From what my colleagues and I are seeing, the opportunities seem to be growing for the Church, individual Christians, and Christian institutions to work alongside and in conjunction with the University. We are excited to see how we might step into the gaps and work for the flourishing of the University (Jer 29 paraphrased). Thank you for the insights, Dr. Marsden, and thank you to the staff of The Raised Hand. I am confident that this will prove to be an invaluable resource.
I'll add a hearty "amen"! and highlight Professor Marsden's last four paragraphs, on "Christian sub-communities." More and more, as other institutions in society either disintegrate, drift, or solidify into hostility, Christians students and faculty need communities that are grounded in the truth and determined to put it into practice. Absent those communities, we are pulled this way and that, toward political and social movements that may look attractive but, if followed all the way, take us where we ought not to go.
"The fragmentation is so pervasive that no one is likely to be able to do much to change the direction of the whole. Too many competing powerful interests, ideological and economic, are involved. Yet we as Christians may still ask what opportunities there are for us to contribute positively within sometimes challenging university settings."
Does this perspective ignore the impact of machine learning on economically integrated institutions? Is this impact a real concern? What tensions will it exacerbate? What are the justifiable vs. unjustifiable costs of remaining integrated?
Thank you, Dr. Marsden, for an excellent synopsis of the history covered in The Soul of the American University and developments since then. I heartily agree that the "new normal" presents both new challenges and new opportunities for faithful Christian witness in higher education. With hyper-polarized co-religionists on one side and religiously unaware academic colleagues on the other, it can often feel like there is no place for "traditional Christian" scholars. Yet our calling is not to secure our standing or force others to accept us, but rather to be, in James Davison Hunter's wonderful term, faithfully present in both the universities and the churches where God has placed us.
As I am new to this “adventure,” as I suppose others to be, I will make the first comment without knowing what I’m supposed to say or ask.
I agree with all that Mr. Marsden is saying. His survey of the land describes it as I see it, and his conclusion with David Brooks’ stirring words resounds in my thinking and my heart as an encouraging echo of what first brought me to the Christian faith on the periphery of a college campus decades ago.
Since reference is made by Marsden to “mere Christianity” as the framework for engaging the culture, I thought it perhaps appropriate to consider the issues as Lewis himself did in story, via his space trilogy or the Chronicles of Narnia.
For those like me who are old enough to remember a different America in a different age, the present lay of the cultural land feels like visiting a fantastical place where the remains of ancient castles remain under overgrowth, and you have to do some clearing to find them.
I’m not sure, in some cases, if the digging is worth the finding, but something happened in that older order in my personal experience that had a role in forming me, and I can’t help but feel some attachment and even obligation to it for grounding me in ways that I appreciate all the more when I consider that, God ordaining, I might have grown up in the present cultural milieu and found myself with an altogether different view of the world and of the Christian faith than the one God actually ordained for me.
All that said, I’m not sure culture matters as much as we assume, especially as Christians. When I became a Christian, which had a beginning and a very slow and halting start, I knew that I was stepping into a realm apart from the world, yet very much part of it. And I have to think that people today have the same basic experience as they consider and become part of the reality defined by the gospel of Christ. So in that sense, if I’m right, the period of history and the cultural trappings don’t matter as much as our obsession with and critique of culture would suggest. We all with Abraham hail to a far off land, a Narnia of sorts, and will soon leave this one, whatever its strengths and flaws and whatever our own attachments to or repulsions from it, far behind. I think this is why Brooks’ quote was for me at once such a confirming and an encouraging word. People are still people in search of the same ultimate meaning. In Christ we have the meaning wrapped up in a Person who himself wraps us up as Aslan did Lucy.
The only other word I would add is the social dimension that is so important to the Christian, and indeed the human, experience. When I entered the Christian experience, I entered a fellowship of people whom prior to my entry I did not know. When I reflect on how Lewis came to faith, it was through the collegial interaction that David Brooks also experienced. It is in that inviting academic and both personal and interpersonal way that I think this dialogue that I am attempting now to enter takes place and that I assume its progenitors wish to spread with all the salt and light of vibrant Christianity that we as its ambassador carry with us in our vulnerable but hopeful, joyful selves. Cheers to the ongoing discussion of what truly matters in light of and under the auspices of the Meaning Maker himself.
