THE GREAT COMMISSION AND THE MISSION OF CHRISTIAN HIGHER EDUCATION + JOSEPH M. RICKE + Associate Professor of English Huntington College Why does the Christian college exist? What purpose has it served in the past; what purpose can and should it serve in the future? How are our schools different, not just in performance but in motivation, from other colleges? Certainly there is no one absolute answer we can give to such broad questions. But all of us-teachers, students, supporters, alumni, denominational leaders, as well as the Ted Wards of this world, who just can't seem to keep themselves out of everyone else's business-should continue to reflect on who we are and what we should be. And that means we should continue to refine our institutions and ourselves in the direction of an ideal. Because we are a biblical people, I argue that we should find that ideal in the Scriptures.1 My main contention in this essay is that, because the Christian college exists as part of the Christian church and because, in the terminology of the Apostle Paul, we exist as one part of the body of Christ, our service is always service in support of the great work to which that body has been called in this world. It follows then that the mission or purpose of a Christian institution of higher education must flow directly from the Christian mission itself. And I mean nothing fancy 1 or vague (or vogue) by "the Christian mission." I mean the mission of the church, stated in those words of Jesus we usually call the Great Commission, and expressed in what we usually call missions, missionary movements, and missionary advance. Yes, we need to be developing the potential of young men and women. Yes, we need to assist people in integrating their faith with knowledge and with the real world. Yes, let's be honest about at least some of our students' and parents' primary concerns: we need a place where young men and women of like-minded faith can find spouses of Christian commitment. And there are, I'm sure, biblical bases for all of these purposes. But the one, clearest, absolute goal of the church is "to make disciples of all nations." If the name Christian in Christian college refers to a college's link with the Christian church and its mission (a description not applying to every "church-related college"), then we are called to interpret and apply that mission to our meaning for existence. The seeming narrowness of this position, of course, raises many questions and provokes certain standard reactions. Jacobsen and Jacobsen, for example (in "College, Community, Atheism, and Ethics," p. 69), argue that the Christian college must serve the church, but not, somehow, take part in the mission of the church: It is not the task of the Christian college directly to organize itself in mission to the world-that is the task of the church. Within that 2 larger task the Christian college serves an only subsidiary and limited role [emphasis mine]-to serve the church.2 What part of the body of Christ, we might ask, plays more than an "only subsidiary and limited role?" The same article later uses a similar rhetorical move to imply, without real discussion or proof, that linking the mission of the college with the mission of the church is too narrow, too limiting for the college. "Rather than functioning as merely supportive [emphasis mine] organizations for the church, Christian colleges are on the frontline of Christian interaction [implying that the church is not?] with the world" (p. 70).3 When and where, though, do we find the truly Christian college existing, whether on the frontlines or in an ivory tower, and find it to be something other than part of the church? Quite simply, never and nowhere. And when do we ever find the church, phenomenologically speaking, except in its parts? The Christian college's essential existence is always as part of the body of Christ; it may be a peculiar, even bohemian, member of the body, but it is never more or less than that. "But what about the integration of faith and learning, the formation of a Christian worldview, the cultural mandate, the task of helping people be all that they can be?" my detractors (straw men and women all) shout. Loudly, but in a more sanctified manner, I shout back, "How well have we integrated our faith with our learning if we keep defining what we do in terms of learning and not the clear command put on the followers of the faith?" As Donald H. 3 Wacome rightly points out: It is worthwhile to reflect on the fact that we so often feel compelled to contend for, and worry about, the integration of faith and learning, and that this seems so often to be something we are still talking about, not something we have been doing all along. . . . That the integration of our Christian faith and our academic pursuits can appear to be inherently problematic might at least suggest that something is amiss in the way we conceive our Christian faith.4 And given that the development of a worldview is obviously a lifetime work (I am now musing not shouting), not one that we somehow complete in a college course of study, isn't it possible that we often use the development-of-a-worldview argument as a rationalization for not doing more with some of the clear implications of the bare-bones of that worldview-such as feeding the hungry, evangelizing the lost, and fighting injustice (and urging our students to do the same)? Our continual pursuit of an elusive, fully developed worldview at the cost of our noninvolvement in a world that is self-destructing is an irony that the Jesus of the sheep and goats parable can appreciate and perhaps weep over. Although he and I might very well disagree as to what exactly a "shalom" model of education should look like as opposed to (or held in tension with) a Christian humanist model, Nicholas Wolterstorff, in "Teaching for Justice,"5 rightly argues against a view of Christian education that continually turns in upon itself, always ultimately defining the goal of liberal learning as being liberally learned. And what of the cultural mandate? Was this given to the church or to humanity at large? The latter, I would 4 argue. As the voice of the redeemed, we, of course, have a major role to play; but putting the Creator's command to be good gardeners, given to all humanity, on equal footing with the clarity of the Great Commission is an attempt, at least some of the time, to skirt the shame found in preaching the foolishness of the cross. From another perspective, it reveals the Reformed insistence on foregrounding Genesis in its reading of the New Testament instead of letting the New structure our reading of the Old. As Wacome argues, "this approach relegates Christ [and the gospel] to a conceptually secondary role. . . . We need to understand God as creator [and understand/subdue His creation] through understanding God in Christ."6 It continually surprises a naive literalist like myself that, despite the centrality of the Great Commission on the self-definition of the church, it has little place in the mission statements of Christian colleges or in the current debate about what constitutes a truly Christian