The Emerging Scholars Blog

What? Your freshman move-in day didn't include a visit from a friar? I guess you didn't go to Siena College.

It’s that time of year again – the NFL Preseason! Just kidding. I’m actually thinking about the beginning of school, especially all of the undergraduates who are either beginning their college experience or starting to think of life after their bachelor’s degree. For undergrad members of ESN, this likely includes thoughts about graduate school.

I’ve asked about advice for undergraduates before, receiving some great comments in the process. Since the responses were so good the last time, I’ll just repeat the same questions:

• If you were once an undergrad, what do you wish someone had said or asked you at that stage of your academic career?
• If you are an undergrad, what kinds of questions do you have about grad school and the life of an academic?
• What kinds of resources would be most helpful for ESN to produce or distribute?

Leave your advice in the comments, or send it directly to me, if you wish.

Photo credit: sienacommunications via Flickr

What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.

A typical St. Olaf classroom...featuring a gigantic blackboard build for the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man

Mike here. Tom has spent the week in an intensive theology course, so I’m tackling the Week in Review solo. This is a great opportunity to clean out my “guilt file” – articles that I’ve had bookmarked for weeks and haven’t had a chance to write about yet. Enjoy!

1. How does a Christian college remain distinctively Christian? The usual answer has to do with defining who can be a faculty member or student. At Duke Divinity’s Call & Response blog, Jason Byassee ponders St. Olaf College, which has taken a different path.

A school can make Christianity a robust possibility, but not a mandate. It can offer top-flight worship. It can ask faculty across the board to respect the historic Christian mission of the school. And in that way, it can create room for possibility, hopefully to lure, woo, entice students and faculty into more faithful Christian life.

2. Homosexuality and the Moral Failure of Higher Education (R. R. Reno, First Things, Aug. 5) Wow – some title, eh? We linked to a column by R. R. Reno last week, and we’re a little late to this one (which, as you might imagine, has generated considerable online discussion). Reno, of course, is writing about the cases of Kenneth Howell at Illinois and Jennifer Keeton at Augusta State, but Reno expands the point to cover all of higher education. It’s difficult to select or summarize a single point from Reno’s argument, though this is a good quote:

Sexual liberation seems to have become the great moral cause. It is true that American schools expect ideological homogeneity on all manner of topics, and being pro-life or a person of faith—or even a Republican—can get you in trouble. But homosexuality alone seems to call forth the full repressive power of educational institutions.

3. Is the Husband Going to Be a Problem? (NY Times, August 12) Carolyn Bicks (English, Boston College) shares the experience of her husband and herself as they faced a problem common to many academic couples: a long-distance marriage. To “normal” people, the obstacles they overcame to pursue their dream of academic careers seem both heroic and insane:

When the hiring season was over, we’d landed two good tenure-track jobs in two good cities with two airlines that flew directly between them. I dismissed the nagging concerns the process had raised for me and threw myself into divvying up the wedding platters. We pooled our moving allowances, packed up a Ryder truck in California, dropped half of our stuff in my new Midwestern city, then drove to his East Coast city and dropped off the other half. We had our car on a trailer behind the truck. This made backing up a treacherous proposition. For the whole 3,000 miles, one of us would jump out to scope the turnaround prospects whenever we were about to pull off. The literature scholar in me loved the metaphor: There was no going back.

Bicks even manages to time the birth of their first child to fit into a 10-week research break. There are still more twists (they eventually join each other in the same city, only for her husband’s tenure bid to rejected). In case you have family who wonder what the academic life is like, this could be a good essay to share.

