Carl F.H. Henry Conference: Paul McNulty Discussion

Mark Tooley on February 20, 2024

The following lunchtime discussion was held at IRD’s Conference on the 75th Anniversary of Carl F. H. Henry’s “Uneasy Conscience” of American Evangelicalism on November 10, 2022 in Washington, D.C. Thanks to Josiah Hasbrouck for preparing the following transcript.

JOSEPH LOCONTE: Thank you, Paul, for a truly inspiring, challenging, and thoughtful talk. There are so many elements and themes that you raised. Before we’re done, I want to get to your last point about the hunger and thirst among young people to be transformed. 

You raise this theme of the “kingdom now,” the sense of calling, and it’s come up in our time together, but I think it needs some attention. This doctrine of calling has been taught by the church since the earliest days. It was there in the Catholic Church during its finest moments. And I think that Martin Luther, in a way that’s not quite appreciated, helped to revive the doctrine of calling. And now I’m going to channel some thoughts from my good friend Os Guinness, who I believe has written the best book on calling that’s available. It’s titled The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life. Os explains how important the Christian doctrine of calling has been to Christian effectiveness in the world. I’d like you to talk a little bit more about that doctrine of calling how you are going about it at Grove City.  

PAUL MCNULTY: As Guinness explains it, this sense of calling demands everything from us. It is all-encompassing and it requires a vigorous response that takes all of our energies. I try to communicate to students that they must not sell themselves short at this moment when they’re trying to decide where they’re going to school or what they’re going to do. Don’t get distracted by just a degree. Think big. And the bigger you think, the better off you’ll be. 

The idea of calling is fundamental to who we are: it defines who we are and the work that we do. In fact, one of the things I talk about a lot on campus is that your calling now is to be a student, to be learning. Grove City kids are really good workers. They show up on time. They’re very humble, ethical. I challenge them to be that way about their studies: this is a part of their larger calling to be equipped to serve Christ and his kingdom. 

LOCONTE: I think it’s a hugely important thing. Several people have raised the problem of the politicization of everything. And I think this can deceive Christians into thinking they should be involved in some area of civic or political life that they’re really not called to. But they’re immersed in the news cycle. There’s a line from C.S. Lewis in his essay “Membership,” where he says that “A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his indigestion.” And that is especially true for Christians in this city. Politics becomes the all-encompassing thing. But what does that mean for Christian calling? What does it mean for our sense of vocation? 

I want to unpack this theme a little bit more with you. When C.S. Lewis was in Oxford in 1939, the Second World War had just begun. He was asked to give a talk at Saint Mary’s Church [ck]. The talk he gave is called “Learning in War Time.” Lewis challenges students, in the midst of war, when some of their fellow students are going off to war, to pursue their callings as academics and wherever that might take them. He says that this is a necessary thing for them to do in this crisis moment. He’s trying to answer the question on everyone’s mind: why go on with my studies when the world is going to heck in a handbasket? Isn’t that like Nero fiddling while Rome burns? And Lewis says, no, because you don’t know how God intends to use your calling and vocation. 

MCNULTY: Lewis warned in The Weight of Glory, with regards to the kind of life that God has called us to live, that we are too easily satisfied:  We like a child who would prefer to make mud pies in a slum rather than to have a day at the beach. We need an expansive idea of calling. This is what Carl Henry’s challenge is all about. 

LOCONTE: One of the phrases you used in your talk was the principled politician, the conviction politician. The Lord knows we need more principled politicians today. What is your sense of where we are in helping to produce those men and women? 

Let me put it in historical context. At the time of the American Revolution—and I’m not going to romanticize the Revolution and colonial America—there were people like the Reverend John Witherspoon at the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University. He was the college president, and he was grooming men, and ultimately women, for lives of public service. Graduates of the college included Supreme Court justices, legislators, vice presidents and even presidents—James Madison studied under Witherspoon. He had a great sense of calling and public service. 

Where do you think we are now in being able to produce men and women of that kind of character? We produced two or three dozen world-class leaders during the colonial period. They were flawed individuals, but they were committed to building and sustaining the new republic, they were devoted to the common good. Why does it seem so difficult for us to produce leaders who have that vision for the common good—men and women of integrity and character? It was a remarkable generation in that revolutionary and post-revolutionary period. What is your sense of where we are with regards to generating this kind of leadership? 

MCNULTY: I think elective politics is a very bad place right now. We haven’t cultivated an appetite for the kind of thoughtfulness that you just described. It doesn’t win politically. Instead, we have reduced our message to bombastic slogans and platforms. That’s part of the problem. But I would say I’m deeply disturbed: by the tone, by the content, by the example people are setting. I started my career on Capitol Hill in 1983. Forty years ago, I could not have imagined it being as bad as it is right now.  

