A Rallying Cry Examined

It’s hard to criticize Howard Culbertson’s article, "A New Rallying Cry.” For ultimately, his point is a call for Christian higher education institutions to reform their mission statement to, “making disciples.” At first glance, or on a purely foundational level, this suggestion seems to universally apply to all Christian higher learning institutions. Seeing people establish a deeper and more meaningful relationship with Christ is something any Christian, educator or not, would applaud. However, as Proverbs 18:17 says, “The one who first states a case seems right, until the other comes and cross-examines.”


The structure of Culbertson’s argument centers around the adoption of the phrase, “ministry across curriculum,” instead of the current phrase of, “integrating faith and learning.” For sure, this new phrase would do much to further distinguish Christian colleges from other colleges which don’t openly identify their philosophical leanings; yet also make disciples. When reading Culbertson’s article, I could not help but think of what, I perceive to be competing tendencies, that have long existed in the Christian family. On one side, there are those who would expend more energy and focus on introspectively reproofing their identity as Christians. This is often, not always, but often, and most easily done by withdrawing from the world as a means to clarify, reproof and distinguish themselves as children of God. On the other side, are Christians who tend to expend more energy and focus on actualizing their identities as Christians by engaging the world. This is not to say they are Godlier or more spiritually mature. Rather, it is to say that they seek first to attempt to bring God’s truth to where the world is; instead of seeking first to establish how far the world is from God.

As with all human attempts to carry out God’s will, we tend to screw things up. The first tendency of Christians I described, run the risk of climbing up a proverbial spiritual mountain of isolation, looking down on a lost world, feeling good about themselves, but having little impact on a world that is less than willing to come to them. The second tendency of Christians I described runs the risk of being so eager to engage the world that they wind up promoting or even believing themselves in diluted or heretical versions of God’s truth, in an attempt to relate to a lost and diluted world.

Fortunately, its not all down side. The first tendency I described carries with it a greater potential for orthodox accountability. While the second tendency described may have a more forward motion of evangelism. However, after dissecting this paradigm, I would wager it would be hard to find a Christian who would self identify as one or the other. Primarily, this would be because after unpacking this phenomenon of human tendencies, a more balanced approach would seem to be the most obvious or amiable answer to believe about one’s self or to tell another. It’s important to recognize that I am not trying to describe the whole of any one person’s thinking; but rather their default reactionary position when evaluating any given subject. I would liken it to being right or left handed. If a person is right handed, it doesn’t mean that they do all things with that hand while leaving the left hand in their pocket, they will use both. However, that right handed person will instinctively favor his predominant side, when reaching out.

Howard Culbertson’s article and his phrase, ministry across curriculum, seems to me, to be the conclusions of the first tendency I described. To evaluate higher education, and Christian education in particular, and to come to the conclusion that Christian colleges need to be more overt about being Christians, is to me, a call to start climbing that proverbial mountain of spiritual isolationism that will position God’s educated children to look down on the rest of an academic world and ultimately interact with them less. Conversely, the phrase, integration of faith and learning has a more evangelical emphasis, at least to the broader academic community. Academics and intellectuals at non Christian institutions, when being honest, or cornered, recognize that they themselves incorporate their own world view components when teaching, or researching. Thus, when recognizing this, they are potentially more open to Christian ideals. Optimistically, they may even be influenced by these ideals, if the academic rigors of Christian institutions are up to or acceding industry standards. But even if they are not influenced, the likelihood that they would eviscerate a Christian freshman in their own class would probably decrease. Either way, incorporating the word, ministry, into a slogan that describes educational philosophy, across all Christian colleges, seems to be a dare, or even the handing of ammunition to those who would prefer to dismiss Christian academics rather than to deal with them.

