Integration: My
Pursuit of Coherence and Conviction in Christian University Education
Associate Professor of Biblical Studies & Theology
“Integrating all aspects of
life into one meaningful whole.” I wrote that on the cover of one of my
Journals during my undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia.
I am delighted now to offer a hospitable environment to students who are
working at that same task—discovering ways in which the great diversity of life
finds its centre in Jesus Christ, “in whom all things hold together”
(Colossians 1:17). Christian University Education’s unique gift to students is
to offer a toolbox for learning to think Christianly in a way that has
integrity, that shapes and forms character, and that calls them into a
community that lives toward a vision of health, wholeness, justice and peace
for all creation.
I had a conversation with a
student a few years ago that stands out vividly in my memory. He was lamenting
the fact that his educational experience had fragmented his life. His
experience was not an experience of a university but of a multiversity.
The educational smorgasbord in the university offered him no coherent centre
around which he could find his bearings. University education offers students
the ability to develop critical thinking skills, but seldom provides them with
a way of relating one thing to another. I find that students often find
themselves studying with a fractured understanding of their world. Although
some universities, like McMaster with its motto “All things cohere in Christ,”
began with a unified vision for exploration and discovery of God's good world,
the contemporary pluralistic environment does not allow for discernment of the
web of meaning that draws all things together.
A few years ago the UBC
Chronicle published an article with the heading “Integrated Science, 311:
Science with a Difference.” That article described four new “Integrated
Science” courses that “are interdepartmental courses, designed to develop an
understanding of links between disciplines and their impact on society.” Such
developments in a public university emerge from a growing recognition that
disciplinary boundaries have tended to prevent discovery at the interface
between the disciplines: “The underlying philosophy is that modern science
increasingly is occurring at the interface between the traditional
disciplines.” That is not to say that disciplines do not have their proper
sphere of inquiry; it is to say, however, that cross-disciplinary reflection is
often fruitful and necessary.
One sign of such
cross-disciplinary reflection is the proliferation of methodologies in all
disciplines, including Biblical Studies and Theology. Unfortunately what has
happened in that rush to bring new insights to bear and to hear the voices
(perspectives) of others, is either a failure (or refusal) to communicate with
one another, or the assertion of power and along with that, the putting down of
those deemed less respectable.
If it is indeed true that
Christian University Education assumes a coherent centre of reflection that
brings wisdom to bear on the multiplicity of disciplines and methodologies, it
also stands firmly on the conviction that perspectival and personal knowledge
is part of the web of creation in which we live. If it is true that Christ is
the still point in the multiversity of ideas and ideologies, then it is
possible to craft a university in which students are invited to view all their
learning as the work of discipleship. Theology, literature, psychology,
business, biology-all find their centre in Christ. All hold together not as
separate disciplines, but as arenas in which to discover and experience the
reconciling and transforming wonder of God's presence. Yet each discipline also
contributes to the whole. An holistic approach to education can recognize the
priority of Scripture for Christian formation, for shaping the identity and
mission of the community of Jesus, and for reflecting theologically on life in
the world. But it also recognizes that the interface is fuzzy between what we
do in Scripture study/theological reflection and other areas of exploration.
Not that Mathematics should now replace the Exodus narrative. But we do well to
affirm that the gospel narrative be embodied in and through the weaving of our
lives into an integrated whole (to use the image developed in Steven Garber's
book The Fabric of Faithfulness). Biblical Studies by itself cannot
shape a worldview without participation in the conversations at the interface
of the traditional disciplines.
I am committed to fostering
a holistic spirituality of education that includes at its centre the
discipleship of the mind. It will nourish a relational spirituality of the
heart so that students learn not only to love God, but also to love what they
learn and learn what they love. And it will assume that learning happens best
when one embodies what one learns. As Parker Palmer puts it, “To teach is to
create a space in which obedience to the truth can be practiced” (To Know as
We are Known, p. 69). Education will therefore be an exploration that is
critical, constructive, personal and relational.
I do that task, however, in
a context where we confess certain things as given within a faith community.
That means we have an agenda; we are interested participants in the search for
learning and practicing the truth. We also have a way of operating, which is
committed to dialogue and that eschews violence and power as means of reaching
our goal. I recognize, as the Jewish philosopher Abraham Heschel has said, that
ultimately truth is in search of us. Given that stance, I am committed to four
basic commitments that inform my work.
1.
I am
committed to the unity of all truth, which is rooted in the God of the
universe. I discover myself as I find myself part of God's kingdom, sharing in
the transformation and re-creation that God is involved in through Jesus Christ
and his partners in that joyful prospect.
2.
I am
committed to a process of personal and social transformation and
creation-mending that is based in a vision of peace and justice and that finds
its centre in Jesus Christ, who serves as model, initiator and enabler of the
new reality that God is bringing into being.
3.
I am
committed to the academic task of searching for the truth and doing the truth
within an ongoing community of faith that is rooted in tradition and empowered
by the Spirit to discover more of what it means to be human and to be God's
people in God's world.
4.
I am
committed to the mentoring and pastoral task. I see myself as a coach. I do not
teach simply to transfer information, nor to create technicians of truth, but
to be an agent of transformation and reconciliation that occurs as an act of
God's grace.
A few years ago in a chapel
presentation I invited students to accept for themselves this model of
Christian University Education:
“Education in a Christian
University setting will invite you to explore God's world—to know its beauty,
to wonder at its complexity, to feel its pain, and to long for and work toward
its wholeness. A spirituality for education will include inviting God to shape
your thinking so that your character is formed in keeping with the character of
Jesus, with your passion directed toward the healing and reconciling work of
God in the world. This is a work you share as you are empowered by the Spirit
in community, joyfully transformed for faithful obedience and reconciling
service in the world.”
I have friends who have
become cynical of that enterprise. I am convinced that Christian University
education can offer students an alternative to cynicism: integrity of
character, skills, habits, and vision for a lifetime of reflection and action
that is intellectually coherent and has integrity in every arena of life, that
is rooted in a community of hope, and that is rich with conviction and passion.
Steven Garber's book The Fabric of
Faithfulness says many of the things I have been teaching over the
years. I am convinced, with him, that “the challenge for the contemporary
college student . . . whose creedal commitments are rooted in the possibility
and reality of truth—is to form a worldview that will be coherent across the
whole of life because it addresses the whole of life” (p. 124).
My particular contribution
to that enterprise, as a faculty member in Biblical Studies and Theology, is to
nurture the following in the educational journey with my students:
1.
Developing
a profound understanding of how Scripture functions in the life of the
believing community and in the life of the individual;
2.
Situating
oneself and one’s church tradition in the stream of history and discovering the
strengths and limitations of that tradition;
3.
Inhabiting
the story of God's redemptive work in Israel and in Jesus so that one’s
character is shaped by the contours of the story;
4.
Developing
a conviction that in all of life one seeks to embody the alternative vision of
justice and peace, which will involve restoring and reconciling all
relationships (with God, others, and creation);
5.
Engaging
critically and constructively with all areas of one’s academic endeavour so
that one is able to bring one’s Christian conviction to bear on all things in
the hope that we will (to use images from the Apostle Paul) allow our minds to
be transformed, as we examine everything carefully, thereby discerning how all
things cohere in Christ.