On Alert and On Call: Armed Only with His Mind and His Love

Inspired by a response to  The Urban Resident‘s series on  Christian Personal Statement  and building upon my  conversation  with Mary Poplin regarding  Is Reality Secular? Testing the Assumptions of Four Global Worldviews?  (InterVarsity Press, 2014), I asked Mary to share  a personal statement that describes her calling/vocation as a Christian professor in a secular university.  May you find these words an encouragement as you seek the Lord’s insight in  articulating, bearing the marks  of, embodying the call to be a “little Christ” (i.e.,  an image-bearer of God)  with academics as mission  (i.e., a dialogical mission).^[1]  Thank-you Mary. To God be the glory! ~ Thomas B. Grosh IV, Associate Director, Emerging Scholars Network.

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That your hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. — Colossians 2:2-4

Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience. — 1 Peter 2: 14-16

As a late convert to Christ, it has taken me a long time to get to where I could write a personal statement that describes my call (mind and heart) as a Christian professor in a secular university. Christ has given us His mind so that we may stay alert in our fields to the “plausible [but false] arguments” in the various theories and literature, which we read and assign. There is always some truth in secular theories, but there are also errors of commission and errors of omission. It is my job to introduce students to the widest range of literature on a subject (not just the ones currently in vogue) and help them understand and discern the various principles encoded therein. I also must be prepared to ask questions that will reveal the “plausible [but false] arguments” and suggest there are other ways to look at things.  

For example, as an educator I point out that early constructivists (structualists), like Piaget and Levi-Strauss, believed that the knowledge structures and processes they were studying were universal. Mathematical concepts were universal, and even languages though they differed in outward appearance they encoded similar concepts, for example, familial bonds. These deep structures were not particularistic to individuals, eras, or cultures. Later constructivists (post-structuralists) abandoned this assumption. Contrasting this turn, I point out that scientific truths, like laws of gravity or those that govern plant and animal flourishing, are not seen as subject to human construction and reconstruction. Then we have a lively discussion because this assumption of relativism colors everything in today’s social sciences and humanities. This issue of discerning “plausible arguments” is paramount; there is a great need for Christian faculty in every field and across fields to have opportunities to discern our fields’ assumptions together from a Biblical point of view.

Secondly, every Christian professor is always “on call” like our friends in the medical world. The most unlikely students drop in (or email or text) at the most unlikely and sometimes inconvenient times. So we have to be prepared for the atheist whose father just died, the agnostic who wonders about the demonic, the Christian or non-Christian who is afraid, confused, sad or depressed. Then I am just there to listen and ask if I can pray. Maybe that will be last time I see them and maybe not, I just have to have the hoe, the seed and the water at hand. I am called to respond with HIS love and patience for I am always running a little too low on my own.

Footnotes