The Courageous Middle

What a new book says about church, politics, and Christian higher education

I don’t normally recommend books until after I’ve read them, let alone those that showed up in my mail box just two days ago. But in so hastily recommending Shirley Mullen’s Claiming the Courageous Middle (Baker Academic), I’m stepping out onto an unusually safe, stable limb:

1. There aren’t many people in Christian higher ed I respect more than Shirley. Not so much because she worked at Bethel back in her grad school days at the University of Minnesota, but because of her distinguished career as provost of Westmont College and the first woman president of Houghton College.

2. Whatever the disagreements that are bound to separate author and reader, I already know that I fundamentally agree with the core argument and posture of Claiming the Courageous Middle, from reading Shirley’s recent interview at Current with another of my favorite people in academe, Nadya Williams.

In calling Christians to enter the middle spaces “created whenever there is a complex issue that generates two sides—and where thoughtful, good people find themselves on both sides,” Shirley is speaking to potential readers “in political parties, in churches, in families—again, wherever good and thoughtful people find themselves torn about which side of an issue to take.”

I’m especially curious to read what she has to say to pastors and their congregations as we enter the heat of another presidential election year.¹ But I’m mostly interested in what the “courageous middle” idea means for Christian colleges like Bethel, Houghton, and Westmont. Based on the Current interview, I suspect Shirley’s advice will sound familiar to those of you who have been reading my blog/Substack for any length of time…