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Learning for Life: Cultivating a Student Spirituality
Academics- Faith and Learning
Week 5
Neil Lettinga , Co-chaplain at UNBC, Prince George British Columbia
5.1 Starting with Rest
"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.” Exodus 20:8,9
In my youth we took this command literally, assuming that “Sabbath” meant Sunday, and debated what was work (and forbidden) and what was not (and therefore permitted). Watching football on Sunday was forbidden because it encouraged others to work, as did buying gasoline or reading the Sunday newspaper. I now believe that mining the Old Testament for commandments that remain “valid” is an inappropriate way to read the Scripture. Sabbath-taking is not a command to Christians; it is a gift.
Taking sabbath means, among many other things, resting well in order to work well. It encourages us to work out of rest rather than work in weariness. It is a healthier way to work.
Choosing to take sabbath rest on Sunday is, on one level, arbitrary. Christians began to do so early in the life of the Church, primarily to celebrate Christ’s resurrection.
Choosing Sunday, the first day of the week, as a day of sabbath rest is parallel to the Jewish custom of beginning their Sabbath at sundown rather than at dawn; in each case God’s people start by resting, and move into the workweek out of our rest. Symbolically we evince our trust that God will work overnight and on the weekend, so that we can return confidently to our tasks. Such a sabbath rest reminds us that God is at work first, before us. Then we start our work, our study, our research, our scholarship. It is good to let God get the work started for us; it is good to start with enough rest. It is good to give God the first-fruits – the first day of the week, the first minutes of the day, the first dollars from the paycheque. Sabbath, whenever we choose to take it, is God’s blessing.
Prayer:
God of rest, we live in a restless place and a restless time. Teach us how to draw apart and come together. We pray for all those who are anxious and distressed; weary, sleepless or depressed. In your mercy, give them a holy rest, peace, and contentment with you. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, we pray. Amen.
Quote: “Keeping sabbath is a third alternative to the cultural rhythms of driven work and escapist entertainment. By grounding our true identity in the love of God, sabbath experience liberates us from the compulsive, ego-driven need to create our identity through our work in the world. Our work, then, can arise out of this affirmation as a grateful response to God’s redemptive love.”
Tilden Edwards’ Sabbath Time: Understanding and Practice for Contemporary Christians (Nashville, TN: Upper Room, 1992,p 13
5.2 Talents in your Head
“Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!” Matthew 25: 14-28
Students attend college and university for a variety of reasons: sports and friendships, training and credentialing, ideas and academics. The mind-stretching side of academia is, for many, both the best and worst feature of their scholarly career. Piling up knowledge and wrestling with ideas changes you. This is true for secular students as well as for Christians, but Christian students have particular reasons for taking academics seriously.
Jesus commands us to love the Lord our God not only with heart and soul and strength, but also with all of our mind. Just as athletes exercise their bodies to increase their strength, students and scholars need to exercise their minds or they grow slow and sluggish. You may well have faced an Algebra problem after a summer without math. What was once straightforward had become difficult; the gears in your brain felt rusty and slow. Minds are like muscles; they grow and develop through exercise. Mental work can be as challenging – and as dull – as doing bench presses. And still have great value.
Jesus’ Parable of the Talents reminds his disciples to use, not bury, their talents. The chief talent – the “coin of the realm” at an academic institution – is your mind. And still there is great pressure to bury it most of the time, to numb your mind with drink or chatter, to cheat it of sleep, and to neutralize it with games and videos. Can you resist this? Remind yourself that your brain is God’s gift; a muscle to exercise and to use for God’s glory. Try resisting the shortcuts, just as aspiring runners push themselves through every lap. Don’t dodge what seems difficult, but be willing to increase the bar slowly. Try exercising your mind during the best part of your day, with the determination you would apply to an upcoming race, and see if your “talents” increase.
Prayer:
Gracious God,
Take my skills – and make them stronger.
Take my thoughts – and make them clearer.
Take my knowledge – and help me use it.
Take my experiences – and craft them to your service and my neighbour’s good.
Help me fight slackness and sloth.
In the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, Amen
Quote:
“It is, of course, quite true that God will not love you any the less, or have any less use for you, if you happen to have been born with a very second-rate brain. He has room for people with very little sense, but He wants every one to use what sense they have… God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
5.3 Weeds?
“Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.” Matthew 13: 1-8, 18-23
Think of your mind as a garden – it’s an ancient metaphor. In gardening there is a time for everything; it is not appropriate to hoe in the middle of harvesting, nor to till and manure when the crops are ripening.
The same is true for the life of the mind. . There are times to dig and clear away the rubble of preconceptions. It’s hard work, but it needs to be done. There are times to plant seeds -- gathering ideas from far and wide, to see which will take root in the soil we have been tilling. Nourishing them with sun and water. And there are times to weed. And the temptation to try to do all of it at once is what makes many students miserable at exam time!
