jesus! In this respect, we are in step with the original
vision of the Western university.
Recently, we were named one of the ten most conservative colleges in
America. But, we are not simply conservative, but Christian. We are not
a conservative university that is Christian, but a Christian university
that is conservative.
Heres the idea: take the classical evangelical liberal arts college like
Wheaton, Calvin, or Gordon, and the conservative outlook and public
policy of Hillsdale, and bring them together. Thats CCU.
We have deep Biblical convictions and a strong conservative outlook
rooted, as Kirk described, in permanent things. We want to raise
up a generation of young leaders who are wise and who are serious
about their faith. This commitment is seen in our universitys Strategic
Objectives, adopted by our Board of Trustees, which serve as a guiding
compass for us and make us unique.
Colorado Christian University shall:
Honor Christ and share the love of Christ on campus and around
the world
Teach students to trust the Bible, live holy lives and be evangelists
Be a magnet for outstanding students and prepare them for positions
of significant leadership in the church, business, government and
professions by offering an excellent education in strategic disciplines
Teach students how to learn
Teach students how to think for themselves
Teach students how to speak and write clearly and effectively
Give students significant opportunities to serve our Lord while they
are at CCU and to help them develop a lifetime habit of such service
Impact our culture in support of traditional family values, sanctity of
life, compassion for the poor, Biblical view of human nature, limited
government, personal freedom, free markets, natural law, original
intent of the Constitution and Western civilization
Be seekers of truth
Debunk spent ideas and those who traffic in them
Ask God to multiply our time and ability to the glory of His
great name
Be a servant of the Church
Become a great university
These Strategic Objectives make us unique. Our first loyalty is to Jesus
Christ. We believe that civil religion, moralism, and even libertarianism,
are not enough.
We are mindful that while the terms conservative and liberal
have their use, they also have their limits. Their meanings often shift
from one generation to the next. For example, modern progressive
liberalism and classical liberalism are two very different things. William
Wilberforce fought conservatives who were wedded to the status quo
when he worked for abolition of the slave trade in Britain. There are
different kinds of conservativism, which is one reason why CCU wants
to emphasize the Christian part.
As Christian conservatives, we are not ashamed to make the connection
between faith and freedom. We understand that politics is a reflection
of culture, and culture is, in part, the outworking of a peoples morality.
But morality is greatly dependent on the religious life of a society. In
other words, faith is an important pre-political condition. Our faith is
the Christian faith. We believe Christianity is true. But we also believe
that it gives the best moral, spiritual, and philosophical foundation
for conservativism.
Multiple Levels of Engagement
So then let me come back to the title of this talkHow should a
Christian university engage and shape the culture?
Here is where I believe some conservatives get it wrong: we are
often tempted to make politics everything, so we only engage on a
political level.
We forget that the essence of conservativism is that politics is a limited
activity. The most important realties are pre-politicalfaith, family,
culture, etc. Politics is an important part of life, but it is not everything.
It was Richard John Neuhaus who wisely said, The first thing to say about
politics is that politics is not the first thing. Politics exists downstream of
culture and faith.
Because of this, I believe effective cultural engagement in an increasingly
secular and post-Christian culture must take place on multiple levels
at the same time. This is the opportunity of a convictionally
Christian university.
Let me conclude by briefly describing four levels of engagement that we
are committed to: spiritual, educational, social, and political.
The Spiritual Level
Our most basic level of engagement is on the spiritual level. We have
to engage on the spiritual level, because the most fundamental issues
of life are spiritual issues. The heart of spiritual involvement for us is
centered on Jesus Christ. We aspire to be a Christ-centered university.
With Christians throughout the centuries, we believe that Jesus Christ
is the living Word, the light of the world, the bread of life, the savior
of the world, the great liberator. We believe His gospel is the greatest
people and cultural transforming power in the world.
Thats why CCU trains our students to become evangelists, spreading
this good news of Jesus everywhere, not only around the world, but
also reengaging in a third great mission to our own spiritually adrift
Western world.
That is why we are serious about Christian discipleship. We want to
challenge our students to live out their faith as wholehearted followers
of Jesus Christ. And that is also why CCU cares deeply about the
church. We want to serve and help build the church of Jesus Christto
work and pray for its reformation and revival.
The Educational Level
Secondly, we are committed to educational engagement. We want to
help reshape hearts and mindstraining students to think Christianly
about everything, reordering affections, strengthening character
and conscience.
Education has the power to change the world. Thats why CCU
is serious about academics. We train students, over 7,000 of them,
in over 100 majors. We teach students to think clearly, write well,
speak effectively, and then prepare them to serve in a variety of
vocational callings.
Centennial Review February 2017 3
 Centennial Institute
HOW SHOULD Colorado Christian University
A CHRISTIAN 8787 W. Alameda Ave.
UNIVERSITY Lakewood, CO 80226
ENGAGE AND
SHAPE THE Return Service Requested
CULTURE?
By Dr. Donald W. Sweeting
Dr. Don Sweeting, a long-time trustee of Colorado Christian
University, was appointed president of the University on August 2,
2016. Prior to joining CCU, Dr. Sweeting served as president of the
Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, FL. While at RTS, he
served as the James Woodrow Hassell Professor of Church History.
An ordained minister in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Dr.
Sweeting served as senior pastor of Cherry Creek Presbyterian
Church in Greenwood Village, CO for 12 years and taught as an
adjunct faculty member at Denver Seminary. Before moving to
Colorado, he served for 11 years as the founding pastor of Chain of
Lakes Community Bible Church in Northern Illinois.
Before entering into ministry, Don served as an assistant to Chuck
Colson and Prison Fellowship in Washington D.C. He earned his
Bible-Theology degree from Moody Bible Institute, a BA in History
from Lawrence University, and a BA/MA from Oxford University
where he led the Theological Students Fellowship. His doctorate
in Historical Theology is from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

