At Covenant we talk often about the biblical concept of calling – both the calling of the gospel to believe and trust and obey through the grace that is ours in Jesus Christ, and the specific callings which are the God-provided pathways for living out the reality of the gospel calling in particular ways — like being a college student or a college president; a roommate or a professor; a father or a daughter; a neighbor or a church member. Each of these is a calling from the Lord, in which and through which we are called to live out the gospel calling in worshipful obedience to the Lord.

Each year my wife Kathleen and I have the privilege, during the evening of that move-in Friday, of giving the first lecture of the course “The Christian Mind,” which is the foundational introduction for all new Covenant students to the distinctive educational venture that lies ahead of them. What a thrill for us to stand before a packed house in the Dora Maclellan Brown Memorial Chapel, with both students and parents in attendance, and to welcome these eager, bright Christian young men and women to this calling of rigorous study and learning, pursued under the guidance of faculty committed to mentor them in developing the mind and heart of Jesus Christ through academic study for all of life.

Of course there’s more to four years of college than study, and we delight in the other callings that our students pursue, both on and off campus. But the academic calling is certainly the priority, and we remind them, in the midst of the excitement of move-in day, to recognize the treasure that lies ahead in reading and reflecting and wondering and asking and discussing and writing, all in light of the preeminence of Jesus Christ in all things.

Earlier on that Friday afternoon, all parents attend a parents’ orientation meeting, during which our Student Development staff provides information and offers counsel as parents prepare to leave their sons and daughters on our campus. For many parents, this is a bittersweet time filled with joy and thanksgiving as well as with some sadness. That gathering ends with an extended time of prayer with and for one another, and our hearts are blessed to hear these parents pray for their children, for the faculty and administration of the College, and for themselves as this next stage of life begins.

Prayer plays a big part in these early days of the academic year. The Thursday night before move-in Friday, all the residence life staff, accompanied by others from the College community, walk through all the halls where the names of soon-to-arrive students are posted on all the doors. It’s a marvelous opportunity to pray for every student individually.

And prayer is indeed a crucial ministry that undergirds the work that we do at Covenant. We know that thousands of folks around the world pray for the College regularly, and we pray on campus daily in many different contexts: as classes and meetings begin, in residence halls, in chapel, before arts and athletic events, and on and on. Through prayer our focus on our glorious God is renewed, we acknowledge his sovereign might and holiness, we confess our sin, we give thanks for the redemption he has provided in Jesus, we ask for the Spirit’s help in our work, we present the needs of our community and the world to him, and we ask him to make his people bold and fruitful for the gospel.

Prayer is a central way in which we live out our gospel calling before the Lord. Without prayer, all the activity and “progress” in the world won’t amount to much of eternal worth; without prayer, the Christ-centered enterprise of Covenant College would weaken, wither, and eventually die. What a rich blessing for us at Covenant to move forward on the strength of the prayers of the larger Covenant family, as God graciously answers according to his perfect purposes.

On Sunday (August 22) our new students attend local church services. This is also a crucial part of the work of the College – to help our students connect with local congregations where they can worship with God’s people, hear the Scriptures faithfully preached, participate in the sacraments rightly administered, and be discipled under the oversight of God’s ordained church leaders. We are very blessed here in Chattanooga with a host of biblically grounded churches, and it is a joy to hear the testimonies of our students and their church leaders regarding the fellowship they share.

This week continues the extensive orientation schedule for our new students, with the initial sessions of “The Christian Mind” course, morning devotionals, and introductions to many aspects of college life. Classes begin on Thursday, and on Friday morning (August 27) we officially kick off the new year with our annual Convocation, with the faculty in full academic regalia and a wonderful spirit of praise and expectation.

This will be my ninth year at Covenant, and Kathleen and I love being here! It’s a wonderful place for us to live out our gospel calling through this particular calling, and we treasure the students, families, faculty, staff, alumni, churches, and communities with whom and for whom we follow God’s path and purpose for us.

We covet your prayers and commit to pray for you, as together in our various ways we respond to and pursue God’s calling and callings, for his glory alone.

There is a marker at that place, naming its many promises and dangers for travelers, with the word abortion at the top. Even now, abortion remains what it has been for more than thirty years: the signpost at the intersection of religion and American public life.

 

Of course, there are those who think this shouldn’t be so. Personally, I cannot see how abortion could not rank first. We eliminate 1.3 million unborn children in this country every year, a number that dwarfs, by far, the impact of every other activity with which the moral teachings of the churches might be concerned. For that matter, the story of abortion is a tale of blood and sex and power and law – I do not know what more anyone could need for public significance. The people who say they are uninterested in the issue of abortion have always seemed, to me, to be trying to suppress the imagination that most makes us human.

Commenting on Indiana governor Mitch Daniels’ statement that, in order to make progress on important economic issues, we will “have to call a truce on the so-called social issues” (which Daniels and others* have called “divisive issues”), Bottom writes, “Abortion is here, and not to take a stand is to take a stand.”

And here we get down to it – the real reason, beyond all party politics, that no truce on abortion is possible….We should not accept a truce on abortion because the pro-life position is, in fact, winning. With horrifying slowness, yes, but each graduating class of young people is more opposed to abortion than the last, and in the long run the great task of persuasion and argument will prevail.

…we cannot accept a truce on abortion, because the pro-life movement dies the moment it ceases to move forward….If the pro-life movement ever stops, even for a moment – if we ever accept a truce and let the status quo sit for a while undisturbed – we abandon the terrible path of providence that God has set for this country since 1973. We settle in…and we surrender.

No, we cannot halt. We cannot falter. We cannot pause. We cannot agree to wait. No truce – not now, not ever.

I am quite moved by Bottom’s passionate call not to let our efforts for the sake of life’s sanctity flag. And I am quite grateful as well, for such passion about the horrible tragedy of abortion seems less and less common, including among Christians, many of whom have turned their attention and their passion to other issues such as AIDS, poverty, the environment, and – with Gov. Daniels – the economy. Abortion seems to many like old news, in spite of the fact that more than 1,000,000 lives are eliminated by abortion each year in this country, and many more around the world.

Late last night, I heard an advertisement appealing for help with rescuing abused animals, asking for $19 a month to enable this particular group to rescue and care for these “innocent” and “vulnerable” creatures. While I do not criticize such an enterprise, I must say that I felt nearly nauseated as I considered the terrible irony of a culture that seems to accept such work as noble and humane while perpetuating the deliberate killing of human babies on a massive scale.

“Green” initiatives also abound, with calls to save the planet through recycling or wind power or stop-global-warming campaigns. Significant movements exist on Christian college campuses for such initiatives, with accompanying “biblical” and “gospel” rationales and promotion by national associations. Yet the 8-figure abortion death toll gets virtually no mention.

Economic development, particularly among the world’s poor, is a hot topic, and for good reason. Our own Chalmers Center for Economic Development is at the forefront of research and practice for serving the poor and assisting those who serve the poor through the development of tested training resources. This is good and important work, and I am proud of the Chalmers Center. At the same time, we should be concerned about the relative lack of analogous scholarly and ministry attention on behalf of the victims of abortion, both the dead children themselves and the mothers and fathers who bear the heavy burden of their awful decisions.

Meanwhile, the abortion industry plows on, fueled by our federal dollars both at home and abroad and justified by ambiguous rhetoric about making abortion rare.

