the harvard ichthus » academia

Midterms in the Rough

Christopher Hopper — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 02:23:41 +0000

For those of you out there with a lot on your mind, take a three minute break and partake in the joys of my poetry. This one goes out to all the students in the middle of midterms season.

“Where do I go from here?

Alas, I am stuck in the land of fear.

Wondering as I wait, one minute closer draws near

How do I study for this next test

And allow myself to rise above the rest

Where do I lay my pencil to read the best

Oh, how I am disenlightened right now

Oh, the warm embrace of my bed and how

No, I must not give in or soon I might lose my vow

Though, sleeping in does sound great

If I soon awake so late, then maybe I will be irate

What then if I walk in, mate

Should I sit with the best?

Write with the worst?

or else, perhaps I should let the test triumph over me

No, I do not think this way

as only I can obey

My will and that of my great father

that of which I do to him pray

To believe in something better when I’m lost

and still, to not falter when I’m tossed

To be still living does not exhaust

as soon I will triumph over and be the boss

So, midterms midterms come my way

and I will show you the power of who I am today

But only shall I be backed as long as my great father keeps me on track!”

[C.A.S.H 10/10/11]

An Apologetic for Liberal Christianity – Part III (“The Bible Is…”)

Cameron D. Kirk-Giannini — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 11:05:17 +0000

(For Part I, click here.)

In the second part of this series, we bade farewell to the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy, and I promised you a way of determining which parts of the Bible we ought to believe. This now seems to me too ambitious a project for a single week, so instead I will divide it into a series of separate questions: This week, we will try to come to a basic understanding of what the Bible is. Next week, we’ll consider what the Bible (minimally) claims about itself. The following week, we’ll try to think of ways in which the things the Bible claims about itself could be true. This will enable us, in the fourth week, to say something specific about how we ought to go about deciding which parts of the Bible we ought to believe. Finally, in the new year, we will undertake the exciting further project of using the principles we’ve developed to construct a systematic liberal Christian theology.

So let’s get started! What is the Bible?

I. The Bible is a Text

Thinking about the the Bible's authorship can get awfully complicated!

This is absolutely a platitude. The Bible is printed on sheets of paper. It comes between two covers. It is composed, both in translation and in the original, of various orderly arrangements of letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs. No one will be surprised that the Bible is a text.

But even platitudes can be enlightening: if the Bible is a member of the class of texts, then we can and should ask of the Bible all the questions we ask about other texts. We should ask when it came into existence, who was responsible for its content, why he/they created it, what it communicates, in what manner its content is communicated, and ever so many more literary and historical questions. Just as we wouldn’t a priori accept or rule out particular answers to such questions about any other text, so it would be methodologically illicit, at least at first, to come to the Biblical text with an ideological agenda.

The acute reader will notice that I have glossed over an important issue in the foregoing paragraph – important enough to merit a short digression. Of course we are not justified in treating the Biblical text specially based merely on the fact that it is a text. It does not follow that we are not justified in treating the Biblical text specially on any grounds at all. To this I say: True, but what is the alternative? We have ruled out any a priori commitment to Biblical inerrancy in the previous post. I am aware of no other compelling philosophical reasons to treat the Bible specially. What remains, as far as I can see, is the possibility of an appeal to ecclesiastical tradition or authority. But either move would merely postpone the problem: Tradition is overwhelmingly textual; we are therefore faced with the same old questions about new texts, only now it will be even more difficult to argue a priori that they must be inerrant or authoritative. Ecclesiastical authority, when it is not textual, consists in the considered opinions of other Christians. Again, why would we think it appropriate to receive such opinions uncritically? At some point, we will have to think carefully about the sources we take to be authoritative. And, I claim without further argument, the friend of a priori ecclesiastical authority or inerrancy is in much deeper waters than the friend of a priori Biblical authority or inerrancy. (I feel fairly certain that I’m right on this point, but if I’m overlooking something interesting, I’d love to hear it.)

