FAITHFUL LISTENING AND INSTRUCTED SPEAKING: A BIBLICAL IMAGE FOR CHRISTIAN COLLEGE TEACHERS + BILL LONG + Associate Professor of History and Government Sterling College When I returned to the world of Christian higher education, after a decade of teaching in an academically demanding secular college and pastoring an urban congregation in the Pacific Northwest, I discovered that the same metaphor or paradigm that described the task of a Christian college professor in 1980 was still being used in 1990. I should, I was told, try to "integrate" my faith and my field, my understanding of the Gospel and my subject matter, and thus come up with a product that was both more scholarly than secular scholars, since it took into consideration all views, and more faithful because it was constantly refined by the requirements of biblical faith. Much like the oft-quoted Karl Barth, who urged preachers to face the world with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, I was urged to join or "integrate" my two sources of special truth-my faith and my field. "Integration"-A Flawed Metaphor The more I tried to "integrate," however, the worse I felt. I imagined myself as somewhat of a spiritual chemist, measuring frothy substances entitled "faith" and "field" in separate beakers and then mixing them together in a container and watching closely to see and measure the reaction. Yet I discovered, to my chagrin, that I was 1 unable to do this. I felt, after a few months of teaching, to continue the metaphor, that I was trying to pour gases from sieves into a container with no bottom or top. I felt as helpless as Xerxes of old, who commanded that chains be thrown on the Hellespont to subdue it, because it was so difficult for his armies to navigate the narrow passageway. Nevertheless, I wanted to take the metaphor of integration seriously. It was the only one I was given to explain the nature of my work; it was a metaphor with which I had some familiarity, and it seemed to be on the lips of many of my colleagues. If the metaphor was to work for me, I saw that I needed three things: two relatively fixed and controllable substances and a container which could hold both of them. But the more I looked at my faith and my field-the so-called fixed substances-the more I saw dynamic movement rather than static product. I saw debate, even on crucial field-defining issues, and I knew that I could never "control" the field. I began to see that the best I could do in my field was to come up with a defensible perspective on the field and then try to tell the story of our past with better skill or clarity or wit than previous generations of scholars. I saw, too, that faith for me was not like a fixed substance in a beaker. One may grant that our faith was once and for all delivered to the saints (Jude 4), but I knew that my faith, the faith that I was supposed to "integrate," was a constantly changing thing, of protean shape and uncertain dimensions. In addition, I saw that the 2 container in which the substance should be mixed or "integrated"-my mind-could barely grasp the essentials of either faith or field, much less "integrate" them in a way that was faithful. A further dilemma confronted me over the use of the term "integration." It reminded me too much of my Germanically oriented doctoral work, which stressed that the goal of historical investigation was objective knowledge. This historicist approach to knowledge assumed that the scholar was, in a sense, "above" the sources, removed from them, and therefore was able to take them apart, weigh them, put them back together, describe the Tendenz of each and come up with "scientific" explanations for the growth of various traditions and beliefs. It is a very small step for historical scholars to go from being "above the sources" to being "above the phenomena" which they are describing. "Integration" suggested to me too much emphasis on an objective model of scholarly activity. Thus, after two years of teaching at a Christian college in the 1990s, I found myself without a convincing metaphor or explanation of what I was doing. I had previously accepted the paradigm of "integration" more than ten years ago in hope, that is, with the expectation that as my career developed, I would achieve greater clarity about what it meant and would begin to appropriate, if even in a small way, its promise. But by the summer of 1992 it had yielded no fruit; its promise was more like a fading echo 3 than an alluring whisper. Seeking Biblical Metaphors for Life and Teaching It was in the context of this intellectual crisis that my mind and heart was particularly attentive to biblical metaphors that might describe the nature of the Christian life and could be convincingly applied to my life as a teacher. As I studied the Servant Songs in Isaiah 40-55, I noticed this passage: The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He awakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught. The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears, and I have not been rebellious; I have not drawn back. (Isaiah 50:4-5) We generally are more familiar with the other Servant Songs, like Isaiah 52-53, but this text provides a clear indication of what was required of the servant of God. The two points that struck me with greatest force were the servant of God has faithful or attentive ears and an instructed tongue. As I thought about my life as a teacher, it seemed to me that it was also these two things that I most ardently desire as I prepare for class, teach, meet with students individually and correct their work. I began to see that this biblical image could provide a new paradigm for understanding the nature of my teaching activity as well as practical guidance for my teaching and research life each day. What, then, does it mean to have faithful or attentive ears? What is an instructed tongue? To have a faithful ear means that we listen to three things: our own lives, the primary texts of our faith and field, and other people. 4 A Faithful Ear: Listening to Our Own Lives-We need to listen to our own lives. Many of us were brought up in a scholarly world that de-emphasized the value of one's own experience and reflection on life for one's scholarly work. In the physical sciences, the social sciences, and even, to a large extent, in the humanities, care was taken to dissociate personal feelings from one's field. I think that little emphasis was placed on listening to our own lives because the dominant paradigm of the 1950s-1980s in doctoral programs was the "scientific" paradigm. Thus, personal feelings and autobiography were unimportant. Only the data "out there" were important. I remember a discussion in a graduate seminar in philosophy of religion at my alma mater (Brown University). The professor was explaining that in the field of phenomenology of religion we must "bracket" the existence of God. That is, we must leave our own beliefs about God at the door of the seminar room, so to speak, while we examine the phenomena themselves. I, perhaps too brash for my age, shot back, "I will leave the influence of God on my life at the door if you promise to leave the influence of your mother on your life at the door." Of course, my suggestion was ludicrous and maybe even discourteous-as was his. My point, however, is that there are hidden depths in our own heart and experience that can impart deep knowledge and perspective to all our work. In my judgment, it is these deep rhythms, beliefs, fears and perspectives that need to be voiced and understood. 