1 — The Two Tasks of the Christian Scholar

1

THE TWO TASKS INTRODUCED:

THE FULLY INTEGRATED LIFE

OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOLAR

PAUL M.GOULD

“All that is good, all that is true, all that is beautiful, all that is beneficent, be it great or small, be it perfect or fragmentary, natural as well as supernatural, moral as well as material, comes from Him.”

—John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University

The impulse of modern society is to compartmentalize our lives. Public/private, sacred/secular, work/play, and so on. Modern man and modern society has lost its spiritual center, becoming fragmented and hurried—but only God knows what for! In this cultural milieu, the Christian scholar who bravely resists this impulse toward fragmentation finds the situation exacerbated due to two countervailing pressures that often pull in opposite directions. On the one hand, the secular ethos of the university presses Christian scholars to conduct their research and teaching in purely secular terms and motifs. If Christian scholars want a place at the table, they must play by the rules of the academic game. A strict wall of separation between church and state exists, and any effort to tear down the wall is looked on with either suspicion or outright incredulity. On the other hand, the Christian scholar is committed to a particular view of the world that is often quite antithetical to the established secular ethos. The Christian universe is a God-centered universe. If Jesus is Lord, he is Lord of all areas of thought and life. In fact, the Bible claims that in Jesus “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). Thus, the Christian scholar himself often becomes disintegrated, compartmentalizing his “scholarly life” from his “spiritual life” as he attempts to navigate between the Scylla of religious fundamentalism and the Charybdis of accommodation-ism. Any attempts to invoke a Christian perspective to science (for example) in the university are quickly labeled as fundamentalist attempts to promote religion masquerading as science. Any attempts to utilize non-biblical conceptual schemes erected by thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, or Kant in order to shape and guide research and teaching are (sometimes) viewed by the church as selling out to accommodationism. The net result of these opposing pressures is that the Christian scholar is left in a sort of “no-mans land”—viewed with suspicion by both the church and the university. And within the secular academy, religion is relegated to the sidelines. Religion is reserved for the scholar’s personal life: meaningful to either the individual or one’s own religious community only.

Is it possible to live an integrated life within secular academia today? Can a Christian scholar integrate his faith with his chosen discipline in such a way as to avoid the charge of either fundamentalism or accommodationism? Charles Malik thought so.

On September 13, 1980, the great Lebanese ambassador and Christian statesman Charles Malik (1906–1987) joined Billy Graham and ten thousand others for the dedication of the new Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. With passion and prophetic vision, Malik implored Evangelical Christians in America to engage in two great tasks: “that of saving the soul and that of saving the mind.”¹Malik warns:

The problem is not only to win souls but to save minds. If you win the whole world and lose the mind of the world, you will soon discover you have not won the world. Indeed it may turn out that you have actually lost the world.²

Malik understood that the heart cannot receive what the mind cannot entertain, and thus a key component in reaching our world for Christ must include helping people first imagine a world where Christianity is real. No one cares much today about what Zeus thinks regarding the nature of human persons or what the Flat Earth Society (it really does exist!) has to say about the physics of space-time. Christianity hovers dangerously close to this irrelevance if the life of the mind is neglected inside the church and the truth of Christianity is not defended winsomely and rigorously outside the church.

But for academics and the university, Malik has a special challenge. He realized that as the university goes, so goes the world:

All the preaching in the world, and all the loving care of even the best parents between whom there are no problems whatever, will amount to little, if not to nothing, so long as what the children are exposed to day in and day out for fifteen to twenty years in the school and university virtually cancels out, morally and spiritually, what they hear and see and learn at home and in the church. Therefore the problem of the school and university is the most critical problem afflicting Western civilization.³

Ideas have consequences, and the university in general and professors in particular are the gate-keepers of ideas—influencing directly or indirectly all aspects of thought and life in our world. Christian professors must live a fully integrated life even in the face of challenges from within and without, for the sake of the lost—and as Malik states, for our future generation of children.

