The Gospel Versus Gandhi

A Graduation Speech Like No Other

Last week, a local charter school held its small graduation ceremony. As is the custom at such events, a number of speakers took the stage by turns, each delivering beautifully crafted paragraphs of wisdom, humor, and reflection. The head of school, the principal, a teacher, the salutatorian and the valedictorian all spoke; and this was followed by the official speaker—one who, in this case, was an Ivy League lecturer and author.

For several weeks, the school had promoted the upcoming graduation ceremony and its highly-lauded speaker. This Dominican-born, Columbia academic and author would presumably convey his passion for liberal education—the “great books” kind. Importantly, he also offered an encouraging brown face in the crowd, someone who might welcome minorities to an education model often dismissed for its dead white males. In a city like Atlanta, this was meaningful.

The head of school set a high bar with his opening speech; he managed to weave a golden thread of truth through an engaging yet weighty address, which he infused—as expected— with poetic language. A few more speeches followed; all were praiseworthy products of minds trained by the true, the good, and the beautiful. I doubt our local private schools could rival the intellectual firepower of this small school’s graduation stage.

When the valedictorian spoke, however, something remarkably powerful and otherworldly was unleashed. Although he opened with lighthearted remarks directed at his fellow students—the introductory humor of so many formal occasions—he soon launched into a stirring sermon that would’ve pleased Jonathan Edwards or Charles Spurgeon. He minced no words, straddled no fences, withheld no love. Here stood a scholar and athlete, distinguished for mind and body; yet his parting words aimed squarely at the soul.

This was not your typical, scripted charge to a crowd of half-giggling peers. With warm authenticity, he asked his classmates to consider ultimate truth—the kind that pierced through life and death. His suggestion was hardly inappropriate, given that they’d been mining Western civilization, examining human nature and discovering what the brightest minds prescribed for a good and purposeful life. They’d marched the high roads of the canon, so now he asked them to consider a towering forebear, the gospel message.

In an auditorium full of students, parents, teachers, administrators, school board members, the superintendent, and the Ivy League expert, he offered no poetry, no Cicero, no clever turns of Latin phrase. He made no vague references to finding our shared humanity, seeking light, or similarly unobjectionable ideas. Instead, he would point out that a sinful humanity, estranged from God by sin, could find hope and eternal life only in Jesus Christ; no system of thought—not even classical education—would fix mankind’s ancient and ongoing dilemma.

This was rather bold, maybe even crazy. How many people dare mention “sin” in a public and secular setting anymore? It’s an affront to our modern instincts, offending everyone from the agnostic to the pew-warmers of mainline and mega churches. Yet this graduate went there anyways. He didn’t use trendy or “winsome” language, either; his singular aim was not applause. Instead, he aimed higher, deeper. He would ensure that nobody left graduation without knowing the way, the truth, and the life. After this speech, nobody would imagine that “the good life” was really found in the beautiful pages of Shakespeare—although one might hear its louder whispers in The Brothers Karamazov or The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Midway through his speech, he addressed the audience as “friends” in the easy style of a seasoned pastor, but his familiar tone withheld no uneasy truths from them. Having already presented a lively picture of gospel hope, he continued on boldly where few dare to tread; he informed the audience that, by ignoring this gospel, some among them would face shattering words from the Savior King: “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

The discomfort in the audience was palpable. There were no ecumenical shortcuts offered, and “the universe” would not open its arms to save the disaffected sinners. There was but one course of action. In loving but firm tones, he encouraged his classmates to embrace Jesus Christ, the source of all truth, and the only remedy for guilty and condemned sinners—even classically educated ones.

One wondered what ran through the minds of school officials in attendance. How about that head of school? He was a man of carefully chosen words, and the city had been impressed with his school’s superior academic performance. Was the superintendent surprised? At least a couple teachers looked down, fidgeting, interested in their laps for a while; and yet, the young man plowed on eloquently.

He finished his speech to applause—perhaps not a few were muted by shock—and then he sat down. Now it was time to hear from the Columbia man, who, as it turns out, was also a devotee of Eastern thought. This was our much-anticipated speaker, an Ivy League proponent of liberal education. He would tie it civilization’s threads together, tracing the wisdom of the ages from Socrates’ bosom to Gandhi’s heart—or something like that.

His voice was quiet, a bit faltering at first. Though he is an intelligent and thoughtful man, passionate about great ideas, his speech never betrayed the lively inspiration of the valedictorian address. Scattered and foreign references to Eastern religion, meditation, Zen, haikus, and even a Cuckoo bird formed a jumbled and incoherent commendation of classical learning. At one point, he tossed in a sterile reference to Jesus, along with some universalism and talk of doorways, apparently throwing everything at an existential wall to see what might stick.

One might forgive him for his pluralistic bridge-building efforts, however awkward they were. Although he leans progressive, he also decries cancel culture, insisting that students of all backgrounds need a foundation that includes (but not exclusively) the West’s great thinkers—white or not. He has labored to make the classics palatable to skeptics, even advocating for expanding the canon to include “voices” outside the West’s geographic and ideological bounds—thus, his interest in including Gandhi. In that sense, he’s not cut from the traditional classical cloth. In one interview, he even agreed with tearing down Confederate statues—”tear that #@*! down,” making him a strange bedfellow for classical educators, who are largely opposed to erasing history at the ever-evolving whim of activists.

Maybe this also explains his spiritually discordant speech, which was striking only for how it fell flat. The unconvincing delivery and hodgepodge of Eastern thought—despite many oblique references to truth—touched neither heart nor soul. I pitied the smallness of his well-meaning proposition beside the grander, impassioned invitation to eternal life; in fact, I pitied him. The valedictorian would storm the gates of hell, but this man would find admittance through pluralistic confusion. The student traced to the golden thread of truth to its Author, while the Ivy Leaguer unraveled it, looking instead for silk. On Gandhi’s loom, it may weave a fine fabric, but it will never clothe the soul in eternal life.