It has been a while - but the Missional Campus Ministry series will continue on an occasional basis as resources or topics appear. Today I would like to focus conversation around a recent blog post by John Stackhouse - Campus Ministry That's Not for Every One. Here is a brief excerpt... speaking about a visit to the University of Ottawa:
But what I liked the most about working with him in producing several events on campus is that he is trying to reach the people most campus groups don't: the thoughtful, and perhaps even threatening, inquirer, the smart student or professor who has been asking hard questions of Christianity perhaps for years and hasn't found even a safe place in which to ask them, let alone a place to encounter satisfying answers to them.
...
It's harder to reach these people on campus, not least because many of them have had previous experiences with religious types and have been disappointed and offended by the defensive, even anti-intellectual, attitude they encountered. So they're not likely now to show up at a "Free Pizza Night!" to "Hear local pastor Rev. Bill Jones speak on loving God better!" Rather than having their hard questions welcomed in the spirit of the university, they have been marginalized as troublesome party-poopers, spoiling a nice session of grooving on Jesus. Or perhaps they indeed have been engaged by Christians, but then their questions have exposed the Christians' intellectual shallowness, their inability to articulate good grounds for their beliefs that make sense beyond the circle of already-convinced faith.
I will like to elaborate on these ideas a bit - focused on discussion of the following question:
What can be done to make an impact on campus - today and in the future, to move beyond "intellectual shallowness" or the perception of such shallowness?
The university or college campus is a mission field in many ways - and the pressures on eager undergraduates on their own for the first time are immense. We need organizations, both parachurch and church-based ministries, that concentrate on mission to the broad populations; ministries that provide a place for Bible study, discipleship, and fellowship. The broad middle of the student population.is a group in need of attention - and I appreciate the hard work that goes into evangelism, relationship, and discipleship in a wide range of active campus ministries.
But we need more than this as well. I broached this subject back in April in a series of posts on Education, Discipleship, and the Future that developed off of Stackhouse's post on Engaging the University.
We need to be able to ... "meet the university on its own terms: discussion of issues that matter in a way that meets the university's own ideal standards of engagement, standards of both courteous respect and intellectual rigour." (Again quoting Stackhouse)
There are a couple of comments on Stackhouse's blog as I write this - both good, but one in particular caught my eye: An edited version is below:
I have to say, I consider myself extremely blessed to be taking my undergrad degrees where I am. ... We've been lucky in Regina in that our IVCF staff worker has always stressed the importance of Christians seriously engaging with the academy at large. He's made it a priority to identify academically-minded Christian students and help guide them in their intellectual development. ... By helping students gain a strong understanding of their Christian faith in relation to their studies, he's helped to form individuals capable of presenting an intellectual Christianity to their classmates and professors.
I remember vividly one of my own professors confessing to me over a beer that twenty years ago he would never have given Christianity a second thought. At the time, he said, the Christians he knew seemed quite shallow, intellectually speaking. But these days he's finding it harder to just "shrug off." The reason he gave? Apparently some Christian students like myself and a friend of mine ... fail to fit his old stereotype of the simple-minded Christian.
This commenter also brings up a serious problem, a problem that several commenters on my original series also brought up from their perspective as they work in Campus Ministry.
Of course, the trouble with running an intellectual campus ministry is that undergraduate Christians (in general) just don't seem all that interested in being academically relevant. ... One such Christian student told me a few years ago that, after a week of hard classes, she just didn't feel up to taking part in a small group if it made her think too much. ... applying her intelligence to her faith? That seemed a wholly unnecessary burden.
Where should we go from here?
From my perspective - having been a graduate student and now as a professor - we have a real problem. There are several facets of the problem - here are a few, you can probably identify more:
1. Many, perhaps most, Christian undergraduate students, even many, perhaps most, graduate students, do not want the unnecessary burden of developing an intellectually robust faith. (And perhaps do not even realize how much they will need it in the future.)