From what my colleagues and I are seeing, the opportunities seem to be growing for the Church, individual Christians, and Christian institutions to work alongside and in conjunction with the University. We are excited to see how we might step into the gaps and work for the flourishing of the University (Jer 29 paraphrased). Thank you for the insights, Dr. Marsden, and thank you to the staff of The Raised Hand. I am confident that this will prove to be an invaluable resource.
I'll add a hearty "amen"! and highlight Professor Marsden's last four paragraphs, on "Christian sub-communities." More and more, as other institutions in society either disintegrate, drift, or solidify into hostility, Christians students and faculty need communities that are grounded in the truth and determined to put it into practice. Absent those communities, we are pulled this way and that, toward political and social movements that may look attractive but, if followed all the way, take us where we ought not to go.
"The fragmentation is so pervasive that no one is likely to be able to do much to change the direction of the whole. Too many competing powerful interests, ideological and economic, are involved. Yet we as Christians may still ask what opportunities there are for us to contribute positively within sometimes challenging university settings."
Does this perspective ignore the impact of machine learning on economically integrated institutions? Is this impact a real concern? What tensions will it exacerbate? What are the justifiable vs. unjustifiable costs of remaining integrated?
Thank you, Dr. Marsden, for an excellent synopsis of the history covered in The Soul of the American University and developments since then. I heartily agree that the "new normal" presents both new challenges and new opportunities for faithful Christian witness in higher education. With hyper-polarized co-religionists on one side and religiously unaware academic colleagues on the other, it can often feel like there is no place for "traditional Christian" scholars. Yet our calling is not to secure our standing or force others to accept us, but rather to be, in James Davison Hunter's wonderful term, faithfully present in both the universities and the churches where God has placed us.
As I am new to this “adventure,” as I suppose others to be, I will make the first comment without knowing what I’m supposed to say or ask.
I agree with all that Mr. Marsden is saying. His survey of the land describes it as I see it, and his conclusion with David Brooks’ stirring words resounds in my thinking and my heart as an encouraging echo of what first brought me to the Christian faith on the periphery of a college campus decades ago.
Since reference is made by Marsden to “mere Christianity” as the framework for engaging the culture, I thought it perhaps appropriate to consider the issues as Lewis himself did in story, via his space trilogy or the Chronicles of Narnia.
For those like me who are old enough to remember a different America in a different age, the present lay of the cultural land feels like visiting a fantastical place where the remains of ancient castles remain under overgrowth, and you have to do some clearing to find them.
I’m not sure, in some cases, if the digging is worth the finding, but something happened in that older order in my personal experience that had a role in forming me, and I can’t help but feel some attachment and even obligation to it for grounding me in ways that I appreciate all the more when I consider that, God ordaining, I might have grown up in the present cultural milieu and found myself with an altogether different view of the world and of the Christian faith than the one God actually ordained for me.
All that said, I’m not sure culture matters as much as we assume, especially as Christians. When I became a Christian, which had a beginning and a very slow and halting start, I knew that I was stepping into a realm apart from the world, yet very much part of it. And I have to think that people today have the same basic experience as they consider and become part of the reality defined by the gospel of Christ. So in that sense, if I’m right, the period of history and the cultural trappings don’t matter as much as our obsession with and critique of culture would suggest. We all with Abraham hail to a far off land, a Narnia of sorts, and will soon leave this one, whatever its strengths and flaws and whatever our own attachments to or repulsions from it, far behind. I think this is why Brooks’ quote was for me at once such a confirming and an encouraging word. People are still people in search of the same ultimate meaning. In Christ we have the meaning wrapped up in a Person who himself wraps us up as Aslan did Lucy.
The only other word I would add is the social dimension that is so important to the Christian, and indeed the human, experience. When I entered the Christian experience, I entered a fellowship of people whom prior to my entry I did not know. When I reflect on how Lewis came to faith, it was through the collegial interaction that David Brooks also experienced. It is in that inviting academic and both personal and interpersonal way that I think this dialogue that I am attempting now to enter takes place and that I assume its progenitors wish to spread with all the salt and light of vibrant Christianity that we as its ambassador carry with us in our vulnerable but hopeful, joyful selves. Cheers to the ongoing discussion of what truly matters in light of and under the auspices of the Meaning Maker himself.