II. The Bible is not a Text

That is, the Bible is not a text. The Bible is many texts. That this is true is readily apparent in the structure of the Biblical text itself. We are immediately presented with its organization into the Old and New Testaments, and its further subdivision into various ‘books’ that claim to have been authored at vastly different times spanning a range of over two millennia. And this is not all; in addition, many of the books of the Bible are themselves the work of more than one author. Sometimes the fact that such books are redacted is acknowledged in the text (e.g. Luke, Psalms, Proverbs), but more often it is not (e.g. Genesis, Isaiah, Matthew). Opinions differ concerning which books were redacted and how many distinct sources are represented in each, and it would be counterproductive to be carried away by the details. Instead, let us merely note that it is needful and appropriate to treat the contribution of each distinct source in the Bible as a textual unit, and to ask of each all the questions we listed in Section I, and to carry out this project without limiting presuppositions. And we should also keep in mind the time periods, identities, motives, and messages of the books’ redactors.

III. The Bible is a Text

That is, the Bible is a text. The Bible is one text. Its contents were carefully selected from a pool of candidates during the process of its canonization in order to further the purposes of various religious communities. This canonization process was varied and discontinuous; it occurred in one way in one period for the Hebrew Bible and in another way in another period for the New Testament. Nevertheless, in both cases it represented the collection of texts a religious community considered particularly valuable to its theology and practice. We may ask of the Bible as a whole, therefore, what interrelationships between its parts exist, and – a distinct but related question – what relationships between its parts were thought to exist by the communities that canonized it. For this reason, though the Bible comprises a large number of extremely divergent texts spanning numerous genres, we are justified in seeking its ‘central message’, the story that it was redacted to tell.

So the Bible is a complicated document, and people have left their marks on it on at least three distinct levels: first, at the level of primary authorship of Biblical material; second, at the level of redaction of its constituent books; third, at the level of canonization of certain books to the exclusion of others. At each of these levels, it is appropriate to ask questions about time period, message, and motive. Thus an exceedingly intricate picture of the nature of the Biblical text emerges; it will be our task in the rest of the series (and, indeed, in the rest of our lives) to draw from this complexity simple hermeneutical principles and apply them to discover the text’s relevance to the modern world.

Note: I have not mentioned God in my discussion so far, and perhaps the omission has occasioned discomfort in some readers. I have left God out of the picture intentionally, though in fact I think that the Bible is part of God’s authoritative revelation to humanity. The reason is that our understanding of God’s relationship to the Biblical text ought properly to be a result of our study of that text and not an assumption we bring to it. I say that the Bible was written, redacted, and canonized by many people to further their many agendas. That is true, but it should not suggest that the authors, redactors, and canonizers of the Bible were in any way deceitful, manipulative, or uninspired by God. In fact, it shouldn’t suggest anything about them at all: that’s the point! Our opinion of those responsible for the Bible ought to be based entirely on our answers to the questions above, not the other way round, and our opinion regarding the inspiration of the Bible ought to depend, in turn, on some combination of what we think about what the Bible says and what we think of those responsible for it. But – crucially – those issues shouldn’t even be in view at this point of the discussion. If we are to defensibly believe that the Bible is in some sense God’s revelation to the world, it will be because the historical facts point in that direction. And an appeal to historical facts as evidence requires that we take care not to allow our conclusions to infiltrate the foundations of our argument. This is why we have discussed only what is most immediately obvious and uncontroversial about the Bible so far.

Until next week, soli deo gloria.

Screwtape on Prefrosh and Freshmen

Judith Huang — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:00:59 +0000

This was posted last year around prefrosh weekend, but seemed equally applicable to freshmen who have just come on campus. Enjoy! – The editors.

My dear Wigglesworm,

It has come to my attention that your charge has been admitted to Harvard, and that you are inordinately proud of this development. I write to issue you a warning. You have a difficult task ahead of you, which may end in unmitigated disaster for the Lower Kingdom, particularly if you persist in your present attitude. Have you – a diabolical creature with the best education the Lower Realms could provide – actually been taken in by the human blather that surrounds and constitutes the aura hovering around this University? Have you been encouraged by the various titters your charge’s fellow church-goers have made about “Godless Harvard”? Do you anticipate a hearty meal on the patient’s despair before even putting in an ounce of work? I have said this time and time again, and I will restate it now: every and all temporal circumstances can be used by either the Enemy or Our Father Below; all perceptions of the “inherent” good or evil about places, events, even emotional states, are false illusions we wish to cultivate in humans and guard against in ourselves.

