Liberal Arts for the Christian Life E-Book

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

For over forty years, Leland Ryken has championed and modeled a Christian liberal arts education. His scholarship and commitment to integrating faith with learning in the classroom have influenced thousands of students who have sat under his winsome teaching. Published in honor of Professor Ryken and presented on the occasion of his retirement from Wheaton College, this compilation carries on his legacy of applying a Christian liberal arts education to all areas of life. Five sections explore the background of a Christian liberal arts education, its theological basis, habits and virtues, differing approaches, and ultimate aims. Contributors including Philip Ryken, Jeffry Davis, Duane Litfin, John Walford, Alan Jacobs, and Jim Wilhoit analyze liberal arts as they relate to the disciplines, the Christian faith, and the world. Also included are a transcript of a well-known 1984 chapel talk delivered by Leland Ryken on the student's calling and practical chapters on how to read, write, and speak well. Comprehensive in scope, this substantial volume will be a helpful guide to anyone involved in higher education, as well as to students, pastors, and leaders looking for resources on the importance of faith in learning.

Leseprobe

“A fitting tribute both to Leland Ryken as a superb teacher and to the importance of the liberal arts in the life of the Christian mind and soul. Few will fail to benefit from its expanded and enriched vision of the life of faith.”

Alister McGrath, Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education, King’s College, London

“This fine volume honors a marvelously gifted evangelical scholar-teacher. But it is itself a significant contribution to the cause that Leland Ryken has served so well, offering much wisdom on what it takes to sustain and nurture a life of the mind that will promote the goals of Christ’s kingdom.”

Richard J. Mouw, President and Professor of Christian Philosophy; Fuller Theological Seminary

“Liberal Arts for the Christian Life, written as a collection of reflections on the liberal arts by colleagues of Leland Ryken, certainly captures clearly the range, the richness, and the complexity of the connections between a liberal arts education and the Christian life. Even more compelling is the way the book represents the incarnational nature of a liberal arts education—a single professor embodying a vision of learning that entices thousands of students over several generations to follow in his footsteps, not by becoming more like him but by becoming more fully the unique individuals that God created them to be. This book is a ‘must read’ for Christian liberal arts educators and their students!”

Shirley A. Mullen, President, Houghton College

“Clement of Alexandria, one of the earliest proponents of Christian liberal arts education, observed that excellence in such educational attainment was widely regarded in the second century as evidence that a person was a Christian. The authors of this volume likewise affirm that liberal learning centered in Christ ought to be the trademark of Christians in any walk of life today. In a fitting tribute to the life work of Leland Ryken, they have created a lively and accessible introduction to the advantages of such an education for a young Christian who wishes to grow in maturity and wisdom.”

David Lyle Jeffrey, Distinguished Professor of Literature and the Humanities, Baylor University

“All who love the life of the mind, who care about the education of our youth, or who are devoted to the intellectual and spiritual vibrancy of our churches will relish this diverse collection of essays by premier Christian scholars and academic leaders. Liberal Arts for the Christian Life is both a fitting tribute to an extraordinary Christian college professor and a most welcome collection of thoughtful excursions into the enduring purposes of the liberal arts in the Christian college curriculum.”

Darryl Tippens, Provost, Pepperdine University

“This volume provides a rich collection of wisdom concerning Christian liberal arts education. Students will find in it valuable guidelines for reflecting on how to get the most out of their education. It is an apt tribute to a scholar who has dedicated his career to imparting such wisdom, and this book should be provided to help carry on such work into the future.”

George M. Marsden, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History Emeritus, University of Notre Dame; author, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship

“The beneficial impact of Leland Ryken’s contributions to God’s kingdom extends far beyond the campus of Wheaton College. The scholarly work of faculty from across Christian higher education has been influenced in professional development workshops led by Dr. Ryken including ‘The Bible as Literature,’ ‘The Bible in Literature,’ and other topics related to his own research and writing. With dignity, warmth, and great dedication, Dr. Ryken has invested himself in the intellectual and spiritual development of others. This festschrift represents a collective and heartfelt ‘thank you’ from the authors and on behalf of so many others!”

Karen A. Longman, Professor and Program Director, Department of Doctoral Higher Education, Azuza Pacific University

“This celebration of the liberal arts through the eyes of Christian faith pays a fitting tribute to Dr. Leland Ryken’s many contributions to this great conversation. May students and future colleagues reap the blessings of the seeds sown in this text for many more generations.”

Michael Le Roy, President-elect, Calvin College

“Higher education is undergoing an awakening, and in Liberal Arts for the Christian Life we have a clarion call to the liberal arts through dedicated Christian learning. Leland Ryken—a teacher of English and a scholar of Milton—has spent his life asking students to think about the purpose of education, careers, and lives; in this volume he is celebrated by his colleagues who, in turn, are asking these questions of their own students. Whether Christian or not, educators will want to read this book, asking students to read in it, too—that is, if they want them to consider what the liberal arts are for.”

