The Emerging Scholars Blog

After listening to Professor Ken Elzinga of the University of Virginia on ways to evangelize on and off campus “without turning people off,” I came away both excited and with questions. I am a first year professor at Loyola College in Maryland, a Jesuit institution where Christian faith (and probably other faiths as well) can be much more easily discussed, in contrast to UVa, a secular institution whose heritage is shaped by Thomas Jefferson’s strict church-state separation.

Elzinga’s announcement at the start of each semester to “serve students” and his request that they hold him accountable strike me as a courageous promise and offer. That he prays before office hours that the Lord would reveal at least one student with whom he can share the gospel or help in some tangible way is a challenge to me to transform office hours from a “necessary evil” to an opportunity to serve. That he had few expectations or strong desires to get tenure and so was freed to be faithful to Christ was a surprising (and enviable) perspective.

My questions arose from his practice of offering prayers for every student that walked in his door, something he hoped new professors would do right away, rather than wait 20 years as he had. Clearly, over the years his approach and dedication to love others as himself has won over department chairs and big names who were offended by his Christian faith; his care for students – who may suspect he is Christian during the term but only learn definitively so at the term’s end – has also won many of them over, if not to conversion, at least to respect.

In fact, many students return to ask for prayer again. Others, he reported, seemed puzzled or pleased by his prayers for them. None has refused his offer. And even Muslims and Jews have appreciated his prayers.

Yet Ken dismissed secular colleagues’ suggestions that students may be intimidated by his stature as a full professor and so be too afraid to say no. I am not so sure those concerns should be easily dismissed.

After all, as professors, we do carry a substantial measure of power. We hold the power over students to give them grades; perhaps as important, we are accorded authority for having trained and studied for years to master the subjects we teach. Might that power and authority not intimidate undergraduates from expressing discomfort? Jesus seemed to rarely wield authority over others, unless attacking the hypocritical Pharisees.

Perhaps I am being overly sensitive, and perhaps such worries compared with the results of students returning for prayer (and even making up econ problems to have excuses to visit Ken and ask for prayers!). Is it enough that the gospel is preached, no matter the way, as St. Paul wrote in Philippians in response to complaints of preaching out of envy?

I’d like to hear comments from students and professors, new and old, of their experiences.

One of the main reasons I chose to attend the Following Christ conference and the ESN Day Ahead was to help me discern my place on campus.  I do feel called to academia, at least for this season, yet I was not sure exactly how I was to carry out this calling.

The ESN Day Ahead turned out to be extremely valuable for junior faculty on the tenure track.  I was reminded by the panelists’ (Ken Elzinga, Christy Moran, Alec Hill, and Terry Morrison) exhortations to stay physically healthy, keep the Sabbath, find a strong mentor, and maintain healthy relationships with family and friends, in addition to, of course, hitting the ground running and eliminating any distractions along the path to tenure.  I had heard all of these suggestions before, but sadly had found myself failing at them.  For instance, when I first started my academic position, I vowed never to work on Sundays, in order to set an example to my colleagues.  Over the past year, I have found myself working on Sundays in order to finish grant proposals, prepare lecture notes, or try to catch up on the literature.  The temptation to work 24/7 is strong, especially when I find myself comparing my hours in the office to those of other junior faculty, at Washington University and other campuses.  So, the reversal of this trend, along with the institution of the extremely efficient 60 hour (maximum) work week, will likely be one of my New Year’s resolutions.

One comment I did not anticipate was the suggestion that I, as a junior faculty member, should not be involved in extensive mentoring activities that would not show up on my annual performance reviews.  I need to be a wise steward of my time and set appropriate boundaries.  Yet, I do feel that I should try to find opportunities to share my faith with students in the classroom and during my office hours.

I leave you with Ken Elzinga’s Reformed view of calling - that being a professor is the highest calling, and that all my work should be done unto the Lord.

The ESN Day Ahead ended well, and the main Following Christ conference has begun. I am assisting with the Humanities track, chaired by Michael Murray of Franklin & Marshall. In his opening remarks about human flourishing, Dr. Murray described the danger that ethical subjectivism poses to the gospel. If there is no right or wrong, if “evil” is an outdated concept and what we think of as “sin” is really just “bad manners,” then the gospel no longer makes sense. God seems cruel and vindictive to send his only Son to die on the cross to save us from…bad manners. Therefore, it is key for Christians to maintain the reality of evil in the world and in our own lives.

Interestingly, this dovetails with remarks made by Mary Poplin during the ESN Day Ahead. Before she became a Christian, she held a very pantheistic view of reality, and denied the existence of true evil. One of her students consistently asked her whether she believed evil was real, and refused to let her explain it away. Part of her conversion was the realization that evil truly existed - that, in fact, it existed within her own self and that she need Jesus to cleanse her of that evil.

What does it mean to follow Christ? Is this a somber and serious thing, or a playful experience with surprises?

These questions weren’t on my mind until after I heard Claremont Graduate University professor Mary Poplin speak Saturday afternoon. She spoke about her coming to Christ, from being a “very dark” person who experimented with New Age spirituality to inexplicable weeping bouts before teaching her classes.