Of course we are surrounded by a great throng of individuals and organizations who daily defend the defenseless through pregnancy centers and counseling and financial support. In God’s providence, Covenant College has raised up, over the years, a host of alumni who have responded to God’s calling in this area, right here in Chattanooga as well as in Washington, D.C. and in other parts of the world. A number of years ago, Focus on the Family initiated its Option Ultrasound program, which has placed hundreds of ultrasound machines in centers and clinics — caring enough for women considering abortions to provide them with full disclosure about the child living inside their womb and resulting in the saving of some 72,000 little lives. (We should also take note of significant momentum in adoption: Providing good homes for orphans and other needy children is also a pro-life work and a worthy partner of protecting and caring for the unborn.)

And yet I am troubled that there seems to be no massive outcry, particularly from Christians and Christian organizations, about 1,000,000 deaths every year. That’s why I appreciate so deeply Joseph Bottom’s reminder about the centrality of abortion in our social context and consciousness. The sanctity of human life, grounded in our biblical understanding of God, his creational purposes, his wise and beautiful design for marriage and family, and his gospel plan – the sanctity of human life is the foundation stone for any and every effort to care for people or the planet. Without a fundamental regard for the most vulnerable among us – little boys and girls in their mothers’ wombs – we have ultimately no hope for sustaining a regard for the poor or the environment, and certainly not for our pets. Such chronic and willful destruction of human life in its earliest stages, with the moral (indeed, immoral) logic and deadening of conscience which it requires, will inevitably lead to destruction of human life at every stage.

I support the Chalmers Center because I believe in the sanctity of human life created in God’s image, and therefore deserving of our best efforts to help people become fruitful in using their God-given gifts and supporting their families and communities. I support free-market economic policies because I believe in the sanctity of human life created in God’s image and therefore capable of the economic multiplication that results from the energetic and free practice of good stewardship and hard work. I support biblically sound care for the environment because I believe in the sanctity of human life created in God’s image and therefore called to treasure and cultivate God’s beautiful gift of this amazing world.**

And the most stunning and graphic picture we have of the sanctity of human life is the outline we have of the tiny heads and hands and bodies and beating hearts of soon-to-be-born boys and girls, an outline that we can actually see in an ultrasound image but which even without that technology we know is there.

So please, please don’t tell me that as a Christian you care about the poor or those with AIDS, if you aren’t also actively caring about unborn babies and their mothers and fathers. Don’t tell me that you will vote to protect and promote the dignity and vitality of the free market, if you won’t protect and promote the dignity and vitality of the little ones who will one day contribute to and benefit from that free market. Don’t tell me that you’re passionate about saving the planet, if you aren’t at least as passionate about saving these helpless ones for whom the planet was designed as their home for the years of their earthly lives.

Whether it’s economic development for the poor, or ministry to those with AIDS or other maladies, or biblically sound care for our cities or the environment, concern for these matters ultimately stands or falls with our concern for the unborn. And a culture which tolerates, and even promotes, the destruction of unborn human life will soon enough tolerate, and even promote, the destruction of these other goods as well.

We cannot set aside the sanctity of human life for the alleged benefit of building a political coalition in order to win an election. We cannot forget the fundamental importance of protecting the unborn, grounded in our view of God and his creation of men and women in his image and undergirding our other important moral concerns. We must, with Joseph Bottom, make no truce, and we must, with many faithful sisters and brothers, live out the full implications of the gospel of the Kingdom in caring for the least among us.

What a blessing to be part of the worldwide community of those who treasure the human life that God gives from the moment of conception. And what a blessing to be part of a college grounded firmly in God’s Word and the gospel his Spirit calls us to believe and live.

_________________________

* Even so-called “conservative” political movements want us to avoid divisive issues like abortion. The Tea Party movement has, at best, an ambiguous profile on the sanctity of human life, with comments such as this one from Ryan Hecker, organizer of the Contract From America, a document which many Tea Partiers have supported:

We should be creating the biggest tent possible around the economic conservative issue. I think social issues may matter to particular individuals, but at the end of the day, the movement should be agnostic about it. This is a movement that rose largely because of the Republican Party failing to deliver on being representative of the economic conservative ideology. To include social issues would be beside the point.

And this from Frank Anderson, a founder of the Independence Caucus whose questionnaire is used by Tea Partiers to assess candidate positions:

Every social issue you bring in, you’re adding planks to your mission. And planks become splinters.

(from “Tea Party Avoids Divisive Social Issues,” The New York Times, March 13, 2010)

** For further perspective on the crucial importance of the sanctity of unborn human life, please listen to a chapel address given by my wife, Kathleen, at Taylor University. On Kathleen’s website, go to the “Talks” page, and click on “Rerouting the River: Reflections on Abortion.” There are brief opening comments from students, and then Kathleen’s talk begins.

The principal point of the phrase is to remind us of the primary way in which God has from the beginning accomplished his redemptive and reviving work in the world: through the faithful, day-by-day, most often mundane work of his people, most often in “ordinary” places and through “ordinary” means, as by his mercy and provision they fulfill the extraordinary callings to which he has called them.

Once in a while he raises up extraordinary leaders whom he uses for dramatic, history-changing purposes – the apostle Paul, Martin Luther, C. S. Lewis, and of course many others across the centuries. But even they seem to come to their historic uniqueness of leadership through rather ordinary means: as hard-working scholars or faithful churchmen or teachers or accountants or whatever, carrying out their daily duties without much sense of God’s grander design for the outcomes of their efforts.

I recently came across a brief essay, written by pastor Kevin DeYoung, which offers further reflection on this theme (“The Glory of Plodding,” originally published in the May 2010 issue of Tabletalk magazine). DeYoung writes:

My generation in particular is prone to radicalism without followthrough. We have dreams of changing the world, and the world should take notice accordingly. But we’ve not proved faithful in much of anything yet. We haven’t held a steady job or raised godly kids or done our time in VBS or, in some cases, even moved off the parental dole. We want global change and expect a few more dollars to the ONE campaign or Habitat for Humanity chapter to just about wrap things up. What the church and the world needs, we imagine, is for us to be another Bono — Christian, but more spiritual than religious and more into social justice than the church. As great as it is that Bono is using his fame for some noble purpose, I just don’t believe that the happy future of the church, or the world for that matter, rests on our ability to raise up a million more Bonos (as at least one author suggests). With all due respect, what’s harder: to be an idolized rock star who travels around the world touting good causes and chiding governments for their lack of foreign aid, or to be a line worker at GM with four kids and a mortgage, who tithes to his church, sings in the choir every week, serves on the school board, and supports a Christian relief agency and a few missionaries from his disposable income?

 

Until we are content with being one of the million nameless, faceless church members and not the next globe-trotting rock star, we aren’t ready to be a part of the church…In all the smallness and sameness, God works — like the smallest seed in the garden growing to unbelievable heights, like beloved Tychicus, that faithful minister, delivering the mail and apostolic greetings (Eph. 6:21). Life is usually pretty ordinary, just like following Jesus most days. Daily discipleship is not a new revolution each morning or an agent of global transformation every evening; it’s a long obedience in the same direction.

It’s tempting, for leaders of schools and colleges, to put forward high-sounding claims (or at least hopes) for our programs – that we are producing the “leaders” of tomorrow (which of course we are, in one way or another), or that we are raising up “world-changers” or shapers of culture (which or course we are, in one way or another). Those who use such phrases generally have in mind examples such as William Wilberforce, whom God did indeed use in remarkable ways. But without thousands of others whose names we do not remember, Wilberforce’s efforts would not have resulted in the abolition of slavery throughout the British empire; and without thousands of “nameless” others in the generations that followed, the fruit of his efforts would not have been preserved.