higher education.7 I am arguing that the "Christian Mission in Higher Education" must always be formulated and applied in light of the mission of the Church, which is "making disciples of all nations." Before my tenure committee meets, let me momentarily digress to emphasize that by linking the Christian mission in higher education to the Great Commission, I am not supporting a formula that judges the Christian college solely or even primarily on the number of missionary candidates and pastors it produces, nor on the 5 quantifiable evangelistic results of its student missions teams. This is something like the traditional view of the Bible College Movement.8 In my own denomination, the Christian and Missionary Alliance (I am a member not the owner of this denomination), for example, much debate and disagreement has occurred over the purposes of these institutions. The denomination directly sponsors four U.S. schools-two liberal arts colleges, one Bible college, and one seminary. Many in the denomination judge these institutions' success or failure on the basis of the number of ministry and missiology majors they graduate. That looks great for the seminary which by definition graduates only ministry majors or for the Bible college which redefines every major to call it a ministry of some sort (the education major, for example, is said to prepare people to teach in church-related schools; hence, the education major is considered a ministry major). But this view is rough on liberal arts colleges which for several years have had a greatly reduced number of pastoral and missionary majors. Although I do intend to be rough on Christian liberal arts colleges, I refuse to brow beat them for this particular reason. They should not be Bible colleges nor seminaries. In fact, I believe they may have (but not necessarily, depending on other things such as faithfulness) a better chance of helping the church fulfill the Great Commission than the other two kinds of institutions, even though the liberal arts college may not 6 mention the Great Commission in its mission statement and the other two types of schools may. But if the Great Commission is so important to the Christian college, why not judge our success based on the number of pastors and missionaries we produce? First, because most pastoral and missionary candidates must attend seminary anyway. It is poor stewardship for most of them to major in professional ministry at the undergraduate level. A pre-seminary pseudo-seminary course of study would be redundant and overly narrow. Why not encourage many of our young people who are going on to seminary to broaden their horizons in ways that ultimately will make them better able to "be all things to all people" as the broadly educated Apostle Paul was. Certainly the church needs well-equipped ministers, but I see no evidence to suggest that pouring all of its educational energy and resources into a narrowly conceived training program for ministers will provide the church with the kind of return it hopes for from its educational institutions, even if we did make the Great Commission the basis for evaluation of our success. I've known many well-trained but undershaped ministers who have been undermining the ultimate mission of the church; they simply cannot understand their own or any other culture, much less truly evangelize either. In his Secular Challenges to the Contemporary Church, John Stott paints a picture of the kind of person needed to understand and to earn a hearing from our post-modern 7 culture. Few of the attributes seem, to me, to flow from a Bible college or seminary education (I hope I am wrong). His obvious appreciation for and use of the films of Woody Allen, for example, to depict modern humanity's quest for community in a fragmented world fulfills his own exhortation of "listen attentively to the voices of secular society" or run the risk of "being totally irrelevant."9 I'm not trying to be a pastor-basher here; I'm simply saying that turning out more and more of a particular kind of worker is not what I have in mind when I say that education's mission is the mission of the church. Leland Ryken effectively argues for the value of a Christian liberal education by contrasting the liberally learned citizen with the "technician".10 Although he is primarily addressing the need for broadly educated preachers, the Puritan view of liberal education for preachers needs to be qualified by the practical reality that the clergy will never be able to do what tentmakers and mechanics can do. His Puritan emphasis on education for the clergy also needs to be qualified by a more radical Reformation view that deconstructs the distance between clergy and laity. Furthermore, recent church history reveals that ministers are wonderfully capable of working against the mission of the church, especially if they have national television programs (perhaps an argument against Communications majors and in favor of English majors?). This argument from utility is matched by a more compelling argument from theology, anticipated in my 8 critique of Ryken. Quite simply, I see no absolute "theological connection" (there is at times a practical one) between training ministers and missionaries and the Great Commission of the church. If the Great Commission were intended primarily for professional clergy, I would of course argue that we should focus most of our energy preparing professional clergy. But in light of the New Testament concept of the priesthood of believers and the theological truth, stated most clearly in the letter to the Ephesians, that pastors, teachers, evangelists, and such (what we mistakenly call "ministers") are given to prepare all of God's people (those people apparently not called to be pastors, teachers, evangelists, etc.) for the work of ministry, it is bad theology to make too much out of the role of pastors and missionaries in fulfilling the Great Commission.11 Let me voice this heresy in a less painful way. The Christian Church, and not just the Roman Catholic Church which we often criticize for its emphatic distinction between clergy and laity, has underemphasized the role of businessmen, secular teachers, housewives, doctors, bricklayers, carpenters, farmers, secretaries, scientists, and symphony orchestra conductors in fulfilling the Great Commission. If the Great Commission were intended primarily for professional clergy, then we really shouldn't spend our energy, time and money on doing anything else but training and supporting professional clergy. But it isn't and we 9 should. As Barnette writes, "The New Testament teaches nothing of a Christian who is not at the same time a minister. . . . There is, therefore, no basic distinction between "clergy" and "laity."12 Understand me, then, dear reader. When I argue for finding the mission of Christian higher education in the Great Commission, I am not arguing for the old Bible college system in which the college primarily gives training in Greek, homiletics, Bible, and perhaps anthropology (for missionaries). But neither would I argue for the angelic perfection of the traditional "liberal