Malik did not have in mind a soft and tame Christian scholar within academia. What is called for is something perhaps, dare I say, radical—not radical to God, but radical to us in this day and age where it is expedient to conform and fit in:

I assure you, so far as the university is concerned, I have no patience with piety alone—I want the most rigorous intellectual training, I want the perfection of the mind; equally, I have no patience with reason—I want the salvation of the soul, I want the fear of the Lord.⁴

Malik is not content, nor is Christ, with a compartmentalized life. Soul and mind, united together and flowing into helping hands (or in academic speak, a ready pen or clarion voice), is the call of Christ to the Christian professor within secular academia. Being the best chemist, engineer, historian, or whatever for Christ is certainly part of the story—but this cannot be all; we must give people Christ—for what else is there really? Again, Charles Malik believed Christian scholars could live integrated lives within academia.

Faculty Commons, the faculty ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, agrees.⁵In the summer of 2006, in the centenary year of Dr. Malik’s birth, Faculty Commons held its biennial National Faculty Leadership Conference seeking to honor and renew Malik’s call to these two great tasks of redeeming the soul and redeeming the mind. Through much interaction and lively debate among over four hundred Christian faculty, the idea of a book addressing the two tasks for our day and age emerged.

The following essays touch on one or both of these great tasks, seeking to apply Malik’s message to the current context and situation within the halls of secular academia and the culture at large. But before we get to these essays, I propose to lay some groundwork to prepare us for what lies ahead. In this introductory chapter, I first will highlight the state of Christian scholarship within secular academia since Malik’s address over twenty-five years ago. There has been progress as well as many encouraging highlights along the way. But, as we shall see, there are still many challenges—both from without in the form of active hostility or a general apathy and marginalization of Christianity and from within in the form of a lack of vision and a general tendency with academics (and Christian scholars are not immune to this tendency) to “go it alone” without paying attention to one’s spiritual well-being. Second, I will attempt to locate Christian scholarship and the integrated life within the context of God’s story as communicated though Scripture. Often it is not just the secular person who has lost his center, but it is the Christian, who after years of specialized study within a narrow discipline has lost the forest for the trees. We must learn to fit our story into God’s larger story—what he is doing in redemptive history—if we are going to accurately understand and apply the two redemptive tasks listed by Malik. Third, armed with a general understanding of the metanarrative of Scripture, I will proceed to define in more concrete terms what an integrated life might look like for the Christian scholar in secular academia. And finally, I shall introduce each of the forthcoming essays in this book within the context of this fully integrated life.

Christian Scholars in the Academy Since Malik’s Two Tasks Address

In this admittedly cursory highlighting of the state of Christian scholars and scholarship in the academy since Malik’s address, I want to begin by noting three important works (representative of many more of like kind) that have served as rallying points for discussion and calls to action: one example from my own discipline, philosophy, and two examples from historians, writing generally to all Christians or Christian scholars.

First, in his November 4, 1983, inaugural address as the John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, Alvin Plantinga argued that Christian philosophers in particular and Christian intellectuals in general must display more autonomy, more integrity, and more courage in living out their Christian commitments within academia.⁶Plantinga argues that it is perfectly fitting for the Christian scholar to start from what he knows as a Christian when engaging in research. By allowing Christian assumptions to inform the scholarly enterprise, Christian scholarship will sometimes look different than its secular counterpart—informing the principles and procedures adopted in the doing of scholarship as well as the very questions asked and research programs undertaken. And we should not apologize for this:

My plea is for the Christian philosopher, the Christian philosophical community, to display, first, more independence and autonomy: we needn’t take as our research projects just those projects that currently enjoy widespread popularity; we have our own questions to think about. Secondly, we must display more integrity. We must not automatically assimilate what is current or fashionable or popular by way of philosophical opinion and procedures; for much of it comports ill with Christian ways of thinking. And finally, we must display more Christian self-confidence or courage or boldness. We have a perfect right to our pre-philosophical views; why, therefore, should we be intimidated by what the rest of the philosophical world thinks plausible or implausible?⁷

Plantinga argued in his own style and with much chutzpah that Christians need to integrate their faith into the scholarly enterprise. And as we shall see in a moment, by and large, Christian philosophers (at least) have heeded Plantinga’s advice.

