Thanks, James. Good morning.
Before I introduce Dr.
Lennox, I want to, on behalf of Tyndale, welcome you back to campus.
I look around and see a number of colleagues, a number of fellow churchmen,
and so it's great to be among family and want you to know that Dr.
Clark would be here today, but she's
actually on her way to Pittsburgh to convene the association of theological
schools, which she is finishing her term as president of that association.
So you are important, but she felt she needed to be there as well.
So on behalf of my colleague, welcome.
Glad you're here.
And thank you for the time that it takes
for you to not just carve out some time, but to commit to this opportunity for
expansion and inclusion and all that God has for us.
So that being said, let me introduce our speaker to you.
Dr.
Stephen Lennox and I share several unique alignments across our careers.
And the beauty of them is, I suspect he has no idea what they are.
So who is listening more closely to this introduction than him right now?
And I'm grateful for that attention.
So thank you. Clearly, Dr.
Lennox comes to this event highly
qualified and capable of providing us with an engaging presentation.
How do I know this? Sure.
His Master of Philosophy.
His PhD are from Drew University in New Jersey.
And that in itself is impressive.
I would agree as an alum of Asbury
Seminary, I would agree that Drew is okay too.
But what is more impressive to me is that he taught my daughter when she was a
student of his at Indiana Wesleyan University.
She an interior design art major and he teaching Old Testament Survey.
She would say he was one of her favorite and most impactful professors.
Not automatic to connect those general
distant points without academic and teaching chops.
So well done and thank you from our family.
Second, Steve and I graduated from university the same year.
Therefore, I believe he will bring the
right balance of youthful energy and experience.
I graduated from the school he now leads
as president, as you've heard, Kingswood University in Sussex, New Brunswick.
Stephen graduated from Houghton College, a
Wesleyan liberal arts school in western New York that was a rival to the school
Roberts Wesleyan College that I worked at for 24 years.
In a strange way in the Christian College culture in the US.
While there is no personal reason for
this, historically and culturally we don't like each other.
Yet here I am introducing him to you with all respect and with seriousness.
All of this is to emphasize for me the fabric and beauty of the kingdom of God
and the joy found in our faithfulness and obedience to his call on our life.
Steve, for all the books, for all the
articles, for all the book chapters you have written, thank you.
These are contributions to the church, to
its people, and to its students that we value.
I want to affirm your commitment to
Christian higher education and the tremendous responsibility to shape
Christian character and invest in the formation of students.
You are welcome here, and I celebrate your calling to the academy.
Welcome, Steve.
Great job. Thank you.
The first yellow card I ever got at a
soccer game on the college level was in a game against Roberts Wesleyan.
I probably did.
The interesting thing is that I was not even suited up for the game.
It's a true story.
I was standing on the sidelines alongside
the coach, and I was yelling so vehemently that the ref stopped and turned to me and
pulled out the card, and I got a yellow card, and I wasn't even playing.
So I want to talk about Sanctification.
I first want to say how honored I am to be invited and thank you, Dr.
Pedler and Alfred and everybody else who had a part in that.
I appreciate that so much.
And I am so eager to be able to share with you what I feel God wants me to say to you
this morning as much for the opportunity to do so as for the opportunity to receive
your helpful correctives and insights and directions for further development.
So I look forward to the question and
answer period as much as I look forward to sharing in the first part.
I think it's safe to say that officially, higher education in North America is in
crisis, maybe the greatest crisis it's ever known in its North American context.
And I cite just a handful of supporting evidence.
There is what we colloquially refer to as
disruptive innovation, essentially the proliferation of ways to
complete degrees in a creditable form, but nontraditional delivery modality.
So you have MOOCs.
And while MOOCs may not be here forever,
what MOOCs represent do stand to be here forever.
I suggest in some form, you have online, you have noncredit, you have edx, you have
MicroBachelors, which are something like Legos when it comes to degrees.
And all of that seems perfectly acceptable to those who decide this thing.
Second evidence, you have the question of return on investment.
The government is asking the question, is this really worth investing our money?
I don't know how it is here in Ontario,
but in New Brunswick, the government of New Brunswick decided to reduce funding to
private universities and grant free tuition to the publics.
Well, you can imagine what that did to the
private universities like ours, like Crandall University.
I noticed that New York State has just inaugurated their free tuition program.
There is increased scrutiny.
There is parental scrutiny.
There's student scrutiny.