arts" approach just because John Henry Newman liked it. The liberal arts tradition, John Henry Newman-even Westmont College-must be scrutinized from a Great Commission perspective because, above all else, the Christian mission in higher education must flow from the Christian mission. Back, then, to the central point. How, specifically, do we get from the Great Commission to the Christian mission in higher education. I have extracted three pithy phrases to help structure and, if I am lucky, perhaps even control your thought. The Great Commission calls disciples to be international, to be theological (especially to do theology from a historical perspective), and to be hopeful. Christian colleges must have an international vision (going into all the world). They must exist, above all else, to produce theologically reflective Christians (how else can we know and understand-and finally, teach-all things he 10 commanded?), and should exhibit a spirit of hopefulness (for he is with us always). First, Christian higher education should be international, pluralistic, and cross-cultural. Although I realize that these three terms are not exactly parallel, I am using the whole cluster to refer to a particular orientation I believe Christian colleges should have-one that is more open to differences of race, nation, and culture than we have been traditionally. Christ instructed his disciples to "Go into all the world, making disciples (or practicing students of Jesus) of all nations/people." This was not just a stirring command; it was the mission statement of the church; in it there is a task for the educational limb of Christ's body. We would do well to analyze current efforts in Christian higher education in the light of twenty centuries of worldwide Christian education and not constantly from the tired old perspective of how different we are or aren't from American secular institutions. How can we as Christian educators go into all the world? We usually begin by assuming we should recruit more international students. I would say we should but that more is needed. We should also look for the subject of our study and even the method of study (educational theory) outside our own cultural context. We must remember that Christian education is not solely or even primarily an American or European concern. To our detriment, we know too little of 11 the church's attempts to express itself educationally throughout the rest of the world and the rest of history. What are the educational practices of the house churches of the People's Republic of China? How are Protestant pastors trained in the repressive climate of Marxist-Leninist Cuba? (I had to think for awhile to come up with a good example of repressive Marxist-Leninism in 1992.) In what ways is meaningful Christian higher education going on outside "Christian colleges" as the church in England relates to the thousands of bright, committed young Christians who participate in the Oxford and Cambridge Christian Unions? Is the concept of an evangelical Christian liberal arts college an American-only reality? If so, why? Is it because we have discovered the truth that the rest of the world lacks, or is it perhaps because of certain limitations in our perspectives which we have hardened into a monolithic absolute? To embody this aspect of the Great Commission in our educational ministry, we must ask questions of and learn from the educational practices of the worldwide church, not assuming that American Christian liberal arts colleges, or the university according to John Henry Newman is the final word on Christian higher education. John Schneider's exciting recent essay about the love of life required of great scholars is limited in its usefulness by its confusion of the Western (specifically Dutch Reformed by way of Calvin College) view of education with "true education."13 Thus, 12 for his purposes, the Christian college is fulfilling its mission if its scholars love their disciplines with a broad enough spirit to receive secular recognition for their contributions to their disciplines. He idealizes those who "held the Kuyperian vision in a disposition of love for their disciplines, and [who] grew to a stature in their fields that was noticed and acknowledged by the great non-Christian communities."14 Not only the institution of "Christian higher education" but individual teachers, as well, must be challenged to think internationally. Part of the "Christian Mission in Higher Education" is to understand our role in a universal, international community and work. What I teach in the classroom has some effect on how my brothers and sisters in Burkina Faso carry out their part of our common mission. How? Perhaps by sensitizing my students to the racism experienced by people of color around the world, they will someday welcome African peoples into their own congregations. Perhaps African-American or African students in my classroom will begin to see that indeed the church is truly committed to them, to their concerns, to learning from them. Perhaps by my stressing the great literature of the East or by taking students to a special museum exhibition of Eastern art, my students will begin to really believe that all people were created in the image of God and are worth our concern, prayer, and ministry. Perhaps for the same reason, students will begin to understand that missions is 13 more than grass huts and pith helmets but also includes understanding and sensitivity to the values of the culture and heritage of the world's great peoples among whom, with God's guidance, these students may cultivate special concerns. Perhaps by teaching them about the colonial subtext controlling Shakespeare's The Tempest, my students will consider working against the economic injustices of our present world order, even in our world order's art "industry" (and of all fallen world orders), thus bringing glory to the name of Christ when people of other cultures see their good works and glorify him. And of course, as teachers we must scrutinize not only our content but our pedagogy. A good example of the use of a model from another culture to reorient our theory and practice of teaching may be found in Keith R. Anderson's essay, "The Ancient Hebrew Faith as a Model for Teaching." In it he asks us to consider the differences a Hebrew (as opposed to an Athenian) ideal of teaching would have in our relationships and work as teachers. Teachers, Anderson argues, can learn much from thinking of themselves as Hebrew parents, responsible for orienting the lives of their students/children/disciples.15 Could we not learn from a great number of other educational models currently and historically practiced around the world outside the traditional academy? Of course such variety, such models, are not to be sought only in an international context. "Minorities" are 14 increasingly becoming the majority in major urban areas and institutions (such as public education). If our predominantly white, middle-class evangelical colleges openly respond to this enormous mission field, it will not mean just a new body of students but new kinds of students. It