J. Scott Lee, Executive Director, Association for Core Texts and Courses, Liberal Arts Institute at Saint Mary’s College of California

LIBERAL ARTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

Liberal Arts for the Christian Life

Copyright © 2012 by Jeffry C. Davis and Philip G. Ryken

Published by Crossway                     1300 Crescent Street                     Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

“The Student’s Calling” copyright © Leland Ryken. Used by permission.

“The Toast of the University” by Dorothy L. Sayers is used with permission of David Higham Associates, London, and copyright © 1934, 2012 The Trustees of Anthony Fleming (deceased).

Cover design: Studio Gearbox

Cover image(s): See Cover Art Credits page

First printing 2012

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, EnglishStandardVersion®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ISV are from TheInternational Standard Version®. Copyright © 1996–2004 by The ISV Foundation. All rights reserved internationally.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are from TheNew American Standard Bible®. Copyright © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are from TheNew King James Version. Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission.

Scripture references marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from The New Revised Standard Version. Copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

Scripture references marked PHILLIPS are from The New Testament in Modern English, translated by J. B. Phillips © 1972 by J. B. Phillips. Published by Macmillan.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the authors.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-2394-6 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-2403-5 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-2404-2 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-2405-9

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

TS              21    20    19    18    17     16     15     14     13     12

15    14    13    12    11    10    9    8    7    6    5    4    3    2    1

To Leland Ryken

Professor of English Literature

Champion of the Liberal Arts

The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him.

CONTENTS

Preface

The Student’s Calling, Leland Ryken

Introduction

SECTION 1: TERMINOLOGY AND BACKGROUND

1 The Countercultural Quest of Christian Liberal Arts

Jeffry C. Davis

2 Liberal Education and Book Learning

Lisa Richmond

3 Evangelicals, Colleges, and American Nation Building

Edith Blumhofer

SECTION 2: THEOLOGICAL CONVICTIONS

4 Liberal Arts Education and the Doctrine of Humanity

Roger Lundin

5 Faithful Christian Learning

Jeffrey P. Greenman

6 Liberal Arts as a Redemptive Enterprise

Wayne Martindale

7 Loving God as the Key to a Christian Liberal Arts Education

Duane Litfin

SECTION 3: HABITS AND VIRTUES

8 The Lost Tools of Learning and the Habits of a Scholarly Mind

Marjorie Lamp Mead

9 How to Read a Book

Alan Jacobs

10 Writing for Life

Sharon Coolidge

11 Listening, Speaking, and the Art of Living

Kenneth R. Chase

12 Educating for Intellectual Character

Jay Wood

13 Beyond Building a Résumé

Stephen B. Ivester

SECTION 4: DIVISIONAL AREAS OF STUDY

14 A World of Discovery through the Natural Sciences

Dorothy F. Chappell

15 Exploring a Universe of Relationships through the Social Sciences

Henry Allen

16 The Humanities as Indulgence or Necessity?

Jill Peláez Baumgaertner

17 Singing God’s Praise

Michael Wilder

18 Learning to Perceive through Visual Art

E. John Walford

19 Theater as an Imperfect Mirror

Mark Lewis

SECTION 5: THE END OF CHRISTIAN LIBERAL ARTS

20 Social Media and the Loss of Embodied Communication

Read Mercer Schuchardt

21 Learning to Live Redemptively in Your Own Body

Peter Walters

22 Personal Formation and the Understanding Heart

James Wilhoit

23 Learning for a Lifetime

John H. Augustine

24 The Gospel, Liberal Arts, and Global Engagement

Tamara Townsend

25 Liberal Arts in the New Jerusalem

Philip G. Ryken

Contributors

Cover Art Credits

PREFACE

Like a lot of students graduating from high school, he wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to do with his life. He had done very well in his studies, graduating at the top of his class. Active in sports and other extracurricular activities, he enjoyed spending time with his friends. And he was actively involved in worship and fellowship at his local church, even if sometimes he chafed under its legalism. Possibly he would become a high school teacher, but he felt unsure about what God was calling him to do.

One thing was certain: he didn’t want to do what his father did and work the family farm in Central Iowa. Not that he minded hard work, but somehow he knew that the struggles of living off the land were not for him. Maybe he should go to college, he thought, but times were tight; frankly, he wasn’t sure how he would pay for his education.