A current version of this hope comes from those who focus on the arts, media, and politics as key means for Christian witness and transformation. One institution actually touts its focus on “the ruling disciplines,” intending, I suppose, to point its graduates toward the “ruling professions” – whatever that would actually mean in biblical perspective. At Covenant, we eagerly and energetically promote theater, music, and art — most recently including the addition of a concentration in graphics and digital arts. Covenant alumni are widely engaged in journalism and in political and governmental vocations. These are crucial pathways of God’s calling, and we are delighted as our students and alumni serve God, engage culture, and witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ in these ways. And, yes, some are called to positions of significant leadership!

But, as the principal focus, the emphasis on leadership and cultural influence raises serious questions.

I have already mentioned two: First, how has God primarily accomplished his redemptive purpose for his creation? I contend that it is not, primarily, through the relatively infrequent “heroes” whom we celebrate and urge our children to emulate – as wonderful as these heroes are – but through the steady and glorious plodding, as DeYoung puts it, of thousands and millions of followers of Jesus Christ, who carried out their respective and indeed extraordinary callings in ordinary places. Second, how has God primarily raised up these heroes? I contend that it is not, primarily, through leadership training or education in the “ruling disciplines” or aiming at getting into places of cultural influence, but through the godly and “ordinary” disciplines of hard work, Christian home life, church involvement, and sound education – and in most cases the deliberate eschewing of self-promoting and power-seeking aspirations, even if the ends are perceived to be worthy. Even so unique a man as Wilberforce, who had a deep and clear sense of calling throughout his political career, spent decades engaged in hard-slogging, daily, and largely unpublicized work on his way to society-changing impact – a reality often masked by short biographies which focus on the high points of his life and career.

But there are additional questions, which may be much more important. For example, what is the role of the church and what are known as the “ordinary means of grace” – preaching and listening to God’s Word, regular partaking in the sacraments, and the discipling of believers in the gathered community of faith? In biblical perspective, the church is the context where the redemptive work of God is centered and from which the witness of the gospel extends to the world. It may not be accidental that the emphasis on cultural engagement and influence, at least among some, coincides with a questioning of, a suspicion of, and even a turning away from the visible church. I am very, very grateful for Covenant’s grounding in the church as a perpetual reference point for the education we offer and our hopes for our graduates.

And then there’s the question of gospel witness itself. How does the focus on influencing culture, through overt or quiet leadership in the arts or government or other areas of vocation, connect to explicit witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the salvation of lost sinners? The passion to change the world, whether through politics (conservative or liberal) or through the arts or through pursuit of causes of justice and mercy and compassion, can squeeze out the clear proclamation of the good news of the cross and the empty tomb as God’s only way for redeeming fallen men and women and restoring his fallen creation. We should be working hard to raise up Christian artists and filmmakers and politicians and business leaders and those who pursue justice and help the needy. The Chalmers Center for Economic Development at Covenant College is one prime example of how we at Covenant seek the welfare of the communities of the world.

But making a great film is not enough; relieving suffering is not enough; passing good legislation is not enough; even faithful Christian presence in our communities is not enough. No demonstration of Kingdom values is enough apart from the declaration of the gospel of the life, death, resurrection, and reign of Jesus Christ for the saving of sinners and the healing of our broken world.

Amid all the calls for producing leaders who will change the world, we need to hear DeYoung’s countering call:

What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. That’s my dream for the church — a multitude of faithful, risktaking plodders. The best churches are full of gospel-saturated people holding tenaciously to a vision of godly obedience and God’s glory, and pursuing that godliness and glory with relentless, often unnoticed, plodding consistency.

I am grateful to be part of a college that at least gets this bit right, and I am thankful for the generations of faithful plodders, alumni of Covenant College, who as servants of Jesus Christ are living and working as witnesses to the gospel and the Kingdom, through extraordinary callings in ordinary places.

This has been a remarkable year at the College, particularly in light of how things looked a year ago – economic crisis, budget worries, enrollment questions, fund-raising uncertainty. After careful planning and difficult decisions, accompanied by a sense of anxiety which affects even those who trust in a sovereign and gracious God, we began the year with strong student enrollment. The fall also brought surprising strength in gifts, including the largest single gift the College has ever received, from the estate of long-time Covenant friend Lowell Andreas. Spring enrollment and giving have remained on or above goals as well, so that, as we look to the end of our fiscal year on June 30, we are anticipating a positive budget outcome and solid financial position entering the new year.

Our BUILD campaign is also coming to the end of the originally planned five years, during which, with God’s gracious provision, we surpassed the $31 million original goal and can now report total gifts and pledges of $46.4 million. Just this past Friday, we celebrated God’s goodness and the faithful generosity of the Covenant family with a wonderful dinner-and-dancing party on the chapel lawn and in the Dottie Brock Gardens. We also publicly announced an extension of the BUILD campaign – through June 30, 2013, with an expanded goal of $53 million. What a delight to be able to look back at what has happened and to look forward to what yet lies ahead!

While meeting enrollment and fund-raising goals is important and provides fit reason for joy and gratitude, I know – and you know – that those blessings are not accurate indicators of our fidelity to the College’s mission, or our obedience to our Lord, or our pursuit of holiness in mind and heart and hands. Many colleges and universities are “successful” in terms of numbers, in fact much more successful than Covenant. I thank God for a board of trustees, a faculty, a group of administrators, a staff, an alumni family, a sponsoring denomination, and hundreds of students and their families who, while appreciating the numbers and what they enable us to do, relentlessly maintain their focus on the College’s foundational commitments: to the inerrant Scriptures, to the Westminster Standards as our statement of faith, to scholarship and academic excellence to the glory of Jesus Christ, to the church, and to the faithful equipping of generations of students for God’s manifold callings.

How good to be reminded, from the Scriptures and history, that God works his sovereign, redemptive purposes in times of plenty and times of want. He builds his church through his people, faithful and faithless, obedient and sinful as we are. As the new year unfolds, all of us face yet more uncertainty, not only economically but also politically, culturally, and militarily. The world situation feels at least as ominous as ever, and challenges to faith and faithful living abound. Yet the gospel remains true and powerful, and God is mightily moving by his Spirit.

Kathleen and I will have opportunity to witness God’s moving as we travel with a group of Covenant students to Cape Town, South Africa, where we will learn from, and work alongside, some wonderful folks involved in evangelism, education, and works of mercy. We will also get a firsthand look at preparations for gospel outreach during the World Cup, which occurs in June and July, and for the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization, which occurs in October.

Kathleen and I will then travel to Indonesia, where we’ll spend several days with some dynamic Christians who have developed an array of schools and colleges providing first-rate educational opportunities for thousands of Indonesian students. Our hope is to build connections that would enable us to encourage and support one another in our common calling of Christian education.

And then comes next year! As we complete our incoming class of new students and focus intently on preparation of all aspects of academic and campus life, I ask for your prayers – certainly prayers of gratitude for God’s provision and protection during this past year, and also prayers for his continued blessing in the months ahead. I ask you to pray most earnestly for Jesus Christ to be exalted preeminently in every aspect of the College, and most especially in lives of trust and holiness and love as we carry on in this good task.

Churches often struggle with missional focus as well, as do business enterprises: There’s always a “success story” out there that can tempt us to leave behind what we know we are called to be and do. And it’s true of colleges, including Covenant, as the competitive demands of the “higher education marketplace” provide ample opportunity for trying to look like other institutions – even at the risk of losing clarity about our distinctive mission.

One of the questions that I am occasionally asked by prospective students and their parents is this: “How does Covenant’s program in ________________ (insert academic area) compare with ___________________ (insert name of other college/university)?” Most often the foci of the question are 1) an academic program that would seem to lead to graduate/professional school or to a specific career, e.g. pre-law, a science, or business, and 2) an institution of some notable prestige. For example, earlier this semester the question was, “How does Covenant’s pre-med program compare with Vanderbilt’s?”

