MTP 40: Micah Green, Part2, why Christian professors often hesitate to speak about their faith

Dr. Micah Green, Professor of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M, shares his journey of faith in academia, from stepping into a career as a Christian professor to mentoring students navigating faith and doubt. He offers practical advice for professors on sharing faith in the classroom, discusses the importance of grace in parenting, and encourages students to see the church beyond stereotypes. Dr. Green received his PhD at MIT and studied early Christian history at Harvard.

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University Email Address: micah.green@tamu.edu

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Transcript

(00:00)

Hello, my name is Abbie OFarrell. I'm a junior here at UNCW and I'm a marketing major. And my question as a Christian student is why is it that professors are so quick to speak when they are atheist and nonbelievers? And why is it so hard for our Christian professors to come forth and confess their faith and speak on it?

Shane & Spence (00:26)

Hey everybody and welcome back to Meet the Prof. My name is Shane & Spence Hartley and my friend Spence Hackney and I take questions from college students just like you heard from Abbie and we'll ask them to Christian professors. And our goal is to encourage Christ-centered conversations on the college campus. And you will get to hear our second part of the interview with Dr. Micah Green.

And Micah is a professor of chemical engineering at Texas A&M. He got his PhD at MIT. He did some studies on early Christian history at Harvard. And he has been very transparent, if you missed the first one, about the questions he had in his faith as he was growing up spiritually. So this time, I think you'll be really encouraged, again, specifically how he answers Abbie's question and talks more about how his faith relates to his own work as a professor.

And so before we get started, if you please remember to click on like or subscribe or follow and we'll jump in now. Here's the second part of our interview with Micah Green.

Shane & Spence (01:27)

When you look back at your spiritual journey, were there times

of growth that came with significant choices you had to make? Like, you know, we have to take steps of faith sometimes, and you're a very rational person. Were there times that you would even say God put you in a position where you needed to step out and do something in faith, just trusting Him when it may not have really seemed rational?

Micah Green (01:56)

Yeah, actually the biggest moment of all was actually deciding to go into academia. Most people who get their PhDs in chemical engineering, you know, go work in industry, they don't go into academia. And I was pretty terrified of academia, of what the work-life balance would be,

especially of the whole tenure process.

But I got a couple of job offers from industry, and it was this moment of, I'll never forget it, of God telling me, we want to be salt and light.

We want to have influence. My whole reason for going to grad school had been to go into academia because there are not a lot of Christian faculty in the country. And so we can make a big impact. And so I remember thinking, I'm going to step out of faith. I want to go to academia because it could be the dream job. It could be the job that God has for me. And if I flame out, if I fail, if I don't get tenure, other jobs will be out there and my family won't starve. Like, I literally remember thinking that.

Shane & Spence (02:35)

Hmm.

Micah Green (02:53)

It seems like nice and easy to talk about now, but at the time it was a real point of stress for any of your audience members who aren't married.

Shane & Spence (02:54)

Mm-hmm.

Micah Green (03:01)

I will tell you, the week after I got married, I remember I was back at work walking to get lunch and then I was going to go get on the subway and I had this moment where I realized every dollar I spend and every minute I spend affects another person.

I

have been super selfish my entire life, just doing things to maximize my own convenience, and I'm now responsible to provide for my wife, and I really don't want to fail. So that fear of failure, fear of risk, jumps another level once you get married. And so that was something I had to overcome.

Shane & Spence (03:20)

Hmm.

And do you have kids?

Micah Green (03:38)

I have four children, ages 9 through 16.

him.

Shane & Spence (03:43)

Has faith been important in that process?

Micah Green (03:47)

yeah, for sure. Yeah, and it's funny how each child is different in the way that they engage with their faith. My oldest is a rule follower. He doesn't do what's right.

I'll tell you a story about maybe the time that I realized just how important it is to emphasize grace as a parent. When my son was maybe six or seven, had his baby sister right there on this little step, this step we have in our room. So was like, watch, make sure the baby doesn't fall off this thing. He's like, okay, God. He turns his back, the baby falls down a step and gets hurt. And I was like, dude.

