Persistence!

Romina, a friend I knew from Bates College, is working on a PhD and recently posted on her Facebook page, “Sometimes, like today, I wonder what the heck I'm doing in academia. So much work, and for what? ...really. Are we really making that much of a difference?”

A couple days later I read in Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World by John G. Stackhouse,

“We see the marks of the Kingdom of God…wherever light penetrates darkness, wherever good makes its way against evil or inertia, wherever beauty emerges amid ugliness or vapidity, and wherever truth sounds out against error or falsity.” (p. 21). Kindle Edition

We could extend that as well to say that whatever leads to the well-being of people and the creation as a whole, whatever brings joy, beauty or a more truthful understanding, and whatever increases our scope of insight about humanity, nature and culture are also marks of the extension of the reign of God. This infuses meaning into the whole realm of studies and projects.

As Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:20-21, truth, for the Christian, is best represented not by principles or statements, but in a Person, namely Jesus. Anything that is in accord with his creative, redeeming, renewing character is worth our pursuing…but, as Jesus’ own life exemplified, it’s not always easy!

Given the number of “likes” generated by Romina’s post, it’s clear she is not alone in wondering whether the effort, money and time expended in gaining a PhD is worth it! I suspect she may have more of an activist’s than a researcher’s bent, so this stage of her work may be particularly frustrating for her, but Stackhouse talks about the need for us not to get distracted by visions of making rapid transformation (“cultural conquest” is what he calls it), nor to throw up our hands and withdraw from efforts to bring about social change. Instead he calls us to embrace a “cultural persistence” that works realistically with the opportunities and challenges before us.

The Christian grad students I have met are seeking God’s reign; they want the world to “be blessed” because of their work but sometimes it is hard to see how it will lead to that either because of obstacles they encounter or because the work itself does not seem immediately relevant. But persistence presses on in faith that there is more going on than we can see at the moment.

Inviting us to a way of living that is not given to the Enlightenment pride of human prowess nor to the Postmodern despair of the denial of any ultimate meaning, Stackhouse calls us to a Christian Realism wherein “We must not assume that we can completely remake anything in our world, but we also must not assume that things must remain as they are. Instead, we must make the best of them, neither in proud confidence nor in slothful acquiescence, but in hopeful faithfulness to, and in, the command and power of God.” (p. 105).

“Hopeful faithfulness” is a great posture for students to take as they go about their work. We don’t know ahead of time what the results will be; no farmer is guaranteed crops and no PhD student is guaranteed to find the ‘breakthrough” that radically alters her discipline or clearly impacts the world. But as we persistently move on, working and praying, our effort, offered to God whether it looks successful or leads to a dead end, is enfolded into the ongoing work of God.

Thanks to Romina for permission to share a bit of her story!

A Question from Hong Kong

Last week I received this email from a School on Management student working in Hong Kong this summer. He wrote:

“….the root of the spiritual conflict I feel here is that Hong Kong represents the apogee of modernity. Consumerism, materialism, secularism, the surrender of individual liberty to state power, it’s all been essentially perfected here. Luis Vitton and Prada stores displace sandwich shops in my neighborhood because rents are so high, personal worth is intimately tied to salary, parks once filled with people studying the Bible are empty, and substantially all rights to local sovereignty have been eroded by Beijing. And basically no one cares, because they’re rich. Or they hope to become rich.

I realize that this modernity is the enemy of souls, but what’s the alternative? Modish post-modernism has shown itself equally destructive. The vanguard of people who tried to blend post-modern ideology with evangelicalism [McLaren, Tony Jones] have basically ended up very uncreatively re-treading the road liberal Protestantism wore out 120 years ago. The reactionary response of my Catholic and Orthodox friends doesn’t seem viable either since modernity has meant longer lives, less suffering, and substantially more freedom for human beings. It doesn’t make much sense to go back to medieval guilds and the divine right of kings/czars.

So (as I think about coming back here to work after graduation) what really makes me sit and think is the question of ‘What good can I do here?!’”

How would you respond to this question by a committed Christian who wants to be an influence for Christ in the setting of global business?

This note highlights two out three alternatives often presented as to how Christians should interact with the prevailing culture:

- Accommodate by letting the culture set the agenda for us

- Resist by trying to ‘take back’ what has been lost

- Witness through creating a counter culture that embraces Christian values

I’ve thought a lot this week about this note and how I have responded to the challenges of our society’s values. Mainly, I have at least theoretically opted for the third alternative.

The first alternative gives up too much of our Christian particularity.

The second option looks to be too concerned with gaining power to enforce Christian values.