Imagine that they're actually asking if
they're getting their money's worth and if it's worth taking out loans.
Third bit of evidence is a question of purpose.
I'm speaking broadly now, but the consensus has been, as far as I can tell,
that creating good citizens is the purpose of higher education.
But even those within the academy.
And I quote one who said, change the world on your own time.
I ran across this telling quote from the
Chronicle of Higher Education not too long ago, referring to the fact that for years
there has been a canon of literature that is studied.
And the headline was Skills are the new Canon.
So economics is becoming and will soon
become the primary reason for higher education.
So it's very interesting to me, in a
recent publication, an article promoting Nova Scotian higher education with this
title nova Scotian Universities are Worth Their Weight in Gold.
And apart from the hyperbole,
it is a telling analogy that it really is about the money that the institutions can
provide, and that's the reason that they ought to be supported.
And they talked about talent, attraction,
retention, innovation, export revenue, christian higher education.
Cccu, you may be familiar with that group,
but they too have just come out with a report highlighting the economic benefits
to be gained from Christian higher education.
So what's the purpose of higher education?
Well, it looks like it's helping people get good jobs.
And then there's the challenging financial picture.
We haven't really recovered, at least in
the higher education sector, from the recession of a decade ago.
We are facing shrinking demographics in most places in North America.
That is, fewer number of potential high
school graduates, which is why I don't have the statistic
for Canada, but for the United States, 61 61% of higher education institutions in
the United States failed to meet their enrollment goals for the fall.
All of which prompts people like Rick
Lagone, who's the president of the association of Governing Boards of
Universities and Colleges to describe the present state of affairs this way.
He calls it, quote, a crisis unlike anybody alive has ever seen.
It's new, and its impact on higher education is playing out.
Now, I don't know if I'm an optimist, but
I have to ask, is there any silver lining to this crisis scenario?
And of course, I think there is.
I think that the silver lining is the
question of really, what is the purpose of higher education?
That's a good thing to ask,
and Christian colleges are having to ask that question too.
Christian higher education.
So in the spirit of that, I would ask this
question what is the principal purpose for higher education postsecondary
education in schools that are part of the Wesleyan tradition?
Whenever I use the word Wesleyan in this presentation or in my responses to your
questions, I am talking about the broader perspective of Wesleyan higher education,
not the Wesleyan denomination, of which I'm a part, but what is the purpose?
And here's my answer and the thesis of
what I want to share with you this morning.
If our colleges and universities and seminaries took seriously their Wesleyan
theology, this school would operate as a sanctifying
context, seeking to influence students, faculty,
and staff toward full salvation for themselves and the world.
So what I want to do in this paper is to explain what I mean by that, particularly
what I mean by a sanctifying context and why I think this is the best purpose.
And then I want to provide specific implications for the various
constituencies that are part of these institutions.
And I'm hoping that by covering all these constituencies, I catch everybody.
So I'm thinking of students in Wesleyan higher education, I'm thinking of alumni,
I'm thinking of constituent church leaders.
I'm thinking of trustees, administrators, faculty, and if I miss you, my apologies.
I'll be happy to provide in the Q and A
off the top of my head what I think this means to you.
So we've generally employed the term sanctification to describe the gracious
work of God by which he purifies from sin and empowers for service.
That's not a wrong definition, but it is
too limited because it assumes a limited understanding of redemption.
So for a better understanding, let's go back to the Garden of Eden.
Prior to eating the forbidden fruit,
humanity enjoyed unimpeded fellowship with God.
They existed harmoniously with each other, living as one flesh.
Though naked, they were unashamed at peace within themselves.
They lived in harmony with the natural world, able to understand and order it.
Wesley described the first man prior to the Fall as, quote, unspeakably happy
dwelling in God, and God in him, having an uninterrupted fellowship with the Father
and the Son through the eternal spirit and the continual testimony of his conscience
that all his ways were good and acceptable to God, end quote.
But after eating the fruit, humanity's
relationship to God self, others and the natural world were broken.
They hid at the sound of God's approach.
They experienced interpersonal conflict and intrapersonal shame.
When sin moved in, nature ceased to be a hospitable home,
wrote Wesley, quote the life of God was extinguished in Adam's soul.
He was unholy, he was unhappy, he was full
of sin, full of guilt and tormenting fears.
Thus was his soul utterly dead to God.
End quote.
From the Garden forward, we see God
working to restore these four broken relationships human to God,
human to self, human to human, human to the natural world.