Family members remember differently what happened next. His older sister was away from home at the time, but she heard that he went to the local factory to apply for a job. His mother wasn’t too keen on the factory idea, however, because manual labor was the reason her parents had forced her to drop out of school after the eighth grade, so that she could help out at home. As far as she was concerned, her son was too gifted to miss out on the kind of education she had always dreamed of getting. So she let her son apply at the factory on one condition: he had to ask if they offered any college scholarships.

It didn’t take long for the foreman at the factory to realize that the teenager who had come in to apply for a job really belonged in college. Soon it was all arranged: the young man would attend the local Christian liberal arts college in the fall, partly on a scholarship the factory sponsored for a local student, and partly from money he earned by leasing and then farming land owned by a mining company.

What happened to him at college was life changing. His high school English teacher had challenged him to read Paradise Lost the summer before his freshman year, but he found Milton’s epic poem difficult to comprehend. Yet by the time he had completed four years of liberal arts education, he was launched on a trajectory that would lead him to become a Milton scholar. Through his readings in theology, he came to a settled conviction that the Bible is the very Word of God and that the gospel of Jesus Christ is absolutely true. He found a growing passion for reading literature. More broadly, he developed a love for the life of the mind—for thinking about everything from a Christian point of view. And when he was asked to cover high school classes for his old English teacher, his calling as a teacher became strongly confirmed.

The man I have been describing—Leland Ryken—is nearing the end of a long and distinguished career as a professor of English literature. He grew up in and around Pella, Iowa, and attended Central College on a scholarship from the Rolscreen Factory, which produces Pella Windows and Doors. After studying with the noted Milton scholar Kester Svendsen at the University of Oregon, and earning his doctorate there, Ryken was offered a position on the faculty of Wheaton College, where he has taught since 1968.

This book has been written by some of Professor Ryken’s many colleagues from Wheaton College as a way of honoring his service as a teacher, scholar, mentor, and friend. Published to coincide with his seventieth birthday in May of 2012, it focuses on a subject close to his heart: Christian liberal arts education.

As editors, Jeffry Davis and I are deeply grateful to many people: to the scholars who contributed their essays to this volume; to Marilee Melvin for her labors in assembling the manuscript; to Kailey Cole and Drew Melby for their research, corrections, and insights as perceptive student readers; to the editorial staff at Crossway for seeing this project through from beginning to end; and to Ruth Davis and Lisa Ryken—our spouses—remarkable women who use their background in the liberal arts to serve the body of Christ, to love their friends and neighbors, and to make a home for their families.

In academia it is customary to honor an eminent professor with a festschrift—a volume of scholarly essays written by learned colleagues. What makes this book different, however, is that it is primarily for college undergraduates. Rather than writing for other academics, the authors have chosen to honor Professor Ryken by producing a book especially for students. This is fitting because Dr. Ryken has served students for more than forty years through his brilliant teaching, faithful mentoring, and voluminous publishing.

We begin with an address entitled “The Student’s Calling,” which Professor Ryken first delivered at a chapel service in the fall of 1984. I was there when he delivered the address and remember the occasion well—not only because it was the second day of my freshman year and the speaker was my father, but also because it helped me understand why God had called me to be a liberal arts student.

“The Student’s Calling” has been reprinted often, and thousands of incoming freshmen have read it as part of their preparation for college. Its defining principles are valuable for anyone studying the liberal arts and sciences in Christian community and desiring to love God with mind, heart, soul, and strength.

The essays that follow expand on “The Student’s Calling” by exploring its themes and showing their implications for the Christian life. Whether you are getting ready for college or studying on a Christian or secular campus, we hope this book will inspire you to make the most of your college education and to dedicate your mind to the service of Jesus Christ.

—Philip G. Ryken President Wheaton College

THE STUDENT’S CALLING

Leland Ryken

“Education is not a preparation for life—it is life.” So claims a headline in one college’s promotional brochure.

College was once a time of preparation in which young adults could search for truth, broaden their intellectual and cultural horizons in multiple directions, and decide what vocation best suited their talents. Today many of you are pressured to regulate your college years around the job you think you have the best chance of landing upon graduation. In the process, you may be tempted to turn your back on the very subjects that interest you most, which may be the areas where your greatest potential contributions to church and to society lie.

Today’s college students are caught in an identity crisis. Your instincts as learners pull you in one direction, while voices of activism and preoccupation with landing a job pull you in other directions. It was once an axiom that education was a preparation for something in the future. Today young people are made to feel guilty about being in a preparation phase.

The time has come to revive an idea that once seemed natural: the student’s life as a Christian calling. By calling I mean vocation—the occupation of being a student. It is an idea that you students and your parents need to hear.

When we begin to describe the ingredients of the student’s life as a calling, we quickly start to formulate a theory of education as well. Some methods of education measure up to the description of that calling, while others do not. This should not surprise us, for, as T. S. Eliot once noted, “we must derive our theory of education from our philosophy of life. The problem turns out to be a religious problem.”1

WHAT IS EDUCATION FOR?

