PLAYING TEE-BALL AND PERFORMING THE JAZZ SAX: CELEBRATING THE CHORUS OF PLAYERS, VOICES, AND THEMES IN CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP AND FAITH ° LINDA K. PARKYN ° Associate Professor of Spanish Messiah College Each semester as I receive the results from course evaluations, I'm intrigued particularly by one response from my students. On a fairly consistent basis, the part of the evaluation on which I am rated the lowest by my students is the area designated as "factual knowledge of the field." This always surprises me, because from my perspective other areas of the evaluation should be rated lower than this one. So each semester I'm perplexed by their response. This year I decided to do a little sleuthing, so I've spent time in discussion with some of my students with this particular question in mind. I've discovered something interesting, and disturbing. One student reminded me that in class I regularly say, "I don't know," and another informed me that one of my favorite expressions is, "there are several possible answers." A third student told me this past year that after I suggested there are multiple interpretations of Columbus and his famous journeys, she realized my classes regularly shook the foundational assumptions she brought to college-the one right answer that she sought always seemed to allude me! From the perspective of my students, such admissions on my part imply both personal and professional inadequacy. And, if truth be told, it is serious enough in their minds to put me behind other teachers they have encountered throughout their education who, in contrast to me, have known the answers perfectly well, and package these answers quite neatly on examinations. If my experience is typical, and if my students reflect what is normative, I have to conclude that we have taught our students-as second graders, tenth graders, and sophomores in college-that education is about facts, and that teachers are supposed to know these facts, and present them to the students, who in turn can learn them and thereby be educated. This idea of education is tasteless. It's like eating an orange after all the juice has been squeezed out of it. And it's not what I try to do when I teach, nor is it what I think should characterize instruction and scholarship at a Christian College. Rather than reflecting a straightforward explanation of facts by the instructor, my classes are more like tee-ball games. The players are strategically located across the ball field, each with a glove too big for the hand. The batter, gripping a bat and trying to balance a helmet, stands at the plate. The first swing connects only with air. The second swing is a solid hit, but the batter has connected with the tee rather than the ball. On the third swing, the batter tops the ball and it rolls four feet in front of home plate. The play is on; the action starts. Upon hitting the ball the batter looks at the coach for instruction on what to do next, and the coach explains again that it is now time to run to first base. The infield players awaken, with neither the pitcher nor the catcher sure whose responsibility it is to retrieve a ball that rests motionless between them. The player positioned at third base takes charge, runs for the ball, and mistakenly throws it toward second base. As the ball goes beyond second base into the outfield the runner advances . . . . And soon, before our very eyes, a topped ball becomes a home run. When students in the classroom collaborate in the learning process, teaching is much like coaching a tee-ball game. It is exhilarating when the involvement goes well, and depressing when it does not. The innings roll on, errors turn into runs, occasionally victories are won, and so we celebrate, sometimes! But always, regardless of the win-loss record, students at the end of the season are more skilled, understand the game better, and know more of what it means to play on a team, than was the case fourteen weeks earlier. Teaching, like coaching tee-ball, is a dangerous undertaking. Moreover, to claim to know God and to be committed to "high quality Christian higher education within the evangelical Christian college tradition"1 is downright terrifying, to say nothing about it being a dangerous undertaking. How can any one of us, as individuals who profess Christ, push our students to learn the subject matter, integrate it with their faith, and make sure they "fit" within the evangelical Christian college milieu? When I look at my responsibilities as a faculty member in this manner I feel a bit like someone equipped to catch butterflies out on a mission to trap an elephant.2 My error, our error, is in thinking that all of this is the mission of an individual. It is not. I represent an emerging voice within an immense college choir, I sing only one of the parts, and even as an alto I am not alone. My mission as a faculty member is to teach an academic discipline, to share my personal faith narrative, and to demonstrate how each shapes the other. This is the responsibility we each have. The interesting thing is that the emerging identity, or song, that echoes forth when we all sing our parts well cannot be anticipated or forced. It can be recorded to be listened to later, as we presently can recall past college songs, but tomorrow's top forty hit is still making its way up the charts. Faculty members-and others-should not be regarded as people on campus in possession of the single, "correct" view on matters of college identity. While all participants in the choir must be vocalists, not all need to sing bass. While some may prefer anthems by Bach, the choir doesn't need to avoid Gaither. (Well, on second thought . . . .) To seek a single voice is witch-hunt talk, and there should be no room for it on a college campus. Such talk repeats an error that is found in the wider American subculture of higher education as well. The error is to think that the preservation of the "common culture" is the responsibility of the professoriate. Faculty members are people trained to study a culture, not to preserve it (whatever that means). We critique, we try to improve. We ask awkward questions even in the flush of victory. We are devoted to risk and to occasional rebellion against dominant theories. We listen to those who are different from us-on whatever basis-because while we may disagree with them we realize they