This is why he called Abram elected Israel, and from Israel brought the
Messiah, who became the mediator between God and men through the cross.
The story of the Bible is the story of reconciliation.
This principally concerns the
reconciliations of humans to God how we customarily speak of sanctification,
but it includes of necessity, healing in the other three relationships.
Be not content with any religion, said Wesley, which does not imply the
destruction of all the works of the devil, that is, of all sin.
Harmony with God fosters harmony with
oneself, others and with the natural world.
God promised the Israelites that if they were rightly related to him, each would
sit quietly under his own vine and fig tree, untroubled within oneself,
unmolested by others, and enjoying the fertility of the Promised Land.
According to Paul, justification by faith
brings us not only peace with God, romans five one but also peace within ourselves.
For the mind of the sinful man is death,
the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.
Romans eight six peace with God also brings interpersonal peace, as we make
every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.
Romans 514 19 complete reconciliation between humanity and nature awaits
Christ's return when creation and I quote Paul again will be liberated from its
bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
Romans 821 in the meantime, God provides what I like to call workarounds for how to
relate to creation while living in a fallen world.
For example, the Sabbath is, among other things, a lesson in how to make the most
of one's resources during the temporary setback known as the curse.
The Bible describes salvation using a variety of metaphors, but Wesley would
agree that one of the most important is full orbed reconciliation.
He compared sin to disease and alienation
and salvation to healing and reconciliation that is, to love.
Love, says Donald Dayton, was quote, the organizing motif end quote, of Wesley's
thought, again quoting Dayton, the image of God in Eden was the ability to love,
and it was this ability to love that was lost in the fall.
Justification brings forgiveness for
Wesley, but the real point, Dayton says, is the therapeutic work of God in
restoring the ability to love in regeneration and sanctification.
End quote.
So if salvation means full orbed
reconciliation reconciliation, and if sanctification
is the process whereby these reconciling effects are progressively incorporated in
the life of the believer, then sanctification should be broadly defined
as reconciliation with God, self, others and creation.
According to Randy Maddox, this was how Wesley understood holiness.
Maddox writes that for Wesley, quote the proper relationship to God and by the way,
Randy's book is back there, Responsible Grace.
I highly recommend it.
The proper relationship to God is knowing,
loving, obeying, and enjoying God eternally.
That is, participation.
The proper relationship to other humans is loving service.
The proper relationship to all other animals is loving protection.
When each of these relationships is
properly expressed, says Maddox, we will also have a proper
relationship to ourselves of self acceptance.
End quote.
So for Wesley, the metaphor that best
expressed the sanctified life was restoration of the image of God.
Real religion, said Wesley, is a
restoration not only to the favor, but likewise to the image of God, implying not
barely deliverance from sin, but the being filled with the fullness of God.
End quote.
Gospel holiness, said Wesley, is quote, no
less than the image of God stamped upon the heart.
End quote.
Full orb reconciliation provides a new identity.
The reconciled is one in whom the image of God is being increasingly restored.
Heavenly Adam life divine change my nature into thine.
Move and spread through out my soul actuate and fill the whole.
One's sense of identity is instrumental in
moving a person from moral understanding to action.
According to Colby et al, moral
understanding acquires I'm quoting now moral understanding acquires a
motivational power through its integration into the structures of the self.
End quote.
The philosopher Charles Taylor put it this
way to know who I am is a species of knowing where I stand.
My identity is defined by the commitments and identifications which provide the
frame or horizon within which I can try to determine from case to case what is good
or valuable, or what ought to be done, or what I endorse or oppose.
In other words, Taylor says, it is the
horizon within which I am capable of taking a stand.
Now, we have many identities male, middle aged, white
but we have a meta identity which, in the words of Glanzer and Ream
quote, takes priority over one's other identities.
These identities, they say, usually link to larger meta narratives.
So back to my thesis.
Wesleyan Theology,
operating with the meta narrative of full Orb reconciliation,
identifies the meta identity for each believer as one in whom the image of God
is being finally and fully restored, being filled with the fullness of God.
The restoration of the divine image, for
Wesley, meant that, quote, seeds of spiritual death, end quote.
Will gradually be expelled in this life,
quote, before this earthly tabernacle is dissolved.
End quote.
So with the resurrection of this moral
image, I can once again experience fellowship with God.
The restoration of the natural image allows me to exercise my liberty, will,
and understanding in ways increasingly disencumbered by sin.