should mean, with all the difficulties yet rewards inherent in such experiences, new kinds of teaching, new kinds of chapel sessions, and new kinds of campus living. Unfortunately, it is not yet clear that our colleges are very interested in reaching this section of "all the world." As Alvaro L. Nieves pointed out, "Obviously [Christian] Coalition colleges lag behind the rest of the nation in enrolling minorities."16 Despite the problems he revealed in awareness and sensitivity to minority concerns, Nieves' 1987 essay was essentially optimistic in tone. He hopefully proclaimed that although "the need for improvement is great, . . . evangelical colleges have the resources and the ability to take some modest but practical steps to attract and effectively serve minorities in ways especially appropriate to their evangelical educational mission."17 A recent Christianity Today article, however, reveals that, in the words of its title, there have been "few gains for minorities" in the five years since Nieves' essay.18 The specific practices of specific teachers will never, of course, be enough. The Christian college must think internationally when devising and revising its curricula. We must be part of the great debate raging in our country 15 about internationalizing the curriculum, widening the core to include multi-cultural perspectives, and the like. We must think hard and long about whether we should require students to learn about Chinese history not just Western history or to read the Autobiography of Malcolm X not just the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. At the very least, the curricular retreat from second language requirements must be held up to a careful scrutiny. Members of the one, holy, catholic faith should not need Stanford University to tell us about the need for international pluralistic perspectives in education. You might say that in our desire to understand the church in time-its history, we have too often neglected the church in space-its cultural variety. We have neglected the international church and international concerns in our American Christian colleges. Only those who long to see the church return to a day of Western-dominated values and practices will stand in the way of, at the least, reviewing and critiquing our present educational practices from a broader worldwide view. I am the wariest of the wary when it comes to educational clichés and trendy curricular changes. The commission given to Christian higher education, however, demands that we go into all the world both to understand what it is we should be teaching and to learn how it is that we should teach. What are some practical ways of working towards being an "all the world" kind of college? One obvious way is by 16 having a strong missionary presence on campus. It may be even more important, in this day and age, to have a strong international presence. Kudos to the Christian College Coalition for its work in coordinating relationships between Soviet (or whatever we are to call them now) educators and CCC schools. In the future, we should perhaps look for more opportunities to have international educators on our faculty. Perhaps a faculty exchange with a Christian school in India or in the Philippines or in Latin America could be worked out. Overseas and/or cross-cultural internship studies, which already exist at most Christian colleges, should become much more a reality of our education. Why not require an international, or at least a cross-cultural experience for graduation? More international and minority students should find our Christian colleges a comfortable place to be. Affirmative action should be taken to recruit, retain, and learn from our international and minority brothers and sisters. I would even suggest, as I mentioned earlier, that groups like the Christian College Coalition and Institute for Advanced Studies should call a moratorium on all conferences and publications dealing with "integration of faith and learning" until they have spent at least a year or two sponsoring conferences and publications that will work toward racial and cultural integration. Bible courses, literature courses, history courses, business courses, science courses should be taught in ways that encourage our students to identify with the wide world 17 outside the walls of the Christian college and, to the degree possible in a fallen world, to see above and around the always already-present blinders that every human culture sets up between itself and the kingdom of God which is always universal. In short, if we are not preparing a church that is internationally focused, we are failing in our mission of Christian higher education. That despite the fact that our music graduates are members of major symphony orchestras, our English graduates teach at Cornell, or our business graduates are dumping loads back into the alumni fund. Jesus left his church with more than an international mission, however. He left it with a theological purpose. Unfortunately, theological reflection and missionary activity are often seen as contrasts vying for the time and energy of the church. The Great Commission teaches us that this assumption is nonsense. Jesus wants us to make disciples by teaching them to observe all the things he commanded us. But what exactly has he commanded us to do? Anyone who thinks it is easy to answer the question, "What has Jesus in fact commanded us to observe?" needs only to consider the ongoing debates about the nature of salvation, of discipleship, of spiritual gifts, of holiness, and the political responsibilities of a Christian. Is the Lord who promises to be with us to the end of the age with us to win wars in his name or to resist wars. Is he with us to prosper, to fork over whatever we are shrewd enough to 18 name and claim, or it he with us to give grace to his poor ones when they ask why the wicked prosper? Is he with us to baptize infants or only adults (and perhaps the dead)? The Christian college clearly has a theological mission. The degree to which this theological dimension is always present in what we do in our disciplines sets us off from our secular sister institutions. Unfortunately, after studying history at both a secular university and an evangelical college, Arlin Migliazzo discovered that the Christian college "tended toward the communication of 'fact,' often without a consequent consideration of the values or assumptions undergirding the history being taught." He went on to point out that "mandatory chapel services and prayer before the start of classes sometimes seemed the extent of the faith-discipline integration [what I would call theological perspective]."19 Our commission demands that our approach to our disciplines be value-laden, that it be obviously connected somehow to certain theological assumptions. Our commission demands that we help students become theologically reflective about all of their study and all of life. The complexity of our theological task may be summarized in the following way: we are called to educate disciples who are commissioned to go and make more disciples, teaching those new