Second, present at Malik’s 1980 address was Mark Noll, then a Wheaton College historian⁸ who years later would issue a charge in the form of a halting historical argument that Christians now do, but (in Charles Malik’s words) “cannot afford to keep on living on the periphery of responsible intellectual existence.”⁹In his widely discussed 1994 book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Noll laments that “the scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”¹⁰And the scandal is none other than a failure to exercise the mind for Christ in all areas of life—nature, society, and art. Modern evangelicals, while enjoying dynamic success at a popular level, “have largely abandoned the universities, the arts, and other realms of ‘high’ culture.”¹¹Noll argued that as the Western university goes, so goes Western culture, including its spiritual heritage: “the great institutions of higher learning in Western culture function as the mind of Western culture.”¹²Noll offered, like Malik before him, a call to integrity for the Christian in general and especially the Christian scholar.

One final work that has served as a rallying point for Christian scholars since Malik is George Marsden’s The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship.¹³The idea, outrageous to both secular and religious scholars, is that faith and learning are compatible. But Marsden argues that this outrageous idea is true—the fully integrated life is possible even for a Christian scholar. Still, Marsden is puzzled and asks, why “among so many academics who are professing Christians, all but a tiny minority keep quiet about the intellectual implications of their faith?”¹⁴Marsden’s book is important because in it he attempts to spell out what Christian scholarship could look like in a pluralistic secular academy. His contention is that faith can and does make a positive contribution to learning, and it should therefore be granted a legitimate place in the market of ideas. Voluntary silence by religious scholars is not necessary in secular academia.

Malik’s 1980 charge to live an integrated life within academia has been taken up (directly or indirectly) by many Christians. Plantinga, Noll, and Marsden are all examples of leading scholars within their academic field. Time magazine even named Noll one of America’s twenty-five most influential evangelicals in 2005,¹⁵ and his book, America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln, was named “the most significant work of American historical scholarship” in 2002 by the Atlantic Monthly.¹⁶In this milieu set by those like Plantinga, Noll, and Marsden, there have been many encouraging highlights of God moving within academia—redeeming souls and redeeming the mind of individuals and the university in general. Those highlights include:

A transformation taking place within the discipline of philosophy, which William Lane Craig discusses in chapter 8. This transformation is so alarming that one atheistic philosopher, Quentin Smith, laments “God is not ‘dead’ in academia; he returned to life in the late 1960s [beginning with Plantinga’s influential book God and Other Minds in 1967] and is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy departments.”¹⁷This movement of God is evident in the growth and vitality of Christian philosophy societies. For example, the Society of Christian Philosophers, founded in part by Plantinga in 1978, now includes over one thousand members, a leading academic journal Faith and Philosophy, and outreach programs to secular philosophy departments in Russia and China.¹⁸The Evangelical Philosophy Society, founded in 1974, has also experienced tremendous growth in the last twenty-five years with around eight hundred members, its own leading philosophy journal, Philosophia Christi, and annual outreach events in the form of apologetic conferences for lay people within the church. Further, Talbot School of Theology, led by philosophers J. P. Moreland, William Lane Craig, and others, boasts the largest graduate philosophy program in the world, sending its graduated MA students into top PhD programs (over ninety students to date) including Notre Dame, the University of Texas, Oxford University, the University of Southern California, and many others.¹⁹God is raising up a new generation of Christian philosophers who, like Plantinga, are not content to simply operate under the facile rules stipulated by secularism—instead these philosophers are embracing Malik’s charge to redeem the soul and redeem the mind.

A growing para-university movement of Christian study centers that exist alongside universities as a presence and voice for Christ within secular academia. The explicit goal of these Christian study centers is to help restore the plausibility of the Christian worldview by influencing professors and students. In all of these study centers, Christian scholars play an integral role in the founding, shaping, and direction of the ministry. In additional to the well-established Center for Christian Studies (University of Virginia, 1976), a number of significant new Christian study centers over the last twenty-five years have developed, most within the last ten years: for instance, the MacLaurin Institute (University of Minnesota, 1982), the Centers for Christian Studies, International (University of Colorado at Boulder, Fort Collins, and Colorado Springs, 1983), the Christian Study Center of Gainesville (University of Florida–Gainesville, 2000), Chesterton House (Cornell University, 2000), the Rivendell Institute (Yale University, mid-1990s), and the John Newton International Center for Christian Studies (academic communities of central Pennsylvania, 2003), among others.