Like, and he, and I was like, go to your room. So he goes off to his room. I'm irritated. Maybe he's okay, but I'm still annoyed. Like, you know, he let the one thing happen that I just said, please make sure that doesn't happen. So I go to find my son. He's like six or seven at this point. go in his room and he's like this. And he's like, so angry with himself for being negligent and letting his baby sister get hurt. And you could see that sense of like, I have messed up.

Shane & Spence (04:48)

Mmm, Yeah.

Yeah.

Micah Green (04:57)

There's only justice for me. And I was like, nope, not in our faith. Like we serve a gracious God who doesn't always give us what we deserve and doesn't hold our mistakes over us. There really is grace. this, because my son has this do the right thing, rule following kind of attitude, what he needed in that moment is to say this thing that feels not intuitive, that God is gracious and patient with us.

Shane & Spence (05:07)

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Micah Green (05:24)

Even when we don't deserve it or when we wouldn't be gracious with others, that's God's character. That's what he needed in that moment.

Shane & Spence (05:31)

That really ministers to me. Truly, thank you for sharing that Dr. Green, because I tend to be a rule follower and then that leads to a lot of beating myself up over things. I was telling Spence earlier today, I've been struggling with some things; that ministers to me. Thanks for that message of grace there.

Micah Green (05:36)

Eva.

Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

Shane & Spence (05:52)

So tell us a little bit about your interaction with students. Have you had a chance to share your faith and this perspective on faith and science and some of these things you're sharing with us? Do you often get chances to share those with students? How does that usually happen?

Micah Green (06:08)

Yeah, good question. I know there are some faculty in the world who are terrified of this interaction. And so my recommendation is the following. First day of class, first day of class, you're introducing yourself.

You can say true things about yourself. I'm from West Texas. I'm married. I have four children. I'm a lay pastor at New Life Baptist Church. And I'm the faculty advisor to Ratio Christi and Fellowship of Christian Grads. I just said a bunch of facts as I introduced myself. But in saying those facts, I made it really clear that I'm a Christian. So that kind of gives them permission to ask me about these things. It tells them, hey, look, faculty can be Christian. Blow up that stereotype.

Shane & Spence (06:30)

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Micah Green (06:50)

I also tell them, you know, here's my kind of educational path. I went to Texas Tech, to a PhD at MIT. I actually studied early Christian history at Harvard. So if you want to talk about Christian history or about the relationship between science and faith, please come talk to me because I have academic experience in the world. And so it's just open invitation. Like, please come talk to me. And people do. The other thing I'll frequently do is we have a lot of student organizations at A&M and I get a lot of speaking opportunities. So I'll just tell my class, like, hey, I'm speaking at

Shane & Spence (07:01)

Hmm. Hmm.

Hmm.

Micah Green (07:19)

Christian Engineering Leaders about whether miracles are possible next Monday. Feel free to come. And people come. And people not just believers, but people from across the spectrum. So that's where a lot of these conversations happen. The thing that's important from a faculty perspective is that, I guess here's the sequence, right? Somebody grows up in a Christian household, they get to college, completely new.

Shane & Spence (07:27)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Micah Green (07:45)

environment, completely new plausibility structure, and they may start to fall away from their faith. It's not because anybody actually made a cogent logical argument. It's just because their faith seems less plausible. It seems like all the smart people are not people of faith.

Shane & Spence (07:57)

Mm-hmm.

Micah Green (08:02)

So again, no one made an argument. just seems different. It seems like things are plausible. So if you then put Christian faculty in the middle of that and say, actually, that stereotype is false. You can be a believer and a scholar. You can be a believer and someone who cares about science. Then that's reassuring to that freshman in college and says, it's okay. It really is okay. I mean, think ultimately that's what students need. They don't just need more resources, no argument or arguments. They need someone to reassure

Shane & Spence (08:04)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Micah Green (08:32)

them and say it's going to be okay.