Vending Machine Mentality

In previous articles, Robert Harris has written of the universal value to society of understanding and defining the inseparable relationship of world view components (faith) and knowledge acquisition (learning). He describes this as a “common task.” That “everyone, religious or not,” engages in when being presented with ideas and fact claims, both in the class room and in culture at large. In the article, The Integration of Faith and Learning, Harris tightens his focus from the universal perceptive to a commentary on the Christian faith in particular. As a result, his points in this article may be largely lost on those who hold that Christian faith is merely a systematic set of beliefs and miss that Christian faith is actually a spiritual relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

As in any relationship, the more intimate or inclusive, the better and stronger that relationship may be. This is ultimately the point, I think, Harris is trying to make in this particular article. To my mind, the most interesting assertion that he uses to support this point is the impact on the individual that integrating faith and learning may have. An emotional response to establishing a relationship with Christ is certainly natural, inevitable and often overwhelming. It is an important part of most close and healthy relationships: emotions can move us to act and alter our perceptions to care about things that may be off our rational radar. A relationship with God through Christ which disparages completely, emotion, would be a relationship which would constrain and largely work against the movement of the Holy Spirit. But, as Harris points out, scripture tells us to, “love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.”

The integration of faith and learning is an exercise in loving God with your mind, aside from being an exercise that all humans do anyways, whether focusing on God’s truth or not. I think that our culture (especially academic culture) encourages individuals to compartmentalize faith with emotions into one box and learning with rational thought into another. I think that this cultural influence if adopted, can cause the Christian to give less of themselves to God than scripture calls for; and leave them weaker than they would otherwise be with a more active presence of the Holy Spirit integrating all parts of that person into God’s service.

While rational thought may not always be consistent or completely adequate, it is vastly less fickle and slower to change than emotion. I have found myself, that emotion can cause me to have a bad day today and be completely fine the next day. If my faith was compartmentalized exclusively with emotion, then what use would I have for faith in Christ on days where emotions seemed sufficient? I completely agree with Harris, that in a compartmentalized state, “faith will become merely an emotional outlet, with God becoming a vending machine: put in a prayer and get out a blessing. It will become intellectually irrelevant and emotionally useful only as long as the blessings keep coming. Once God "lets them down," with an unanswered prayer, their faith will be at risk.”

This vending machine mentality is unfortunately pervasive with many Christians. While not a part of Harris’ article directly, I think it’s important to note that an unbelieving world recognizes this vending machine mentality when dealing with Christians who call on God when they are in need, but otherwise walk, talk and act just like the rest of the world. To them, this often reinforces the false idea that Christianity is just an archaic hangover from unenlightened thinking or just a way to talk oneself into feeling better about things that are out of their control.

In fact, just yesterday I spoke to an individual who was content to use this definition of Christianity as a vehicle to dismiss what, I perceived to be, spiritual conviction about the status of his relationship with God and what he called his, “neoconservative religious family.” Ultimately, he felt he didn’t need to pursue an active relationship with God because he knows that, “good and bad days come and go,” and from what he witnessed from his ‘neo christian’ family, calling on God, was, to his mind, greedy, self centered and a form of delusional emotionalism. Obviously, there is more to this person’s story, and my relationship with him. However, it is sufficient to say that I found myself in a position where all I could do was to quietly pray for him, our conversation and my witness to him. With that, I agreed with him, that the paradigm he described was shameful and small minded on the part of those engaged in it; but not a full or adequate definition of the faith God gives; and that there are those who pray and seek to maintain their relationship with God when times are good. Irregardless of where the Holy Spirit will take this person or to what effectiveness I was as a tool; it was made acutely aware to me that both he and I were battling self inflicted wounds to the body of Christ. These wounds seem to be the scars of a cultural over emphasis on emotionalism in Christianity; a false compartmentalization that is inherently self serving and the product of ineffectively integrating faith and learning.