A growing commitment by para-church organizations to engage and reach out to university professors. Faculty Commons (Campus Crusade for Christ’s faculty ministry) and InterVarsity’s Faculty Ministry were both founded in the last thirty years (1980 and 1975, respectively) in order to effectively minister to and with university professors. For example, a sub-ministry of Faculty Commons called Academic Initiative targets the ideas propagated within secular academia with an eye toward helping current and future professors integrate their faith with their scholarship. InterVarsity’s Emerging Scholars Network boasts approximately three thousand members and is working to (among other things) establish mentoring relationships between senior Christian scholars and junior Christian scholars. Additionally, the International Institute for Christian Studies, founded in 1986, sends Christian professors into secular universities in countries outside North America so that someday every university student and professor in the world will have a chance to hear and consider the message of Christ from a faithful follower of Christ.

Christian scholarly societies are flourishing. For a partial list see the “Connecting” site at FacultyLinc.com. Often these Christian scholarly societies hold annual conferences in conjunction with their secular counterpart, which provides opportunities for Christian scholars to network with Christians from other institutions as well as to interact with other peers in their discipline.

A general highlight: there is an increased commitment to the life of the mind and the influence of culture for Christ over the long-term. A few examples are: (1) The Harvey Fellows program, begun in 1992 as a program of the Mustard Seed Foundation, provides significant financial (around $15,000 per year) and relational support to outstanding Christian graduate students at our nation’s top academic programs. The goal is to raise up a future generation of professors who are capable of doing first-rate academic work and who are faithful to Christ. To date, there are over two hundred Harvey Fellows worldwide representing forty academic fields and over $4 million in scholarship funds to Christian graduate students. (2) Christian worldview ministries with substantial involvement from university professors provide a platform for greater impact as well as a model for Christian witness in the university; examples include the Wilberforce Forum (a ministry of Prison Fellowship), the C. S. Lewis Foundation’s Faculty Forum initiative (launched 1999) and the Veritas Forum (founded 1992 at Harvard).²⁰

These highlights are just a few of the many encouraging events and happenings taking place today within academia by Christians and Christian scholars. Undoubtedly, the list could go on, citing numerous exemplary individuals and individual works, as well as the vast amount of work that is being done by Christian colleges and universities.²¹But this listing should suffice for my general point: there are many things to be encouraged by, given the state of Christian scholarship and the Christian scholar since Charles Malik’s call; God hasn’t given up on us, nor has he given up on academia. But, as Habib Malik discusses in chapter 3, in every day and age new challenges face the believer—and this is no different for the Christian scholar today in the secular academia.

Distinctly religious viewpoints are not always welcome in academia. Arguably, the dominant ethos within scientific disciplines today is scientism (roughly, all we can know is what science tells us) and its close relative naturalism (roughly, all that exists is what science tells us exists). In the humanities, the dominant ethos is some version of postmodern deconstructionism (roughly, the idea that meaning within a “text” is a mercurial thing, impossible to pin down) and relativism (roughly, truth varies in relation to individuals, cultures, or conceptual schemes). Within this setting, Christianity is sometimes just ignored as irrelevant to intellectual discourse, and sometimes directly attacked. Here are a few recent examples:

Since 9/11 there has been a new wave of assaults on religious belief by atheists, led by university professors and scholars. Books such as Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion (2006), Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2006), and Sam Harris’s The End of Faith (2004) and Letter to a Christian Nation (2006) have been selling by the thousands and have received much attention in the press and on college campuses.²²The basic message of this wave of “new atheists” is that religion is not only silly—it is down-right dangerous.²³