The third alternative is what I profess, but in actuality I confess it has led me and others I know to not so much bear witness by embodying an alternative vision, but rather to more or less withdrawing from the struggles of the day in favor of being involved in our Christian community. The fact that Jesus came into the world and dwelt among us tells me that this is not the way he wants us to live.

A different vision is set forth in a book another friend put me on to this week called “Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World” by Jonathan Stackhouse. It’s about Christians living in the midst of the difficult challenges and opportunities of the day. He even refers to the business environment of Hong Kong as an example as he questions how to counsel a Christian businessman required by the nature of such jobs in that city to work long hours six days a week regarding the Christian values of a healthy family and church life.

Stackhouse also rejects the options of accommodating to the culture, attempting to conquer the culture, or withdrawing from it, but, by reviewing the thought and life of C.S. Lewis, Reinhold Neibuhr and Deitrich Bonhoeffer, he advocates for what he calls a revived Christian realism. This is a call for us to do what we can to work for the shalom of God’s kingdom in light of the actual realities we face.

It’s a long, rich book but since its focus is on how we are to integrate our faith, life and work, it’s very relevant to our ministry with graduate and professional students. It’s also speaking to me so I’ll be sharing some quotes and reflections on it over the next couple of weeks!

Which Path To Choose?

Last night at our summer fellowship, one of the recent Law School graduates spoke about his reasons for choosing that route and how his faith impacted that. For him, essentially, it didn't. He spoke of having made a "prudent and respectable" choice of pursuing a "prudent and respectable" career that would provide financial security and social status. The "prudent and respectable" version of Christian faith in which he had been raised played little or no part in his choices and certainly raised no challenge to them.

However, just prior to entering Law School, he began reading the gospels and was struck by the way Jesus often challenged the "prudent and respectable" way of life!

"Sell what you have and give it to the poor..."

"No one can serve two masters... You cannot serve God and Mammon..."

As he has completed Law School and is moving on, he very much feels the tension between " the prudent and respectable" life and the call to follow Jesus.

His story resonated with lots of us (including me as we were meeting for the first time in our nice new condo!) and generated thoughtful reflections and prayer.

After everyone left, I thought of two people from history who likewise were raised in settings of financial security and social prestige and how they responded to that context when the Holy Spirit upended their life by a call to follow Jesus: Francis of Assisi and Wilbur Wilberforce.

Francis, to the horror of his family, really did sell all and give to the poor, literally walking away naked from the expectations his "prudent and respectable (and wealthy)" family had for him.

Wilberforce, a member of the British parliament and also a man of great wealth and social power, remained in his role but embraced it in a radically new way that ended up deeply impacting the
political and economic life of the nation as he used his position to advocate for the abolition of the slave trade and other moral reforms.

These two men, deeply devoted to Christ, took very different paths when faced with what it means to follow Jesus. Had they been contemporaries I wonder what they would have thought of each other?

Would Wilberforce think Francis was simply being escapist, running away from the social responsibilities and opportunities his status as a wealthy merchant's son had opened up for him?

Would Francis have seen Wilberforce as being a compromiser, remaining part of a tainted institution and holding on to his wealth and position instead of obeying Christ's call to be fully devoted to him?

Yet in hindsight Christians of all stripes greatly admire the very different lives of both these men in light of the legacy they left. Both are seen as examples of committed faith. But...which example should these Yale students in my living room follow? Which should I follow?

Four things are clear to me.

One is that there is not just one path that is faithful. Maybe some of these students in the room will decide that that the call to faithfulness for them is such that they need to walk away from the expected trajectory of where their degrees should lead them to a very different sort of life. Others will decide that their path is to embrace the position they have but infuse it with faithfulness to Christ (that's certainly the implicit assumption that underlies IVCF's ministry as we talk about integration of faith and life).

Second it's clear that both paths involve risk, faith, the possibility of failure, and courage. Neither Francis nor Wilberforce had any guarantee that things would eventually develop as they did. Both experienced times of deep struggle and disappointment and the "daily grind" of just doing what needs to be done. Both had to undergo a radical reorientation of their lives. I suspect there are many, many other unknown disciples of Jesus who made similar choices who left no such public record and perhaps ended their lives wondering if the choices they made really mattered after all. Hebrews 11 makes it very clear that not all people of faith see the fruits of their faithfulness in this life.

Third is that it's critical to keep making the choice to follow. Luke's gospel calls us to "take up the cross daily" (9:23). In making that choice daily, we will be walking the right way. The fact this Law School grad is asking these questions is a good sign that the Holy Spirit is indeed leading him along even though he is not clear what that means right now. It'll be clear when it's needed.