Creation in the divine image included the
capacity to exist in relationship with others and with myself.
As known within the triune, God salvation
restores the relational nature of the divine image as well.
The restoration of the divine image means
a renewed capacity to experience inter and intrapersonal harmony, even as the triune
God exists, to quote Daniel Migliori, incomparably hospitable to each other.
The restoration of the divine image not only reconciliation with God, with others,
with myself, but also with the natural world.
I think this is why Wesley spoke so often, spoke so insistently about our being good
stewards of our money, why he devoted himself to understanding
medicine and other apparently nonreligious subjects, and why he insisted on meeting
the physical as well as the spiritual needs of the people.
While God is the one who accomplishes this reconciliation,
he graciously chooses to do so, employing human participation in the natural state.
No one's capable of responding to God, but through convenient grace, said Wesley,
every man has a measure of free will restored to him by grace.
This is what Maddox calls responsible grace.
We are responsible to assist others in
responding to the grace they've been shown.
And the Bible has many illustrations of
this, how God used people to assist other people toward full orb reconciliation, the
work of the priests and the Levites, the church.
We've been called to be peacemakers.
We've been given the ministry of reconciliation.
We've been given the keys by which we loose those bound by sin.
There's lots of examples.
God designed this work of sanctification to be done within communities.
So Israel wasn't just declared a holy
nation, but was designed to become increasingly holy as a nation.
God gave the keys to the church.
He didn't make a set for each of the members.
Communities produce sanctification in part because they provide and reinforce
a common meta narrative, a story which interprets all other stories.
They provide and reinforce a meta identity which supersedes all other identities.
Communities offer examples and mentors to guide us toward this new identity.
This sanctification occurs in communities
by God's design, and also by God's design, through practices within that community.
Practices are more than something we do.
They become arenas, Craig Dijkstra said, in which something is done to us and in us
and through us, that we could not our of ourselves do.
And that is beyond what we do.
Christian practices are what Christian people do together.
I'm quoting now over time, in response to
and in light of God's active presence for the life of the world.
Now, as soon as I talk about practices, those of you who know anything about
Wesley know how much he incorporated practices into the Methodist movement.
He structured the Methodist I'm sorry.
He knew the importance of sanctifying context with practices involved.
He knew people grew best when surrounded
by others who embraced the same story and sought the same goal.
Hence his famous quote, there is no holiness but social holiness.
That does not refer specifically to social action.
Both times it's used in Wesley's writings, it refers to sanctifying contexts.
There is no holiness but social holiness.
A more colorful quote, holy solitaries, he
said, is a phrase no more consistent with the gospel than holy adulterers.
And so he structured the Methodist
movement around a series of groups, each serving a different function beneath the
one main purpose restoration in the image of God.
He said in his journal, there's something not easily explained in the fellowship of
the Spirit which we enjoy in a society of living Christians.
End quote.
He set up class meetings.
These aren't classes in the instructional sense.
They're more like house churches held in the neighborhoods of those participating.
Each class would ordinarily contain about a dozen people.
Class leaders, both male and female, and
chosen from within the group, served a pastoral role.
Meetings were held weekly, during which
each would report on his or her spiritual health, receive appropriate counsel,
correction, or encouragement, and conclude with prayer.
Class meetings would usually last an hour or so, and these meetings were the source
of contributions for the poor, inculcating this discipline of stewardship,
an important purpose for these class meetings was to ensure that all were
walking in fellowship with God and with one another.
So this was an opportunity for each to watch over the other.
In love, Wesley believed that sin was
infectious and must, if necessary, be watched for and removed.
When identified
person could join a class meeting without professing faith in Christ,
he or she needed only to be striving for such faith.
Faith as evidenced by first, quote, avoiding all known sin, doing good after
his power, and attending all the ordinances of God.
End quote. Needless to say, these class meetings were
a source of great evangelism, and Wesley was delighted by this arrangement.
Quote many now happily experienced that
Christian fellowship of which they had not so much as an idea before they began to
bear one another's burden and naturally to care for each other.
As they had daily a more intimate acquaintance with so they had a more
endeared affection for each other and speaking the truth.
In love, they grew up into Him in all
things who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly, joined together
and compacted by that which every joint supplied according to the effectual
working, the measure of every part increased unto the edifying itself.
In love, Wesley set up other groups for other
purposes, always with this commitment that if there's going to be spiritual
formation, it occurs best in sanctifying communities.