In one important way, a Christian student’s calling is the same as it is for a Christian in any situation of life. Its central focus is the individual’s relationship to God. Loving and serving God should be the foundation for everything else that you do at college. It is a requirement, not an elective.

When the Puritans founded Harvard College just six years after arriving in Massachusetts, one of the rules at the new college was this: “Let every student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, [that] the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ . . . and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.”2 When Thomas Shepard’s son entered the college, Shephard wrote to his son, “Remember the end of your life, which is coming back again to God, and fellowship with him.”3

And in the noblest of all educational treatises, John Milton’s Of Education, Milton gave this definition of Christian education: “The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him.”4 Contrary to trends in our own century, Milton here defines education in terms of its end or goal. There may be many ways to achieve a Christian education, but in the meantime we must not lose sight of what it is for. What it is for is to produce Christian growth.

Albert Einstein once remarked that we live in a day of perfect means and confused goals. When we obscure the goals of education, we trivialize it. It is no wonder that students today so easily reduce education to completing the required number of courses and obtaining a degree (but often not an education). Too often our vision is limited—in that most irritating of all student clichés—to getting a requirement “out of the way.”

Our whole milieu has conditioned you to conceive of your education in measurable quantities, with grades and jobs upon graduation topping the list. But to conceive of the student’s calling in Christian terms—to view it (as Milton did) as a process of redemption and sanctification—is to substitute an entirely different agenda of concerns. Here the crucial question is not how many requirements you meet or even how much you know, but rather what kind of person you are in the “process of becoming” during your college years.

The nurture of your soul is finally a more important part of your calling than obtaining marketable skills. I said at the outset that my description of the Christian student’s calling would be at the same time a theory of education. Education governed by a goal of Christian maturity certainly implies Christian education, however it might be achieved.

You who are new to college may think that in a Christian atmosphere the spiritual aspect of your calling will automatically take care of itself. This is not true. It has sadly become a regular part of my life to hear about former students who two, five, or ten years after graduation have repudiated the Christian faith. The casualties include people who, as they sat in my office or accompanied me to England or greeted me at church, were the last people in the world I would have expected to drift away from the faith.

So consider the matter well: there is ultimately one indispensable thing during your education. Be diligent “in season and out of season” to make your calling as a Christian believer sure. Do not close the chapter on this formative era of your life having neglected your spiritual health.

ALL OF LIFE IS GOD’S

A second cornerstone of the Christian student’s calling is the premise that all of life is God’s. There is no division of life into sacred and secular. For a Christian, all of life is sacred.

What goes on in chapel is not more glorifying to God than what goes on in the classroom. What goes on in the classroom is not more important to God than what goes on in the dorm room or the dining hall. We have no basis for viewing some academic courses as sacred and others as secular. Nor are some academic majors holier than others. God calls Christians to make his will prevail in every area of life.

As a variation on that theme, we should be convinced that all truth is God’s truth. In the New Testament, Paul several times quotes with approval from pagan Greek poets whom he apparently knew by heart. In his commentary on one of these passages, John Calvin wrote, “For since all truth is of God, if any ungodly man has said anything true, we should not reject it, for it also has come from God.”5 Thomas Shepard wrote to his son at college, “Remember that not only heavenly and spiritual and supernatural knowledge descends from God, but also all natural and human learning and abilities; and therefore pray much, not only for the one but also for the other.”6

The integration of every academic discipline with the Christian faith is an essential part of the Christian student’s calling. It is the distinguishing feature of Christian education. A college is not Christian simply by virtue of having chapel services. By the same token, a weekly meeting with a Christian student group on a university campus is not the same as an education in which the very curriculum is structured to help us view human knowledge from a Christian perspective.

LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION

It is an easy step—I would say an inevitable step—from the idea that all of life is God’s to the idea of a liberal arts education. What is a liberal arts education? I recall sitting as a freshman in a history course where that question was directed to one of the “lesser lights” in the class. His reply was, “Isn’t that where you know a little about everything but not much about anything?” The definition was seriously intended, but it nearly sent the professor laughing hysterically out of the room.

Liberal arts education is comprehensive education. Martin Luther wrote to the councilmen at Germany, “If I had children and could manage it, I would have them study not only languages and history, but also singing and music together with the whole of mathematics. . . . The ancient Greeks trained their children in these disciplines. . . . They grew up to be people of wondrous ability, subsequently fit for everything.”7

“Fit for everything”: that has always been the goal of liberal arts education, as distinct from vocational training in a specific field. Milton’s definition is even more famous. He defined “a complete and generous education” as one that “fits a man to perform . . . all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war.”8 The heart of Milton’s definition is that a complete education frees a person to perform “all the offices” of life. A liberal education prepares people to do well in all that they might be called to do in life.