disciples to observe the not-always-clear teachings of a particular historical moment. Except for those few who claim to be gifted with 19 what they claim are the New Testament charismata of knowledge and wisdom, fulfilling the Great Commission demands our very best reflection, our very best imaginations, our very best intellectual discipleship just to somehow be able to imperfectly pass on the teachings of Christ. Especially in our day of relativism and secularism, where the old consensus on issues of morality and theology has fallen apart, the theological task of the church and of the college is more pressing than ever before. How do we answer those who ask us why they should believe these ancient texts (the Bible) and not others? Why believe that the Christian ethical approach to sexuality has any validity in our modern world which has openly, even sarcastically (in the arts) rejected it? Without a doubt, the Christian college has its theological hands full. I am not saying here that we can give students easy formulaic answers for the many pressures and problems the church faces in fulfilling its mission at the end of the twentieth century. We are not called necessarily to shove our systematic theological traditions down their throats. In fact, the glory and horror of our specific postmodern moment, so well described by McLeod, liberates us/shackles us with the responsibility for a more open-ended, historically situated approach to theology: We are a people of a reality that God continuously creates. . . . There is a sense in which the truth we seek is yet to be found; we 20 press on toward the mark. But it is also a truth standing in solidarity with the past. . . . That Truth is not static; He responds ever anew to our historic situations, including the postmodernism with which we now live.20 But if our students are not learning at least one absolute, the absolute importance of theological/historical reflection, then I fear we will fail the church, which itself seems less and less interested in deep theological reflection. Yes, the church may become a powerful institution of one sort or another, it may pack in the crowds who happen to respond to this particular pastor or that gifted singer, but it will not succeed as the church because theologically and historically it will not understand its identity or mission. In this connection, I would like to appropriate the words of the twentieth century's most Christian atheist-Albert Camus who exhorts Christians to be truly Christian-to the present context in which I am exhorting Christian educators to be serious about accepting the difficult task of a truly Christian higher education: I shall not try to . . . reach a reconciliation that would be agreeable to all. On the contrary, what I feel like telling you today is that the world needs real dialogue . . . , and that the only possible dialogue is the kind between people who remain what they are and speak their minds. This is tantamount to saying the world of today needs Christians who remain Christians.21 In other words, we must never cease in the difficult tasks of being Christian Christians, of understanding, appropriating, and directly applying our unique theological traditions in the real world. I do not here argue that the 21 foundation of Christian Higher Education should be the Great Commission because I am a fundamentalist or because I want to have a pie-in-the-sky approach to human life, but because I believe that the Christ who gives us our name and identity made it his clearest command to what has become the church. In an excellent recent analysis of "The Contribution of Theological Studies to the Christian Liberal Arts," William A. Dryness makes a similar point, linking theological reflection with Christian formation or Christlikeness, or, from a Great Commission perspective, making and being disciples by learning and obeying "all things He has commanded us": Theological reflection is the dynamic interaction between a prayerful listening to Scripture and a responsible involvement with the issues of our world that has as its goal a maturity of Christlikeness. . . . By the working of the Holy Spirit, the whole process leads us individually and communally to a maturity of life and thought that the New Testament calls Christlikeness. That is, theological studies in Christian colleges should aim ultimately at Christian formation, not at research or scholarship merely for their own sakes.22 At this point, I would like intentionally to link our theological mission with the importance of a historical perspective. Throughout most of the rest of this essay in fact, I will refer to the need for a theological/historical perspective. Why combine history and theology in this way? At least three obvious reasons occur immediately: because we are, in fact, called to teach all nations the teachings of the historical Jesus; because those teachings are written down in some ancient, historical documents; and because our 22 interpretations of those documents have changed radically with historical change. The church is called in history to understand that its theological mission is historical. From one generation to another, through changing contexts within and without the church, we are called to teach his truth, to apply his law and teachings, to do our very best to help others understand his life and ministry, all of which, despite Karl Barth's helpful insistence on the transcendent nature of Christ's life and works, must be seen as radically distant from us in real historical time and space. Two thousand years worth of fine and foibled attempts to fulfill this part of our mission should remind us of the centrality of historical investigation and of the importance of bringing a historical perspective to bear upon our theological work as we struggle to fulfill the mission of Christian higher education. The theological questions we ask and which provide the structure for our educational work must be considered, in theory and in the classroom, in the light of history. The approach we take to fulfilling the Great Commission is always a historically situated one. Before teaching all nations what He has commanded us, we need to make sure that our own answers (and those of our students) to these questions are considered in the light of and critiqued from the perspective of history. How can we be sure, for example, just what He commanded us concerning sexual ethics when we realize that the Church, claiming to be doing 23 interpretation of the historical commands of Christ, has so radically changed its views from one historical moment to another? Recently I heard of a fine, young Christian Ph.D. who, after decrying the misogynistic beliefs and practices of the Church Fathers and their sons, claimed that it is only in our time that the church has come to an enlightened and proper understanding of the biblical view of sexuality (one which foregrounds sexual pleasure and downplays reproduction). If history has taught us anything, it is that this scholarly brother is probably overlooking something as well. My point here is not that we should strive to produce