In scholarship as in gardening, being able to distinguish weeds from good plants is key. Paul tells us to “cling to what is good” and to “hate what is evil.” Not all literature is good literature; not all science is morally neutral; some business decisions are evil, even if they make money for shareholders; some historical investigations bring to light injustice that was more comfortably ignored; some medical discoveries offer help at a price that is daunting.
Weeds and flowers grow together in the gardens of our mind. We face situations in which we need to figure out whether we’ve got weeds that we should pull out, good plants worth cultivating, or a mixture that we can’t attack with a heavy hand. Sometimes what looks like a weed will grow into a lovely flower. And sometimes even good plants become “weeds” when we let them get out of control. Some ideas, like mint, need to be trimmed and cultivated or they become leggy and invasive. What is growing and needs tending in the garden of your mind?
Prayer:
God of seeds and harvest, rain and sun, pour water into the dry spots in my mind and turn them green. Help me dig and cultivate the ideas in my dirt.
Give me grace to see what you are trying to grow in me. Amen.
Quote: “The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.” GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy p 30
5. 4 Learning it all
“Finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” Philippians 4:8
Back in the days of finite libraries – when a college was proud to own a mere dozen shelves filled with thick, hand-written, velum-leaved volumes – a medieval scholar was supposed to have replied to the students who were complaining that they didn’t know what to study, “Read it all. Learn everything. It will all be useful.”
The thought of even attempting to read every book in a modern university library seems absurd and nightmarish. But the medieval scholar’s advice highlights a claim that Christian students and scholars have rediscovered over and over again. Everything we learn teaches us something about God – about the world he made, about the people he created for it. All knowledge is useful. Everything that is right and true, good and useful, belongs first and foremost to God, no matter who said it, no matter where they came from, no matter what else they believe.
So the monastic libraries of the middle ages preserved ancient pagan plays, and medieval theologians promoted the thoughts of philosophers who had sacrificed to Apollo and Athena. They affirmed that God’s creation revealed the truth even to those who do not recognize God in the creation. And so, we too, learn from those who do not acknowledge that what they know has been revealed by God through his creation. We learn from authors who acknowledge nothing beyond what they can touch and professors who do not profess Christ. We appreciate music composed and performed by those with little thought beyond themselves. We don’t do this uncritically, but we join a long line of Christians – starting with the apostle Paul as he quoted pagan poets to bolster his case. “All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said has its origin in the Spirit.” – Thomas Aquinas, medieval philosopher.
Prayer: Almighty God, you have created the heavens and the earth, and have made us in your own image. Teach us to discern your hand in all your works, and to serve you with reverence and thanksgiving; through Jesus Christ our Lord who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things now and forever.
Amen
from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
Quote: “So pick out from pagan books whatever is best. In studying the ancients follow the example of the bee flying about the garden. Like the bee, suck out only what is wholesome and sweet; reject what is useless and poisonous. Follow this rule, and your mind will be better clothed. Then you will enter into the battle of daily life better armed. Nonetheless, whenever you find truth and virtue, refer it to Christ.” Desiderius Erasmus, The Handbook of the Militant Christian
5.5 Reformed scholarship
“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” II Cor 10: 3-5
The Reformed tradition values Christian scholarship and encourages Christian scholars to take all of academics captive for Christ. Within that agenda, Reformed Christians were pioneers in arguing that knowledge works within models of reality – perspectives or worldviews. That argument has been taken up, with a vengeance, by the post-modern scholarly community. Calvinists and post-moderns – not necessarily friends on other theories -- agree that “theory-independent facts” do not exist. We recognize that we join a community knowing it has defined what kind of “facts” are admissible. We join a community that has criteria for what makes an acceptable theory explaining those “facts” and for what is acceptable evidence to support such a theory. Reformed academics try to base their decisions on Scripture informed by a long tradition of Christian academics.
As Christian scholars and scientists wrestle to “take captive every thought, to make it obedient to Christ,” we do so within the rigorous rules of traditional academic discourse, but also within the context of Christian convictions that shape all of our academic work.
The communities of scholars and scientists is porous – Christian scholars and scientists overlap with, interact with, and communicate their findings to a broader world of academic and to non-academic communities: some Christian but not very academically inclined, some academic, but not Christian. We can do this because we share assumptions with both kinds of communities – Biblical assumptions with fellow Christians, academic assumptions about research methodologies and practices with fellow scholars and scientists. And we recognize that in both these communities it is healthy to discuss the facts we admit and explore the limits we have set for ourselves.
In this overlap, Christian scholars and students love and serve their neighbours. What nuances can you offer to folks at your church? What insights can you offer those with whom you research and study? What uncertainties can you admit as you struggle to let your own thoughts be captive to Christ?
Prayer:
Father, take our theories and root them in you.
Stretch our minds till there is room to look for you in every corner.
