INNER STRENGTH & OUTWARD THRUST: REVISITING A CALL FOR RELEVANCE * MARTIN W. BUSH * Co-Editor, Faculty Dialogue This issue of the journal is unusual, if not unique. It carries within its covers the finalists' articles from the second Ted Ward Writing Award contest on "The Christian Mission in Higher Education," and the winning paper from the initial Howard Vollum Writing Award on "Horizons of Science and the Christian Faith." The Institute has sought endowed funding for several writing awards named in honor of people whose professional careers and personal lives have provided examples and challenges to spiritual development, intellectual growth, and a commitment to work for positive change in the social environment. The first award, funded by Mrs. Evelyn Egtvedt, on the general topic of "The Christian Mission in Higher Education," was named in honor of Faculty Dialogue's co-editor, Ted Ward. Dr. Ward has had a profound impact on the lives of innumerable students who have had the good fortune to sit under his teaching in the doctoral program in higher education at Michigan State University, and, more recently, during his tenure at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, as well as on those who have called him colleague and friend. His life has demonstrated consistently a finely focused concern, working tirelessly in foreign countries on educational projects, as well as finding time to assist the Christian college, seminary and Bible school communities in the United States. His significant efforts abroad earned him a rare honor from the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation (Sweden) for his service to Third World development. Dr. Ward's article in this issue of the journal is illustrative of his ongoing concern that Christian educational communities take seriously not only the scholastic portion of their mission-the tasks of keeping school-but also the relational imperatives that should most clearly differentiate institutions which identify themselves as Christian from those which do not: "To teach people to enter into the ministry of reconciliation is not an option for higher education that calls itself Christian." The second writing award program, funded by Mr. James B. Castles, on the general topic of "Horizons of Science and the Christian Faith," was named in honor of Mr. Howard Vollum, one of the founders of Tektronix, Inc. Throughout his professional life, Mr. Vollum demonstrated a clear and protracted commitment to intellectual excellence, helping guide his company to leadership in a competitive and dynamic high technology industry. His legacy continued after his death, when his considerable estate was dispersed in multi-million dollar block grants mainly to educational institutions. The Institute is very proud to announce the winners of the two awards. Each award endowment provides for a $1,000 prize for the selected papers. Dr. Brian J. Walsh, and Dr. Stephen Dempster have been selected as co-winners of the second Ted Ward Writing Award for their respective articles "Worldviews, Modernity and the Task of Christian College Education," and "Knowledge for What? Recovering the Lost Soul of Higher Education in the West." Dr. Walsh is senior member in worldview studies at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, Ontario, and Dr. Dempster is associate professor of biblical studies at Atlantic Baptist College, in Moncton, New Brunswick. Dr. Joseph Ricke, associate professor of English at Huntington College in Huntington, Indiana, was the other finalist, with his article "The Great Commission and the Mission of Christian Higher Education." Ms. Jean L. Bertelsen Pond, instructor of biology at Whitworth College, in Spokane, Washington, has been selected as the first recipient of the Howard Vollum Writing Award, for her article, "Catholic Frogs." This issue is also unusual in a second manner. It is apparent in several of the articles that there is an underlying unease in their authors concerning the status of Christian higher education. Drs. Walsh, Dempster, and Ricke all reflect a recognition that business as usual is not a viable option. Dr. Ward goes a step further, adumbrating a kind of ultimate "final examination" which provides benchmarks for institutional success over the next decade or so. Each of these authors illustrates in different ways a recognition that given the impressive edifice erected by modern science and the social sciences in helping us better understand and guide the mechanical aspects of human life, there is, even among many of today's social architects, a sometimes reluctant admission of a growing sense of futility. Certainly, work on the edifice continues but the cracks appearing in the foundation and the walls are intrusive enough that, among other problems, ethnic and ideological hatreds and violence are once again spilling from perennial hotspots in foreign countries into such "civilized" communities as Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, and Portland. The ineffectiveness of Pragmatism/Utilitarianism as the foundation for society has been amply demonstrated. Reductionistic rationalism cannot remedy the great emptiness experienced by this generation of college and high school students, and many of their parents, whose senses of proportion and justice often fail to include any recognition of personal behavioral consequences. A parallel tendency to blur the individual trees in order to see the entire forest also presents a danger. The point of the parable of the good Samaritan should not be lost on us here. The passage dealt in specifics, rather than generalities. Just as "a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho..." we live and work in specific places with specific people who have specific, often devastating, events happen in their lives. Quite often we are moved and excited to action by the dilemmas of people in far-away places--the numerous hungry in Africa, the ethnic violence in the Baltics, the civil rights violations in South Africa (all egregious problems that require concerted attention and action)--and yet do absolutely nothing practical and personal for those around us who need our help. Our activities are frequently by financial proxy, rather than personal--for groups or classes of people, rather than individuals. By way of contrast, Jesus never spoke of humanity, but of "your brethren." Christian institutions of higher education have a difficult task. Many have defined them as institutions which provide the academic instruction found in the secular institutions, but with the added benefit of a Christian environment and Christian teachers--something like "we're just the same, but better." Perhaps a preferred way to identify the Christian college might be as ones which provide true alternatives which demonstrate by example how to speak to the emptiness in the lives and souls of those around us rather than to continue to participate fully in a society which increasingly defends amorality as the norm and any defined morality as repressive and unnatural. As Dr. Ward notes, a Christian institutional and personal response to the increasing fragmentation in society may be best demonstrated by exhibiting and teaching reconciliation to a world thusly torn. Whereas polarization and division are growing as tactics used by both right and left to win popular discussions on ballot issues and behavioral norms, reconciliation thereby becomes the watchword of the truly Christian institution. From its inception, the Institute for Christian Leadership has taken as one of its primary goals the development of cooperation between Christian institutions of whatever theological stripe; making a concommitant assumption that institutions reconciled on points of agreement could be measurably strengthened through this cooperation. This belief has been repeatedly affirmed, and the ICL heartily endorses Dr. Ward's closing statement that "Well served by appropriate education, Christians can become a leading component of society, recognized for relevancy and strength for the difficult days ahead. But it will have to be on God's terms."