OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CHRISTIAN LEARNING COMMUNITY *BRENDAN F. J. FURNISH* Professor of Sociology Westmont College To those who have been following the literature of alienation, the themes of Habits of the Heart come as no particularly new revelation. What is occurring now in the developed countries--and especially in the United States--has been predicted by sociologists for over a hundred years. Not only Tocqueville; but Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and others have cautioned that increased individualization and materialism, coupled with the flourishing of the structures needed to control mass society, would lead to the inevitable depersonalization of man. Kenneth Keniston aptly described this cultural movement twenty years ago when he observed that "the drift of our time is away from connection, relation, communion and dialogue and our intellectual concerns reflect this condition."1 Despite its apparent lack of novelty, Habits of the Heart does, however, once more warn us of the increasing velocity of the movement towards societal atomization and thereby gives us opportunity to reflect and possibly to develop strategies which might enable us to reconstruct our shattered social lives. Moreover, this book does provide us with insight into a change agent seldom discussed in other related works on the subject: i.e., the strategic role of psychological "therapeutic" models which have exasperated our slide toward the "culture of separation." Although the movement toward individualism, secularism and generalized "modernity" has become widely accepted, it appears strange (at least to this writer) that the evangelical wing of Christianity adapted this cultural form with the same intensity and at almost the same rate as did the rest of society. This happened, in spite of the fact that the biblical view of man is not man the individual but rather man in community with others. Evangelicals have neglected the sense of biblical community evident in both Old and New Testaments. In fact both evangelicals and their fundamentalist brethren often fail against communal forms of any kind, since, to many, this smacks of socialism. In doing so, they slight the implications of the radical identification Christ makes between Himself and the church. They also ignore, at great cost, the strong interdependencies that the mystical corporate church must foster for individual Christians. Instead of emphasizing the corporate elements of the faith, the contemporary evangelical church seems to major in the teaching of selfist psychology, as a cursory inspection of most "Christian" book stores will quickly reveal. Thus the evangelical church has accepted the prevailing cultural mind-set of individualism and developed a worship format in which a non-participatory audience is directed by a strong, authoritarian leader. Pastoral duties have shifted from reliance on qualified lay church officers and leaders to "professional" staffs who are certified to do psychological counseling: within this milieu Luther's teaching of the priesthood of all believers becomes a ghostly relic of an antique time. The result has been twofold: (1) members of the church relate to one another in very superficial, non-biblical ways; and (2) evangelical Christians are burdened with the same angst and problems that non-believers have. In light of these prevailing conditions in both church and the larger society, it should not be unduly surprising to observe that Christian colleges of the evangelical persuasion have, for the most part, tracked the same path of cultural development. Many of the observations made in Habits of the Heart apply not only to the contemporary secular university, but also aptly describe the situation in various Christian colleges. All too often we observe that both faculty and students of Christian colleges have willingly allowed a sense of community to degenerate into a mere "life style enclave."2 Likewise, a coherent effort to provide students with both an integrated worldview (in both a spiritual and a material sense) and a sense of meaning and purpose which transcends cultural expectations is impossible, largely because of political battering between disciplinary enclaves.3 At this point in history, there may be two possible paths for evangelical higher education to take. The first is to continue down the path of cultural evolution and eventually face the possibility that the "culture of separation" will collapse of its own "incoherence"4 (in a kind of Durkheimian paradox5) and be replaced by an inconceivable cultural monstrosity. The other is to develop practical, albeit radical, strategies to break with the culture and develop a new approach. If such strategies were to be successful they could provide a model for change within other societal institutions. Some elements of such an approach for the Christian colleges might include: 1) RESTORATION OF MEANING: This would include several elements. The first would be a restoration of the "community of memory." In addition to its own traditions and history (which should be proclaimed and ritualistically enacted where possible), the Christian college has millenniums of church history to draw on. It is crucial that present-oriented, selfist students be brought to the realization that their past is both rich and important to both their own present and future. Second is the need for adequate moral guidance. The operating assumption of most Christian colleges is that students come to them having learned basic biblical and moral principles in their homes and churches. This is an increasingly naive view which fails to see that contemporary moral values are highly existential and situational. Much more care should be taken in educating students in terms of