Firstly, there is nothing “Godless” about any place –

this is a source of immense frustration to Our Father. Remember that the Enemy has so interpenetrated the very fabric of the Universe as to leave us not even a last preserve that is free of Him. It is a matter of opprobrium that even Hell itself has been cruelly and ruthlessly invaded in that most regrettable incident that concluded the Incarnation. This is not, of course, to say that Harvard has not been progressively and cleverly emptied of God by our efforts since its regrettable inception as a college for the education of the laity by that noisome little band of humans called the Pilgrim Fathers; However, human actions done in the name of the Enemy tend to cast notoriously long shadows, often preserved through the cunning use of sacraments and symbols, such as the University’s shield and constitution. As such, our job is to distract students such as your patient from the deeper layers of meaning that lay in the University’s past, instead directing her euphoria to the frivolous things she may accomplish through the name of “Harvard” in her imagined future.

Now the present situation affords you three delectable directions in which to work on the patient. The first is, of course, overweening arrogance. Human beings, you must remember, are often blind, to all intents and purposes, to the ultimate nature of causality. Conceit is easily manufactured by allowing a human who has just accomplished something to trace its causality back to their own hard work, or sacrifice, or talents, without taking the next logical step in asking from whence these talents and time and privileges come in the first place. Pride is the ultimate mark of Our Father, and one should fan it into flame at every opportunity. In particular, the patient’s admittance to Harvard will no doubt generate a certain amount of social awkwardness due to the overwhelming reaction of friends and family – often a mixture of admiration and envy. The patient will be forced to enact a little dance of false modesty, for which she will later congratulate herself, and furthermore seed in her an “insider/outsider” mentality, in which she can only confide her genuine happiness and gratitude to people of similar privilege or “caliber”. This is the beginning of snobbery, which I also encourage you to cultivate. Under no circumstances should you allow her to say things like “by the grace of God”, or “I am so grateful” about her admission – ideally, she should falsely wave away all congratulations with something as patently untrue and unmeant as “Oh, it was nothing”, or “I think they may have made a mistake”.

Now, some of your elation at the potential to turn your charge into an atheist or materialist is justified – not by the Harvard name itself, which you so naively rely on, but by the sheer fact that the patient will be entering the realm of Academia, which humans have elevated to a minor Personification. Our brightest scholars have done an admirable job in turning the realm of Academia from one of the hotbeds of worship and truth-seeking into the wide ocean of despair, hollowness and cowardice it is today. Much of this can be credited to the great Thurbucular, who almost singlehandedly lent intellectual credibility to atheism with his admirable work on Nietzsche. Ever since, we have systematically excised the most vital questions to human life from Academia altogether, leading academics to dismiss them as “unscientific”, “unreasonable”, and best of all, “unanswerable”. Thus we have Political Science which does not talk about Love, Economics that presupposes a dumb selfish machine to be the standard human, Literature more concerned with its own form than its substance, and best of all, Religion that is so obsessed with reaching consensus it practically ignores the Enemy altogether. Unseat the desire for truth in your patient and replace it with a desire for academic respect, and your job is half done.

Lastly, and most importantly, the patient’s new-found sense of self-importance should be used to eliminate all pleasure from her life. This can be simply done by applying the illusion of ownership to her time and effort. As soon as she gets the notion that the privilege she has received was a result of her own efforts, she will be haunted by the possibilities that every second of her time and every iota of her effort must be leveraged towards some goal or other – it does not matter what the goal is, so long as it is not the Enemy’s Purpose – because the potential yield is so high. This will prevent her from making any real friends, to enjoy reading for its own sake, or spend time talking to people who love her, turning even pleasurable conversations into a means to an end. In a matter of months, she will be using other humans as means – the most delightful of the Diabolical Principles, always convinced that her ends are pure and noble! If you can keep this up for four years, you may well be on your way to producing a little tyrant of a politician, a nihilist of a writer, a burn-out of a social worker, or, even better, a hungry, disillusioned human incapable of enjoying ordinary life, doomed to dissatisfaction without action, and a particularly delightful blend of selfishness and despair.