Now I am quite happy to answer the question as it is asked, as Covenant compares quite well in virtually all academic measures, and our students are almost routinely accepted into excellent graduate schools and sought after by first-rate employers.

But I often respond in an additional way, inquiring if the questioner also asks the corollary question of the other institution: “How does Vanderbilt’s shaping of minds and hearts for the purposes of God and the glory of Christ compare with Covenant’s?” Putting things that way immediately makes the point clear: As important as it is for Covenant to provide a first-rate undergraduate education that meets and exceeds academic standards of other institutions – and we do – when it comes to what we at Covenant value most and do best, institutions like Vanderbilt (or Princeton or Florida), as fine as they may be, are not even on the scale.

Our mission – to explore and express the preeminence of Jesus Christ in all things – permeates everything we do: our excellent academic curriculum, our faculty’s outstanding scholarship and teaching, our approach to campus residence life, our philosophy of athletics, and our communicating and connecting with external constituencies. Of course we have to compete on the “usual” scales, and we pursue excellence and professionalism in all areas with every effort. But first and foremost we value faithfulness – to our God and to his Scriptures and to his gospel and to his church – and we pursue, as our highest priority, the education of our students as men and women devoted in mind, heart, and life to the glory and truth and grace of Jesus Christ in every aspect of life and work.

So, as tempting as it is to get stuck on competing on the basis of others’ relative strengths, we do well to remember our distinctive mission and purpose, in terms of which those other institutions are quite simply overmatched. What a joy to partner with students and their families, with churches and schools, and with prayer and financial partners who recognize this and who join with us in this incomparable endeavor.

Mission can come under pressure from either success or struggle. Success can cause us to assume that we are doing the right things the right way, and to give up the discipline of continual self-examination in light of God’s Word and in the context of God’s church. As Dr. Michael Oh, president of Christ Bible Seminary in Nagoya, Japan, and a campus speaker at Covenant awhile back, has written,

…leaders learn the possibility of being “fruitful” without being pure…Many lives are “successfully” lived and many ministries are “successfully” operated apart from vital relationship to and properly desperate dependence upon Christ. This is the great scandal of Christian leadership; this is what leaders should fear.
(“The Danger of ‘Fruitfulness’ Without Purity,” Lausanne World Pulse, April 2009)

On the other hand, struggle can push us toward compromise as well, particularly if we see others not struggling and imagine that, if we become more like them, with just a few minor adjustments in our focus, we could enjoy their blessings.

Several times in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses reminds God’s people of this dual tendency. In the wilderness, hungry and thirsty and wandering, they grumbled against the Lord, pined for Egypt, forgot the Lord, and longed for other gods. In the land of promise, they would have abundant food, live in comfortable surroundings, forget the Lord — and long for other gods.

For Covenant in the world of higher education, this dual tendency is a real threat. In the midst of broader turmoil, we are enjoying a remarkable year: strong enrollment, sufficient resources, momentum in our capital campaign, many new academic and institutional developments, and a positive spirit on campus. At the same time, some colleges and universities are better off than we are, and have things and are doing things that we might wish we could have and do. From both angles, we can forget who we are and who God has called us to be. We can be tempted to think of ourselves in terms that aren’t centered on our mission, even thinking that we should be competing with Vanderbilt! The fact is that, as by God’s grace we stay focused on exploring and expressing the preeminence of Jesus Christ in all things, we will continue to provide a truly excellent, truly distinctive education that is Christ-exalting, culture-engaging, and gospel-declaring, the kind of education to which other institutions, fine as they may be on their own terms, can’t even begin to compare.

For one of his chapel messages, Rev. Helm spoke from John 10:22-39, where Jesus confronts the Jews with their unbelief, bearing witness about himself through both his true words and his good works. When he declares that he and the Father are one, “the Jews picked up stones again to stone him (v. 31).” Jesus asks, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” – to which the Jews respond, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”

The Jews’ response here is, as Rev. Helm pointed out, crucial for our understanding of the church’s gospel mission in the world. While Jesus goes on to exhort the Jews, even if they will not believe him, to believe his works, the fact is, as they make very clear, that it is for his words claiming to be one with the Father, and not for his good works, that they want to stone him. Good works can sometimes get us into trouble, but often they garner appreciation and even praise. It is the claims of Jesus – of his divine identity and his holy and redemptive mission, of which he spoke and about which we are called to speak – that cause offense and bring trouble. And it is those claims, declared in spoken words, which are the heart of the biblical gospel that truly saves.

This is why the centerpiece of Rev. Helm’s ministry through HTC-Chicago’s related foundation, The Simeon Trust, is the advance of the proclamation of God’s Word through training for ministers in biblical exposition. And this is why the chapel program at Covenant, under Rev. Aaron Messner’s leadership, is centered on the reading and preaching of the Bible.

In this context Rev. Helm rightly called into question the oft-quoted words of St. Francis of Assisi, “Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary use words,” a quotation commonly recruited to suggest that our good works “preach” the gospel, whether or not we speak the words of the gospel – a kind of “deeds, not creeds” orientation.

John will not have this: he will not let us miss the fact that the Jews resolved to kill Jesus, not because he healed the sick and fed the hungry and relieved suffering, but because he claimed to be the Christ and to be one with God his Father. Surely works of compassion and mercy are crucial as demonstrations of gospel love and Kingdom conviction; they are foretastes of the comprehensive renewal of all things for which we wait and hope, and they add credibility to our word-witness. But, apart from proclamation, they never, ever add up to the biblical gospel, and in fact, alone, they almost always turn into sub-biblical moralism and legalism. The biblical gospel, celebrated with such joy during the Easter season just past, is the verbal declaration that the very Son of God has come to reclaim and redeem this fallen creation, through taking on our humanity; suffering and bleeding and dying for us – the Righteous for the unrighteous – to pay the infinite and just penalty for our sins; and then being raised again by God his Father as the first fruits of a new creation and of all who, united with him through faith, will rise again at the last day.

Words and works were wonderfully united in Jesus’ earthly ministry, as he preached and lived and displayed the truth and grace and justice and beauty of the Kingdom of God. And we are called by grace, as his church, to follow in his steps. At Covenant, we are committed to the “whole,” biblical gospel, which is the declaration, accompanied by the demonstration, that God is redeeming all things to himself through his crucified, risen, and returning Son. But at the heart of the biblical gospel is truth about God, truth which we must speak. And I believe that it is this speaking – our confession about God and Jesus and sin and salvation and Kingdom – that will come under greater and greater pressure in the years ahead.

One recent example is the action of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, which has compiled a list of schools “found to have imposed a requirement of a commitment to a particular ideology or statement as a condition of employment” (as reported in First Things, April 2010). Trinity Western University, an explicitly Christian institution which requires faculty to sign a statement of faith, is to date the only institution on the CAUT list. CAUT’s executive director James Turk explains that “This is not about the school being Christian, but about the faculty having to sign a statement of faith.” At work in Mr. Turk’s thinking is a meaning of the word “Christian” disconnected from any actual confessional content – probably something about being kind and civil, perhaps even doing good deeds and making a positive difference in the community – but without any truth claims that might actually orient and shape the academic enterprise. By contrast, Covenant’s Board of Trustees, senior administration, and faculty annually reaffirm their conviction regarding the inerrancy of Scripture, their agreement with the Westminster Confession of Faith, and, initiated recently, their endorsement of the Statement of Community Beliefs, which articulates important truths about contemporary issues in light of what the Scriptures and the Confession teach.

