1. Honoring God at Work
2. Human Flourishing

AND two audio files

1. Why Aren’t We Flourishing? — Opening Plenary by MaryKate Morse, Professor of Leadership and Spiritual Formation at George Fox University. Time: 35:00
2. Powerful Faith — Seminar presentation by Michael Lindsay, a sociologist at Rice University and the author of Faith in the Halls of Power. The seminar in which Michael Lindsay spoke was entitled Exploring Privilege and Redeeming Power. Time: 1:15:09

After you’ve reflected upon the presentations, take a moment to share some thoughts on fear, power, and faith in higher education.

Are we then only mostly following Christ, or is this a call that is outside the sphere of university ministry? Am I adding a burden that is outside the full gospel, or is wealth simply not on the “radar” of most American Christians?

I ask these questions as I have wrestled with the transition from graduate student in the social sciences (not as rich as engineering or natural science students who actually earn money in the form of stipends for their schooling, yet not as poor as the language and literature students who have fewer scholarships available to them) to new professor making more than three times more money. I neither want to let money concerns be the guiding force in my life (such that I fail to cultivate campus friendships because many faculty socialize by eating out) nor do I want thoughtlessly settle into a middle class trajectory that does not question my use of money any more than it questions how I value time or energy.

What worried me at the conference was that we are very comfortable discussing issues of the correct philosophy or theology or intellectual approach to problems (after all we are intellectuals!) but I find myself much less comfortable delving into issues of money. That discomfort leads me to ask whether there is a stronghold of power and status that I am unwilling to relinquish.

Such questions have been strengthened in reading Day Ahead speaker Mary Poplin’s Finding Calcutta. Mother Teresa emphasized that full obedience to Christ, including living at the poverty level of poor Indians, leads to full freedom to follow Him wherever He leads. As American Christians, I would guess that we consume at the same level as our non-Christian friends, buying as much stuff, traveling as frequently to far-off vacations, and eating out at restaurants as often as others do. As American Christian academics, we do not seem to wrestle with the easy position of status and wealth accorded us.

What am I suggesting then?

Mother Teresa herself was not against enjoyment of all the fine things God has made available. A friend told me a story of Mother Teresa’s reaction to a young couple that planned to spend $500 on an evening of dinner and music. “Shouldn’t they give that money to the poor?” was the question put to Mother Teresa. No, but they should remember the poor, replied Mother Teresa, and give money (an equal sum?) as well to the poor as part of the night’s celebration. (How much richer the evening’s enjoyment might be, knowing that others are also being blessed at the same time!)

Mother Teresa was not advocating punishment or self-denial for its own sake. But I am suggesting that we raise questions about (and consider thoughtful alternatives to) how we use the money we’ve been given to steward. As another friend said, denying ourselves should occur because we want to experience more of Jesus, not because we want to fashion crosses for ourselves that the Lord has not asked us to carry.

If we are to deny ourselves materially (by living below far below our means or by giving away much of our income), the promise of Christian community is that we can share in the excitement and support each other in the struggle to live out a counter-cultural call to simplicity and sacrifice. Such denial is difficult, maybe impossible, to do alone but it is certainly less fun than if we share in the journey together.

Are these irrelevant objections, or are we only mostly following Christ?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

Carsten just started teaching as an assistant professor in political science at Loyola College in Maryland. Born in Denmark, Carsten became a Christian while teaching English in China and then volunteered with Peace Corps in the jungles of Suriname. He just finished his PhD thesis on the politics of Protestantism in contemporary China at the University of California, Berkeley, where he served on the leadership team of the local graduate Christian fellowship. Now he attends Faith Christian Fellowship in Baltimore and is asking questions about following Christ in terms of power, race, and class.

Welcome, Carsten!

In order for my wife and I to both serve as members of Following Christ’s intercessory prayer team, we’ve spent months ironing out travel details.  The most complicated involved arranging the best possible airline scenerio for flying with our six month old and accommodating our other three kids while we’re gone.  Several days ago we started focusing upon care-giver confirmations (along with notes of instruction), laundry, packing, wrapping up our simple Christmas plans, and year end tasks.

How does one maintain a proper conference rhythm?  A couple starter thoughts, please share some from your perspective as a participant, planner, speaker, etc. …

1. What a blessing to have InterVarsity’s Black Student Leadership Conference, Following Christ 08, National Staff Conference, and Urbana Student Missions Convention as one year closes and a new one dawns.  Why?  Because they’re preceded by Advent/Christmas and the conferences remind delegates to live every day in the Reality of the Person, Work, and Kingdom of Jesus the Christ.   But no matter the time of year or the direction of the conference (sacred, secular, or a mix of the two), I begin by offering the conference and my participation to God the Father as an act of worship.  In prayer, I seek the direction of His Word, Spirit, and people as I prepare, participate, and take next steps. 
2. Recognizing the significant energy expenditure of the upcoming conference, I’m scheduling some time for rest before, during, at, and afterward.
3. I’m praying through my travel and conference schedule to discern must attend versus optional sessions/activities so that I don’t overdo it.  Why?  My wife and daughter are coming with me and cannot become dwarfed by attractive optional sessions/activities.  In addition, it has been my conference experience to spend significant time picking up unfinished conversations left from previous conferences and communications.  As such, I’m arranging must have appointments ahead of time and scheduling open blocks of time for picking up these conversations.
4. I’m packing some material which I find restful and/or stress reducing, particularly for the delays which I anticipate and praise God for when He answers my prayers to have them pass over me.   Where’s my stress ball to go along with my book, letters to read/respond to, and magazine?
5. Before my feet touch the floor at 3:45 am on 12/27 to begin travel, I’ll offer the day to the Lord and ask for his palpable Presence each step of the way throughout conversations, meals, and presentations.  I’ll do such each day of the conference and wrap-up each day offering all that has gone before to Him and asking forgiveness for when I have not followed His way, i.e., sinned.
6. I ask friends and family to pray for me while I’m at these unique and challenging settings which offer novel possibilities for both growth and temptation.  If you’re joining us at Following Christ 08, I’d encourage you to do likewise.  In addition, I’d encourage you to set aside time to visit the prayer room and receive prayer (information will be available on-site). 

This is the day the LORD has made;
       let us rejoice and be glad in it.  — Psalm 118:24