May I add that such an education is possible only as you realize that all education is ultimately self-education. Education is learning, and someone else cannot learn for you. The most perfect educational climate in the world will not make you an educated person. Moreover, an adequate education does not stop after one’s college years. To be generously educated is to have acquired the lifelong habit of self-education.

What are the “private and public” roles that Milton had in view when he defined liberal education? Education in our day is obsessed with a single public role, getting a job, which is increasingly defined in terms of one’s income. But the public roles that a person fills cover much more than that. They include being a good church member, a good board member or committee member, and a positive contributor to the community. One of the criteria that I apply to people’s education is whether they can teach a good Sunday school lesson.

And what are the private roles of life for which an education should prepare you? They include being a good friend or colleague, and a good spouse or parent. And they include the most private world of all—the inner world of the mind and imagination. One of the best tests of whether people are liberally educated is what they do with their free time.

LET’S BE PRACTICAL

The liberal arts education I have described is not necessarily more Christian than other types of education, but it is more practical. More practical? Surely we all know that liberal arts education is impractical in today’s specialized world. But do we? In a rapidly changing world, how can anyone know what he or she will be doing five or ten or twenty years from now?

Several years ago I spoke at a conference at which I had dinner with a couple who had graduated several years earlier. During their college years, she had gone on a summer missions program, and he had been a research intern overseas. Both had come back from those experiences painfully aware of the human needs that exist right now. However, their ministry activism was followed by a time of intellectual lethargy in which they regarded their academic courses as misspent time.

Two years later both could speak with regret about the wasted time that their attitude had produced in the long run. She was a resident director in a dorm on a university campus, holding weekly meetings with Christian students who were trying to relate their studies to their Christian faith. The liberal arts courses that she had once regarded as impractical were now exactly what she most needed. Her fiancé was trying to make up for what he had neglected in college by taking a year of science courses at a university near home, trying to raise his MCAT scores so he could get into medical school.

Let me encourage you to believe that your liberal arts education is a foundation that is worthy of your best effort. There is much to commend the wisdom and practicality of T. S. Eliot’s theory that “no one can become really educated without having pursued some study in which he took no interest—for it is a part of education to learn to interest ourselves in subjects for which we have no aptitude.”9

THE LEGITIMACY OF PREPARATION

I urge you to view your time of preparation as a calling in its own right. We live at a time when education is regarded in such a utilitarian way that its legitimacy finally depends on its being a ticket to a job. In recent years I have seen pathetic examples of parents putting so much pressure on students to know exactly what job they expect to enter upon graduation that the students could not possibly avoid feeling guilty about taking time for an education.

Parents and advisors to young people need to stop making students feel guilty about being in a period of preparation. When God calls people to a task, he also calls them to a time of preparation. This preparation time, moreover, is as important as the performance of the task.

What should we say about the hours it takes to prepare for a sermon or Sunday school class or lecture or term paper or ball game or recital? Is this time and effort somehow ignoble? Does God turn his head the other way when a person prepares? Jesus did not begin his earthly ministry until the age of thirty, living until that time as an obscure carpenter in an out-of-the-way village. We might protest: Think of all the people he could have preached to and healed between the ages of twenty and thirty.

Moses spent forty years of his life being educated in the court of Pharaoh, receiving the best education his day afforded. Then he spent forty years in Midian, from a human point of view rotting away in exile, but actually being prepared for wilderness survival, the skill he needed to lead the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land. According to Galatians 1:17, Paul, upon his conversion, did not at once become an evangelist. Instead, he spent three years in Arabia and Damascus being instructed in the gospel.

Learning, in whatever form, is the student’s calling. It is the arena within which you display good stewardship or lack of it. Several years ago I entered my office to find the following letter that had been slipped under my door:

I do not know where to begin, except I am preparing for the next test. I tried reading late into three successive evenings and found myself moving in and out of consciousness. I fell behind early after the first exam. This year I am heavily involved in the community. I am trying to wean myself from college life (not studying). College is just a transition period (a period of preparation). This term I have four reading courses, 20–30 hours in a ministry, a job, and meetings almost every night, and two speaking engagements a week.

What was this person’s problem? An inadequate view of the student’s calling. And where did he get it? From his pastor, his family, some of his fellow students, and a general atmosphere that denigrates the idea of intellectual preparation for one’s eventual vocation in life.

During your college years, being a student is your vocation. That occupation involves more than studying, but studying is by definition its major ingredient. Why not look up the word student in the dictionary?