LOCONTE: This is where the importance of education comes in, I think. One of the joys of being an educator is being involved in young people’s lives at these crucial moments and helping to plant seeds, to nourish their moral imagination. Carl Henry writes that “the church must develop a competent literature in every field of study on every level from the grade school through the university, which adequately presents each subject with its implications from the Christian as well as non-Christian points of view.” That sounds like a mission statement for Grove City College. 

Let me invite people to the microphone who have questions for Paul. 

AUDIENCE: I want to take you back to your time in the Justice Department, in the Bush administration. How did you think about your faith in a unique calling like the Justice Department? How did that play a role in the work that you did? And were there particular resources or voices that helped you in that endeavor? 

MCNULTY: I had one advantage by being at the Justice Department rather than being in a lot of other departments. As John Ashcroft used to say, we’re the only department with a value built into our name. For a large portion of the work we were doing, it was rooted in Romans chapter 13: We’re dealing with bad conduct and we’re holding bad actors accountable. 

I spent virtually all of my public life in this kind of work: I was on the House Judiciary Committee, the Crime Subcommittee Staff, and then the Department of Justice. So, I spent a lot of time working in criminal justice and crime policy. Thus, as a Christian, it was not difficult to be dealing with identifying and punishing wrongdoing. 

However, we know that there are a lot of values and judgments associated with that, and many of them get revisited. The work that I did in the 1990s, with regard to criminal penalties, has been revisited. Were the penalties too  severe? Did we lack mercy in some of the penalties for drug trafficking, things of that sort? 

One thing was certain. I came to work every day with this sense that the most important aspect of who I was, was being a Christ follower, and that what I did had had to honor him. 

AUDIENCE: I also work in higher education. And I sympathize with you in dealing with parents and alumni with strong opinions. I had a question around Christian educators in higher education because I gave a tour to a family of believers who are looking at my school. And they asked about the professors and whether any of them were believers. It made me think more about the calling of Christian professors, people who are discerning whether to work at a Christian school or at a secular, nonsectarian school. I’m curious about your thoughts on that and what advice you would give to someone who feels drawn to a career in the academy. 

MCNULTY: Thank you very much and I appreciate what you’re trying to do there. Well, first of all, I think there’s a kind of structural governance aspect to the question. What do we require of faculty before they’re going to actually be able to teach? And there are multiple answers to that in terms of different Christian colleges. At Grove City, each faculty member has to sign a contract that requires them to acknowledge what the mission is and that they adhere to the mission of the college. And then we make sure that they fully understand the mission. 

But I think to that question you have to begin with what do we expect of our faculty? And then I think it’s a matter of discipling or encouraging the faculty. There has to be a regular effort made to expose them to the best thinking, to regularly support the continuing learning on their part as to how they integrate faith into what they’re doing. We do a lot to try to make that work. I offer a devotion at every faculty meeting on a subject related to the connection between who we are in Christ and our calling to teach our students. It has to be a constant drumbeat. There has to be an authentic desire to shape young minds for service to Christ. 

LOCONTE: I want to end on a happy note, meaning I want to ask you that question I promised I would ask about young people being ready for a kind of reformation, ready to be challenged to give their life, their vocations, to serve others, to serve the common good. 

We could talk about the need for academic freedom to model that in the classroom. What should a Christian institution be if not, in some sense, a place where truth is taught—but also where truth is sought? The honest search for truth in every realm of life, in human experience. There’s a wonderful line from Isaac Newton, who had a basic Christian understanding of the world. He said, “Plato is my friend, and Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is Truth.” So, we need Christian institutions that are known as places that teach the truth but also seek after the truth. It seems to me that this vision can inspire young people. 

What do you see? Where are you most hopeful in this idea of young people seeking to be transformed and holding up a high standard, a high sense of calling for them? What are you seeing, Paul, that most encourages you at this moment? 

MCNULTY: I think I’m probably most encouraged by the concept of virtue that I was talking about. On the philosophical side and on theological preparation, I think there’s been a pretty consistent interest in that. Where I’m more hopeful is where I am seeing young people reject the kind of worldly character that they’re observing and they’re not admiring. And our students today, I think, are far less political because they’re so turned off by politics and they’re more interested in getting back to what it means to create a Christian culture. What does it look like to be Christ-like? That’s very encouraging. 

LOCONTE: You mean the negative examples now are so noxious. 

MCNULTY: Yes, exactly. I think there’s a general sense that there’s a better way. There’s the idea of community—this sense that we’re invested in each other’s lives. In order to be invested each other’s lives, we have to live a certain way, which includes loving one another. And what does that look like? And I see a real conscientiousness about that, and that’s very encouraging.

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