Do not, under any circumstances, allow your charge anywhere near the Christians on campus. They tend to be of a particularly resilient strain, unusually humble and curious, and would inevitably corrupt your charge with their example. Let your charge anchor her image of the “Christian” to the disapproving titters of her church friends, driving a wedge between the “intellectual” and “spiritual” sides of her in her imagination. There is nothing more dangerous than an intelligent Christian who “loves” the Enemy with his mind! Cf. the very unfortunate telepathic leak that occurred of my correspondence with the late Wormwood by one such mind. I still rankle at the memory.

I wish you all the best, and hope to hear of your progress!

Your concerned supervisor

Screwtape

One Ring to Link Them All: Vol 9

Judith Huang — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 12:10:27 +0000

Dear Fishies and readers -

Wow. This has been one tough week. Please, everyone who reads this, pray for me and for the Ichthus. But I will remain faithful!

The Dartmouth Apologia – Perspective and Humility in Academia – Emily DeBaun writes with great wisdom about the hubris of the Academy as well as its genuine accomplishments, and how humility is required for us to gain Wisdom, rather than just knowledge. Very very pertinent to my life right now.

The Harvard Ichthus – Job’s Lament - Our own Cameron D. Kirk-Giannini (“Nico”) echoes Job’s ancient lament – the Problem of Pain. Why is there evil in the world? Why do good intentions pave the road to hell? Why do good people suffer at the hands of good people? Why is God’s judgment so harsh?

God in the unconscious: To the Lighthouse Illustrated

Judith Huang — Sat, 22 May 2010 05:00:24 +0000

and pausing there she looked out to meet the stroke of the Lighthouse, the long steady stroke, the last of the three, which was her stroke, for watching them in this mood always at this hour one could not help attaching oneself to one thin especially of the things one saw; and this thing, the long steady stroke, was her stroke. Often she found herself sitting and looking, sitting and looking, with her work in her hands until she became the thing she looked at – that light, for example. And it would lift up on it some little phrase or other which had been lying in her mind like that – “Children don’t forget, children don’t forget” – which she would repeat and begin adding to it, It will end, it will end, she said. It will come, it will come, when suddenly she added, We are in the hands of the Lord.

But instantly she was annoyed with herself for saying that. Who had said it? Not she; she had been trapped into saying something she did not mean. She looked up over her knitting an met the third stroke and it seemed to her like her own eyes meeting her own eyes, searching as she alone could search into her mind and her heart, purifying out of existence that lie, any lie. She praised herself in praising the light, without vanity, for she was stern, she was searching, she was beautiful like that light.

- Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse.

What exactly is going on here? She chants to herself that continual loop of consciousness, and suddenly her consciousness is intruded upon by something else. It does not come from her, she insists – but isn’t that a greater theological implication, if it came from someone else?

What if it comes from another consciousness? In To The Lighthouse, Woolf litters recurring phrases everywhere, and they always have a source. But there is no source for this phrase. Unless it is the Source itself – but would the novel possibly admit that? Then the empathetic denial – why this defensive rebuttal, if it is simply something that comes randomly to you? And why does it turn to searching, to the denial of lies, the searching of truth? Yes, “that lie” – is the lie of religion, or rather the lie of God, that she rejects. But can she really resist it? Is it simply language (my professor, James Wood asked) that forces her hand, or rather whispers through her mind – the simple remnants of a Christianity-steeped tongue that has simply accrued so much religion in it that it cannot be rid of so easily? Is it language that speaks her?

What if it IS language that speaks her? I think this is a marvelous thing, if true. It means that the ghosts of our ancestors are still with us, still eddying in the syllables we wrap our tongues around. And why should this not be, if it is the Word that made all in the first place? Isn’t it a blessing that even though Western Civilization may shun Christianity today, it is inevitably, and beautifully laced with it? Isn’t it worth being called beautiful?

I’m not, of course, calling To the Lighthouse a book with a Christian worldview – Mrs Ramsay seems to believe in something that endures – but it is without personality, whereas at the web of all thought and all events and texts and contexts and angels and principalities and powers and histories and nations – in the centre of all narration, to me, is Christ.

