the harvard ichthus

Why Are We Here?

In the past few weeks, I’ve been blessed to have had numerous occasions to reflect on the purpose and mission of Christian thought in general and the Ichthus in particular, and I wanted to take some time to share my perspective and engage with the rest of the community.  I think the issue of articulating our purpose and vision is one of the most important we face, especially so close to the beginning of a new Ichthus year, because it shapes how we see ourselves and allows us to clearly understand the significance of the time we spend and the things we do.  I want to explore three ways I believe we ought to think about our mission:

1.  Christian thought is worship. If we take Christ’s authority seriously, our intellectual pursuits cannot help but be grounded in the reality of God’s burgeoning kingdom and the coming re-creation of all things.  If we take Christ’s sacrifice seriously, our intellectual pursuits cannot help but be shot through with the joy of our new life of freedom in Christ.  And if our thoughts are God-centered expressions of our Christian joy, how can they be anything but our own peculiar form of worship?  Thus I conceive the Ichthus primarily as an organization dedicated to celebrating God and producing in its own unique way objects of beauty to the praise of his glory.

2.  Christian thinkers serve the Church. It is tempting to regard Christian scholarship, especially in its more hermetic moments, as a kind of defective stepchild of evangelism.  In the Western academy, the tedium and spiritual bankruptcy of much academic reflection on religion may even merit the label defective.  But Christian scholarship needn’t be the way it is in the West today.  In fact, Christian scholarship can be – one might say, was designed to be – vital to the function of the Church.  The fiery evangelist accomplishes great things, perhaps greater than any other, but he is a mere snake oil salesman unless his words correspond to a true and developed theology, a theology articulated and defended against warrantless cultural encroachments by Christian scholars.  So the Ichthus must strive to serve Harvard’s Christians by engaging with them concerning important theological, cultural, and political issues.

3.  Christian thinkers are uniquely equipped to spread the gospel. There is, of course, apologetics, which has the capacity to soften even the most rugged barriers to belief.  But any form of Christian expression can be evangelical simply by being invitational. And as those most fully aware of the beauty and power of Christian doctrine and thought, Christian intellectuals are most fully capable of sharing the joy and excitement of their faith.  The invitation does not need to be explicit; it more effective, in fact, when it remains unspoken.  The Lord moves when the reader is caught up in the Christian narrative, when he falls in love with the story of the God-man, of grace and sacrifice and life.  Writing on any subject is missional if it invites the reader to think in a new and exciting and Christian way.  We ought therefore to make the Ichthus a conversation with the Harvard community about every kind of issue, because doing so will make it possible for us to show the campus how Jesus is Lord even of Cambridge.

Missi sumus