A very different but equally disturbing example is seen in the trend among American universities to do away with any gender distinctions at all in campus residence life – so-called “gender-blind” housing (see Al Mohler’s March 26 blog posting). The confusion resulting from the breakdown of gender identity in a “post-gender” world has made it virtually impossible, or at least “just not practical,” as one dean of residential life put it, to assign roommates on any other basis than what students want or perhaps simply at random. At work here is the denial that there is anything meaningful to say about gender distinctions, much less about God’s revelation regarding his creational design. While this may seem far off from our familiar Christian contexts, it nevertheless represents the divorce of affirmation of and care for people (a kind of “deeds” emphasis) from substantive moral truth claims. We need to be aware of the tendency, even in our own settings, to decouple works from word.

Covenant remains, joyfully and relentlessly, a confessional institution serving a confessional church, with our identity and our mission grounded in historic Christian faith and doctrine, on the authority of the inerrant Scriptures, which are God’s Word written. It is out of such biblical commitment and conviction that our gospel witness, in word and works, grows – for example, the marvelous outreach of the Chalmers Center at Covenant College, which develops biblically-based microenterprise development training resources for the world’s poor. Our hope for all our programs and all our students is that they would be living demonstrations of the biblical truths about God and Jesus which we affirm and proclaim in words with our mouths.

What a joy to be part of the larger fellowship of God’s people around the world who love and proclaim God’s Word, by which the gospel is heard and believed and Christ’s church is built.

A spirituality of ends wants to dictate outcomes of education in the life of the student. It uses the spiritual tradition as a template against which the ideas, beliefs, and behaviors of the student are to be measured. The goal is to shape the student to the template by the time that his or her formal education concludes. Authentic education wants to open us to truth – whatever truth may be, wherever truth may take us. Such a spirituality does not dictate where we must go, but trusts that any path walked with integrity will take us to a place of knowledge. Such a spirituality encourages us to welcome diversity and conflict, to tolerate ambiguity, and to embrace paradox.

Here was my response:

Regarding the Christian educational enterprise, we can and must recognize the essential aspects of genuine education: willingness to explore, to ask questions, to be open to new ideas and directions. But Christian education is not, and was never intended to be, unqualifiedly open-ended, and thus Parker Palmer’s “authentic education” is not Christian education. The Bible itself presents from its opening chapters a spirituality of ends, and the entire Scriptural storyline is eschatological, i.e. it unfolds with its final consummation in view. In contrast to Parker’s and the authors’ recommending “any path walked with integrity,” the Bible points us again and again to one path, one way, one gate, one ending to the story, and one Savior and King.

And then I made this further comment:

It’s important to add that, while declension is not myth, open-endedness certainly is, as if any education or any educator is free from starting-points and presuppositions – what Palmer calls a “template” — that shape and direct, and in large measure determine, the learning outcomes in students’ beliefs and values. I will address the myth of open-endedness in my next posting.

In this blog post, then, I want to comment briefly on this point, that open-endedness is a myth.

First let us acknowledge that there is a huge range of paths of academic inquiry and exploration that are, to a great degree, open-ended. Those of us with deep and broad commitment to the authority and sufficiency of the Scriptures understand that the Bible does not provide answers to all meaningful and important questions, nor was it intended to do so. In physics, economics, history, psychology, and in fact all disciplines, scholars pursue their work with a profound openness to what they will discover, create, and learn. This is a source of some of the most exalted joy to be found in human endeavor.

But even such explorations do not proceed without underlying commitments which, like it or not, delimit the range of possible outcomes. Virtually every discipline has them: epistemological frameworks for what counts as evidence, broadly accepted methodologies, coherence with already established understanding, and the tribunal of the judgment of one’s professional peers.

One doesn’t have to read far in the discussion among evolutionists and anti-evolutionists to see these underlying commitments at work. A recent article by Michael Ruse of Florida State University, “What Darwin’s Doubters Get Wrong,” (Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/7/2010), criticizes three well-known critics of evolution, Alvin Plantinga, Thomas Nagel, and Jerry Fodor, for their failure to understand science and therefore to raise unwarranted doubts about evolutionary theory. In Ruse’s thinking – and he’s right – one can’t just end up anywhere. Starting points and acceptable methods matter for getting to the right places, and proper science is not an utterly open-ended enterprise.

In my own field of philosophy, different schools of philosophical thought across the centuries developed in large measure because of different starting points, and it is quite appropriate to say, for example, that Martin Heidegger did not end up – indeed, could not have ended up – where Bertrand Russell did, and vice versa, largely because of where and how they started.

Turning to the understanding of the Scriptures and Christian thought, it is virtually impossible to miss the crucial importance of where and how one gets going in the first place for where one ends up. How we take in the Bible’s words and grasp its storyline; what we believe about the Bible’s authors – and the Bible’s Author; what we understand to be the connections between the Bible and all other thought and learning; and how we appropriate its truth into our lives – these are foundational factors for absolutely everyone, whether they acknowledge it or not. And it doesn’t take long, in even casual conversation, to begin to discern these commitments at work.

In light of this rather obvious state of affairs, it’s surprising that Parker Palmer would suggest that he pursues truth wherever it leads, as if his pathway is not conditioned in significant ways by his beginnings. His recommendation of “any path walked with integrity” founders directly on this problem, as it is contradicted by the Bible’s direct teaching; it appears that his foundational convictions about how to read and understand the Bible lead him to deny its plain meaning. (I’m thinking of Psalm 1, for example, where the issue is clearly not our “integrity,” but rather the natures and ends of the paths themselves, one leading to life and one to death.) So Palmer himself presents a rather nice example of the very “spirituality of ends” he says he rejects.

The authors of the article that prompted the previous posting which then triggered this one fall into the same category: The very formulation of their survey questions, and their failure to ask somewhat obvious further questions, virtually guaranteed the conclusions with which they ended up. Theirs was a fine example of research that is most definitely not open-ended, but was conditioned from the beginning for its outcome.

So deeply embedded can these underlying assumptions and commitments sometimes be that one might not recognize them for what they are, and come to believe that our exploration is proceeding “in the raw.” And so powerful can they be that one might be inhibited from seeing or understanding what is really there. History is full of examples – in science, in theology, in economics, in psychology, and in historical analysis itself – where conclusions confidently drawn on the basis of assumed perspectives and accepted definitions were later questioned and rejected when those perspectives and definitions were recognized and overturned.

C. Stephen Evans of Baylor University writes of this in a recent review of a book on what is known as “Christian physicalism:”

However, I do not think Green is sensitive enough to the way in which scientific findings change over time, and thus does not adequately consider the situation in which faithfulness to biblical teachings might require that Christians question the claims particular scientists make. It is instructive at this point to recall that a behaviorism that ruled out human freedom and responsibility was regarded as the established scientific perspective on humans from the mid 1950’s until the “cognitive revolution” in psychology that began in the 1970’s. It would have been a mistake for Christians during this period to slavishly accept a behavioristic perspective simply because it carried the prestigious label of being “scientific.” (Books and Culture, March/April 2010, p. 27).

(This should be an encouragement to many who are rightly troubled by the juggernaut of Darwinian evolution, especially as it cuts a path through Christendom. It may not suffer the same fate as behaviorism, but we can work and hope.)

Evans’ words should remind us of our own heritage as well: We at Covenant pursue our calling in the line of faithful ones who took up the crucial task of reformation, questioning on the basis of the words of the Scriptures the established religious perspective and paving the way, in God’s providence, for renewal among God’s people and the growth of a vibrant and fruitful church.

