Category Archives: Academia

Christians in College: Some Basic Resources

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Here are a few starting points if you are interested in the place of Christians at colleges and universities. These books are excellent for either those with a concern for Christians at colleges and universities, or for Christian students who are starting to feel the tension between their faith in Christ and their life in the university.

Foundational Books

These books make the case for Christian involvement in higher education. They have each been influential to many Christian ministries, including my own, the Emerging Scholars Network.

A Christian Critique of the University by Charles Malik — Malik was a renowned Lebanese Christian diplomat, philosopher, and university professor, heavily influential in the early days of the United Nations. He delivered a series of lectures in 1981 at the University of Waterloo, which were collected in this book. Malik famously noted that the important question was not what the university thinks of Jesus Christ, but what does Jesus Christ think about the university? (Note: This book is out of print, but Malik’s equally influential lecture “The Two Tasks of the Christian Scholar” has been reprinted in a recent book of the same name, which features essays by a number of prominent Christian professors.)

The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship by George Marsden – In the conclusion to his book, The Soul of the American University, Marsden called for Christians to create distinctively Christian scholarship. The ensuing uproar in the secular academia led Marsden to write this brief follow-up, which has become a challenge to a generation of Christians scholars.

The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll – According to Noll, the “scandal of the evangelical mind” is that “there is not much of an evangelical mind.” A primary reason why evangelical Christians lack a presence in higher education is because many evangelical churches ignore the life of the mind and the importance of learning.

Books for Students

The next three books are excellent choices for either students heading to college or in their first year or two. Each of them will help students think about their Christian faith in the context of being a college student and, if they have ears to hear, will guide them in developing a well-grounded, well-educated faith.

How to Stay Christian in College by J. Budziszewski – Budziszewski is a professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and this book is a short, practical guide based on questions that students have asked him over the years.

Welcome to College: A Christ-Follower’s Guide for the Journey by Jonathan Morrow – This book is a series of short essays on nearly everything conceivable subject that a Christian will deal with in college – philosophical questions, peer pressure, sex and dating, drinking – complete with discussion questions and suggestions for further reading. Perhaps most helpful, Morrow has put together a devotional guide for a student’s first year in college.

Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness, The: A Guide for Students by Donald Opitz and Derek Melleby – Taking its lead from Marsden, Opitz and Melleby challenge students to take both their faith and their studies seriously. They describe the invaluable opportunity Christians have while in college to study and exercise their mind, to distinguish themselves from the world of “bread and circuses” that dominates so much of college life. This book counsels students to truly study “as unto the Lord.”

Next Steps

This final selection of books will help students (and others) bridge the gap between their faith and the rest of their life: their vocation, their career, their family life, the day-to-day routine of living. These books are excellent choices for juniors, seniors, recent graduates, or anyone seeking to love God with their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life by Os Guinness – Perhaps few of us feel like we have a “call from God,” yet Guinness reminds us that all of us are called by God to love him and love our neighbor. How we live that out, is different for each of us. This deep and insightful book helps to understand our unique vocation in the light of God’s call.

The Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving Together Belief And Behavior by Steven Garber – Garber has put together has excellent guide to living a life consistent with your faith. I read this book the year after I graduated college, and it radically changed by understanding of Christianity by showing me that consistent Christianity requires a community of people living out their faith together. I’ve recommended this book frequently over their years.

Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life As a Christian Calling by James Sire – Jim Sire is the retired editor-in-chief of InterVarsity Press, and he brought to that role a strong sense of the intellectual life. This book, one of the more popular ones I have offered to ESN members, describes a variety of intellectual virtues and how they fit into a life of Christian discipleship.

My Letter about UC’s “Sexploration”

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Last week, the University of Cincinnati’s Wellness Center hosted an event called “Sexploration” – here is the Enquirer’s article about it. And here is the letter that I wrote to the Enquirer about the event:

The University of Cincinnati is hosting a “Sexploration” week, sponsored by local sexual aid company Pure Romance, to educate UC students about sexual health. After reviewing the event web site and the web sites of the presenters, “sexual health” apparently involves free condoms, talking about porn, and complaining about censorship.

As far as I can tell, the week will not include a single word about preparing yourself for a committed sexual relationship, resisting the urge to “hook up” for shallow and empty sex, or learning about the meaning of love and sex from any of the great writers, philosophers, and scholars who are studied at UC.

Ironically, the great novelist John Updike, who wrote more honestly about sex than perhaps any other American writer, died last week. After UC students have collected their free condoms and taken their free HIV tests, maybe they should head over to the library and become educated about sex in a more holistic fashion.