Photo credit: John McNab via Flickr

Bad academic advising and the strange lives of 20-somethings, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Leon Kass

Each year, a senior scholar at the University of Chicago is chosen to deliver the Aims of Education address to incoming students. (An archive of the addresses since 1995 can be found online.) In 1981, Leon R. Kass delivered perhaps the best known of the addresses, “The Aims of Liberal Education.” After dismissing several other goals as insufficient as the fundamental aim of liberal education (i.e. as opposed to education for professional training), or as objectives that can be better achieved elsewhere, Kass proposes thoughtfulness:

What, then, could be left for the aim of liberal education if we exclude professional training, research and scholarship, general broadening and culture, the arts of learning, and familiarity with the intellectual tradition? I have already hinted at my answer: Not the adding of new truths to the world, not the transmission of old truths to the young, but the cultivation in each of us of the disposition actively to seek the truth and to make the truth our own. More simply, liberal education is education in and for thoughtfulness. It awakens, encourages, and renders habitual thoughtful reflection about weighty human concerns, in quest of what is simply true and good. (86-87, emphasis added)

Leon R. Kass, “The Aims of Liberal Education,” published in The Aims of Education, edited by John W. Boyer. Copies are pretty hard to come by – I could not find one for sale anywhere, so check your local library.

What do you think? Is thoughtfulness the aim of liberal education?

Photo Credit: U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics, via Wikipedia

Updated 10:12 AM: Fixed typo in title

Archibishop Teofan Savu of the Romanian Orthodox Church in a moment of prayer

As I mentioned in Friday’s Week in Review, my InterVarsity colleague Tom Trevethan pointed me to a recent post by Fuller president Richard J. Mouw on Duke’s Call & Response blog.

Mouw asks:

What difference does it make to open class with prayer?

In Following Christ 2008′s Humanities track, Classics scholar Dora Rice Hawthorne, who was then at Baylor, shared a paper reflecting on Anselm’s practice of not merely opening his classes with prayer, but even stopping in the middle of his lectures to offer up prayers giving thanks for the subject matter, asking for the Spirit’s guidance in understanding Biblical texts, and so on. She remarked that, even at a Christian school like Baylor, stopping in the middle of class to pray about the subject matter seemed like a gross violation of academic propriety.

Mouw, borrowing from Mark Schwehn’s excellent Exiles from Eden: Religion and the Academic Vocation in America, wonders if there is something misguided with our common reluctance to pray in class:

The Western academy emerged out of worshipping communities, after all. And, as Schwehn boldly states his case, “the continued vitality [of academic life today] would seem to be in some jeopardy under wholly secular auspices.” Schwehn suggests much of the academy today is “living off a kind of borrowed fund of moral capital.” For example, to the degree that the virtues that are crucial for a sense of communal academic trust are still present in the broader academy, they are drawing on resources from past spiritual practices that are no longer seen as necessary to the intellectual quest.

Mouw’s blog post deals primarily with Christian universities, but Tom Trevethan wanted to begin a conversation about how faculty and students integrate prayer in their academic work at secular universities.

What are your thoughts about Mouw’s blog post? Do you include prayer as part of your academic work? If you’re at a public or secular private university, how do you define the boundaries between your private/public prayer life and the secular/pluralistic environment of the university?

Photo credit: iulian nistea via Flickr

Michelangelo's Jeremiah, from the Sistine Chapel, shown in his traditional pose of lament

I’ve been working through some thoughts left over from my reading of James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. This is probably my last post on this book, unless, of course, I think of something else.

In searching for a new paradigm for Christian engagement with the world, Hunter suggests Jeremiah 29, God’s word to Israel as they were about to go into exile among the Babylonians. Jeremiah 29:11 is the most often quoted verse from this chapter (“For I know the plans I have for you…”), but Hunter focuses more on God’s instructions to Israel in Jer. 29:4-7:

This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

Hunter sees this passage – in which God urges Israel to work and pray for the prosperity of Babylon – as paradigmatic for our times. He draws on 1 Peter and other New Testament passages that also carry the theme of exile.