cultural and historical relativists. Obviously not. In fact, historical and cultural investigation will always proceed from a particular faith stance. Often an entire learning community (whether a school, a class, a teacher/student team) will proceed, perhaps must proceed, from a particular interpretive stance (I find the Apostles' Creed helpful, in this regard; for denominational schools it may be-with care-their denominational statement of faith). But if our students spend four or more years in a Christian liberal arts institution without developing the one major characteristic of an educated Christian-a theological/historical perspective, we are failing. Although American education may look to Thomas Jefferson for its belief that history should be the basis for the education of the free citizen, Christian educators, 24 even the unschooled pastor in the plains of Mali or the hills of Kentucky, should know that without a vision of the past the people perish. That cloud of witnesses before whom we perform and before whom our students will perform admirable actions are historical creatures like us, who lived, thought, and died looking backwards and forwards. They looked back praising God for His mighty acts and learning from the narratives of their own cloud of witnesses. They looked forward to us and to God's kingdom, trusting that their actions and thoughts in history were building that kingdom and modeling for us the life of faith. I would like to suggest some practical possibilities. Christian colleges should hold on to strong Bible and theology requirements. The specific number of courses will not, obviously, make the most difference but requiring theological reflection of every student in more than theology classes will. Chapel sessions should ask students to think theologically not just respond to inspirational challenges (which they also should do). Instead of only challenging students to be missionaries, the Christian college should discuss questions like these: Why be a missionary if the elect are already elected (if they are)? Why have missionaries if the biblical ideal seems to be national church self-governance? Why have a basketball team at the Christian college? Is there any place for secular music in the life of a Christian? Is there a theological response to the problem of homelessness in America or to the 25 problem of famine in Africa? Some other practical possibilities. Christian colleges should develop a more historical approach to the educational experience which, I have already argued, must be thoroughly theological. It would be much healthier, I believe, to study the history of psychology than what we usually call General Psych. How often is a historical perspective provided in the technique-driven study of business? Christian colleges might even find some way to require church history and the history of missions in their curriculum (it almost seems absurd to have to suggest it). All this may not be possible, but we should at least be thinking of these as "needs" when we make the difficult choices about the content of our curriculum. And much more of a historical, interdisciplinary approach should characterize our educational processes in general. Not to beat a dead horse, but the New Critical approach to literature atrophied our abilities to read and teach literary texts as important historical documents engaged in meaningful dialogue about very real historical concerns. Although New Criticism, as a perspective in literary study, has come in for heavy attack (and rightly so) even on Christian college campuses, I wonder to what degree other fields-social sciences, Bible, even history itself-are paying the kind of attention they should be to their own changing historical faces. In other words, do our students come out of history class learning the absolute facts about "the way 26 it was"? Instead, they need to be equally concerned with issues like "why was it this way" and "why do historians of one period or place say it was this way when historians of another period or place say it was that way"? These concerns, moreover, must go beyond the classroom. Our chapels must go beyond contemporary students' desires to hear the choruses and songs of their generation. Worship is also, at least partly, a time of affirming our solidarity with the God of history and the people of history who are our brothers and sisters. The historical foundations of our institutions should be studied and popularized; it would be intolerable to allow any of us to believe that we live and die, educate and are educated unto ourselves. Special historical dates should be celebrated and made much of: Martin Luther King Day, Reformation Sunday, the Feast Day of St. Francis, the anniversary of the college's founding-the possibilities are exciting and full. Every year many colleges celebrate Founder's Day in chapel during Homecoming week. At Nyack College, this recently became Founder's Week. In five consecutive chapel sessions we sang classic songs of the faith, heard a presentation from the president about our evangelical heritage, sang the songs of the college's founder, heard the reminiscences of a former president who is completing fifty years of affiliation with the school, and, on the last great day of the feast, heard the vivid recollections of our school and its founder by a ninety-nine-year-old alumnus who 27 was celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of his graduation. Those of us who believe in the absolute importance of history (if not absolutely certain historical understanding) were gratified when the students responded with three standing ovations and invited him back to preach and sing at the Sunday evening campus church. It was one of the strongest examples I can remember of the devotional structures and requirements complementing the mission of the college and the church. Remember. Don't let your children forget. Set up monuments. Don't, like Shakespeare's Coriolanus or Hemingway's heroes, try to live outside history. We must struggle with history to find God's will, to understand and to teach all things He has commanded us. We must struggle in history to obey. Finally, Christian education must be hopeful. We must be part of the church that goes into all the world. We must struggle to remember, interpret, and teach-demanding our serious attention to understanding history and our present moment. But these are not enough. Unlike the naturalistic, Enlightenment foundations of the modern university, and strangely like, whether we care to admit it or not, the animistic spirit dancers of some primitive pagan cult, our practices are controlled by the belief that our God is with us. It is this education from a stance of hope to which Mark S. McLeon refers in his recent Faculty Dialogue 28 article, "The Issue of the Christian Academy." "God does not fail, he is always there. [Henri] De Lubac tells us that perhaps our concepts or ontologies are too limited to understand God. Thus we need further exploration. . . . Not only is God there, but as Christ said, 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.'"23 Our major