To put the issue another way: if there is a problem with the way that college students approach sex and sexuality, are free condoms and conversations about porn the solution?

Lively Latin

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Joseph Bottum at First Things has written an essay about the benefits and demise of Latin education.  The study of “dead” languages is something near and dear to my heart.  The two languages I have studied for any length of time whatsoever have been Latin and Biblical Hebrew.  Here’s Bottum’s conclusion about practical benefits of Latin:

There’s a superior command of English granted by the study of Latin, but even to make that argument is to admit that Latin requires some practical result. For that matter, there’s plenty to learn from the ancient world’s experience of politics, social life, and art, and yet, again, that’s not, in itself, a reason to demand that students study Latin. Translations will do as well, if that’s all we want, and the real argument for Latin runs deeper than mere practicality.

However, as he readily admits, practical benefits are, ultimately, beside the point when it comes to Latin.

In fact, Latin was a measure of education, not a portion that could be added or dropped. Admittedly a somewhat arbitrary measure, though it kept us tied to the continuity of Western civilization. But without some such measure, the entire idea of education becomes vulnerable to the skeptic’s relativistic question of “Who’s to say?” Who’s to say what’s right or wrong? Who’s to say what’s true or false? Who’s to say what knowledge we should share?

A Prayer for Universities

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From the Book of Common Prayer (Canada):

Almighty God, of whose only gift cometh wisdom and understanding: We beseech thee with thy gracious favour to behold our universities, colleges, and schools, that knowledge may be increased among us, and all good learning flourish and abound.  Bless all who teach and all who learn; and grant that in humility of heart they may ever look unto thee, who art the fountain of all wisdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Why Go to Graduate School

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Some excellent advice from Robert Peters in Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student’s Guide to Earning a Master’s or a Ph.D.:

If you decide to go to graduate school, don’t do it just because you don’t know what else to do,

A little later down the page:

Recognize that students who enter grad programs for specific career goals are more likely to graduate than those with vague plans.

And finally:

If you aren’t yet certain what career you want, grad school might give you insight, but there are certainly more cost-effective ways of figuring out your life.  You might be better off working for a conservation organization, teaching English overseas as a second language, or joining the Peace Corps until you’re sure what you want to do.

Milton’s 400th Birthday

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This year is John Milton’s 400th birthday, and Stanley Fish has written a post about Ninth International Milton Symposium in London, which touches on the many things to appreciate about Milton.  Here are a couple of good quotes.  First, about why Milton matters:

Rather than being employed for its own sake, the poetry is always in the service of ideas and moral commitments, and it is always demanding that its readers measure themselves against the judgments it repeatedly makes – judgments about the nature of virtue, about the proper mode of civil and domestic behavior, about the true shape of heroism, about the self-parodying bluster of military action, about the criteria of aesthetic excellence, about the uses of leisure, about one’s duties to man and God, about the scope and limitations of reason, about the primacy of faith, about everything.

Apparently, the ghost of Shakespeare hangs over Milton studies constantly.  Another good quote, about the difference between Milton and Shakespeare, referring to the debates over who wrote Shakespeare’s plays:

Jonathan Rosen was getting at something like this when he said in a recent New Yorker piece, “No one would ever wonder whether Milton was really the author of his own work.”

Milton went blind in his mid-forties, prior to writing Paradise Lost: the magnificent epic that Milton is best known for was composed mentally and dictated to a series of secretaries, including one of his daughters and the poet Andrew Marvell, who wrote the poem “To His Coy Mistress,” a standard of English textbooks.

His blindness led him to compose one of the greatest poems in the English language, “On His Blindness,” which I memorized while I was unemployed following graduate school, wondering whether my long education would ever result in productive employment:

When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one Talent which is death to hide, Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, least he returning chide, Doth God exact day-labour, light deny’d, I fondly ask; But patience to prevent That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts, who best Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State Is Kingly.  Thousands at his bidding speed And post o’re Land and Ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and waite.

A quick explication: Milton despairs at going blind, feeling that his one “Talent” (his ability as a writer) is now wasted, and, referring to the parable of the talents, fears that Jesus will return and question him as to why he has not put his talent to work.  (The work “fondly” here means “foolishly” – Milton’s retort that he can’t work because he’s blind, in other words, is a pretty stupid thing to say to the Lord of Heaven and Earth.)  The poem turns as Milton comes to realize that God does not “need” his work or “his own gifts” (i.e. Milton’s talent was a gift from God to begin with).  Instead, what God demands is his readiness to serve.  The image changes to a royal court: thousands of courtiers speed to and fro in their service to God, but “They also serve who only stand and waite.” Milton’s readiness would soon be repaid; a few years after this poem, Milton began work on Paradise Lost.