YOUR FUTURE AT COLLEGE

A number of recent surveys have shown that the majority of today’s college students are primarily concerned with getting out of school and finding a lucrative job. Students will do almost anything for a good grade, but zeal for learning is currently at a low ebb. The quality of your education is your choice to make.

In a sermon entitled “Learning in War-Time,” C. S. Lewis compared the Christian student’s calling to the soldier’s life. The Christian church, he said, cannot survive without Christian students taking time for an education. “To be ignorant and simple,” Lewis said, “would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.”10

John Calvin said that God’s calling is the sense of duty that God gives us to enable us to reject what is superfluous. In Calvin’s terms, a calling is a sentry that spares us from distractions to our main task.11 There is much that would divert you from getting a high-quality education, but your calling as a Christian student is something that you can protect.

Your college years are uniquely wonderful. Few other experiences in life will have the same once-only quality of your college education or provide you the same luxury of opportunity to expand your intellectual and spiritual awareness. So, I prayerfully urge you to make the most of your valuable time at college.

1T. S. Eliot, “Modern Education and the Classics,” in Essays Ancient and Modern (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946), 169.

2New England’s First Fruits (New York: Joseph Sabin, 1865), 26.

3Shepard to his son, 1672, in Transactions: 1892/94, The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, vol. 14 (Boston: Cambridge University Press, 1913), 192.

4John Milton, “Of Education,” in Complete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2003), 631.

5John Calvin, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries: 2 Corinthians and Timothy, Titus and Philemon, ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance, trans. T. A. Smail, vol. 10 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 364.

6Shepard, Transactions, 196–97.

7Martin Luther, “To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany That They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools,” in Selected Writings of Martin Luther, ed. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), 61–62.

8Milton, “Of Education,” 632.

9T. S. Eliot, “Modern Education and the Classics,” 178.

10C. S. Lewis, “Learning in War-Time,” in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 58.

11John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 3.10.6.

INTRODUCTION

“If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.” So remarked the great American baseball player and amateur philosopher Yogi Berra, famous for his sage quips. It may seem like an oddly stated proverb, but his point has profundity: without a purposeful destination in mind, you may arrive at a place in life that you never wished to be. To put it another way, the path you follow leads to a particular location, whether you know it or not.

This truth holds special significance with regard to education. Paradoxically, without an end to education—what the ancient liberal arts teachers called a telos, which motivates your passions and directs your disciplined behavior—true learning cannot really even begin. Without the intentional investment of your will, along with the imaginative consideration of where education might lead you, and the reasonable expectation of how it might change you, the forces of the dominant culture—subtle but powerful—will surely take you where you may not intend to go, influencing your thoughts and actions. Your view of what a college education is for, and where it should lead, will shape how you think, learn, and act—both in and out of the classroom—over the four years of your undergraduate experience.

Tragically, far too many graduates from high school enter college without much thought about the ultimate goal of their education. Three approaches to college seem all too common. Some apply to college simply because their friends are going and “it’s the next thing to do” on the checklist of life. Yet they may have never really asked themselves why it matters—or if it does matter. Likewise, others feel the strong influence of parents to “study something marketable,” getting a degree in a field that is practical in order to land a secure job. Yet they may never have really wondered what sort of education is best for all of life, apart from the forty-hour work week, and what kind of learning best prepares you for an ever-changing world. Even worse, many perceive college as a playground, “a time to party and have fun” that involves participation in all sorts of new experiences, many of which have little, if anything, to do with learning or living well. Yet despite all the tuition paid, the classes unattended, and the learning opportunities lost, they may never have truly considered the personal cost of such a wanton lifestyle, which passes for “an education.” In the final analysis, all three of these approaches prove to be deficient.

Sad though it may be, too many students enroll in college without even engaging their minds in connection to what really matters: they go through the motions without the meaning; they strive to pursue a dream that they themselves have not actually dreamed; they pursue destructive pleasures while ignoring purposeful passions. To put it bluntly, “they are clueless in academe,” though it is not entirely their fault.1 Far too many teachers fail to offer a compelling vision for learning that captures students’ imagination, one that elevates their human spirit. In the absence of such a vision for education, too many college students do what they do not by design but by default. And since they often do not know where they are going, in the words of Yogi Berra, they end up “somewhere else.”

Presenting a meaningful alternative, this guidebook offers some fresh perspectives for a new direction—liberal arts learning from a biblical perspective. Especially intended for disciples (followers of a teacher and a school of thought) who believe that Jesus Christ has called them to Christian liberal arts study, such readers will be challenged with reasons for learning that are bigger and more consequential than the status quo or job security or fun and games. Because “liberal arts” learning is distinct from the pursuit of a specialized degree at a state university, or career training at a pre-professional school, or even preparation for the ministry at a Bible college, it requires a thoughtful orientation. This guidebook will provide just that—a clear starting point and route toward a meaningful way of learning, one that has been traveled by thinking Christians for centuries.