Though it is quite possible that this portrayal from Jeremiah is not applicable to Christians in all times and all places, I do believe this is a word for our time. The story of Jeremiah comports well with what we learn from St. Peter, who with so many others speaks of Christians as “exiles in the world” (1:1, 2:11) encouraging us to “live [our] lives as strangers here in reverent fear” (1:17). God is at work in our place of exile, and the welfare of those with whom we share a world is tied to our own welfare. (Hunter, 278)

Hunter further cites 2 Thessalonians 3:13, Philippians 2:4 and 4:5, and 1 Corinthians 12:7 for Paul’s directions to work for the good of people around us. Hunter uses these Biblical models to suggest the idea of the “new city commons”:

In short, commitment to the new city commons is a commitment of the community of faith to the highest ideals and practices of human flourishing in a pluralistic world. (279)

Hmm…”human flourishing” — where have I heard that before?

So, here’s my question: Is exile the best paradigm for Christians in the university?

There’s much to applaud in exilic model of Jeremiah — living faithfully in a pluralistic society, working for the common good, being a “faithful presence” while acknowledging the tensions that pull us away from faithfulness. On the other hand, I saw a recent blog post (which, overall, was so bad that I’m not going to link to it) raised a good question: considering how influential Christians have been in shaping and building American culture, how accurate or even helpful is it to call ourselves “exiles”? Isn’t it a way of denying the vast power that we hold in various cultural institutions?

What do you think? Is exile the best paradigm for considering the state of Christians in academia?

Photo credit: Missional Volunteer via Flickr

Last week, I offered my review of James Davison Hunter’s important book, To Change the World. A central idea of Hunter’s is that Christians ought to be a “faithful presence” in their community of faith, their tasks, and their spheres of influence.

Today, I want to focus on the second of those items: our tasks. I think there’s a parallel between one of the mistakes people make in inductive Bible study – seeking to jump too quickly to application – and a mistake we sometimes make when talking about being Christians on campus – jumping too quickly to “big deals” without spending enough time on less public activities. Andy Crouch would say this is trying to create before we know how to cultivate.

So, my question: how do we practice a faithful presence in our tasks as students and faculty: research, writing, teaching, service, campus life? Do you have any examples of people doing this well or ideas on how it might be done well?

One caveat I’ll put out there: faculty and students are often under great pressure to excel, produce, work harder/longer, etc. Though faithful presence involves a certain degree of excellence, we must not make an idol of our academic careers.

As part of my role with ESN, I sit on the InterVarsity Faculty Ministry Leadership Team (FMLT), made up of, well, these people. Each year, we read a book together that (we hope) gets at some aspect of our ministry to the university. Our book for this year was James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.

If you’ve not read it yet, you should. Hunter, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, has produced a seminal book on cultural formation and change, particularly insightful on how Christians (primarily evangelical) have understood and misunderstood culture change over the past 40 years or so.

There’s much to discuss in this book — at times, it seemed like I was highlighting nearly every sentence — so I won’t try to summarize it or give a detailed review. For that, I encourage you strongly encourage you to read:

• Andy Crouch’s review of the book
• Christianity Today’s interview with Hunter
• Responses to Hunter by Crouch and Charles Colson on points where they feel Hunter errs (and Ray Pennings’ perspective on their debate)
• Byron Borger’s reflections at the Hearts & Minds Books blog
• An ongoing conversation about the book at FaithfulPresence.com

For my own remarks, I’ll limit them to two: the argument which I feel is Hunter’s most important, and what I think is the greatest weakness of the book. My observations come after the jump.

Have you read Hunter’s book? Do you agree or disagree with my points? What are your favorite parts of his argument? Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re not receiving the quarterly Emerging Scholars Review, you should be — join ESN as a member or update your membership to receive quarterly emails with the newest articles from ESN’s main website. Here’s what you might have missed:

• Reflecting on Psalm 90:Two of my favorite colleages — Graduate & Faculty Ministries National Director Bobby Gross and my partner in online materials Tom Trevethan — joined forces to offer a couple of great resources on Psalm 90. Bobby has written a personal liturgy for Psalm 90 to help you begin your day, while Tom has written a Bible study on Psalm 90 to help you go deeper.
• Treating grad students humanely:University of Minnesota professor emeritus Steve Simmons shared his philosophy for treating graduate students with grace in his essay, Students Are a Lot Like People.
• Call for Papers on African American Evangelicalism:InterVarsity’s Black Scholars and Professionals has announced a call for papers for its upcoming Consultation on African American Evangelicalism, co-sponsored by the National Black Evangelical Association and hosted by Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta. (We’ve also recently posted calls for papers on the King James Bible and race, religion, and American society.