Disadvantages of an Elite Education

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There is a new essay called The Disadvantages of an Elite Education by William Deresiewicz in The American Scholar that is making the rounds in higher education discussions.  I think the subtitle of the article sums up its thesis well:

Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers

He is writing primarily about elite universities, the same ones that ESN is trying to transform.  Deresiewicz was on the faculty at Yale for 10 years, so he has some background in this.

His argument has several points, but here’s one that stuck out at me.

An elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which young Americans have been blessed. We live in a society that is itself so wealthy that it can afford to provide a decent living to whole classes of people who in other countries exist (or in earlier times existed) on the brink of poverty or, at least, of indignity. You can live comfortably in the United States as a schoolteacher, or a community organizer, or a civil rights lawyer, or an artist—that is, by any reasonable definition of comfort.  [snip] Yet it is precisely that opportunity that an elite education takes away. How can I be a schoolteacher—wouldn’t that be a waste of my expensive education? Wouldn’t I be squandering the opportunities my parents worked so hard to provide? What will my friends think? How will I face my classmates at our 20th reunion, when they’re all rich lawyers or important people in New York? And the question that lies behind all these: Isn’t it beneath me? So a whole universe of possibility closes, and you miss your true calling.

I think Deresiewicz glosses over another reason why elite universities rob you of the opportunite “not to be rich”: student loans. I was accepted to Yale when I was a senior in high school, but even with financial aid, I would have need to take out something like $20,000 per year in student loans to make it work.  The University of Louisville offered me a full ride; between UofL and my master’s degree at Regent (where I also received a scholarship, and where my parents graciously paid for my thesis), I was able to complete my entire education to date with less than $10,000 total in student loans.  My senior year in high school, for some unknown reason, I was convinced that I wanted to be a high school principal (I still don’t know why), and the prospect of starting a career as a teacher with over $100,000 in student loan debt did not appeal to me.

Over at Slate.com, Meghan O’Rourke has a nice tribute to Anne of Green Gables, which has been published in a new Modern Library edition.  O’Rourke does a good job, but she starts her article playing devil’s advocate: why should Anne of Green Gables, of all things, receive this kind of treatment?

To some, this canonical promotion of a writer who would probably now be classified as a Y.A. (young adult) author might seem preposterous. To certain left-leaning cultural theorists who won’t embrace a heroine with a less-than-revolutionary CV—Anne, once the Island’s best young scholar, chooses to become a devoted wife and mother of six—the Modern Library’s decision may appear to be a reactionary cave-in to nostalgic sentimentality.

Compare this to Deresiewicz’s point about elite education: using a bright mind, or an elite education, to become something as pedestrian as a mother is, well, “wasteful,” when you could be doing the “real work” of becoming rich or “successful.”  There’s nothing wrong with being a banker, hedge fund manager, or what have you, but let’s be very careful here.  The Victorians elevated motherhood to an idol; we have lowered to a calling of last resort.  I had a feminist professor in college who liked to read aloud articles that described how much a mother would be paid if all of her jobs were added up (e.g. chaffeur, personal shopper, maid, etc.).  I think she thought she was being flattering to mothers by noting their worth.  And she was, but she was also buying into our society’s preoccupation with salary as a measure of importance.

InterVarsity at Georgetown

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Two years ago, InterVarsity and five other evangelical student ministries were disaffiliated at Georgetown University.  It was a surprising move, which made the news among both Christian and secular publications. Had things gone in a different direction, the relationships between InterVarsity, Georgetown, and the students on campus could have been severely damaged. 

But, praise God, the result was that new relationships were formed and old relationships were reconciled, and InterVarsity at Georgetown was able to regain official affiliation.  Ironically, the daughter of Alec Hill, InterVarsity’s president, was a student at Georgetown during this entire ordeal.  Now, Alec has written up this thoughts about what happened, and where InterVarsity stands after a long process.

Two Year Turnaround by Alec Hill

Ten Days in Madison

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During the next two weeks, I am going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, for InterVarsity’s Orientation for New Staff (ONS).  Though I’ve been with InterVarsity for about 2 years now, I have not yet been through my official orientation.  I’m looking for to the trip, because it will be a good chance for me to get to know some other staff from around the country (mostly working with undergraduates, a key area for ESN), and also to receive some valuable training.  The main InterVarsity website has posted a great article describing ONS. 

Please be in prayer for safe travel, and also for a peaceful home while I’m gone for Elizabeth and the kids.