And we must keep going to the Scriptures, examining what we think and do carefully, humbly, self-critically – including our current understanding of the Scriptures – knowing that God by his Spirit delights in bringing us into his truth and enabling us to be his holy people, called to his holy service according to his Word.

So what can we say about “open-endedness?” First, it doesn’t really exist in any pure form, and Parker Palmer proves it in his very attempt to deny it. Our ways of seeing and understanding are conditioned from the ground up with perspective and underlying assumptions. When we at Covenant speak of a biblical framework for all we do, we are acknowledging from the get-go that the Scriptures provide such perspective and assumptions for our academic task and our educational calling. And while the Bible doesn’t answer all questions, it does give true and dependable guidance within which we can pursue our academic enterprise, including both raising appropriate questions about claims and theories which contradict the Scriptures’ truth and producing richly meaningful works of learning and creativity, joining a glorious legacy of Christian scholars and artists across the centuries. We pursue this calling with the hope of our giving obedient honor to our sovereign and gracious God and our bearing faithful witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In Why We Love the Church, authors Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck contend that “being part of a church – and learning to love it – is good for your soul, biblically responsible, and pleasing to God.” They lean hard against a collection of contemporary voices who, often despairingly or cynically or angrily, describe the institutional church as outdated, irrelevant, dead, and even harmful. With wit and reference to their own personal experiences, DeYoung and Kluck draw deeply on the Scriptures, theology, church history, and the examples of thriving and gospel-purposeful churches to present a compelling case for the structure, discipline, preaching, community, and mission of organized churches.

In The Church and the Surprising Offense of God’s Love, author Jonathan Leeman contends that “insofar as the gospel presents the world with the most vivid picture of God’s love, and insofar as church membership and discipline are an implication of the gospel, local church membership and discipline in fact define God’s love for the world.” This book is an extended explication of the love of God realized and displayed in and through the life and historic practices of the local church, and, with DeYoung and Kluck, Leeman provides a profound and arresting response to those who propose that the church is either irrelevant or antithetical to God’s saving and sanctifying love.

I suppose that a primary reason why I appreciate these two books is that their themes connect with Covenant’s historic church-related identity and commitment. Covenant is formally part of an ecclesiastical community: we are owned by the Presbyterian Church in America, and we exist foundationally to serve families and churches of the PCA as well as of other like-minded and like-hearted church fellowships. So, while Covenant is itself a college and not a local church, our guiding theological convictions and our covenantal responsibility for the education we provide are aligned with and supportive of our overseeing church body.

This means that we seek to recruit students from our partner churches and church bodies. It is one of our great delights to join with parents and church leaders in fulfilling God’s centuries-long plan for one generation to declare his praises to the next generation. We are intentional in making financial aid available to enable this church-serving purpose, through a number of scholarship programs including the Church Scholarship Promise program. Along with Matthew Bryant, director of church relations, and many others from Covenant, I spend a high percentage of my time visiting churches, schools, and communities to make our purpose known.

But it also means that what we do on campus is intentionally designed to serve this church-partnering purpose as well. Professors in every discipline are church men and church women, modeling the connections between their teaching and scholarship and their participation in a local congregation. Throughout the week, our students hear their faculty talk about their church involvements, and then on Sundays they see their faculty actively engaged and serving.

From the first day that new students arrive on campus, they hear our call to become part of a local church, and maps and rides are available. On Sunday mornings, our students scatter to a host of churches around the Chattanooga area. What a blessing to know that these churches are eager to have our students join their congregations, and that our students are sitting under the regular teaching and preaching of the Word of God, participating in the sacraments, enjoying the fellowship of other generations, and finding areas of service. Pastors and other church leaders regularly visit our campus to meet with their attending students.

And then, of course, these students become alumni, moving into other communities around the country and the world where they carry on with active and fruitful church life.

Throughout the year, a large number of students participate in off-campus ministry, in both local and global settings, and these ministry opportunities are most often connected with local churches. In the last few years, Kathleen and I have had the privilege to lead student groups to serve alongside church-based ministries in Romania, Kenya, and India, and this May we’re heading to South Africa. Our students are blessed to witness the work of the gospel primarily through the church, and I’m encouraged that this focus on the church will be the focus of their ministry throughout their lives.

Finally, our chapel program, under Rev. Aaron Messner’s leadership, shares with our larger church family important foundational commitments regarding the reading and preaching of the Scriptures, sound theological reflection, gospel mission, community service, mercy ministry, and the application of God’s truth to every aspect of life. Speakers from on campus and off bring messages and addresses that challenge all of us in these areas.

In an important sense, then, DeYoung, Kluck, and Leeman are preaching to the choir! But as we at Covenant lean against a larger trend to move away from “organized religion” and the worship and work and discipline of the local church, I am very grateful for these strong and instructive voices. I trust you’ll find encouraging both these books and the lively church connectedness of Covenant College.

(In my previous blog posting, I wrote:

It’s important to add that, while declension is not myth, open-endedness certainly is, as if any education or any educator is free from starting-points and presuppositions – what Palmer calls a “template” — that shape and direct, and in large measure determine, the learning outcomes in students’ beliefs and values. I will address the myth of open-endedness in my next posting.

With apologies for the delay, I will post on that topic next time.)

The authors claim that their data “suggest that faculty at CCCU institutions are firmly committed to Christian higher education,” basing that judgment, at least in part, on the following responses:
• 98% strongly or somewhat agree with “My college/university should maintain its Christian identity”;
• 94% strongly or somewhat agree with “I have a good idea of what is meant by the phrase, ‘the integration of faith and learning’”;
• 84% strongly or somewhat agree with “It is not difficult for me to integrate faith and learning in my discipline.”

They also claim that their data “suggest that CCCU institutions are places where faith is nurtured and strengthened,” with 79% reporting that, “as a result of the time spent at their college/university, their faith has either become much or somewhat stronger” (sic).

So here is their conclusion:

Based upon our data, we conclude that the dangers of secularization, insofar as they apply to the CCCU, have been overstated. Survey participants overwhelmingly endorse the Christian identity of their institutions; participants also understand and practice the integration of faith and learning.

Finally, they quote approvingly an author who refers to “the myth of declension” which “has cramped our thinking and narrowed our reflection on the nature and character of Christian scholarship.” (Rodney Sawatsky, Scholarship and Christian Faith: Enlarging the Conversation)

I can only begin to scratch the surface of the serious and complex issues which the authors gloss over in their effort to convince us that everything is just fine in Christian higher education — and that any who claim otherwise should be characterized as over-vigilant, hyper-conservative, closed-minded indoctrinators. . . in other words, the real problem.

First, the authors’ data and analysis represent shallow scholarship at best, and will hardly do for their purpose. Certainly, if secularization is measured merely by the presence or absence of certain phrases, such as “Christian identity,” or “integration of faith and learning,” then any institution which continues to use those phrases is, by that standard, not succumbing to secularization. And it is the case that these phrases are broadly accepted and used among institutions who publicly aver their Christian commitment and who are willing members of the CCCU, which is an association of self-professedly “Christ-centered” colleges and universities.

But surely the concern regarding secularization deserves more than such a simplistic approach. While these faculty self-reports are interesting, they leave the deeper questions of meaning and interpretation completely unaddressed. It’s good to know that faculty think their institutions should maintain their Christian identities – but what do they mean by Christian? What is the nature of the faith that is being integrated with learning, and how does that integration actually happen? And how do today’s answers to these questions compare or contrast with the answers that were given at their institutions in previous generations? Only with a careful analysis of meanings and historical progression could these survey results even come close to supporting the authors’ conclusions.