The crying made no sense to Poplin, especially as she is a “Thinking” type on the Myers-Briggs indicator, she said. But it all came together when someone asked a question, “Was it hard to come back after working with Mother Teresa?” The audience comprised over two hundred female school administrators and, although it was a “secular audience,” Poplin said the sudden clarity led her to blurt out why the tears kept returning.

Even as tears rolled down her cheeks again, she explained that the emotion came from knowing people in India who were honestly living as Christ followers while knowing that she was far from living in that way. “I felt like a liar,” she confessed.

Poplin’s talk moved me because her joy was evident. Although she discussed heavy topics, her talk was interrupted by short giggles.

When Mother Teresa shook a finger at her one day, she expected a lecture on how “spiritually poor” Americans are. Instead, Mother Teresa warned/encouraged her, “You fall in love with Jesus more and more each day!” Poplin was surprised, then impressed by the brilliance of Mother Teresa who understood that all things need to start from the heart.

And in seeing the obvious – even childlike – mirth with which Poplin relished retelling her own story, I caught a glimpse of the infectious joy of a life lived with Christ.

Greetings!  I look forward to sharing with you over the next few days my experience at the Intervarsity Following Christ 2008 conference in Chicago, IL.

Saturday marked the first day of the conference; while the official conference program starts on Sunday, I chose to come to a Day Ahead event.  I have been a member of the Emerging Scholars Network (ESN) since its inception in 2004, but have recently decided to be a little more involved in the mentoring program.  Thus far, I have really enjoyed my interactions with fellow ESN attendees.

The ESN is primarily composed of undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and tenure-track faculty, and there is a good representation of scholars from all stages of academia at the conference.  For the first eight hours of the Day Ahead, we discussed two questions:

1. Why consider an academic calling?
2. What do I need to learn about Christian thought and practice to be faithful within my academic calling?

First, a panel composed of Ken Elzinga (University of Virginia), Marc Baer (Hope College), Mary Poplin (Claremont Graduate School), and Ronald Potter (Jackson State University) shared their “Stories of Calling”.  The moderator, Francis Su (Harvey Mudd College) asked the panelists to expound on the definition of calling, the moment(s) when they first received their calling, and the distinguishing features between them and their non-Christian colleagues.  All believers share their primary calling to Jesus Christ, in that we should love God as exhibited in our relationship with Him and with our neighbors.  Our secondary callings may all be different based on our individual giftedness and experience, but in each case, we should perform our teaching and research unto the Lord.  We also need to realize that, particularly at “secular” universities, that faculty are not hired to propel the Christian faith in the classroom, but rather, are called to mentor students, perhaps during their office hours.

It is shocking to realize how difficult it is to be a Christian in the academy.  Fully 70% of entering college freshmen lose their Christian faith within the first semester of college.  Furthermore, 97% of high school seniors choose to attend “secular” colleges and universities.  At the faculty level, only 1% of professors at elite universities profess the Christian faith.  However, it is also important to realize that God has had a hand in the formation of higher education in the United States; many elite universities, now “secular”, were founded on Christian principles.

Marc Baer then spoke on “What is Calling?” and Mary Poplin spoke on “Is an academic calling valid and for me?”  Some things I took away from their talks included the need to find another person (not family, and not necessarily even a colleague) who really knows me well, and to show courage in supporting our fellow Christian colleagues.

In the evening, Alec Hill (Intervarsity) spoke on Isaiah 61, Ronald Potter spoke on “A Christian Scholar, or a Scholar who is a Christian?”, and Mary Poplin spoke on “The Idolatries of Academia”.  Some things I took away from their talks included our calling to be oaks of righteousness and to rebuild spiritual ruins on campus, the ecclesiastical influence on the European medieval academic culture and the subsequent rise of modernism during the Enlightenment, the need to cultivate the life of the mind and develop a passion for ideas and intellectualism, and the reminder that Christianity was founded on liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy.

I look forward to continuing the ESN Day Ahead, and participating in the Plenary session and Engineering & Technology track.

The first part of Following Christ has started. I’m with the ESN Day Ahead, listening to “stories of calling” from Christian professors. More details to come.

Following Christ 2008 begins tomorrow with 5 Day Ahead events, including ESN’s first national gathering, Flourishing in the Academy. We’re hosting a couple of guest bloggers to post updates about the conference. Whether you’re at the conference yourself or following from home, I hope you’ll join the conversation.

Today, we introduce our second guest blogger, Dr. Carsten Vala, assistant professor of political science at Loyola College. Here’s a little more about him: Read the rest of this entry »

Last night as I packed for Following Christ 08, I reflected upon how conference preparation can suddenly turn from a marathon to a sprint.  No doubt the race to the finish begins at different times for each of us based upon the complexity of travel plans, conference responsibilities, family size, past history at similar events, personality, support community/friends on site (and back home), etc.  And varies from conference to conference, based upon the above factors and our current state of being (i.e., heart, soul, mind, and strength). Read the rest of this entry »

Following Christ 2008 is now less than a week away (not to mention that other important event this week). Here at the ESN blog, we will be privileged to welcome Dr. Cynthia Lo, assistant professor of chemistry at Washington University, as a guest blogger during FC08. Here is a little bit more about her: Read the rest of this entry »

This morning Russia Licenses Faith Healers topped my new mail. The one who forwarded it to me commented, They are soooo far ahead of us.  Read the rest of this entry »