practical theology and ethics: in this regard as much attention should be given to didache as to kerygma. A fundamental problem for modern people--especially students--lies in the alienation that results from the anomie present in contemporary selfist society. The truth, which moderns are loath to admit, is that people need moral, normative regulation if they are to be truly fulfilled and happy. Third is to train students to be critical of culture. This includes high culture, but especially includes popular culture. After all, popular culture, particularly the media, present us with a false and discordant view of reality.6 Indeed, as Ellul has pointed out, the media compels man to live "...without a present or a past. He gets used to living in complete incoherence..."7 Further, Ellul points out, modern media cause us to focus our attention on things which are immediate and as a consequence prevent us from becoming aware of crucial future events.8 Recapturing true meaning requires our willingness to view events and time in a different framework than is presently imposed on us by our culture.9 Further, the media's portrayal of morality, ethics, and social reality in general, needs to be subject to strong and continuous critique. 2) REEXAMINATION OF THE STATUS AND POWER ARRANGEMENTS WITHIN THE CHRISTIAN COLLEGE. As Habits of the Heart so well indicates, modern society emphasizes rational self-interest and self-reliance, always to the detriment of the commonweal. A consequence is an enhanced individual drive for status and power. Ellul and others have observed that these forces inevitably distort our relationships and eventually enslave us.10 A prime task of the Christian college should be to critique such relationships in society, in the church, and on its own campus. Such a critique ought to be practical as well as theoretical especially as it applies to the campus learning environment. A true setting for Christian higher education would recognize necessary authority structures, but at the same time seriously work to minimize the existence of strictly cultural status and power arrangements within the community. A partial result of this might be that many, varied portions of the academic community would be able to take part in the educational/learning process. Further, status barriers which minimize and restrict friendship within the learning community could be reduced (e.g., a reexamination of the entire notion of "faculty status" should be undertaken). 3) DEVELOPMENT OF NEW LIVING ARRANGEMENTS. A final matter to be dealt with here, involves the living arrangements of the campus community. The first element of this is ecological. Although many Christian colleges are "residential" in nature, this usually only applies to students. We need to reexamine our negative feelings about faculty and staff living in close proximity to our campuses and make a concerted effort to remake our living arrangements. This is a necessary condition for the development of an enhanced Christian community which can flow from proximity and the careful development of structure. To this end we should seriously consider the concepts of mentoring, discipleship, and accountability--not only toward students, but among faculty and staff as well. To be sure, pushed in certain directions such ideas hold the pejorative implications of cultism and communes. However, there are examples of viable Christian communities where personal and family privacy exists, yet where community bonding and accountability is enhanced. To this end we need to examine Christian communities such as "the word of God community" in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and look at the new directions being taken by the University of Steubenville. To this end, the college community should encourage administrators, faculty, and staff to investigate and visit institutions which have developed new arrangements. We must look for the innovative ways in which the Holy Spirit is bringing people together, and where we agree, model such new forms. As so aptly chronicled in Habits of the Heart, our society may well be in the process of atomizing. The forces of alienation are rampant in western culture and the secular society is seemingly unable to cope with the forces unleashed by modernity. Christian higher education offers the possibility of modeling restoration and redemption to the larger society. The Christian college has the potential to provide a wholistic and meaningful view of the world, while at the same time offering, what seems to this writer, the only viable remedy for the tide of selfism and alienation sweeping over the land. Integration of faith and learning can come only after the development of a milieu in which all the members of the community can work together at this task. There is obviously some urgency to developing this enterprise: whether we can transcend self-interest in order to do this remains to be seen. Notes 1. Kenneth Keniston, The Uncommitted, Harcourt, Brace and World., N.Y., 1965, p. 3. 2. Robert N. Bellah, et al., Habits of the Heart, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1985, p. 154. 3. Ibid., p. 279. 4. Ibid., p. 72f. 5. By this I mean the sense in which Durkheim noted that it was a particular type of community, in the sense of the labor society and culture, which allowed individualism to develop and be sustained in the first place. The paradox is that this individualism, if unchecked, will eventually destroy the sense of community which supports it. 6. Ibid., p. 294f. 7. Jacques Ellul, The Presence of the Kingdom, Seabury Press, 1967, p. 101. See also Jacques Ellul, Propaganda, Knopf, 1966. 8. Op cite, passim. 9. cf. Bellah, et al., p. 282f. 10. cf. Jacques Ellul, The Ethics of Freedom, W. B. Eerdmans Co., 1976, p. 236ff.