One of the characteristics of historic slippage is that those slipping often deny it; that is, they claim to be continuing to support historic commitments and convictions, using the language of their traditions and, in some cases, claiming to be more in accord with the tradition than their more immediate predecessors. We are witnessing just such a dynamic in the American Episcopal church, where the push for recognition of homosexual marriage and ordination of homosexuals to the ministry is explicitly explained in “Christian” terms: the love of God, the grace and inclusivity of the gospel, etc. We at Covenant experienced such an approach during our interaction with the homosexual advocacy group Soulforce, who, on the basis of their view of the Bible and the gospel, denounce our convictions as unChristian and call for fundamental change in our policies on “biblical” grounds.

The mere use of the language of Christian faith is not enough, and it makes sense to want to know what actual meanings are in play in the use of such terms. This is why I encourage parents and others to ask further questions, of schools and churches and organizations: What do they mean by “Christian?” Exactly how do they describe the authority of the Scriptures, and what place does the Bible hold for scholarship and campus life? What do they believe the biblical gospel is? These terms must not become shibboleths, which we intone as a kind of mantra of identity and faithfulness. These terms have identifiable histories and meanings which have helped to provide theological and ecclesiological definition and continuity across the generations. We do well to use them carefully, and to evaluate carefully their use by others.

The example of homosexual advocacy is especially appropriate here, in that the authors point out that there was a minority of survey respondents who “either strongly or somewhat agreed that their college/university has been influenced negatively by secularism.” This minority group tended to have, in the authors’ words, theologically, epistemologically, and politically “conservative” responses to a set of further questions on topics such as biblical inerrancy and authority, homosexuality, abortion, stem cell research, and abstinence-only sex education.

So here’s the picture. Those who believe that secularism/secularization is a danger tend to be those who believe: that the Bible is inerrant in the original manuscripts; that practicing homosexuals should not be allowed membership in a Christian church; that embryonic stem cell research is wrong; that abortion should be illegal; and that abstinence-only sex education is appropriate. By contrast, those who do not believe that secularism/secularization is a danger tend to be those who do not have – at least not as strongly as the minority – these convictions.

It’s hard to imagine that the authors would not understand that, for many of their readers, their data is convincing in exactly the opposite direction from their own conclusion, i.e. that secularism really is a problem and secularization has in fact been happening. The rejection of biblical authority, the denial of the sanctity of human life, the approval of sexual perversion – these are in fact indicators of the very secularization which the authors are seeking to deny.

The conclusion, then, could more accurately be put thus: Those who don’t acknowledge secularism and its impact don’t think it’s a problem. Or, declension must surely appear a myth for those who can’t recognize it or won’t acknowledge it. Such blindness, willing or not, to the reality of declension is sad indeed, not only for those who suffer from it, but even more so for the generations of students whose education is shaped and directed by those whose discernment has been so dulled.

Again, I must emphasize the authors’ point: Those concerned about secularization tend to be those who hold theological, epistemological, and moral views more in line with historic Christian orthodoxy and orthopraxy (the authors use the term “conservative”), while those not concerned about secularization tend to be those whose theological, epistemological, and moral views represent a move away from historic Christian orthodoxy and orthopraxy. (In contrast to “conservative” I suppose the appropriate term would be “liberal,” although the authors don’t use it.) While I’m glad to have the survey to substantiate this, it does seem hardly necessary.

The second leg of the authors’ argument is that an overbearing vigilance against secularism leads to…

…a homogenous academic culture that intimidates into silence those who disagree… threatening to stifle a thriving academic environment founded on open and honest conversation.

Citing both quantitative and qualitative data from faculty, the authors raise concern about “substandard intellectual rigor” and the negative effect on faculty of institutional policies and their students’ “closed minds.”

Here are two faculty comments:

Being afraid that at some point, the denominational convention and our convention-appointed trustees will decide some of us are not Christian enough for them, and will try to shove us out. (sic)

The narrow and rigid ideological framework – suspicious of the world and even ideas themselves – that most students bring to their university education makes the difficult task of teaching them all the more difficult.

The authors approvingly quote Parker Palmer:

A spirituality of ends wants to dictate outcomes of education in the life of the student. It uses the spiritual tradition as a template against which the ideas, beliefs, and behaviors of the student are to be measured. The goal is to shape the student to the template by the time that his or her formal education concludes. Authentic education wants to open us to truth – whatever truth may be, wherever truth may take us. Such a spirituality does not dictate where we must go, but trusts that any path walked with integrity will take us to a place of knowledge. Such a spirituality encourages us to welcome diversity and conflict, to tolerate ambiguity, and to embrace paradox.

In contrast, then, to “stentorian exhortations against slipping down the slope to secularism,” the authors sound warnings “against a different, inverse danger: the formation of a university so vigilant against secularization that it stifles the spirit of open inquiry and underestimates the value of diversity of thought.” (I won’t take time here to rehearse the well-documented trajectories of originally Christian institutions in the United States; the record of declension is so one-sidedly dismal that the authors’ concern regarding this “inverse danger” can hardly be persuasive.)

This section of the article is laden with caricatures of those who express concern about secularization and declension:
• “The idea there is not so much to educate as to indoctrinate….”
• “…a well-armored albeit shallow faith….”
• “…a homogenous culture that intimidates into silence those who disagree.”
• “…a very closed intellectual and social environment.”
• “Above all, present your college or university to prospective students and their parents as a safe place, where body, soul, and spirit can be protected through the dangerous years of adulthood.”
• “There is an expectation of some faculty and students that everything should have a verse to support it or it’s bad, or secular, which means it is not to be discussed.”

And there is the almost requisite reference to the usual bug-a-boo, Bob Jones University, as if the mere mention of BJU is sufficient to implicate a broad range of diverse perspectives and approaches in one easy sweep. I’ve even heard the fear expressed from time to time that, by intentionally focusing on fidelity to our founding mission, our missional convictions, and important implications for our academic community, Covenant may become “a Reformed Bob Jones.”

Of course the problem with using caricatures and associations is that, as most everyone knows, there are more than enough caricatures and suggestive associations to go around; but I’ll resist the temptation! Such tactics “work” in most cases because of the emotional reactions the caricatures and associations evoke, and also because of the important distinctions they avoid. Dr. Jay Green, professor of history at Covenant, has written a very thoughtful essay on how people use historical analogies, laden with powerful connotations and often unaccompanied by careful analysis, for rhetorical purposes (forthcoming in a book Green is co-editing entitled Confessing History: Essays on the Exploration of Faith and the Historian’s Vocation). We’ve all heard phrases like “another Vietnam” or “another Hitler” – or in the context of Christian higher education “another Harvard” or “another Bob Jones.”

Regarding the Christian educational enterprise, we can and must recognize the essential aspects of genuine education: willingness to explore, to ask questions, to be open to new ideas and directions. But Christian education is not, and was never intended to be, unqualifiedly open-ended, and thus Parker Palmer’s “authentic education” is not Christian education. The Bible itself presents from its opening chapters a spirituality of ends, and the entire Scriptural storyline is eschatological, i.e. it unfolds with its final consummation in view. In contrast to Parker’s and the authors’ recommending “any path walked with integrity,” the Bible points us again and again to one path, one way, one gate, one ending to the story, and one Savior and King.

Informed by this biblical framework, true Christian education pursues teaching and learning, with energy and diligence and seriousness, within the context of historic theological and moral convictions, grounded in the Scriptures, gathered around the person and work of Jesus Christ, and passed down to us by our fathers and mothers in the faith. And true Christian education proceeds purposefully with an end in view: through the exploration and expression of the preeminence of Jesus Christ in all things, to bring about the moral and intellectual discipleship and sanctification of God’s people for the gospel and God’s eternal purposes.