difference from a secular college should be in this area. We study, work, think, and go forth into the world with a hope that comes from really knowing God. Our God is with us always, even unto the end of the twentieth century. Certainly these are words of hope. But are they not also words of offense? Are they not finally a major dividing line between Christian higher education and secular higher education? And I think the question of just how we are to interpret this "God-with-us" revelation needs to be clearly argued about in Christian college circles (and campus quadrangles). Is it enough to affirm a theoretical, abstract belief in the participation of the Spirit of God in our intellectual endeavors-the major implication of McLeod's essay; or should we embrace the more specific and more offensive idea that a Christian college is a place where people are "strangely warmed," that it is a place where religious experiences are valued as well as evaluated? Yes, we hold chapel sessions, have conferences on the integration of faith and learning, sign faith and practice commitments. But to what degree are we troubled by the seeming irrelevance of the numinous to the actual, everyday 29 phenomena on our Christian college campuses? The secularized world of the academy emphatically insists on leaving out "the holy as the category of value" (the phrase, as well as many of my concerns in this section, I have appropriated from Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (London: Oxford University Press, 1923). Do we? To what degree do we make the vital spiritual life of specific real people (our students especially) a priority? Do we serve the church only by doing what the local assembly supposedly cannot-such as teach biology, computers, and physical therapy? Or do we work closely with the church to encourage, challenge, and in many cases evangelize our students? I am uncomfortable with the suggestion that the spiritual life of students is somebody else's job. I just can't see Jesus patting me on the back and saying, "That's all right, don't worry about the shipwrecked faith and/or selfish, compartmentalized faith of scores of your former students. At least you got that article published in PMLA or 19th Century Studies." Many traditional students are, to a great degree, at home with us for four of the most important years of their lives. Yes, perhaps we are not called to be in loco parentis, and yes, admittedly, these are years of growing independence for students, of learning to make mature choices, of becoming their own persons. Yet we exist as Christian colleges because He is, because He is with us, and because He wants to be with them. 30 And while I'm picking nits, I would point out that what we call the integration of faith and learning usually begins from the standpoint that we (as colleges, teachers, and students) have plenty of faith but don't really understand how learning fits into it. I would suggest that almost every article ever published in Faculty Dialogue begins with that presupposition. To fix this supposed problem, we try to fit learning to faith. It is my observation, however, that we do not have "enough faith"; more and more students come to the Christian college from a more and more secular, God-emptied world, from more and more secularized family and educational environments. Having said that, let me insist that the last thing I want to see is for college chapels and special spiritual life weeks to revert to the mentality and practices of junior-high youth revivals. Neither am I so naive as to believe that everybody talking about walking in the Spirit is doing so. But when the Son of Man comes to our campuses, will he find faith there? Some suggestions. Christian colleges should make it one of their highest priorities to fill the position of campus chaplain (or its equivalent) with a person of exceptional excellence. Chapel, spiritual emphasis times, discipleship groups, ministry opportunities should be emphasized, should be tied clearly into the goals and ongoing work of the college, and should never become a "joke" or a second-rate aspect of campus life. Possibly this position should be elevated to a deanship, as it has by 31 Gordon College (and probably others of which I am unaware). At the least, a person of keen intellect, proven commitment, and highly developed relational skills is necessary. In the early days of most Christian colleges, many if not most of the professors were pastors and missionaries who had later gone on to graduate school and become teachers. (A similar point is made by Brereton.24) In the "latter-day" Christian college, most of us are not trained to pastor; ironically, however, our students need more not less spiritual cure and care than in the "good old days." Students have a right to expect and demand it at Christian colleges, schools which claim to exist because God is present in a special way. One way or another, our students need more pastoring. They live in an age that demands it. Further, colleges must make every effort to tie their students into the work of local churches (I do not advocate identifying which churches these should be). Too often chapel and the like become a substitute for the kind of healthy interaction, even friction (and resulting spiritual growth) that comes in the local church setting. There is something important and necessary about the "ivory tower" reality of education. We must get away from the crowd and from the tyranny of the urgent if we are to think and prepare for full-hearted, intelligent service. Yet too many students cut themselves off from the very institution without which our colleges have no reason to exist: the church. 32 Parents and pastors: certainly no church could ever be as good as your children's home churches but please encourage them to get involved in a local congregation during their college years. I have observed over several years as a professor at Christian colleges that students who throw themselves into the life of the local church rarely drown on campus. I have said that we are to be hopeful because our God is with us always. Further, I have tried to suggest that this must be more than an abstract principle; instead we must experience that truth; we must "practice the presence of God." Certainly we may disagree about some details, but worship, prayer, and an emphasis on the life of discipleship should be essential parts of the life of the Christian college. The Christian college has a noble heritage. I have tried to suggest what I believe its primary reason for existence is-its part in fulfilling the Great Commission-which I have argued is about much more than evangelism as traditionally defined. A truly great Christian college may or may not have alumni teaching at Yale or Duke. A Christian college may, in fact, be listed in U.S. News and World Report's "Best Schools" issue and yet be in the midst of its own Babylonian Captivity. A truly great Christian college is built not upon these standards but upon its commitment to and engagement in the Great Commission. It is international in scope; it insists on the centrality of historical/theological reflection-because only as such can we 33 really know how to teach all things He has commanded us-and it should be hopeful because it knows the reality of a God who is with us always. Despite our present problems, Christian colleges should continue to exist as they take seriously their task as part of the church. On the other hand, if we lose (or never cultivate) our international vision, our historical/theological stance, or our hopeful experience of the Spirit of Christ, we should close our doors. Notes 1Anything worthwhile in this essay owes much to the students, faculty, and administration of Nyack College, where, for nine years (as a student and faculty member) I took part in a communal effort to take both the gospel and higher education seriously. 