Wesley understood that there had to be practices.
We know them better as means of grace,
indispensable practices meant to form Godly character.
And these class groups, the band groups,
the select societies, it was one type of means of grace.
So, too was the Eucharist prayer,
scripture reading, Christian conference, and so forth.
Sanctifying contexts
are those communities with a shared story of full orb reconciliation
and shared practices, means whereby God's grace is communicated to us.
These communities
seek to foster within their members a new identity, one which supersedes all others,
those in whom the image of God is being restored.
And what does all this have to do with Wesley and higher education?
Wesley and postsecondary education.
Well, here's my thesis again.
Colleges, universities, and seminaries in the Wesleyan tradition should
intentionally operate as sanctifying contexts.
Here, students would not only receive quality instruction from faculty who care
deeply for their subject and their students, but more significantly, would
receive this instruction in the context of an all encompassing story, allowing
students to understand not only the what of their instruction, but the eternal why.
Through the entire experience, every
student can be challenged to discover his or her true identity as the image of God.
Those who matriculate with a strong and
growing relationship with Christ should find that relationship nourished by a
vision of God's grace that is life giving and lifelong.
Those who arrive on campus as Christians
with all the trappings of faith, but without having been fully weaned to a
faith of their own, should be encouraged to move on to that important step.
For those students who come without a
commitment to Christ, a sanctifying context would provide ample opportunities
to understand and respond to God's invitation.
At such a school, reconciliation with God, though, is only the beginning.
A sanctifying campus experience will also
foster interpersonal and intrapersonal reconciliation.
Moral formation will be an important goal,
but formation which occurs holistically spiritual and emotional development
occurring in sync with intellectual development.
Students will not only be challenged to be reconciled to God, others and themselves,
they'll discover their vocation as image bearers.
And whatever their major,
they'll be introduced to how they can steward creation, how they can push back
the effects of the curse in partnership with God.
And Wesleyan higher education shouldn't aim for anything less.
Now, having made this point, there are at least four objections that I anticipate.
First, to speak of cultivating a sanctifying context in our schools, we'll
encounter first some who suggest that we put off thinking about theology
until we've dealt with the major crises that we face.
After all, the middle of a category four
tornado is no time to be tidying up the lawn.
The problem is that your theology shapes how you respond to crises.
You might as well say, to have shelter in the storm, you should first build the
walls and the roof of your house, then worry about the foundation.
These matters are important and must be attended to.
But theology is more than window dressing.
It lies at the root of our decisions.
What we think about God and what he thinks
about us shape our response to what confronts us.
I didn't say it should shape our response.
It automatically does.
That being so, a clear understanding of theology is surely the best guarantee that
we'll answer these other questions properly.
We also need to keep in mind that a
school's sanctifying context mission is not something we can lock in a vault in
the archives and pull out on special occasions, like the presidential medallion
or the mace that you carry at commencement.
This mission is more like the computer server in your It office.
And as Dinesh can tell us, that server is a crucial piece of the operation.
Every day, it fields thousands of
messages, most of them harmless and essential, some of them dangerous.
Carefully monitored, your server makes the life of the institution possible.
But left unattended, your server will soon
become so corrupted as to be worse than useless.
So carefully monitoring the mission
ensures that a school continues to do what God intends for that school to do.
And if I'm correct that this goal involves
nothing less than participating in God's redemptive and reconciling work, then what
we do in Wesley and postsecondary education has eternal consequences.
Being able to operate a sanctifying context is what make discussions about how
to resolve these other crises so important.
A second objection concerns putting too much emphasis on doctrine, which is
presumably a turn off when you're dealing with prospective students and faculty.
Now, I have to agree that very few people these days choose to be part of an
institution because of denominational loyalty.
I'm sorry if I'm the first one that's told
you that, but that doesn't mean that a school's theological distinctives
will negatively impact recruitment of students or faculty.
Just because people don't pick a college for its denominational label doesn't mean
that those denominational distinctives are unimportant.
The two don't follow.
If that were the case, a school like
Calvin in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which makes no secret of its commitment to the
Reformed theology, would not have nearly 4000 students and be recently listed in
the Forbes list of Top ten Christian Colleges.
I'm not advocating parochialism, a narrow or myopic focus.
I'm talking about full Orb reconciliation, which turns Christians loose to be related
to God, others themselves, the natural world.
I don't think you can get much bigger than that.
Every inch of this universe is touched by this redemptive vision.