2. Shallow answers and an anti-intellectual approach will not engage the University at its root. It will not impact the serious scholars and thinkers, those who will be the next generation of leaders. More importantly it breeds an arrogance that allows many to simply dismiss faith as something not worth a second thought.
3. There is no safe place for a Christian with serious questions to go for dialogue and growth. This is a problem with two consequences - some simply lose faith. Others, while retaining faith, cannot be a real witness within the academy when they know that they do not really believe much of what they are "supposed" to believe.
4. Many campus ministry workers are themselves ill equipped to engage the hard questions.
I have no answers today...but I would like to throw this open for discussion.
What can be done to engage the smart student or professor who asks the hard questions?
How can we disciple and equip the students who will go on to be professors and leaders? How should we provide encouragement and opportunity for growth?
Do you have any example of successful approaches to share - either from your ministry or from your experience as a student?
If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail [at] att.net.
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Micheal,
I think that a campus worker with IV has ample resource. I wonder how many actually think that continuing education is important though? And I know that you and others are trying to make sure that resources are available for students as well.
On the other hand I know some people - even with IVCF - who seem to think that the primary role of a campus ministry is worship - all else takes a back seat. Others take a position as teacher rather than facilitator (I find it rather annoying when a philosopher proposes to teach me why science is wrong for example - but I would be open to conversation on our different perspectives, eye-to-eye).
This is a complex problem though.
RJS,
Thanks for writing this. This really is my passion, as I went through a difficult and dark period during my latter years of college and first year out. Exactly as you said, my church and the Christian university I attended were uncomfortable with the questions I was asking, I'm guessing because they didn't know how to address them. I've posted a response to your question regarding what the church can do over at my blog.
Blessings as you continue to process this.
-Matt
RJS,
I guess it all depends on how you define "worship." :) At IV's Following Christ conference in December, Dora Rice Hawthorne, who teaches classics at Baylor, gave a great talk to the Humanities track about Anselm's habit of pausing in the middle of his classroom teaching to pray and give thanks to God. Dora observed that, even at a Christian university like Baylor, pausing to worship God in the middle of the classroom would be seen as a tremendous breach of protocol. Yet a large part of me thinks that doing so - worshipping God *for* our academic studies and the truth revealed through them - would go a long way toward reforming the intellectual shallowness you mention.
Micheal,
You are right - worshiping God for our academic studies and the truth revealed through them would go a long way ...
In the instance I was thinking of ... the campus ministry worker seemed to think that what faculty need most is another worship meeting (this time with faculty) on a regular basis ... singing, meditation, prayer. This was consistent with the person's overall view though - because the chief end of man is to worship and glorify God. I find many opportunities for worship - in my local church first and foremost. I see no real added value in another such commitment at work.
On the other hand there is a real place for worship in the sense of your comment (and perhaps even taking it a bit further). It would be useful to have a place to build a foundation to worship for and through our academic disciplines and the truth revealed through them - and local churches in general are not equipped to play this role.
#9 Luke - I appreciate your comment of how students who get super-excited about apologetics can come to a point when they do not focus on their deep rooted passion. I am finding the real question with the students I interact with to be one of their core...their deepest convictions UNDERNEATH all their answers...under all their memory verses and theology. There is no seeming deeper conviction that wells up from within themselves. It is more of a desire to know all the right answers.
on the other hand...
#5 Dave - I also really agree with your challenge to those of us as leaders to be seen reading. If attitude reflects leadership...if leadership trickles down...what do we lead with? Do we get the sense that our students are "spiritually lazy"? It has caused me to search myself honestly to find that I have been leading with a certain sense of apathy. That stuff leaks!!! So do I get a sense that some of my students are not living from their core? Am I truly leading in a way that presents a life lived from my deepest convictions? Do I wonder whether or not my students are really reading well, thinking much, and living faithfully? Then I have to determine how I am leading them in these areas.
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