Shane & Spence (08:34)

know, that's why I think we need Christians in academia and Christians in the marketplace to be really good at their jobs. Because we also need the students to look at us and go, not only is he a Christian, but he's all and he's a scientist, but he's a really good one. And so I should pay attention to what he

Micah Green (08:53)

I guess one thing I would add on to that point is that I remember when I was an undergrad, I read a book by Randy Alcorn and I can't even remember which book it was, but I remember him saying that Christians often complain that there are few Christians in journalism, you know, news media, etc. government, Hollywood, and academia.

know, like, all these places are godless. These places are anti-Christian. And Alcorn said, maybe that's our fault. Maybe that's our fault. Maybe we abandoned those places. And I remember being like, whoa, I never thought about that. Like, those are places of influence, and Christians have a responsibility to be in those places. And so if we see a place that's kind of Christian free, like, that might be because we're neglecting our responsibilities.

Shane & Spence (09:16)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Can you tell us any example or a story you remember of a certain student that you were able to specifically help by coming in as a Christian professor,

Micah Green (09:49)

Probably the most dramatic example I can think of a student who...

I don't recommend this. He decided to like, he said, I'm gonna doubt everything. I'm gonna doubt everything. I'm gonna rebuild my worldview from the ground up, Rene Descartes style, you know, and which I don't recommend that. But he got to the point he was like, okay, I think therefore I am, I'm conscious, I'm a person. And he got to the point where he thought, okay, the universe came from somewhere.

Shane & Spence (10:01)

Hmm.

Micah Green (10:17)

There's got to be something behind the universe. And so he became open to the idea of a God the argument from consciousness I mentioned earlier he became convinced that like the universe is not merely material like there was a mind behind the universe So you can see he's getting a little closer to theism. I think at the point where he was very interested in Jesus He's like Jesus is interesting. Jesus is compelling. But one thing he said to me He said like I don't know if I can go to church I don't know if I can go to church because it annoys me that there are all these people at church who haven't

Shane & Spence (10:25)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Micah Green (10:45)

who haven't thought through why they believe what they believe. And I remember telling him, so there are imperfect people at church? Is that what you're telling me? Is that, and that surprises you that the people at church don't have it all together? Like, hey man, this is where the imperfect people are supposed to be. This is the place for them. if you feel like they need to intellectually sharpen their faith, maybe you belong at church and can have good conversations with them.

Shane & Spence (11:01)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Micah Green (11:15)

feel like I've had lots of conversations like that where students will get disenchanted, not with God, but with their church background and trying to develop like a, I don't know, more of a charitable attitude toward the church and understanding like, you know, what is it that makes church beautiful? I think that's probably been like one of the most common patterns that seen with students. Does

Shane & Spence (11:28)

Hmm.

What do we do with that?

Micah Green (11:43)

people,

when people say church, sometimes they immediately think like the American church and its particular political proclivities. I'm like, no, no, That's not the entirety of the church. Think about the believers in China. Think about the believers in Ghana. Think about the believers in Korea.

Think about the Indian Christians who've existed since the first century when Thomas went to India. Is that the church rejecting? Usually it's not. Usually they're rejecting something in their background. But when you help them to see that little slice of Americana is not what it means to be the church. The church means the full swath of God's redemptive plan to redeem people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. That's what you need to see as the church. And so it's getting them out of their own little background that they've made them frustrated by.

Shane & Spence (12:39)

like it. so Spence and I were on campus here at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and we were approaching students with our cell phones and asking, what questions would you want to ask Christian professors? And so we have a handful of them, but listen to this one question and consider how you would answer this.

Shane & Spence Hartley (13:02)

Hello, my name is Abbie OFarrell. I'm a junior here at UNCW and I'm a marketing major. And my question as a Christian student is why is it that professors are so quick to speak when they are atheist and nonbelievers? And why is it so hard for our Christian professors to come forth and confess their faith and speak on it?

Micah Green (13:29)

I guess a couple of different reasons. One is just because of the makeup of academia.

in certain fields, you know, a lack of faith is seen as like being a skeptic is seen as being scholarly. Or it's just the majority report within that field. And some people think I won't face any consequences for being a skeptic. But they think if they're Christian, I may be the odd person out or maybe they'll people have negative associations with Christians. I'll be punished for that. I will admit being a chemical engineer and

Shane & Spence (13:45)

Hmm.

Micah Green (14:04)

I've never felt any, like any degree of hostility toward me for my faith. However, I'll tell you like in my field, it's clear cut what the quality of our work is. We develop something in the lab, either it works or it doesn't. There are other fields like sociology or philosophy, et cetera, maybe marketing, I don't know, where it's a little easier for someone to think. If someone has a beef with Christians, it's a little easier for them to...