2Douglas Jacobsen and Rhonda Jacobsen, "College, Community, Atheism, and Ethics," Faculty Dialogue 15 (Fall 1991): 69. 3Jacobsen and Jacobsen, "College, Community, Atheism, and Ethics," 70. 4Donald H. Wacome, "The Mission of Christian Higher Education: The Gospel at the Center," Faculty Dialogue 15 (Fall 1991): 46. 5Nicholas Wolterstorff, "Teaching for Justice," in Joel A. Carpenter and Kenneth W. Shipps, eds., Making Higher Education Christian (St. Paul: Christian University Press, 1987), pp. 202-3. 34 6Wacome, "The Mission of Christian Higher Education," 41. 7See especially-well actually you can't see something that isn't there-but notice anyway the absence of Great Commission or international concerns in Joel A. Carpenter and Kenneth W. Shipps, eds., Making Higher Education Christian (St. Paul, MN: Christian University Press, 1987). 8For an excellent survey of the rise of the Bible College Movement and its impact on evangelical liberal arts colleges, see Virginia Lieson Brereton's essay, "The Bible Schools and Conservative Evangelical Higher Education, 1840-1940," in Making Higher Education Christian. As the movement is, in my opinion, declining to the degree of almost fading away, we would do well to have a major, detailed scholarly study of its origins, history, and influence. Many of the major characteristics pointed out by Brereton (pp. 116-122)-the centrality of the Bible, a service orientation, and faculty as models, among others-should be appropriated to our contemporary contexts, in the same way, as I argue later in this essay, that models from other cultures and times should be appropriated to contemporary American Christian higher education. 9John R. W. Stott, "Secular Challenges to the Contemporary Church," Crux: A Quarterly Journal of Christian Thought and Opinion published by Regent College 27.3 (September 1991): 2, 7. 10Leland Ryken, "Reformation and Puritan Ideals of 35 Education," in Making Higher Education Christian, 50. 11My thinking on this topic has been influenced for over fifteen years by Henlee H. Barnette's wonderful little book, Christian Calling and Vocation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1965). See especially Chapter 4, "The Royal Priesthood," pp. 32-8. 12Henlee H. Barnette, Christian Calling and Vocation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing House, 1965), 34. 13John R. Schneider, "The Leap of Vision," Faculty Dialogue 15 (Fall 1991): 25-36. 14Schneider, "The Leap of Vision," 36. 15Keith R. Anderson, "The Ancient Hebrew Faith as a Model for Teaching," Faculty Dialogue 12 (Fall 1989): 69-77. 16Alvaro L. Nieves, "Minorities in Evangelical Higher Education," in Making Higher Education Christian, 284. 17Nieves, "Minorities in Evangelical Higher Education," 281. 18A book-length collection of essays, Ethnic-Minorities and Evangelical Colleges, edited by John Lee, has recently been published by the Christian College Coalition and University Press of America. Lehman comments that the book's ten essays "together present an unflattering analysis of racial and ethnic affairs at the Christian colleges." Those interested in how at least two Christian colleges are making minority concerns a priority would do well to consult Nyack College of Nyack, New York, and Eastern College of St. David's, Pennsylvania. 36 19Arlin C. Migliazzo, "Teaching History as an Act of Faith," Fides et Historia: Journal of the Conference on Faith and History 23.1 (Winter/Spring 1991): 7. 20Mark S. McLeod, "The Issue of the Christian Academy: A Plea for the Postmodern World," Faculty Dialogue 15 (Fall 1991): 23. 21Albert Camus, ???, 70. 22William A. Dyrness, "The Contribution of Theological Studies to the Christian Liberal Arts," in Making Higher Education Christian, 175. 23Mark S. McLeod, "The Issue of the Christian Academy," 21. 24Virginia Lieson Brereton, "The Bible Schools and Conservative Evangelical Higher Education, 1880-1940," in Making Higher Education Christian, 122. Works Cited Anderson, Keith R. "The Ancient Hebrew Faith as a Model for Teaching." Faculty Dialogue 12 (Fall 1989): 69-77. Barnette, Henlee H. Christian Calling and Vocation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker House, 1965. Brereton, Virginia Lieson. "The Bible Schools and Conservative Evangelical Higher Education, 1880-1940." Joel A. Carpenter and Kenneth W. Shipps, eds., Making Higher Education Christian. St. Paul, MN: Christian University Press, 1987, pp. 110-136. Camus, Albert. xxx 37 Dyrness, William A. "The Contribution of Theological Studies to the Christian Liberal Arts." Joel A. Carpenter and Kenneth W. Shipps, eds., Making Higher Education Christian. St. Paul, MN: Christian University Press, 1987, pp. 172-186. Jacobsen, Douglas and Rhonda Jacobsen. "College, Community, Atheism, and Ethics." Faculty Dialogue 15 (Fall 1991): 63-81. Lehmann, Christine. "Few Gains for Minorities." Christianity Today (11 November 1991): 54. McLeod, Mark S. "The Issue of the Christian Academy: A Plea for the Postmodern World." Faculty Dialogue 15 (Fall 1991): 13-23. Migliazzo, Arlin C. "Teaching History as an Act of Faith." Fides et Historia: Journal of the Conference on Faith and History 23.1 (Winter/Spring 1991): 6-19. Nieves, Alvaro L. "Minorities in Evangelical Higher Education." Joel A. Carpenter and Kenneth W. Shipps, eds., Making Higher Education Christian. St. Paul, MN: Christian University Press, 1987, pp. 281-93. Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy. Trans. John W. Harvey. London: Oxford University Press, 1923 (Reprinted in paperback 1979). Ryken, Leland. "Reformation and Puritan Ideals of Education." Joel A. Carpenter and Kenneth W. Shipps, eds., Making Higher Education Christian. St. Paul, MN: Christian University Press, 1987, pp. 38-55. 38 Schneider, John R. "The Leap of Vision." Faculty Dialogue 15 (Fall 1991): 25-36. Stott, John R. W. "Secular Challenges to the Contemporary Church." Crux: A Quarterly Journal of Christian Thought and Opinion published by Regent College 27.3 (September 1991): 2-8. Wacome, Donald H. "The Mission of Christian Higher Education: The Gospel at the Center." Faculty Dialogue 15 (Fall 1991): 37-50. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. "Teaching for Justice," in Joel A. Carpenter and Kenneth W. Shipps, eds., Making Higher Education Christian (St. Paul: Christian University Press, 1987), pp. 201-16 39