The working premise of this collection of essays, all written by Christ followers who believe in the importance of purposeful living, is that you cannot truly experience a liberal arts education without a concerted effort to do learning differently. In its purest form, Christian liberal arts education requires the learner to affirm certain basic pursuits: growth, depth, and compassion. The development of the whole person for all of life, not just for a job; the deepening of faith in God through intellectual testing, not merely attaining answers; and the commitment to using knowledge and skill to build the church and serve the world, not simply to satisfy the self: these represent some of the core distinctives of Christian liberal arts learning.

The following chapters may best be appreciated as a thoughtful conversation among faithful advocates of the liberal arts way of teaching and learning. Approaching the topic not from a single, monochromatic point of view but from a dynamic, polychromatic variety of perspectives, this book is intended to provoke good conversation as well. In fact, according to Robert M. Hutchins, a great conversation best describes liberal arts learning.2 The following chapters reflect the multiple voices, varied disciplines, and theological diversity of the contributors. United in the importance of liberal education and the centrality of Christ, the authors of these chapters represent the splendid array of thinking Christian scholars. Likewise, this book is not offered as the final word on Christian liberal arts; rather, it is presented as an extension of the many strong scholarly views that have already come before. Ideally, reading and discussing this book should foster a form of liberal learning itself.

Although there is a sequential order to this book—moving from historical conceptions of liberal arts, to theological considerations, to practical habits, to divisional areas of study, and finally to ultimate ends—there is no single way to use the book. Readers can follow the natural organization that builds section by section or dip into select chapters based on topical interest. As a resource, this book works both ways. Our aim, regardless of your approach, is for you to come away from this collection of essays with a new enthusiasm (from the Greek en theos—to be inspired within by God) for doing college differently. Our goal is your transformation into the fullness of the person that Christ intends you to be.

To that end, we offer you our sincere blessings.

1Gerald Graff, Clueless in Academe: How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).

2Robert M. Hutchins, The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Arts Education (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952).

SECTION ONE

TERMINOLOGY AND BACKGROUND

The nineteenth-century educator and Oxford theologian John Henry Newman, describing the duty of the serious Christian liberal arts student, penned the following words in his famous book The Idea of a University: “If he would do honour to the highest of subjects, he must make himself its scholar, must humbly follow the thoughts given him, and must aim at the glory, not of his own gift, but of the Great Giver.”1 Newman argued that because God created the universe and all things that we study, therefore we should understand all subjects from a distinctly theological perspective. To ignore biblical truth, from Newman’s perspective, is to reduce education to mere job preparation, and the student becomes nothing more than a small cog in a huge economic wheel. “Education,” he explained, “is a higher word; it implies an action upon our mental nature, and the formation of a character.”2

Newman believed in liberal arts learning from an informed biblical perspective, and, as we shall see, throughout the history of the church many great Christian thinkers and leaders pursued a liberal arts education with a theological grounding. But what does the term Christian liberal arts mean, and how should students think about it as a distinct approach to higher learning?

First, consider the word Christian. As a noun it refers to someone who takes seriously the teachings of Jesus Christ and follows them, as found in the Gospels; and as an adjective, it means an approach that demonstrates consistency with Christian teachings, often promoting a biblical worldview. Keep in mind that there are many Christian perspectives and ways of thinking about biblical truth, from Roman Catholic to Protestant (with its varied denominational views), especially in relation to learning. Christian education takes the basic tenets of the historic, orthodox church seriously.

Second, consider the word liberal. In a similar manner, this word can be understood in two ways. As a noun it refers to someone who is politically or theologically progressive; such a one may be a member of “the liberal party.” Because this contemporary definition predominates our thinking, it gives many people the wrong idea when it is used for other purposes. However, etymologically speaking, the word possesses a noble significance. A better way to think about this word, liberal, particularly in relation to education, is as an adjective meaning “suitable for a free person.” Implicit in the term liberal arts is the goal of making students more free. What kind of freedom? Well, first and foremost, spiritual freedom. Christian teachers take seriously the claims of the Gospels and the other books of the New Testament as the fulfillment to the law of the Old Testament. “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). Christian liberal learning builds upon biblical views of bondage (sin) and salvation (freedom), and promotes ways of thinking and living that enable students to realize God’s purpose for their lives, and, in response, to offer their lives freely back to God in his service.

