Becoming People of the Third Way

This article first appeared in Campus Calling, InterVarsity’s Faculty Ministry monthly newsletter and is reposted here by permission. This represents my parting thoughts and hopes as outgoing ESN Director for Christian presence in academia.

I suspect I’m not alone in feeling left out of many of the discussions going on in our various public squares—political or academic. Often, it seems only two options are on offer, neither of which I can fully embrace. And it feels like the embrace of the one is to join a “side” against others who become more than someone with whom I disagree. They become enemies. And not enemies I seek to love as the gospel would bid me. They are people who we pigeonhole and demonize.

A new book by Shirley A. Mullen, Claiming the Courageous Middle[1] has provoked me afresh to think about the possibilities of the middle as one of those who pursues a third way between our reductionistic binaries. Mullen, formerly president of Houghton College, found herself in many situations where she was asked to take sides where she felt there were not simple right or wrong choices. It took courage, but on these, she chose to claim the middle, seeking, not compromise, but better answers.

I believe this idea of the courageous middle or becoming people of the third way fits hand and glove with our calling as Christian academics:

• Knowing our finiteness and fallenness, we are people committed to intellectual humility, knowing the One who is True but aware of our own limited grasp of that truth.
• Our commitment to the dignity of persons restrains us from demonizing those who share with us the imago dei. Believing that all are of value, we look for the God-given longings, insights, and contributions of all people that must be present in good resolutions that serve the common good.
• As observers of the golden rule, we are those who choose to afford those who disagree with us the attentive hearing we ourselves want.
• Having been reconciled to God and to others through Christ, we pursue peacemaking rather than adversarial relationships.

Mary Simpson Poplin, Senior Research Fellow and Professor Emerita at the School of Educational Studies of Claremont Graduate Universities gave a seminar in the College of Education at The Ohio State University that I was privileged to attend. She described a challenge her School, known for its emphasis on social justice, was facing. Public schools who hired their graduates had a problem. While minority students experienced inclusion, their academic performance was not meeting testing standards. The schools were refusing to hire more of their graduates. The temptation was strong to defend the School’s curriculum and to rail against standardized testing, resulting in an impasse. Mary had been struck with how many times she encountered the biblical injunction “Do not turn to your left or to your right.” As she thought about what that could mean in this situation, she decided to collaborate with a colleague to fashion an approach to effective teaching that strengthened content preparation while maintaining the School’s commitment to social justice, improving student performance in multiethnic school systems. All because Mary Poplin dared to claim the courageous middle and propose a third way.

As you can see, choosing the third way is not one of wishy-washy compromise. Often one runs the risk of attack from both ‘sides.’ Yet in our fraught times, the choice is between ratcheting up conflict, with gloating winners and losers seeking payback and taking risks to promote greater understanding, better solutions that serve the common good, that are win-win. And sometimes, because we come at questions from a different place, we may be able to reframe discussions.

Might there be ways the Lord could be inviting you to pursue the third way and step into the courageous middle? Might that be through the readings you choose, the discussions you have in classes and the assignments you give? What role will you take when departmental conflicts arise? How will you counsel a student group you advise when they want to engage in advocacy around a politically fraught issue?

You might wonder what this means for voting when there may be only two choices. The best I know is to gather information and make the best choice you can, hopefully for people of character who have shown commitments to the common good. But also realize that that decision doesn’t commit you to a side, an us versus them polemic. It helps me to think that both before and after that vote, we are citizens in the same boat seeking what we think is the good society.

Might God be calling us to live as people of the third way, in the pursuit of societal concord instead of discord? The alternatives are not pleasant. Civil conflict. Political violence. Chaos and anarchy or autocracy. It can happen here and this realization should be driving us to our knees. Instead of huddling on the sidelines or in “enlightened” Christian enclaves, might it be time to claim the courageous middle of the third way with our neighbors, students, and colleagues? We have no assurance of the outcome. But will we be found faithful in such a time as this?

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[1] Shirley A. Mullen, Claiming the Courageous Middle (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2024. A review of the book may be accessed at my blog: https://bobonbooks.com/2024/07/19/review-claiming-the-courageous-middle/