And I'm certainly not talking about sectarianism, the US.
Four no More, where we highlight our
theological differences and marginalize outsiders.
This is one of the things I love about Wesleyan theology we're way more
genetically predisposed to build bridges than we are to build walls.
We follow in the footsteps, or at least we
should follow in the footsteps of Wesley, who wrote, as to all opinions which do not
strike at the root of Christianity, we think and let think.
From my experience, far from turning people off, what I'm advocating seems
precisely the kind of vision that students and parents are looking for.
So they may no longer look for a college because of its denominational label, but
research suggests they still want a Christian college, and they still prefer a
context that's theologically congenial to their local church.
In other words, denominationalism has become an identifying mark for an
institution useful internally and externally.
It's more like a table of contents or a list of ingredients than a brand.
Students may not choose a college because of its label, but they definitely read the
label to figure out what's in the ingredients.
Providing a sanctifying context allows us
to liberally distribute the gifts God has entrusted to the Wesleyan tradition
responsible grace, an emphasis on love for God and neighbor.
The optimism of grace.
It's about living life as God intended.
Over my years in Wesleyan higher
education, I have seen these themes appeal to Wesleyans and non Wesleans alike.
I've conducted literally hundreds of job
interviews with prospective faculty in my previous job at Indiana Wesleyan.
This was one of my primary roles for the last decade and a half or so was to
interview all prospective faculty members and many of the administrators and staff.
It has not been uncommon for a candidate,
sometimes with deep emotion, to affirm that while they did not come from the
Wesleyan tradition, what I had described to them as the.
Heart of Wesleyan higher education was precisely what they were looking for,
but they had almost given up hope of finding it.
I've spoken with non Wesleyan students.
I had this conversation a day ago or two
days ago in my office with a student who came to a Wesleyan
school knowing very little about Wesleyan theology.
And once they were exposed to it, they came to love it and embraced it.
I know there are some who like a generic Christian atmosphere, and I realize where
I'm speaking, they prefer a generic Christian atmosphere where we don't really
have a theology, we don't really have a particular theological tradition.
Now, I applaud the reminder that core Christian beliefs
are more important than the doctrines of any theological tradition,
but I do believe that Robert Benny, author of Quality with Soul, is correct.
And by the way, if you're not familiar with Robert Benny,
he writes in response to The Virtual Dying of the Light,
the expose that higher education had gone away from any Christian rootage.
And Benny wrote Quality with Soul to say that it's not a foregone conclusion.
There are certain things that characterize
schools that maintain their commitment to their Christ centered mission.
I commend the book to you.
He says one can only be a Christian school
in that broad sense if one is anchored in a specific tradition.
End quote.
Generic church related institutions, he
says, are, quote, rarer than truffles in the desert.
End quote.
Scratch the surface of such schools, get below the generic Christian label, and he
says, quote, a particular tradition becomes visible.
End quote.
All institutions Wright, Perry, Glanzer and Todd Ream share in some tradition,
regardless of whether such a relationship is conscious or not.
End quote. They recommend schools embrace their
tradition, creating, quote, a hospitable climate in which students come to
appreciate the particulars of a given place.
End quote.
According to Benny, the generic Christian university is not a destination.
It is a, quote, mere way station on the
path from denominational affiliation to a complete secularization.
End quote.
Generic Christianity is a vacuum waiting to be filled by the loudest voices or the
intentional or unintentional preferences in faculty hiring and student recruitment.
So, far from being a liability,
emphasizing a particular theological tradition is an asset.
It provides glanzer and ream significant aid to both moral education and the
integration of faith and learning at various institutions, given that it
sustains a richer theological language and set of practices.
End quote.
A third objection concerns the presumed
incompatibility of academic freedom in a credible institution.
The assumption goes that if faculty are forced to sign a confessional statement,
let alone provide moral and spiritual guidance, they cannot have the freedom
they need to pursue truth wherever it leads.
Well, that Reed does not agree with the
American Association of University Professors, which sees no inconsistency
between academic freedom and confessional requirements as long as those are made
clear at the point of hiring but I think it also misunderstands academic freedom.
What originally meant freedom for the entire academic community is now used
almost exclusively to refer only to freedom for the individual professor.
What about the students freedom to seek truth without restraint?
What about the school's freedom to operate
unhindered from internal erosion brought about by neglecting the tradition and
sacrifice that preserve the institution up to the present?