There is often an unwillingness to even consider arguments or evidence contrary to the reigning evolutionary story in the sciences. An example of this is the uproar that has been generated against a prominent researcher, Richard Stern-berg, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History after he published a peer-reviewed article by a leading proponent of intelligent design.²⁴Sternberg was locked out of his office, shunned by colleagues, and accused of being a religious fundamentalist for having the audacity to accept an article critical of the established view of evolutionary theory. The point here isn’t to call into question the validity of evolution (which I am happy to do); rather the point is to highlight the almost vitriolic reaction directed toward Sternberg (and others) for allowing a view that has been stigmatized as “religiously motivated” to gain a hearing in a mainstream academic journal.²⁵

This strong prejudice against explicit religious perspectives in mainstream academia arises within the humanities as well. Under the mantra of multiculturalism and diversity, Christianity and Christian viewpoints are often labeled as oppressive and imperialistic. In a pluralistic world, any call to openly Christian scholarship is often viewed with suspicion by many minority groups who have suffered discrimination in the past, such as gays and lesbians, Marxists scholars, feminist scholars, and even advocates of sheer secularism.²⁶

Recent studies indicate that while American professors are more religious than is typically assumed, it is clear that on the whole, professors are less religious than the general U.S. population, and the more elite the school, the less religious the professorate.²⁷This result places a damper on some of the highlights mentioned above, for it suggests that much more needs to be done at just those places where much of the intellectual and cultural capital is generated in society (i.e., the elite schools). Another disturbing trend concerns professors’ views on the Bible. While roughly 18 percent of the general U.S. population believes the Bible is “an ancient book of fables, legends, history, and moral precepts,” almost 52 percent of professors in general, and 73 percent of those professors teaching in elite universities, hold the “ancient book of fables” view.²⁸With this attitude toward the Bible, it is easy to see how Christian scholars functioning in such a setting can easily begin to neglect the reading and internalizing of Scripture. Couple this temptation with the reality of overspecialization and the result is often, as William Lane Craig discusses in chapter 8, a Christian professorate with barely a “Sunday school” knowledge of Scripture and theology.

As before, lowlights could be multiplied, but the general point should be clear: academia is not always welcome or open to the religious point of view. The dominant secular ethos operates as a powerful control over what is or is not acceptable as public knowledge, often resulting in the marginalization of or outright attack on Christianity (or religion in general).

But sometimes the challenges the Christian scholar faces are subtler. For example, I once heard a Christian professor describe to a group of Christian graduate students the reality of graduate school as a kind of boot camp. The constant grind of the university conforms its “cadets” into its own image. From first-year graduate students to ABD doctoral candidates, the university curriculum, ethos, and pace leave little room for attention to character, spiritual well-being, and integrative thinking. The name of the academic game is to successfully navigate the degree process: finish coursework, learn a foreign language, conduct original research, be a good TA, grade hundreds of undergraduate exams and homework assignments, teach introductory sections within the discipline, present at a few conferences, get published if lucky, and all the while, live on a paltry stipend. Any attention to the soul or integrative thinking in such an environment is extracurricular. Given this lack of margin, it is easy to place any of these ancillary matters toward the side, perhaps promising to oneself that these matters will be picked up again when things are not so busy.

Of course, the reality is that things only get busier. As Peter Kreeft discusses in chapter 4, one of the characteristics of the modern university is that everyone is in a hurry. Any future promises to devote more time and energy to thinking Christianly about one’s discipline or to giving more attention to one’s own soul or the souls of others are pushed further away as the goal of a PhD is supplanted with the new goal of making tenure. Often, somewhere along this process, it seems that the fire for Christ that once burned bright as a new PhD student has dimmed, views have been formed without attention or assistance from the Spirit, and a sense of calling from God has ceased to be heard. Perhaps something like this has been taking place within secular academia among some of the professors who are Christians; I am not sure. But what does seem clear is this: often the biggest obstacle to making a difference for Christ within academia does not have to do with the threat from without. Rather, if I may speak bluntly and of myself as well, the threat is us—our own heart or mind is not captivated with the love of Christ. It has been said that our lives are shaped by what we think great. Perhaps we need a renewed vision of the greatness of Christ to counter the pull of the university, which often, unbeknownst to us, has conformed us into its own image in pursuit of its own greatness.