These are my illustrations of To the Lighthouse which I did for my final final project at Harvard. I am quite exhausted by them, but also very happy with them.

Just the brief version of what I was trying to do: These are recurring portraits of four main characters in To the Lighthouse, in order of appearance: Mrs Ramsay (the cover), Lily Briscoe, James Ramsay and Mr Ramsay. The portraits are interspersed with three landscapes of increasing menace, marking World War I that occurred in the middle segment, “Time Passes”. I was trying to weave the progression into modernity between the 19th and 20th centuries, which is when Woolf writes her novel. So I tried to demonstrate this in the evolving art style, from more 19th century impressionism through dark surrealism, cubism and finally pop art (the final portrait of James Ramsay). I was also focusing on Mrs Ramsay as the “lighthouse”, or centre of the novel, and also the Madonna figure (I had wanted to do one of her holding James, but I am better at single portraits than combinations). Also, fun fact: the lighthouse can be found in most of the paintings, if you look hard enough.

Screwtape on Prefrosh

Judith Huang — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 14:36:59 +0000

My dear Wigglesworm,

Firstly, there is nothing “Godless” about any place –

I wish you all the best, and hope to hear of your progress!

Your concerned supervisor

Screwtape

A Biblical Look at Different Fields

Jordan Monge — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:00:43 +0000

The Ichthus has been trying to look at a variety of fields of study from a Christian perspective, but we tend to focus on philosophy, theology, and art because that’s what the editors and writers specialize in. So this post is my attempt to reach out to students from other fields. I know not all fields may seem as biblically relevant as what else we focus on, so I’d like to remind you all of some scriptures that show you how applicable your field truly is. Hopefully, this will inspire someone to write more posts about other fields.

You know God must have liked math, because he made it possible for mathematicians to create awesome things like this fractal.

Mathematics – “Be fruitful and multiply” is repeated numerous times in Genesis. Now, I know it doesn’t say “find the derivative function,” but for the ancients, learning to multiply was a pretty big deal. If they were supposed to do that, there’s no way God doesn’t want you to evaluate differential equations in our modern world.

Economics (Freshwater School) - 2 Thessalonians 3:10 says, “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.’” Clearly, Paul understands perverse incentives. If Paul understood it, there must be room for you to develop greater understanding about incentives and why government intervention can make the situation worse.

Economics (Saltwater School) - Acts 2:45 says, “Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” If the early Christians did it, it must be good for the government to do it today! Welfare, Medicare, and Social Security definitely count, and if you want it to be effective, you should study it.

Physics – Judges 7:13 says, “It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.” See that right there? It’s describing applied force. That gives you the leeway to study at least applied forces, frictional forces, and tensional forces; perhaps even electromagnetic and gravitational ones, too, if you’re lucky.

Biology – Acts 12:17 says, “Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell.” If an infinite number of angels can fit on a pinhead, then they can surely show up in a animal or plant cell. And then what happened? A light shone in the cell! That sure sounds like illumination and enlightenment about what was going on in the cell: mitosis, active and passive transport, transcription, etc.

Maybe you’re thinking to yourself: I’m not really into politics or economics, math or science. Maybe your passion is comedy. This post proves that we need funny folks, too! As Ecclesiastes 3:5 reminds us, there always is “a time to laugh.” So if you’re not sure whether your area of expertise fits with the Ichthus‘ mission, trust us, it does! So start writing!

Why Are We Here?

Cameron D. Kirk-Giannini — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:05:58 +0000

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

Scripture and Science – Part II of II: A Plea

Cameron D. Kirk-Giannini — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:00:49 +0000

Last week, I pointed out a recurring inconsistency in contemporary Evangelical thought. The inconsistency was this: many Evangelicals accept as valid or even base historical arguments on the results of scientific inquiry, while at the same time denying the relevance of scientific findings in certain fields (e.g. biology, geology, astrophysics). Today I want to press a little harder. As far as I have argued, it would still be reasonable for an Evangelical to escape my criticism by universally denying the relevance of empirical findings for biblical interpretation and theology. I want to show exactly how destructive such a move would be.