If education has the power to change the world, we believe that a
Christ-centered education is even more powerful, because it connects
students to the One who is the Word, and who inspires words.
The Social Level
A third level of engagement for CCU is the social level. On the
commission of our Lord, we are committed to love our neighbor and to
care for the least of these. But we also believe that one of the best ways
to care for others is through marriage and family. These are creation
ordinances given by God for a healthy society to help humans flourish.
There is abundant evidence that kids generally do better academically,
economically, and behaviorally when they are raised by two parents, a
man and a woman (male and female), who are married for life.
By Gods design, marriage and family are fundamental institutions for
society. They provide a foundation for people to be successful. They
make for one of the best anti-poverty programs ever.
We engage socially not only by advocating for these things but by
training our students to share the love of Christ around the world,
to develop a life-time habit of service, and to have compassion for
the poor.
politics wrong, however, and everything stands to be swept away. This is not
ancient history. This is Germany 1933.
In a sober warning, Krauthammer writes, we need to know about
politics because of its capacity, when benign, to allow all around it to
flourish, and its capacity, when malign, to make all around it wither.
This is no abstraction. We see it in North Korea.
He adds, Politics is the moat, the walls, beyond which lie barbarism. Fail
to keep them at bay, and everything burns. The entire 20th century with
its mass political enthusiasms is a lesson in the supreme power of politics to
produce ever expanding circles of ruin. (Things That Matter, pp. 2,3)
Because of our concern to stay involved in the public square, CCU
created the Centennial institute. We want to influence public policy
in Colorado and Washington, D.C. We care about the sanctity of
life, human dignity, the family, religious liberty, justice, and the poor.
We want to prepare courageous and principled leaders for our nations
future who will not only stand for what is right, but will advocate with
convictional kindness.
We think all four of these levels of engagement are necessary for
promoting and preserving a good society. This is the opportunity of a
Christian university like CCU.

The Political Level
Finally, we are committed in a limited way to engagement on a
political level.
We engage politically because we love our neighbor and because we
care about human flourishing. We also engage because we know that if
you ignore politics, it will not ignore you. We engage because politics is
always intruding on us. We ignore it at our own peril.
As Charles Krauthammer said in his book, Things That Matter,
You can have the most advanced and efflorescent of cultures. Get your
We give ourselves to a breadth of engagement because of the breadth
of the creation mandate in Genesis 1 and 2, and the lordship of Jesus
Christ.
As a Christian university, we are ultimately committed, not to a
platform, or an ideology, or even to permanent things, but to the
One of whom Scripture says, All things were created by Him and
for Him. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.
(Colossians 1:16, 17).
He is Christ the Lord, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge. (Colossians 2:3) n

Centennial Review February 2017 4