Apologetic Judo

Many arguments for the integration of faith and learning, rest on or at least play off of prized characteristics of secular academia. These secularly prized characteristics are that modern academic standards are inclusive, holistically strong, nonjudgmental yet discerning and mostly devoid of faith based filtering of objective truths and/or empirical evidence. Of course, this leaves open the door for Integration argument to closely examine secular 'fact claims' and identify the philosophical or unproven faith based components of the cognitive filter which gives structure to the claim itself. Identifying academically secular faith based filters of empirical fact is a form of intellectual judo which seeks to use the force of these 'prized characteristics' of inclusiveness, holistic strength and non judgmental discernment against the secular intellectual. Once an honest secular academic recognizes that their own assumptions take a measure of faith, they are slower to make the exclusive, non holistic and judgmental claim that Christian faith based worldview assumptions should be excluded from serious academic discourse; less they admit that they are, in fact, not the multicultural promoter of academic and societal bliss that is usually the preferred self perception.


These brief words are not meant to describe the value of integrating faith and learning. Rather here, I wish to explore an apologetic tactic, which may be useful to the strategic end of gaining greater acceptance for the process of integrating faith and learning. As an ending note, I would say that it is important not to confuse tactics with truth. If truth could be understood as a destination, then tactics could be understood as the navigational principles employed to get to that destination. Encouraging the broader academic acceptance of the integration of faith and learning is an attempt to explain, to a largely secular institution of higher education, that compasses point north, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Without an understanding of these fundamental principles of direction finding, arriving at the destination of truth, is just dumb luck; not the result of holistically and inclusively navigating academic rigors.

Bed time snack

Monkey See Monkey Do

Big William C Hetzel

Monkey See.....

Little William C Hetzel

Monkey Do.....

Article Review

Robert Harris’ article, “Defining the Integration of Faith and Learning,” explores two key themes. First, that the integration of faith (world view assumptions) and learning (knowledge acquisitions) is practiced “by everyone-religious or not.” Second, Harris sums up some of the cognitive mechanisms that should help clarify learning integration for the Christian worldview in particular.

Harris’ third set of bullet points are all themes that guide, what I have seen, as the teaching philosophies of a Christ Centered liberal arts institution like Montreat. Thus, these principles of integrating faith into teaching, at Montreat, are not foreign to me. At some level, this awareness of the teaching philosophy that I have been schooled under, may serve as a measure of proof to the value of purposefully integrating worldview and knowledge acquisition. For after varying forms of slightly deeper discourse, I often have conversed with college graduates who could not identity or describe the worldview assumptions they themselves were schooled under. While often, I speak with college graduates, schooled in Scientific Naturalism and/or Postmodernism, and it is excruciatingly rare that they either self identify themselves as such or even understand what these constructs mean. This is not to say that I engage in the arrogance of labeling them but rather that their discomfort with digesting pieces of data that does not directly contribute to their taught conclusions makes their worldview framework increasingly obvious. Also, their discomfort with processing data, which may be challenging to, taught conclusions, is to my mind, additional evidence that the intentional integration of faith and learning is not just the teaching of conclusions, but the teaching of a holistic learning process that can serve the student more than just in the class room.

The absence of the recognition of the value of integrating faith and learning in large sectors of the academic realm is troubling from a number of stand points. First, the process of learning does not or should not end once a degree is earned. Second, it is sad to think that contemporary higher education is content to give a student the proverbial answer four without teaching them that this conclusion was arrived at by adding two and two. Third, differing media outlets consistently report on studies which show American higher education as continuously slipping in global ratings. If these reports are accurate, then is it not reasonable to ask, ‘yes, we are educating greater masses but at what quality.’ Most important, to me anyways, is the honest recognition of Christ centered worldview components, in broader academic endeavor, seems to be a target for ridicule or intellectual marginalization. Rather than engaging in the academic and introspective rigors of reproofing their own assumptions, Scientific Naturalism and Postmodernism schools of thought, seems to be a perpetuate the delusion that it takes no, “faith” to prop up some of their own foundational principles. This practice is self diluting at best and at worst, is an intellectually dishonest attempt to prop up the perception of self-validity by adolescently looking down on Christian intellectualism. While much of the academic world has a hostile environment to presuppositional apologetics there is some consolation. Those who have been taught to be honest about how their faith based bias’ season their individual framework of learning tend to be more comfortable in their own intellectual skin and more rational in their discourse with an outside world of ideas.