Shane & Spence (14:20)

Hmm.

Micah Green (14:32)

hurt your career so that's why they may perceive those kind of risks. Probably the other reason that Christians speak out is they may have imbibed a little too much of a feeling like, I can't say anything about my faith because that would violate some rule and they don't actually know what the rules are. So one thing we started doing at Texas A&M is we actually have someone from the Office of General Counsel, the lawyers for the university, come talk to the Christian faculty and tell them what they can and can't do, what they can and cannot say.

Shane & Spence (14:35)

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Micah Green (15:00)

And what always happens is the Christian faculty are like, I have way more freedom than I thought I did. So what's really going on is that Christians are self-censoring. They don't know what the rules are. So they're like, just play it safe and self-censor when they really don't need to at all.

Shane & Spence (15:16)

Can you give us some examples of things that faculty have every right to say with students and that often they will self-censor themselves out of?

Micah Green (15:29)

Like let's say there's an event. There's an event happening on campus and they're interested in it. It's being hosted by a student org. It is a campus event and it's going to involve a presentation of the gospel. A faculty member has every right to bring that up. Maybe they have an association with that student group at the beginning of class saying this event is happening. I'm interested. I'm planning on going.

You have every right in the world to say something like that because it's happening on campus through an official on-campus group. You have every right in the world to bring something like that up, especially if it's like the beginning class or the end of class. It's not disrupting their teaching schedule. Another example would be, here's an interesting question. Can professors say that moral norms are real or are they relative and just human constructed?

I guarantee you there are professors who will say, moral norms are just cultural creations. But people might think, can I say that moral relativism is false? Can I say that moral norms are real? I mean, if do, there are certain theological implications. I can tell you at Texas A&M, we have core values. And I feel like the core values give me the ability to say moral norms are real.

Shane & Spence (16:30)

Hmm.

Micah Green (16:41)

Right and wrong are not just human creations. They're not just human conventions. They're not just utilitarian. Right and wrong exist. They're features of the universe. And I can say that in class because it coheres with our campus, our university core values. And if there are theological consequences that like maybe there's more to the world than just atoms, there's something else. This idea of like

Shane & Spence (16:47)

Yeah.

Micah Green (17:05)

and wrong, real.

the legal profession. The more I learn, the more I realize,

religious freedom right now is as strong as it's ever been. The last 15 times a religious freedom case has gone up before the Supreme Court. Religious freedom has won. We have remarkable freedoms,

we as Christians don't

Shane & Spence (17:23)

Really.

Micah Green (17:24)

to be so scared of the legal side.

Shane & Spence (17:27)

What advice would you give to 18 year olds, especially as you consider your 18 year old self?

Micah Green (17:34)

guess I would say that.

We are formed by our habits. We are formed by our habits. So try to create habits that form you in a certain kind of person. Sometimes there's a, Christians can get in the mode of life. If I just think the right thoughts and I can get the theological exam correct, then that's great. It's actually not like someone could be illiterate, but still have habits that form them into someone with godly,

Christ-like fruit of the spirit kind of character and the patterns that we put into our lives can inform us into that kind of a person.

Shane & Spence (18:17)

Well, Dr. Green, thank you so much for this time. You have encouraged me even just on the value of our reasoning and the Christian faith can stand up to

Micah Green (18:28)

It's been great to spend time with you all. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for everything that you do.

Shane & Spence (18:33)

Well, I think you all could tell that Spence and I enjoyed that interview also. And we're so grateful for Micah, him taking that time to do the interview with us. And if you are a Christian professor listening to this or watching this, and you are interested in sharing some about your own spiritual journey, would you find us on meettheprof.com? And you can easily create a profile right there and share some of your story. And if you are a college student and you would like to ask a question to Christian professors,

find us on Instagram, Meet The Prof Official, and you can DM us a question or many questions to the professors. And lastly, if you're interested in giving financially to this ministry, you can give online at www.give.cru.org/0424344. And so until next time, we hope that this encourages you yourself to have a Christ - centered conversation on your college campus.