Open our ears to hear and open our eyes to see your truth and your light and your way in all that we learn and study and do, this day, and always.
In the Name of Christ, our Shepherd and our Guide.
Amen
Quote:
“Learning is therefore a spiritual calling: properly done it attaches us to God. In addition, Calvin and his followers know that the learned person has, so to speak, more to be Christian with.” Neal Plantinga, Engaging God’s World xi
5.6 Integration or Holy Minds?
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2
One of the hallmarks of Reformed academics has been a focus on the integration of faith and learning. Generations of Reformed faculty in Reformed colleges have crafted statements that have integrated the two in a myriad of different disciplines. Sometimes the result of all of that integration has been a faith that became an academic faith. One gets the sense that just as for some Puritans “cleanliness was next to godliness,” a systematic and orderly faith became, for many Reformed academics, next to holiness.
Enthusiasm for a systematic and orderly faith fit perfectly with the academic trends of the past 400 years. But a holy mind is not precisely the same thing as an orderly faith. Christ calls us to have holy minds. To love God with all our mind may call us to a different sort of integration of faith and learning in this new century.
Our chemistry experiments, our literary analysis, our historical research, our philosophical inquiry, and our study of coaching techniques are all to be taken captive for the work of the Lord in this world. We need to do godly literary criticism, write godly music and poetry, and run practice in a godly way. This is not a simple challenge, as if baptizing our work with a prayer will do it. This is the difficult work of soaking our minds in God’s good creation, torn apart by the fall, redeemed by the blood of Christ, and reaching forward into the new creation -- recognizing all of it as such and articulating the fruits of that research, for the glory of God.
A mind captivated by the love of Christ will indeed ache with the broken-hearted, exult at the glories of mitochondria and well-executed vaults, long for the reconstruction of fissured communities, and struggle to understand voices long suppressed.
Prayer:
Holy, merciful and loving God, grant us, we pray, holy minds, that we may serve and love you with all our hearts and all our strength, and that we may serve and love our neighbours as though we were serving ourselves. Grant us diligence and energy, but above all, grant us the holy fire of your Spirit.
In the name of the One who was, and is, and is to come, the Alpha and Omega.
Amen
Quote:
“Scholarship at its best is much more than the pursuit of truth; it is the quest for wisdom. But what is wisdom? Who is wise? For Christian scholars, and for their Jewish and Muslim colleagues, wisdom is grounded in God. Wisdom is the fear of God, says the wisdom literature; it is the love of God and neighbor the law declares; and it is doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with your God, the prophets clarify. Wisdom requires careful thought, but it is much more than intellectual knowing.” Rodney J. Sawatsky in Douglas and Rhonda Husted Jacobsen (eds), Scholarship and the Christian Faith: Enlarging the Conversation, p 3
5.7 Integrating love and learning.
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."” Matthew 22: 36-40
A young faculty friend,* tired of the constant “faith & learning” theme of faculty discussion, grumbled that Christians should spend less time trying to integrate faith and learning and more time trying to integrate love and learning.
Using our studies and our disciplines as ways to love well seems like a wonderful way to put flesh on how we live as Christian students and scholars. Loving academically can involve the scholar or scientist as an agent of social justice, choosing to give voice to the powerless and oppressed, or it can encourage us to participate in scientific research that has practical applications for doing good for our neighbours.
But loving academically is also, at the end of the day, a commitment to a cooperative venture. Using our studies and our disciplines as ways to love well fosters collaboration, dialogue and partnership with colleagues who may not share our faith or presuppositions. The academic community is involved in a shared search for truth and for knowledge. Just as the church is one body composed of many parts, so too academic communities function as bodies. In academia, too, there are hands, feet and livers. Scholars who pursue their research in ways that have direct social application ought not despise scientists whose role is basic research with only distant applications visible. Both kinds of research can contribute to the ways in which academics can love well, one perhaps more immediately, but each in its own significant way. Both researchers can pursue research out of love; both are necessary for a healthy scholarly community.
Jesus consistently commanded us to love. We who are called to be students, scholars and scientists ought to think long and hard about how we can love God and our neighbours with our study, our research and our scholarship.
Prayer: Jesus Christ, who taught us that what we do for the least of these your children, we do for you, give us the will to be servant to others in all that we do. Lord you have taught us that without love all our doings are worth nothing. Send your Holy Spirit, we pray, and pour into our hearts your love, that we may humbly serve our neighbours and glorify you in all that we do.
In your name we pray, Amen.
Quote: “God is love, or rather Charity; generous, out-flowing, self-giving love….. This means that the true demand of religion will never be a demand for correct behaviour or correct belief; but for generosity, as a controlling factor in every relation.” Evelyn Underhill, The School of Charity, A Short Commentary on the Nicene Creed, 1934
* Dr. Jenell Williams Paris. She went on to develop this idea in an article in Christian Scholars Review vol 35, pp 371-385
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