It’s important to add that, while declension is not myth, open-endedness certainly is, as if any education or any educator is free from starting-points and presuppositions – what Palmer calls a “template” — that shape and direct, and in large measure determine, the learning outcomes in students’ beliefs and values. I will address the myth of open-endedness in my next posting.

The authors’ rightful criticism of narrow-minded educational approaches which preempt genuine inquiry and thought must be complemented, for Christians, by an analogous criticism of educational approaches which gradually reject the pattern of sound words delivered to us dependably in the Scriptures, words which communicate to us the faith once for all delivered to the saints, words which are God’s words regarding himself, ourselves, his world, and his purposes. Those words don’t answer all questions, nor do they stifle energetic and far-reaching inquiry; the impressive history of faithful Christian scholarship proves that beyond doubt. But they provide the framework for Christian education by which we seek to disciple students toward godly worship in heart, mind, and deed.

In their own characterization of the educational enterprise, the authors, professors at a Christian college, focus almost exclusively on the open-ended nature of the academic task and fail to mention the Bible, Jesus Christ, the gospel, the church, the Kingdom, or any of the biblical themes that have across the centuries provided grounding and direction and purpose for the Christian intellectual and educational enterprise. Perhaps this is oversight or, in their view, a different topic. But it is appropriate to ask what role, if any, these elements of historic Christian faith and scholarship play in their conception of Christian education.

Further, and contrary to the authors’ caricatures, our whole-hearted embrace of the biblical template for Christian thought and education does not rest on fear, either of creative and vigorous intellectual exploration, or of the world around us in all its complexity, or of our students’ futures as men and women of God. It rests on the glorious and trustworthy truth and grace of Jesus Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and who in all things is preeminent. Our work is joyful and hopeful, not despairing. It willingly engages, and does not avoid, the full range of subjects and questions. It is curious, thoughtful, and courageous, and is not nervous about our students’ faith or our standing in the eyes of others.

Genuine Christian education won’t settle for falling off the path on either side – either the simplistic and stifling approach which the authors (and I) reject, or the equally simplistic and ultimately goal-less approach which they propose (which doesn’t actually exist). We must live and teach and learn in the tensions among the pathways of our academic inquiry and the sure and dependable revelation of God in the Bible and the truth and grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This means, at Covenant, that we continually wrestle with deep and difficult questions, not simply in an open-ended journey to anywhere, but as those gripped with the majesty of the faith we profess and our Kingdom calling, looking toward the consummation of all things in the eternal reign of Jesus Christ. Anything less is a spiritual and intellectual cop-out.

At Covenant we happily embrace our distinctive calling to first-rate and rigorous Christian education with a God- and gospel-focused end in view.

During breakfast at the bed-and-breakfast where we stayed, we met a couple who both work for a Fortune 500 company and who, upon learning that I am president of a college, asked me what I thought about the preparedness of today’s college graduates for work in the world.

The context for their question was that, although their company recruits from the very “best” colleges and universities, the college degree seemed to them to guarantee virtually nothing about what these graduates know or are able to do – and this with respect not only to business knowledge and competencies but also to more general abilities to speak and write well and to work effectively with others. They also noted that today’s graduates have little sense of the wider world and its significant systems (economic, political, social, cultural, etc.). The company’s training programs, therefore, assume almost nothing except simple reading skills.

This couple’s observation is not theirs alone: According to a recent survey of employers, only 24% of today’s college graduates are “excellently prepared” for even entry-level positions.

While there may be multiple reasons for the weak condition of graduates’ preparedness, one important factor may be the increasingly nonprescriptive curricula of American colleges and universities. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni recently released “What Will They Learn: A Report on the General Education Requirements at 100 of the Leading Colleges and Universities,” which graded these institutions on their course requirements in seven key subjects: English composition, literature, foreign language, U.S. government or history, economics, mathematics, and science. Forty-two of the 100 received a grade of “D” or “F” for requiring courses in two or fewer of these subjects, with twenty-five receiving “Fs” for one or no such courses. (For more information, go to http://whatwilltheylearn.com.)

Even among institutions which, for general subject areas like literature and history and science, have “distribution requirements” to satisfy which students can choose from among a group of courses, the listed courses for each area are often so varied in topic and depth that virtually no common understanding and competency can be ensured. In fact students are graduating with huge gaps in their knowledge.

It’s no wonder that diplomas from such institutions carry less and less assurance for employers, and it should be no wonder that those who pay for such education – through tuition, public funds, and donations – are asking more questions and expecting more accountability.

The concept of core academic requirements is built on the underlying view that, by the time of graduation, every student should have read and studied a common body of knowledge, and should have learned a common set of competencies. Such common knowledge and competency are essential, the argument goes, for someone to be a truly educated person and to be prepared for the complex challenges of living and working effectively in our world. Curricular requirements constructed on such a premise will look much different from those in settings where, as one college catalog puts it, “each student must design a program of study suited to individual interests and needs.”

Covenant’s core academic requirements are intentionally designed to provide the common understanding and competency to which I’ve just referred. Here are the sections from our Philosophy of Education statement which describe the character of our core curriculum:

The Core Curriculum

Important implications of our approach to Christian education are reflected in the concept of the core curriculum. During the course of their four years, students must choose to focus on a particular area of study in order to develop the basic skills needed for a successful apprenticeship in their chosen major. While these choices are important and necessary, many of the skills and understandings that students need are common across the disciplines and are the focus of the core curriculum. Therefore all students are required to take a set of courses designated as the core. This curriculum serves student growth in at least four ways.
• It nurtures the academic skills and presents background knowledge needed for achievement in all the specialized disciplines. The learning experience in core courses involves critical reading and discussion, analytic thinking, and evaluative writing on a broad range of cultural issues; these activities are intended to sharpen and deepen students’ skills for the more advanced courses.
• The broad scope of the core acquaints students with the rudiments of many different disciplines and offers students opportunities to reflect on the wide-ranging ways that God works within his magnificent creation. Such a panoramic view is important not only for a more complete Christian understanding of the world, but it also serves as a spring-board for many students to discover how their own interests and talents fit into the full spectrum of God’s calling for His people. This in turn helps students to make better-informed choices about how to narrow the development of their academic gifts.
• The interdisciplinary nature of the core helps students to see connections between disciplines. Also, they learn how knowledge which seeks to be faithful to God’s creation reflects an integrative worldview which is not fragmented but is unified and interrelated, such that our religious commitments are a connecting and underlying thread through all our knowing, being, and doing.
• The content of the core, a wide-ranging historical-cultural understanding of the relation of faith to the world, also aids in preparing students to serve in many communities and to meet a diversity of needs that they might not have otherwise recognized.

Note the statement’s clear reference not only to the academic merits and vocational usefulness of this approach, but also to the inherent connection of this approach with our theological convictions about God and his creation: Through our core curriculum, our aim is to help students discover the wonders of the many dimensions of God’s world and understand the interconnections among those dimensions, so that they become equipped to work integratively across all the contexts of their lives.

Such an approach runs against the grain of a culture in which many do not wish to be told what they need to learn and know. We should not miss the irony of the prevailing dogma that there is no dogma, of a generation indoctrinated with the view that there should be no indoctrination. At Covenant, walking as we do, with gratitude and devotion, on the pathway of biblical, Reformed Christianity and in the heritage of faithful Christian scholarship, we say to our students, “Here is what you must know and understand in order to be an educated Christian and to be prepared for fruitful work and service, to the glory of God.” Without apology, we declare that this is the heart of our mission, and we are delighted that students and families all around the world choose to join us in this worthwhile task.