University of Dallas President Dr. Jonathan Sanford speaks at the Heritage Foundation on Feb. 8, 2024. / Credit: Tyler Arnold/CNA
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 12, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).
In a speech delivered at the Heritage Foundation, widely considered the most influential conservative think tank in the United States, University of Dallas President Jonathan J. Sanford expressed concerns about the level of politicization that reigns in American universities and emphasized that the pursuit of truth requires open debate.
In a Feb. 8 speech titled “Universities, Patriotism, and Citizenship: A Catholic Liberal Arts Approach to the Election Year,” Sanford said there are only “very rare moments” when taking a political stance is appropriate for institutions of higher education. He said universities should instead foster open debate so that “the pursuit of truth can proceed in an unfettered way.”
Sanford, a professor of philosophy, has served as president of the University of Dallas, a private Catholic university located in Irving, Texas, since 2022.
Sanford cited the example of several university presidents who made statements after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that implied that “there’s something wicked to holding the pro-life position.” Such statements, he said, “silence those who like to argue about that position” and can create an “alienation of Christians on campus.”
“Arguing about abortion ought to be possible,” Sanford noted.
Politicization, Sanford warned, also jeopardizes the public’s trust in the objectivity of institutions and their academic research.
“There’s a growing perception that universities aren’t worth it anymore,” he said. “There seems to be a whole lot of politics going on. Does that mean there’s not much learning going on?”
During his remarks Sanford also gave voice to “deep concerns about cancel culture,” noting that the university setting needs to be one “where genuine debate can occur.”
He recalled that free and open debate helps foster patriotism as well. He pointed out that the Federalist Papers, which were the framework for the U.S. Constitution, were “arrived at through a lot of debate,” adding that one must learn, test, and then come to embrace the founding principles, at which point “your admiration and love for them ensues.”
However, Sanford noted that patriotism, from a Catholic perspective, does not always mean supporting the actions of one’s country. He cited St. Thomas More as the perfect example of a patriot. More was an adviser to King Henry VIII who was executed for refusing to support the king’s defiance of the Church in the establishment of the Anglican Church.
“Genuine patriotism is grounded in love of God and his Church,” Sanford said.
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A scene from the trailer promoting Liberty University’s campus ministry production of “Scaremare.” / Scaremare on YouTube
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 29, 2022 / 10:55 am (CNA).
This October some churches and ministries in the United States are once again hosting Christian versions of haunted houses, and nonbelievers and believers alike are lining up for some rather existential spine-tingling for the first time since the pandemic.
Popular among evangelical Protestant churches in the South, these “judgment houses” typically stage dramatic representations depicting what happens after people die, leaving visitors to ponder whether they themselves are headed for heaven or hell, and presumably, to act accordingly.
Is this a good way to save souls? Some Catholics experts in evangelization who spoke to CNA have reservations.
A different way to evangelize
The late Jerry Falwell, the Baptist televangelist, and founder of Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Virginia, is credited with hosting the first judgment house in 1972, “Scaremare.”
Scaremare is still going strong in Lynchburg, where the university’s campus ministry stages a production every year around Halloween that draws people from all over the region attracted by the lure of “fun-house rooms and scenes of death in order to confront people with the question ‘What happens after I die?’”
The performance does not disappoint those looking for the sort of adrenaline surge a horror movie produces. As many as 4,000 visitors a night witness gruesome death scenes including a massacre at a movie theater and a camper who is mauled by a wild animal.
According to Josh Coldren, the director of the 2022 production of Scaremare, the scenes are intended to make people think about their fears and their mortality.
“We talk about how everyone faces death, but how there is hope beyond our fears and hope beyond death, and that hope is in Jesus Christ,” Coldren told CNA.
According to Scaremare’s website, over 26,000 people who visited over the years “have made decisions for Christ over the past two decades. Ironically, this House of Death points to the Way of Life!”
While judgment houses can function as memento mori, efficacious reminders of the inevitability of death, some judgment houses, also known as “Hell Houses,” have become controversial for taking the idea to an extreme. Graphic scenes such as abortions, extramarital sex, and drug use are sometimes depicted along with the consequence of these actions as the sinners are shown condemned to spend eternity in hell.