This objection mistakenly defines academic freedom as bare freedom from limitations.
But every scholar knows that good scholarship requires limitations like
academic honesty and the scientific method.
Those are limitations.
Think of the findings you could have if you weren't honest.
No scholar operates without prior intellectual and moral commitments.
Nor do universities
quote, all social institutions, writes Christian Smith, are embedded within and
give expression to moral orders that generate, define, and govern them.
End quote.
Glanzer and ream are more succinct.
Secularity does not equal neutrality.
In essence, no morally neutral universities exist.
So just as good scholarship requires prior intellectual and moral commitments, there
is nothing that distinguishes that from the doctrinal commitments that we make.
They're kind of like an echos, an ecosystem.
These doctrinal commitments where ideas interact, where growth occurs in the
interchange, they're kind of like human skin, which not only protects the body,
but also facilitates sensitive exchange with the outside world.
William Kavanaugh writes, the Ecclesially
based university is better equipped to promote freedom precisely because it has a
fuller understanding of the quest for truth.
Freedom and truth are the true colors
under which the Ecclesiaste based university sails.
End quote. I taught Old Testament for over 20 years
at Indiana Wesleyan, and I made no secret, for example, of the variety of ways of
understanding the first two chapters of Genesis.
And I found perfect freedom within my
context to make students aware of those things.
I didn't push one, I didn't push the other.
I made all of them known to the students.
And I just wonder how much of that freedom
to do that share all of those views on a given subject is found in nonchristian
schools who accuse Christian schools of denying academic freedom.
Just my experience.
A fourth objection sees this approach as
diverting higher education from its true purpose the twelve inches from the
shoulders up the intellectual formation of students.
Change the world on your own time.
So they say.
This kind of thing will be all right at a place like Kingswood.
You're a Bible college, for Pete's sake, but not at a liberal arts college.
Of course. This objection forgets that intellectual
formation is most effective when done in conjunction with affective formation.
It also ignores the fact that formation is taking place all the time,
intentionally or otherwise, in classrooms, residence halls, advising sessions.
All education, writes Parker Palmer, quote, not just religious education or
education that has some kind of formal theological content, but all education,
end quote, is either producing spiritual formation or deformation.
Well, some say we can encourage moral formation.
We just like it to be a little less religiously tainted.
We'd rather make good students or those students who are liberally educated.
And I'm saying these are great goals.
They're just too low.
Our students weren't just created to be
liberated learners or good citizens of a liberal democracy.
They were created to love God eternally.
We betray our heritage, and we betray our students if we provide anything less.
Thankfully, we have a theology which does
not force us to choose between fitting our students for earth or for heaven.
No theological tradition is more optimistic about the capacity for
God's grace to transform us and society through us.
By giving us a meta identity beyond earth,
we are positioned to do the greatest good on earth.
Some have criticized Wesleyan higher
education for devaluing higher education, and to a certain extent that is true.
And I won't go into the details, historically speaking, how Wesleyans,
broadly speaking, have viewed higher education.
But the long view says something different, and we sang about it today.
It's not that we've devalued higher education.
It's just that we want to keep well, let me use Wesley's words.
Unite the pair so long disjoint knowledge
and vital piety, learning and holiness combined, and truth and love.
Let all men see.
Maintaining this combination of knowledge and vital piety is one of the chief
distinctions of Wesley and higher education.
And what a sanctifying context seeks to perpetuate.
So if I'm right that a college is necessarily a time of
formation and that all formation has spiritual implications, then Christian
higher education provides an optimal context for true spiritual formation.
And as much as I appreciate the potential
of Christian higher education, something's missing.
Students need to find their vocation.
They need to become instruments of justice and redemption.
But they were made for something more.
They were made to be filled with the fullness of God.
And schools operating as intentionally Wesleyan as sanctifying contexts are
ideally places to help our students experience the answer to Wesley's prayer.
Heavenly Adam life divine
change my nature into thine move and spread throughout my soul actuate and fill
the whole now, let me briefly mention some
implications here, and then we'll take some time for questions.
First, implications for students, four of them.
First, recognize the goal of your education is full orb reconciliation.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking this
is about getting a degree or about getting a job.
This is about discovering reconciliation in all its facets.
Second, you're going to have to work to actively cultivate a meta identity.
Mindset you have been steeped for the
first 18 years plus of your lives that your identity revolves around your
physical body, your gender, your sexuality.
That is the default when you begin to ask who you are.