Suppose we deny that empirical/scientific methods reliably uncover facts about the world. Being top-notch Evangelical scholars, we would still like to proceed in our project of performing Biblical exegesis and theologizing. In particular, we would like to write a short commentary on Jesus’ teachings regarding divorce. The relevant passages have sometimes been rendered as prohibitions of divorce except in the case of adultery. But, we argue, the original text doesn’t vindicate such a reading; in fact, it seems clear from other uses of the Greek word in question (porneia) that Jesus isn’t talking about adultery.

What sort of argument have we made?

First of all, when faced with a question about what Jesus taught, we have consulted a reference (the Greek text) and inferred from it the most reasonable answer.

"Triumph of Virtue over Vice" by Paolo Veronese

Moreover, when confronted by ambiguity concerning the meaning of a particular word, we have applied empirical-linguistic methods. Finally, the whole process presupposes the validity of certain broad historical arguments about the reliability of the English and Greek texts. In short, we have employed empirical/scientific methods in every step of our analysis.

Empirical/scientific methods are woven so integrally into the fabric of our reason that plucking them out causes the whole to unravel. To deny their hold on our minds is to abdicate our responsibility as thinking beings. It is, indeed, to destroy ourselves. Insofar as Evangelicalism is worthy of attention, it must accept the findings of every type of empirical investigation – biological and astrophysical as well as linguistic and historical.

I have a plea for the Christian world: Be intellectually virtuous! Don’t dismiss rival viewpoints. Don’t construct parodies of opponents’ arguments. Don’t treat critics as if spite is their only motivation or presume to pronounce on subjects with which you have no acquaintance. Seek to understand critics of Christianity. Trust enough to believe that a fair evaluation of the evidence and arguments will favor our faith. Be willing to modify beliefs in light of good criticism. Will we have advanced the kingdom of God if all discussion ceases simply because we Christians are perceived as fundamentally and incorrigibly unreasonable?

Be intellectually virtuous!

Theology in the University

Anne L. Goetz — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:00:03 +0000

The newest issue of the Ichthus is out (go read it if you haven’t already!), and it’s brimming with interesting articles. I was especially fascinated by Stanley Hauerwas’ “War and the American Difference: A Theological Assessment”. He does, indeed, deal with war; but he also explores the purpose of the university, arguing that the university has changed into a purely research-driven institution as the “great separation” of politics and theology has seeped into our thought. He writes, “once the “great separation” is accepted then a Hobbesian world cannot be avoided, that is, a death determined world committed to the defeat of death. In such a world the university cannot help but become the home of technologies designed to increase our power over fate.”

Much of what Mr. Hauerwas says rings true. The fear of death must, indeed, be a powerful motivator once all hope of transcendent meaning is taken away. However, I believe that changes occurring in the university do not involve what is studied so much as how it is studied. After all, the natural sciences in themselves are not problematic—in fact, they spring naturally out of a theistic universe in which creation is good, stable, and open to being explored. And the humanities, as much as the sciences, can be tainted by the drive to escape death. They are twisted from being a joyful exploration of the meaning already inherent in the world and perceived by humankind to being a fevered attempt to push our own paltry meanings onto the denuded world around us.

Mr. Hauerwas calls Christians to “[do] theology unapologetically…[to] reclaim theology as a knowledge central for the work of any university worthy of the name ‘university’”. I submit that this should take two forms. First, theology as a discipline in itself must be embraced by those who have the passion and abilities to make theology their life’s work. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, theology must be studied by those who have found their calling in other disciplines. I am not myself a theologian; I do not know to what extent divinity schools and religion departments unabashedly study God. However, I am a student, and I have seen that even among my Christian friends there is a need for a deeper and more intellectual understanding of what we believe. The seemingly abstruse questions that theologians consider have important practical consequences for our lives as Christians and as beings in society. Theology is central for any university worth the name, because the “study of God” must be at the center of every academic discipline. Our Lord is the creator of all, and so all of creation is suffused with His glory. As university students—as people—we must work for a greater understanding of that glory, for it has razed death to the ground.