Fourth, as several people commented last night, the vocational choices we make are secondary to the choices we make regarding our character and relationships. Whatever we do regarding work, we are to be holy, loving, and just. That is clearly God's will for us whether we become monks or senators!

I love the closing prayer used in Episcopal worship services and it's very relevant here:

"... Send us now into the world in peace,

and grant us strength and courage

to love and serve you

with gladness and singleness of heart;

through Christ our Lord. Amen.."

May that prayer be the background for the choices we all make for the long term and for today.

Subversives and Priests

For the last time, I need to go back to Newbigin’s “Truth to Tell” as a lens through which to see what we are about on campus.

When Christians lack influence, one way they “speak truth to power” is simply by continuing to worship. Newbigin cites the example of the Orthodox Church under Soviet Communism and the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany. He could also have drawn on the Biblical example of Daniel when he and his people were deported to Babylon. Daniel, recognized as a young man with great potential, was relocated to the major university where he was to learn the language and the culture of the Babylonians, and, by implication, leave behind his Jewish ways. Of course, that’s not the way the story goes as it turns out that the king of Babylon himself ends up worshiping Daniel’s God!

However, Christian faculty and students in U.S. universities, while they may feel marginalized at times, are not in a situation where they have no voice or influence. Instead, as participants in the university we are all partly responsible for shaping the cultural environment of the institution just as all US citizens share in the responsibility of shaping the national agenda.

Newbigin says that one role of God’s people in a pluralistic environment like our nation or our universities is to affirm our identity as “subversive agents” of God’s kingdom (p. 82). By this he means that we do not accept that the structures and forces of the day that seem to be dominant (e.g. academic and professional success regardless of the relational price to one’s health or family, endless productivity as the chief measure of identity) are “some sort of eternal order that cannot be changed” (p.82). The goal of such an agent is not to deny the value of success, hard work or productivity, but to “bring them back under the allegiance of their true Lord.” (p. 82). For instance, the ideology of unlimited individual freedom needs to be subverted by the duty to love our neighbor. The demand of productivity needs to be subverted by the practice of Sabbath rest. The “bottom line” of economic gain needs to be subverted by the “bottom line” of what makes for human flourishing. Changing metaphors, he says that this is what it means to serve as a “royal priesthood” proclaiming God’s reign in all dimensions of life.

What caught my attention is that he says that figuring out how to do this in the context of the various disciplines “cannot be done by the clergy” but by “the vigorous development of … programs in which those in specific areas of secular work can explore together the possibilities of subversion” (p.83).

I am thankful that this is precisely the work we are about in GFM. I saw it this past semester as doctors led medical students in conversations about living out their faith in their work and at the Believers in Business conference where new visions of how the skills developed in business schools can serve God’s purposes in the world. I see it this summer in the Friday gatherings where students talk about the issues they are dealing with and finding insight from one another.

This brings me to the end of Newbigin’s book. He packs a lot more into the four lectures and 90 pages, but I have appreciated how he has given language to the aspirations of our ministry!

What do you want in a doctor? (or lawyer...or a CEO...or...)

Today's NY Times had an interesting article about a developing trend in medical schools to try to assess a prospective student's ability not simply to master the material required in med school, but to be able to relate well with people. It's at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/health/policy/11docs.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23 Yale Medical School does not use this model yet, but in the article a Yale faculty member commends it.

The upshot of the article is that a person's success as a doctor is strongly related to their ability to relate well with a wide variety of people. Technical mastery is simply not sufficient.

It strikes me that this is true for for professionals in all fields and is a value at the heart of the ministry of GFM. We GFM staff cannot offer much to our students in terms of the content of their studies, but we offer a lot in terms of spiritual and character formation, building multi-ethnic and cross disciplinary communities, and a perspective of life lived in light of the reign of God which contributes to their success in their work and all of life.

Yesterday I read Luke 18:9-19:10 which includes five stories of unlikely people receiving God's favor (a tax collector, children, the poor, a beggar, and another tax collector!). Even Jesus' disciples were surprised that the children, the beggar and Zacchaeus were received and the rich man was not, but one common factor in all those who were welcomed by Jesus is that they were humble. They did not rely on their status, wealth or power like the rich man did.

The NY Times article says that it's important for doctors to be able to really listen to nurses and patients, being open to learn and careful to communicate well. That's a product of humility which as Christians is a quality we are shown is critical for those who wish to relate to God. May our ministry create environments in all the professional and graduate schools where we nurture both educational excellence and the human qualities of humility, gentleness and love so that students move on to embrace both realities in their lives.