Speaking of calls for papers, if you have one to share with ESN members, let me know.

Much evangelism happens on campus — indeed, the college campus might be the central place where evangelism takes place in US culture — but I’d wager that very little evangelism happens within the academy, inside the formal and informal structures of scholarship, teaching, and academic service.

At my church, I’ve just started teaching an 8-week series on evangelism to my adult bible fellowship. I’m using the following working definition of evangelism:

Introducing nonChristians to the good news of Jesus Christ with an implied or explicit offer to respond

This definition is quite narrow on purpose — I want to focus on the act of sharing the gospel and inviting people to follow Jesus, rather than diffuse our discussion with other (important) forms of witness and service.

My definition, however, ignores the usually-necessary progress from being indifferent or even hostile to God to being ready to make a commitment to Jesus. Further, if we’re talking about evangelism in the academy, there are few opportunities where one can share the gospel and invite a response without violating academic integrity. As Daryl and Teri McCarthy of IICS are fond of saying, “If you’ve been hired to teach math, and you instead work as a missionary, you are stealing from the university.” How then do we share the gospel in the academy?

Doug Schaupp and Don Everts’ idea of thresholds of conversion (PDF) might offer some ideas. As outlined in their book I Was Once Lost: What Postmodern Skeptics Taught Us About Their Path to Jesus, these thresholds try to describe a series of steps to entering the kingdom in a postmodern culture, where the Christian meta-narrative is neither assumed nor trusted.

Thresholds of Conversion

1. From distrust to trust
2. From complacent to curious
3. From being closed to change in their life to being open to change
4. From meandering to seeking
5. From darkness to the kingdom of light

This series of thresholds — which might not be necessary for everyone, or even followed linearly — might open up some ideas for how evangelism might happen within the academy, rather than just on campus. For example, in his essay Being Open About Your Faith Without Turning People Off, University of Virginia professor Ken Elzinga shares several ways to build trust. I’ve heard other stories of faculty who earned an opportunity to share the gospel with a colleague because, after years of mutual trust, their friend came to a place of spiritual seeking and openness.

What do you think of these thresholds of conversion? Do you have any experience — or concerns — with evangelism within the structures of the academy?

Yesterday, I took a look back at the past year of the ESN blog. Today, I want to get your thoughts about where we go for the coming year.

Way back in May 2009, Tom and I put together some thoughts on what we would blog about. Here’s what we came up with:

Academic vocation and calling: What’s the nature of the academic life? What’s the nature of the university – its systems, assumptions, problems, glories? And why would a person (specifically, a follower of Christ) follow an academic vocation? Does a Christian academic look, act, or live any differently from any other academic or any other Christian?

The role of faith and theology in specific academic disciplines: We’ll be looking at issues that arise when one takes faith, theology, and their academic discipline seriously. “Science and religion” is the pair most often discussed in mainstream and Christian media, but other disciplines – the humanities, social sciences, professions – are having discussions and controversies of their own. We encourage discussion on all of our posts, but in this theme especially, we seek your perspective as experts in your respective disciplines.

Spiritual formation in the academy: How do you nurture your relationship with God and your spiritual life in the midst of the university? Or, put another way, how can one be a Christian in the academy? We’ll be looking at Christian practices, spiritual disciplines, and resources to help you grow closer to Christ.

We also decided to post a Week in Review every Friday, with links to articles, books, and websites that we had been considering.

How have we done? Have we been faithful to our vision last May?

Just staying consistent, though, isn’t enough. (Hobgoblins of little minds and all that.)

Have we overlooked any topics or themes? What issues affecting your life as a Christian in the academy have we neglected? Is there anything that we need to spend less time on or drop altogether?

Leave your thoughts in the comments, or send them directly to me. Thanks!