Scaremare doesn’t get into these issues or talk about hell at all, Coldren told CNA.
“We don’t have a scene of hell, and we stay away from demons. We believe those things are real, we just make sure we stay away from them,” Coldren said.
Tom Hudgins, is the owner of Judgement House, a company based in Seminole, Florida, that provides scripts to churches to stage dramas. Before COVID, he told CNA, they helped as many as 350 churches at a time hold Judgement Houses. They are slowly getting back to business, he said, and about 50 participating churches are listed on their website.
Hudgins explained to CNA that, unlike more extreme Hell House productions, his scripts never talk about social issues. Small groups of visitors walk through scenes meant to encourage self-reflection. Each production begins with death, by a car crash or cancer, for example, and then the audience sees what happens after death.
“They see what hell would be like, but they also see what heaven will be like, and everyone can make their own decisions,” Hudgins said.
A scene from a production of a Judgement House script. Decaturville Pentecostal Church YouTube
Bonnie Gilliland, the dramatic director at Morningside Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Florida, is staging a play with the help of Judgement House this October. She told CNA that the productions are a way of sharing the Gospel.
“We include a lot of scripture, it’s very biblically based,” she said.
Gilliland explained that this year’s production isn’t just for nonbelievers – it’s meant to give the regular churchgoer a wake-up call.
“The current drama gives people an opportunity to understand and examine whether they have a relationship with Jesus Christ because it’s more than just going to church, it’s about accepting Jesus as your savior and receiving the gift of eternal life,” Gilliland said.
Kelly Armstrong, the director of the judgment house at New Harmony Baptist Church in Albertville, Alabama, told CNA that past productions have depicted scenes of car wrecks, overdoses, and abuse.
Visitors see “how people make decisions that affect their eternity,” he said. “It brings our church together, and makes people think.”
Catholic criticism of “hell houses”
Judgment houses have not found favor among Catholic churches in the United States, and two experts in evangelization and pastoral care told CNA that they don’t think talking about hell attracts people to the Church.
Sherry Weddell is the founder of the Catherine of Siena Institute, an apostolate that helps evangelize Catholic parishes to turn pew-sitters into “intentional missionary disciples.” She told CNA that she advises any Catholics considering introducing hell-related themes to their Halloween decorations or celebrations, to rethink that idea.
“If you live in an area that has a significant number of young adults, especially parents of young children, or in an area that is highly secularized like urban areas of the East or West coasts, many will find it offensive or off-putting. And there is a real chance that sensitive and young children could be upset by it which would fuel their parents’ unhappiness with the sponsoring Catholic community,” Weddell explained.
“You could upset people who might otherwise have been open to attending an Advent or Christmas event at your parish or just open to a friendship with a Catholic like you.
“Instead of building or strengthening bridges of trust, you could be shattering or weakening whatever trust may already exist. There are creative, positive, child and parent-friendly alternatives such as “trunk-or-treating,” costume parties, and community of light events that foster both long-standing relationships and fun,” Weddell said.
Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, the chief exorcist for the Archdiocese of Washington, and a psychologist and researcher at the Catholic University of America, told CNA that the threat of hell isn’t effective in this day and age.
“People today are not convinced or influenced by threats of hell. The Church just really stopped doing that because it just doesn’t work. You know, you can do all the hellfire and damnation sermons you want, but people just kind of yawn, “ Rossetti said.
“We’re trying to emphasize God’s love and God’s mercy, which I think is much more to the point, frankly. And also more of a message that’s needed in our day. And I think that started with Pope John XXIII at Vatican II. He said, today what the message needs to be is of God’s mercy and compassion and God’s love.
“This is what attracts people, and this is sort of the core of our message. God loves us and God has saved us out of his love and compassion in Jesus,” he said.
Bishop James Conley of Lincoln carries the Eucharist through Nebraska. / Credit: Jeffrey Bruno
CNA Staff, Sep 17, 2024 / 14:45 pm (CNA).
Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, recently urged Catholics to think about how they could “walk with… […]
Los Angeles, Calif., Jan 18, 2018 / 01:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Karen Gaffney has swum the English Channel, is the president of a global non-profit, and has an honorary doctorate. She’ll share her story in Los Angeles this Saturday, at an an… […]
2 Comments
We read: “Sanford cited the example of several university presidents who made statements after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that implied that ‘there’s something wicked to holding the pro-life position’.”