5 Evangelicals, especially, need to grasp this point. Last summer, after I had written some essays in which I tried to listen to my life, I called an evangelical publisher to see if he would be interested in publishing these reflections. His response, paraphrased, was, "Are you kidding? The evangelical world isn't ready to speak publicly about how personal experience shapes theological thought." I hope that we who want to practice faithful listening can have the courage to listen to what our personal history is telling us. A Faithful Ear: Listening to the Texts of our Faith and Field-We need to listen to the sacred texts of field and faith. I don't want to suggest by this, of course, that the Bible is equal to Bach or Dickens or Aeschylus or quarks. But I think we ought to see the Bible and our field in the same glimpse, so to speak. I would welcome the day when it was the consistent case across the faculty of Christian colleges that the Bible was just as much a living text for faculty as was their "field" work. We need to give attentive hearing to Scripture and the texts of our fields. We need to understand their "texture," their shape, their explosive powers, their captivating nature. We need to see that all of us are like the "owners of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old" (Matt. 13:52). Our ability to communicate about a text from our field or from the Scripture originates from our prior commitment to hear them-to "read, mark and inwardly digest" 6 them, to taste and smell and hear and see and touch them, to let them wash over us and make us anew. A text is almost like a person. To have an attentive ear means that we want to hear them in all of their pulsating power. A Faithful Ear: Listening to Others-To hear faithfully means to listen to others. We know, as the Scripture says, that "The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears, and I have not been rebellious" (Isaiah 50:5). Like the child Samuel, we need to rise each day and say, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening" (1 Sam. 3:9). If we cry to God to listen to us (Psa. 130:2), we certainly can be no less zealous as we listen to others. Faithful listening means that as we listen, we are convinced that God the Holy Spirit is creating truth-perhaps not in what was explicitly stated by another, or what was heard, or even in how we responded, but that somehow, through the conversation and through the listening, truth goes forth and is magnified. The Psalmist is most confident that his enemies cannot touch him when he knows he has been heard (Psalm 6:8). We too, by attentive, faithful listening can help dispel some of the distress that creeps into our own and others' lives. A Faithful Ear-and An Instructed Tongue Listening can be a true joy and an occasion when deep calls unto deep. It is not enough to hear, however faithfully and attentively we do it. The Servant of the Lord declares that the Lord has given him an "instructed tongue." We need to be a people of attentive listening and 7 the instructed tongue. The tongue, without instruction, can be very dangerous. The scriptural James says: "The tongue is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell" (James 3:6). So, we must ask what the instructed tongue is. In my judgment, the instructed tongue consists of three things: attention to our use of language, edifying speech, and balanced speaking. An Instructed Tongue: Use of Language-How do we speak? Since most of us spend so much time doing it, it is surprising that we don't spend more time analyzing how we speak, how we communicate, how we "come across." What are our favorite word pictures? Are they drawn from athletics, nature, the Bible? Do we believe that words are life-giving, that a word might be worth a thousand pictures rather than the other way around, that our words, like God's Word, can have a creative and life-affirming effect? Though we may not be professors of speech, do we know what makes for effective and powerful communication? Do we try to implement this? Do we take seriously the power inherent in language? Do we love the fact that God created by uttering a word? No one, for example, who has read the historical narratives of the early Puritans in this land can overlook the pronounced biblical cadences of the narrative. The writers were shaped in the Scripture: their prose, thought patterns and even their interjections were derived from the 8 sacred text. What is our speaking style? An Instructed Tongue: Edifying Speech-A second element of instructed speaking is that our speech, as far as possible, ought to be edifying. The servant in Isaiah 50:4, says, "The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary." Even though the word of the Servant of the Lord may ultimately be a word of judgment, it is a sustaining word. We realize as we speak that those who show the ability and courtesy to listen are themselves in need of sustenance. This is a powerful guide to us as teachers. In my years of teaching I have found that the word that most often is needed across my desk is the sustaining word. We need to be givers of the sustaining or edifying word because our hearers frequently are worn out or confused or fearful or lonely. If I arise each day and know that a principal direction of my speech for the day ought to go into sustaining people, I have practical advice for my discipleship as a Christian teacher. An Instructed Tongue: Balanced Speaking-Finally, instructed speaking is balanced. I would like to remove a possible misconception immediately. Balanced does not mean being wish-washy or neutral or unemotional or uncommitted. I am not trying to sneak in the ghost of objectivity through the back door after I have escorted it out the front! Balance is not incompatible with outrage or tears or hugs. Balance means ultimately that after we have listened deeply and spoken carefully and supportively, that we must not 9 "force" the issue, that we must be willing to let God do the work after our words are finished. Balanced means a forthright presentation of what we believe is true, and then trusting God and others that our true intention will be heard. Therefore, speaking in a balanced way gives us a healthy awareness of our limitations to perceive and communicate truth. It means that we are willing at times to let others have the last word, even it our pet idea doesn't have the most prominent position in the conversation. Conclusion In conclusion, we have the emergence of a new biblical paradigm or model of our task as teachers in Christian higher education. Though some may like the venerable term "integration," I much prefer "faithful listening and instructed speaking." The new paradigm emphasizes our daily responsibility. The new paradigm is visible. It drives us to Christ. It drives us into the arms of others. It affirms their world. It recognizes that the Christian college is a Christian community. May we aspire to teach with faithful ears and an instructed tongue! 10