may have discovered what we have missed. In a nutshell, we pursue truth. To our various publics, this pursuit may be perceived as too dangerous, for it runs its course on a road marked with potholes, landslides, and washed-out bridges. The evangelical subculture is not accustomed to debate and struggle within its family. It is conditioned by the wider popular subculture which is infiltrated with the point counter-point syndrome, which permits just two points of view to every pre-packaged issue. As scholars, we balk at this polarizing culture, which alleges that there are in-groups and out-groups, groups with truth and groups with heresy. The Christian scholars' pursuit of truth is not so comfortable as that. The mission of the Christian college is not so narrow. And this is why our identity is always in the making, never sure, emerging, not static. If we have done our job well, the students we graduate each May are less sure of their answers, and more sure of the necessity of the questions, than they were when they enrolled four years earlier. They are seekers, people who are equipped to see the complexities in every position. They are scholars who realize the subjectivity of perceived truth. They are Christians who understand hermeneutical bias. They are becomers, women and men who will pursue truth at the expense of fit. The Christian College is not only a place, an institution, it is an emerging idea, an idea whose identity is discovered (not defined) in the pursuit of truth. A Christian College should be a school characterized by its commitment to allow discovery to continue. Each College should reflect the stories which each person, as a child of God, brings to the debate. The contours of the kingdom are not nailed down. Each person's story should shape our discovery of truth, and each person's story should be recognized as being hampered by error. The Christian College should be a school where we each meet the other in our common quest to know God, learn an academic discipline, and bring the two together so that each helps shape the other. And as we meet, we give voice and identity to our collective Christianity. Two months ago I attended a concert performed by the Empire Brass. I came to the concert hall expecting to enjoy an evening listening to the performance of classical music by two trumpeters, a trombonist, a French hornist, and a tubist. Prior to the intermission, the evening went just as expected; the group consisted of skilled instrumentalists who provided a superb performance of traditional brass music. Following the intermission, however, the five instrumentalists were joined by a drummer, a bass guitarist, and a saxophonist. While the drummer and guitarist remained in the background, more as accompanists, the saxophonist did not. Yet he did not quite "fit" either. Sporting a frayed tuxedo and a pair of black Reeboks, and playing "brass with a reed," he joined the group, not to play but to jam. These new members of the group, while still grounded within the confines of skilled musicianship, effected a significant change in repertoire. Now the classical music of the earlier part of the performance was augmented by show tunes, jazz, and gospel songs. In spite of all this change, however, still they were the Empire Brass. Their mission remained constant, only the expression of this mission was altered. And so it is, I think, with the Christian College. We are places wherein people who are both people of God and scholars work together in the pursuit of truth. Our understanding of scholarship and faith is as varied as are our individual members. And the music we perform today, the repertoire we present, is as different from what it was twenty years ago as it is from what it will be twenty years from now. We are each scholars and people of God, but we give unique and individual expression to what we hold in common. Some of us sing the melody, others provide harmony. Some of us play a lead trumpet, others appropriately jam with the sax. Some of us wear gray suits, others wear blue jeans. We are misled in thinking that only some expressions of the quest for scholarship and faith are worthy of being part of the Kingdom. We need to discover, not to define. Collectively, and only collectively, we are Christian Colleges. What we have in common is basic-a commitment to the risen Christ and to scholarship. How we conceive of this commitment, and how we express it, is as varied as the group is large. As people come and go on our campus, Christian college identity changes. Yet we are one rather than many. Being one requires common commitments to scholarship and to God. Being one does not require that we understand or express these commitments in a single manner. Some of us write poetry, others write sermons. Some of us paint, others compute. Some of us teach, others administer. Some of us worship with hands upraised, others worship on bended knee. Some of us read creeds, others give testimonies. Some of us are Baptist, others are Presbyterian. Collectively, and only collectively, we are Christian Colleges. As has always been the case, the identity of each Christian College emerges from those who work there, an identity seen through a glass darkly in the present, but more clearly visible in retrospect. The temptation before us-and this is not a new temptation-is to paint by number rather than with broad strokes, to sing a limited repertoire rather than an eclectic collection, to limit the search for knowledge and for God rather than to find each wherever they may be present and however they are conceived and expressed. Sometimes we fail, each of us, and we give in to the temptation. When this happens we think that some who are part of us-competent scholars and faithful people of God though they may be-are not suited for this place. When we are so tempted, we must remember that our mission is to pursue truth, and to teach others to do likewise, wherever, and in whomever, it may be found. Notes 1Although this paper is primarily directed at Christian Colleges in general, this quote is indigenous to the authors' institution: Messiah College, Grantham, PA. 2In the spirit of Van Brummelen's essay, "Of Dissonant Rhapsody and Harmonic Fugue: The Role of Metaphor in the Interplay of Theory and Practice in Education," Faculty Dialogue 17 (Spring 1992): 169-84, this author is also convinced of the importance of metaphor.