Citing the relevant Spanish mystic Miguel de Unamuno, a comment here about what is “wicked” and about the broad meaning of “pro-life.”
FIRST, “’The wicked man hath said in his heart, There is no God’. And this is truth. For in his head the righteous man may say to himself, God does not exist! But only the wicked [!] can say it in his heart. Not to believe that there is a God or to believe that there is not a God, is one thing; to resign oneself to there not being a God is another thing, and it is a terrible and inhuman thing; but not to wish that there be a God exceeds every other moral monstrosity; although, as a matter of fact, those who deny God deny Him because of their despair at not finding Him” (“The Tragic Sense of Life,” 1921/1954, p. 184).
SECOND, “The Church defends life. It stood up against Galileo, and it did right; for his discovery, in its inception and until it became assimilated to the general body of human knowledge, tended to shatter the anthropomorphic belief that the universe was created for man. It opposed Darwin, and it did right, for Darwinism tends to shatter our belief that man is an exceptional animal [‘…man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” Gaudium et Spes, n. 24] created expressly to be eternalized. And lastly, Pius IX., the first Pontiff to be proclaimed infallible, declared that he was irreconcilable with the so-called modern civilization [Syllabus of Errors, n. 80]. And he did right” (ibid., 72).
So, YES, to the search for truth within academia and through open debate, so as to somehow answer the depth of despair in our “so-called modern civilization,” and with a fully encompassing pro-life witnessing to “the Way—the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6).
Oh, yeah, then there’s the specious 1967 Land O’ Lakes Declaration of so-called autonomy (clearly NOT contaminating the University of Dallas). Forgot about that self-amputation!
From experience the undergrad level should be where the student is familiarized with the principles necessary for the pursuit of truth. And a well established understanding of truth. It’s on this level where academia has led many astray. Although Dr Sanford indicates this awareness in his responses.
Graduate studies is the forum for greater open debate on the prominent subjects affecting our world both good and bad, its realization or lack of differentiating.
We read: “Sanford cited the example of several university presidents who made statements after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that implied that ‘there’s something wicked to holding the pro-life position’.”
Citing the relevant Spanish mystic Miguel de Unamuno, a comment here about what is “wicked” and about the broad meaning of “pro-life.”
FIRST, “’The wicked man hath said in his heart, There is no God’. And this is truth. For in his head the righteous man may say to himself, God does not exist! But only the wicked [!] can say it in his heart. Not to believe that there is a God or to believe that there is not a God, is one thing; to resign oneself to there not being a God is another thing, and it is a terrible and inhuman thing; but not to wish that there be a God exceeds every other moral monstrosity; although, as a matter of fact, those who deny God deny Him because of their despair at not finding Him” (“The Tragic Sense of Life,” 1921/1954, p. 184).
SECOND, “The Church defends life. It stood up against Galileo, and it did right; for his discovery, in its inception and until it became assimilated to the general body of human knowledge, tended to shatter the anthropomorphic belief that the universe was created for man. It opposed Darwin, and it did right, for Darwinism tends to shatter our belief that man is an exceptional animal [‘…man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” Gaudium et Spes, n. 24] created expressly to be eternalized. And lastly, Pius IX., the first Pontiff to be proclaimed infallible, declared that he was irreconcilable with the so-called modern civilization [Syllabus of Errors, n. 80]. And he did right” (ibid., 72).
So, YES, to the search for truth within academia and through open debate, so as to somehow answer the depth of despair in our “so-called modern civilization,” and with a fully encompassing pro-life witnessing to “the Way—the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6).
Oh, yeah, then there’s the specious 1967 Land O’ Lakes Declaration of so-called autonomy (clearly NOT contaminating the University of Dallas). Forgot about that self-amputation!
From experience the undergrad level should be where the student is familiarized with the principles necessary for the pursuit of truth. And a well established understanding of truth. It’s on this level where academia has led many astray. Although Dr Sanford indicates this awareness in his responses.
Graduate studies is the forum for greater open debate on the prominent subjects affecting our world both good and bad, its realization or lack of differentiating.