But that's not all there is to it.
And you students are going to have to work
to define your identity the way God defines your identity.
Third, you're going to have to engage in your curricular, your cocurricular, and
your extracurricular activities with a reconciliation mindset.
You're going to go into your classes and ask how this bit of information in this
lecture today or this PowerPoint today fits into this meta narrative.
You're going to have to pursue your co
curricular not just as an opportunity to get a foot in the door to get a job when
you graduate, but as a way of putting into practice this
reconciling mindset, your chapel, your residents life, your other groups.
These are prime ways to experience this sanctifying influence.
And fourth, don't leave.
Don't leave until you know how your
discipline helps you push back the effects of sin in this world.
Alums other constituents, this is the time for you to invest.
Invest in giving. Invest in prayer.
These are tough times for Christian higher education.
For Wesleyan higher education.
You need to give your encouragement to the leaders.
You need to refer students, and you need to support denominational.
Support our own denomination, supports our schools heavily.
But there is a sense where, like, the
culture wesleans are wondering whether we're really that great of an investment
and wondering whether we can pull back a little bit.
Well, if we're doing our job, we're worth the money.
If we're doing our job, and that'd be my last suggestion hold us accountable.
We're not just there to make good citizens.
How many of you are trustees at higher education institutions?
I've got one, and he's on my board.
This has implications for things like
campus ethos, selecting at large trustees, selecting a new president.
That's most important.
Anybody here an administrator at Christian Higher Education?
No?
All right, well, there's some significant things there, but we'll skip over those.
How about faculty?
Any faculty at Christian higher education.
Wesleyan Higher Education?
All right, let me just make a few points here, and I want to talk about faith
learning integration, that favorite topic for faculty seminars.
Of course, by faith, you know what I mean this full Orb reconciliation.
And by integration, I mean what's already happening.
You've heard me say it.
If you have a faith, it's integrated in
your life just whether it's well integrated or not.
And when it comes to faculty living out
their faith, there are, of course, the six standard ways that this happens.
Your faith will shape you as a person.
Your faith will shape you as a faculty member.
Your faith will shape how you see students.
Your faith will shape how you work with students.
Your faith will shape the goal you have for working with students.
And then the one that most people think
about is your faith will actually shape how you see your discipline.
And every one of those six is directly
impacted if you have this full Orb reconciliation, if my faith shapes how I
see myself as a person, then I'm not ultimately a college president.
I'm ultimately made to be in the image of God.
That's my meta identity.
If I get that straight, I'm way healthier.
And my goal is full. Orb reconciliation?
That's my goal for me and for my role as a faculty member.
It shapes how I see myself as a faculty member.
I'm not just there to dispense information to that student.
I'm there to see that student experience Full Orb reconciliation.
I can't leave your salvation or your spiritual formation to the chaplain.
And I can't leave your interpersonal relationship to residents life.
And I can't leave your intrapersonal
relationship, how you feel about yourself to the counseling center.
My job is to make sure that when you
graduate, you are as shaped and formed as reconciled people as I can possibly do.
That's my goal as a faculty member.
It involves my collegiality.
It involves the humility.
And if I could speak honestly, pride may be the besetting sin of faculty members.
The people pay to listen to us.
But if I'm operating with a sense of Full Orb reconciliation as my goal as a faculty
member, it changes the way I go about doing my work.
So I would say wherever you are in relation to your role visa vis Wesleyan
postsecondary education, my challenge is to step into this picture
of understanding Wesleyan higher education's chief purpose.
And so I conclude actually,
I had a killer conclusion.
Can I read it?
In their study of Christian colleges and
universities intentionally engaged in moral education, glanzer and Ream found
many schools which contribute to the moral formation of their students.
They found none, however, who, in their words, talked of forming saints.
And this is precisely what God's calling
us to do in Wesley and Postsecondary education.
Rather than being just Christian colleges
where students grow in their faith, we're supposed to be forming saints.
We have the theological resources to form saints, the story of Full Orb
reconciliation and the goal of restoring the image of God.
We believe in the importance of community and saint shaping practices.
We value both the heart and the head.
We want to change the world and reach heaven.
And so my encouragement is, let's not be so distracted by the crises that we lose
sight of the real purpose why God put us here.
We must lead the way and in higher education by making our schools
sanctifying contexts, places where God can form saints.
May God give us the conviction and courage to make this a reality.
Wasn't that worth waiting for? Yes.