Archive for the ‘fc08’ tag
Do You Pray Before Class?
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
Which conferences do you love to attend?
Today, just a quick question for the ESN community:
Which conferences do you love to attend?
No boundaries on type – they can be Christian, secular, academic, church-related, artistic, theological, national, local, whatever.
Or, if you’re the aspirational sort, which conferences would you love to attend if you could? In a mere coincidence, but TEDGlobal2009 is taking place this week in Oxford. Check out their theme: “The Substance of Things Not Seen.” Wow. Check out the speakers.
Above, in honor of the moon landing, George Smoot’s 2008 TED talk on “the design of the universe.”
Week in Review
[Editor's note: This is a new weekly feature from your blog contributors. Each week, we'll be posting articles, books, news, etc., that Tom, Mike, and the ESN community have been pondering. If you have a book or article you'd like us to add to next week's Review, add it in the comments or send it to either Mike or Tom. Thanks!]
After Accepting Students, NYU Asks Them: Are We Too Costly for You? (Chronicle of Higher Education, $) – NYU is asking admitted students to consider whether they can truly afford to attend.
Not Moving On Up – The MLA’s new report (Standing Still) finds that women are promoted to full professor at a slower rate than men, and that pregnancy and childrearing may not have much to do with the trend.
Following Christ 2008 track audios: Lots of good material! Join Tom in digging in, discussing, and passing along to those with interest.
Pastor and Scholar: John Piper and D.A. Carson recently spoke together on the topics “The Pastor as Scholar” (Piper) and “The Scholar as Pastor” (Carson) at an event sponsored by TEDS. They mostly focused on theological/seminary scholarship, but lots of good stuff about vocation, the integration of faith, life, and learning, and personal experiences. Audio, video, and manuscripts are available for download.
Do you need a PhD to teach in higher education? Rob Jenkins doesn’t think so.
Tech Stuff
Amazon releases the Kindle DX
Omeka – A new open-source project for online archives, scholarly websites, and other “complex narratives.” (HT: Dan Cohen)
Free Amazon Web Services for Academics – Mike has no idea what this actually means, but he’s sure it will be useful to someone. (HT: MacWorld)
Books
Your Mind Matters by John Stott. In June, we’re going to begin an on-line discussion series of this 93 page classic introduction to Christian thinking. In order to be prepared, Tom once again picked up his heavily notated edition. If you don’t already have a copy of Your Mind Matters, borrow one from your InterVarsity staff or order one with your Emerging Scholars Network discount for InterVarsity Press. More details tba ;-)
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive & Others Die by Chip & Dan Heath (HT: Mike). In the first chapter, Tom’s most impressed with Commander’s Intent, what he summarizes as the compact, core idea which guides good decision making in the field as one’s best laid plans unwind in the midst of the daily grind. Love this quote, “No plan survives contact with the enemy. No doubt this principle has resonance for people who have no military experience whatsoever. No sales plan survives contact with the customer. No lesson plan survives contact with teenagers” (p.27, italics in original text).
Reaching the Campus Tribes by Benson Hines is a free on-line book exploring campus ministry in the USA (HT: The IVY Jungle Network Campus Ministry April 2009 Update). Tom encourages you to take the time to download, skim, enjoy the pics, and share your thoughts. He’s posted some initial reflections here and more here.
Validation
Statement: (Y)ou are great. You are amazing!
Response: No one has ever said that about me before.
Some lines from the short film Validation (16:23). Have you watched it? Some reflections below.
The Brand New ESN Discussion Forum, w/ Poll
To facilitate online conversation and follow-up conversation from Following Christ 2008, I’ve set up a new online discussion forum – forum.emergingscholars.org. It’s blank currently, but we hope you’ll join us there to continue the great conversations started at FC08 or on your campus.
One of the concerns that has been raised has been the public nature of online conversations. I’ve heard from a few people that they have issues or questions that they would rather not have out in the open. On the other hand, limited the accessibility of the forum creates a barrier to participation. So, I’d like to hear what you think.
Loading ...Do you have other thoughts about the forum? Let me know, either by email or in the comments.
Human Flourishing in the Church and the World
As part of my work at Following Christ 2008, I had the privilege of assisting the Humanities track, chaired by Michael Murray and Dora Rice Hawthorne, and joined by Mark Noll of Notre Dame, Hal Bush of St. Louis U., and Paul Moser of Loyola U. Chicago. The final session of the track addressed the question “How Can We Be Agents of Human Flourishing in the Church and the World?” Michael Murray identified three threats to Christian scholars that hinder their role to the church and the world: specialization, fear of “popularizing,” and fear of being “outed.” He also offered thoughts about how to counter these. Read the rest of this entry »
Following Christ 08 resources coming on-line
On InterVarsity’s main website, one can find two articles
AND two audio files
- Why Aren’t We Flourishing? — Opening Plenary by MaryKate Morse, Professor of Leadership and Spiritual Formation at George Fox University. Time: 35:00
- 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.
Following Christ mostly, or misplaced objections
Listening to the Day Ahead speakers, it occurred to me that we were focusing mostly on sacrificing time, energy, even the privacy of homes as professors who seek to serve students, but I heard little about issues of wealth. Jesus of course spoke over and over about issues of money but these concerns did not find a place at FC08 alongside stewardship and sacrificial usage of the other resources with which God has blessed us.
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?
Evangelism and caution in the professor-student relationship?
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.
Following Christ 08 – Day 2
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.