Optimistic Assumptions

On Nov. 4, this registered Independent did not vote for Barack Obama. This is not to say that I disparage hope or that I don’t want change. Nor is it to say that I bought into the line that the world would fall apart if the other guy wins. In my view, both candidates offered change, albeit different kinds of change. Both brands of change carried with it benefits and potential risks. In line with the last two years of campaigning themes, hope, I will focus on the potential benefits our country may have in store for it. However, I find that this is probably best done by a contrast between the change Barack Obama promises and the change John McCain promised.

To understand this contrast, it is beneficial to take a moment and unpack the commonly held implication about the term change. When a political campaign uses the term change, the underlying assumption is, in the minds of most, they are referring to changing the way the government works. That politicians promote this implication is understandable; for a campaign slogan of, “if society changes, then government would have to do less and therefore work more efficiently”, is not likely to get that person into office. Most people, Republican and Democrat alike, would rather hear about how society’s problems are not the result of their own behavior, but rather the result of something, anything else. The government is always an easy target and often is an accurate one.

With this said, I believe the two anemically under publicized promises by John McCain would have changed the mechanisms of government in an unprecedented way. First, John McCain promised to report to a joint session of Congress monthly for a question and answer venue. Opening up this new forum of communication between the Executive and Legislative branches would have a profoundly transforming affect on the way governing happens in Washington. Second, John McCain promised to appear on TV before the passing of all major Legislation to read a list of all the unrelated spending earmarks in the bill and the names of the representatives who authored each wasteful spending component; thus having a intense impact on the culture of fiscal irresponsibility that has been the norm in Washington for generations. Neither of these substantive suggestions of how to change the way government works was deemed important enough by most media outlets to merit serious discussion in detail.

However, as I touched on before, altering how government works is only one kind of change. There is also the potential that presidential leadership can affect both society’s expectations from government and how individuals in society behave. This is the ‘hope of change’ that Barack Obama just might be able to bring to the Presidency and our Country. During the campaign, President Elect Obama, to my mind, offered no new ideas of altering the mechanisms of government that would affect meaningful change to how the government operates. However, there was definitely a change in how his candidacy spoke to society’s problems. Case in point, Jesse Jackson, unaware his microphone was recording, was caught saying that he would, “like to rip Barack Obama’s f-ing nuts off {testicles}.” Jackson said this in reaction to a speech Barack Obama gave to the NAACP in which he stated that, “more black men need to marry their baby’s mother and provide the stability that will truly advance the next generation of African Americans.” Jackson, a man who has become wealthy promoting the paradigm that society must change before the individual can, was obviously angered or even potentially threatened by the change in the focus of the debate that Barack Obama may represent. Irregardless of Jesse Jackson’s reaction, endeavor to imagine John McCain or any other Republican for that matter, trying to offer this kind of suggestion or leadership in an NAACP conference. The logistics of simply getting him out of the room would be daunting. Likewise, Barack Obama has repeatedly chastised the public concerning 'savings to disposable income ratio' for the average person. Again, a point that needs to be made which could have never been made by John McCain or any contemporary Republican; but for some reason, America seems ready to hear it from Barack Obama.

Of course, a huge factor in any candidacy is the degree of complacency found in the media. My brief words here, are meant to focus on the potential for change, not to open the can of worms that is media bias. However, I would refer; HowObamaGotElected.com to anyone interested in that subject.

It is not every election cycle that we have an articulate candidate and a media in the mood, that can make America accept the question of, 'ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country'. It may be naive on my part, but hoping for this kind of change is the silver lining in what I see as an Obama cloud.