Third, think about the word arts. Like the word liberal, many people have a limited conception of the term, defining it almost exclusively in a contemporary manner, such as “the visual or musical or dramatic arts.” This narrow understanding proves to be insufficient for liberal arts students. As the ancient Greeks and Romans understood them, the arts represented subjects of study, what we now call “disciplines,” that directed human capacities according to particular procedures of thinking and behaving toward beneficial ends. For example, by becoming learned in the use of grammar, logic, and rhetoric (the trivium), students could avoid being manipulated by the crafty speeches of unsavory leaders. Such disciplines of study gave students options that they did not have prior to the development of their knowledge or skill acquisition. In this historic sense, an “art” is a way of knowing or doing something that leads to a whole set of options previously unavailable. Today, whether through the study of physics or philosophy, music or mathematics, students can become enlightened by new ways of knowing and thinking that open up options on the path of life. Such options should increase our sense of gratitude to God and our awareness of the need for giving back: “Much will be required from everyone to whom much has been given” (Luke 12:48 ISV).

As believers in gospel freedom, early Christian educators took the ancient liberal arts instructional methods of the Greeks and Romans and used them for kingdom purposes—to develop God-given gifts for service to Christ and neighbor. Thus, the Christian liberal arts college or university continues in the tradition of faithful learning that emphasizes study as a form of worship, affirming the Creator as the source of all things that are possibly known and recognizing his immanence in all that we examine, all that we know, and all that we do.

Christian liberal arts learning, rightly understood and done, sees God at the center of everything. The educational term offers a bold enterprise for Christian teachers and students, one that affirms the importance of being created in the image of God but also finds freedom in our need of God’s grace and guidance. By appreciating the rich heritage of the liberal arts tradition, before and after its adoption by the church, students can come to recognize their place in the history of ideas and the legacy of learning that many have contributed to over the centuries. Christian liberal arts learning depends upon the past but is not constrained by it. Advocates of Christian liberal arts wisely find insight from the past, but they must also innovate to make the disciplines of freedom relevant for today.

1John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 64–65.

2Ibid., 85.

CHAPTER ONE

THE COUNTERCULTURAL QUEST OF CHRISTIAN LIBERAL ARTS

Jeffry C. Davis

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood,

and I—I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

—ROBERT FROST, “THE ROAD NOT TAKEN”

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,

      and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

      and he will make straight your paths.

Be not wise in your own eyes;

      fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.

It will be healing to your flesh

      and refreshment to your bones.

—PROVERBS 3:5–8

Choosing a college or university represents a momentous fork in the road of life. Every fall, hundreds of thousands of students pack up their belongings and leave home, heading off on a journey to learn something that they hope will enable them to live better. They say goodbye to familiar faces—their parents, their siblings, their friends, and their pets—often amid long hugs and many tears, expressing a mix of sadness and excitement.

This rite of passage—the pursuit of an undergraduate degree—may perhaps best be understood as an archetypal event, a quest for something worthwhile, requiring deliberate choices and actions. Although many go on this quest, no two travelers experience the same journey. Each passage proves to be unique, with powerful influences and effects that will last a lifetime.

Of the myriads who attend a college or a university, some intentionally pursue an unusual undergraduate experience, one in which they learn how to integrate an understanding of the Bible with all other texts, a belief in divine revelation with scholarly investigation, and a knowledge of orthodox theology with other disciplines of study. These students seek the wisdom of liberal arts for the Christian life.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF EDUCATIONAL VISION

Of all the options available in higher education, the road to a liberal arts institution epitomizes the one “less traveled.” Of the more than four thousand colleges and universities in the United States, secular and religious, the vast majority provide a pre-professional or specialized sort of education, reflecting the pervasive values and goals of the dominant culture.1 Clearly, a liberal arts diploma lacks the popularity of other more specialized degrees deemed by many to be trendy, lucrative, and respectable. Students who want that sort of a sheepskin may be disappointed at a liberal arts school.2 However, at a Christian liberal arts college or university, the goal remains even more distinctive: gospel-infused instruction, by professors who genuinely profess Christ as central to a proper understanding of their subjects, and the formation of your whole being for the complete journey of life, which signifies their greatest concern.

Students in my courses often find the Christian liberal arts perspective surprising, if not perplexing, when I present it to them. Most American college students, including Christians, choose a college or university, and eventually a major, with the intent of establishing a career—a ticket to the good life. This approach reflects the predominant “commonsense” view of college, namely, that an education gives you earning power. And why shouldn’t students think this way? Politicians talk about the benefits of advanced schooling almost strictly in terms of creating job opportunities and making a more skilled workforce. Parents often express the importance of choosing a practical major, one that readily answers the question, “So what are you going to do with that when you graduate?” At times, even secondary teachers pressure students to perform well in order to move up the ladder of success, using the fear of bad grades as an extrinsic motivator. Pragmatic attitudes about learning abound, especially in the land of the American Dream, where many feel that they must attend school in order to become successful.