Transforming the mind of the university so that it can be a place where Christianity is understood as a legitimate option will take much time and require a great deal of patience. But the transformation will take place only through transformed people. For as C. S. Lewis observed,

this very obvious fact—that each generation is taught by an earlier generation—must be kept very firmly in mind. . . . None can give to another what he does not possess himself. No generation can bequeath to its successor what it has not got. You may frame the syllabus as you please. But when you have planned and reported ad nauseam, if we are skeptical we shall teach only skepticism to our pupils, if fools only folly, if vulgar only vulgarity, if saints sanctity, if heroes heroism. . . . Nothing which was not in the teachers can flow from them into the pupils. We shall all admit that a man who knows no Greek himself cannot teach Greek to his form: but it is equally certain that a man whose mind was formed in a period of cynicism and disillusion, cannot teach hope and fortitude.²⁹

If we are to teach Christ in words and action, we must be Christ to our students and colleagues. And in order to be Christ, we must understand who Christ is and what he is doing in redemptive history. And that means we must view Scripture as more than simply fable. Rather, it must be understood as our lifeline, the story that gives our lives context and meaning—and the story that gives our scholarship context and meaning as well.

The Metanarrative of Scripture and Its Implications for the Christian Scholar

My purpose is to look at the task of integration from the vantage of Christianity that aims to be faithful to Scripture. Today, in the postmodern culture in which we find ourselves, there is, in the words of Jean-Francois Lyotard, an “incredulity toward metanarrative(s).”³⁰Yet, a most natural reading of Scripture reveals the fact that the Bible is a metanarrative: an overarching story that explains (or captures) all of reality. The Bible introduces characters (e.g., God, angels, man), scenes (heaven, earth, etc.), and a plotline (creation, fall, redemption, and restoration). Thus, the Bible reads like a good story. However, it is more than a good story—in it we find revealed truth about God, self, and the world. In order to properly understand concepts that traditionally belong to systematic theology such as anthropology, Christology, or ecclesiology, it is important to grasp the overall metanarrative of Scripture. For example, it makes no sense to say to someone, “you need to be redeemed,” unless he has a concept of what exactly he needs to be “redeemed” from. Additionally, it makes no sense to say, “Christians ought to integrate their faith with their scholarship” unless there is an understanding of the purpose and mission of the Christian life in general. In this section, I shall provide a brief outline of the major plotline of Scripture. In doing so, I will identify major characters in the story as well as important themes that inform the scholarly enterprise.

The first scene in the biblical story is creation. The God who is there (to borrow a phrase from Francis Schaeffer) is a God who acts. He speaks and his creation comes into being. Early on we see that God creates humans as his pinnacle of creation. Humans are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26–27), and thus are endowed with great dignity and value. So, in Genesis 1, God creates the first home for human persons and then gives them a purpose. The purpose found in Genesis 1:28 is twofold: (1) to protect what has been given, and (2) to extend the glory of God to the ends of the earth. Note, this purpose is tied to the fact that humans are made in the image of God. We are to be fruitful and multiply not because God is interested in numbers, but because as image bearers we can extend the image of God to all of creation. Furthermore, with the creation of the first couple (Genesis 2), we see a picture of how things are supposed to be: intimacy with God and harmony with each other. The Hebrew word for this universal state of flourishing is shalom.

Creation and the Task of Integration

Three themes related to the creation account are relevant to the task of integration. First, the fact that God created the universe, while he himself is uncreated establishes a particular relationship between God and the universe.³¹The initial five words in the Bible shape everything for the Christian scholar: “In the beginning God created . . .” (Gen. 1:1). The central origin account of the secular academy, shaped by scientific naturalism, is antithetical to the biblical prolegomenon: “In the beginning matter. . . .” As Francis Schaeffer argues, “Everything goes back to the beginning and thus the system has a unique beauty and perfection because everything is under the apex of the system. Everything begins with the kind of God who is ‘there.’ This is the beginning and apex of the whole, and everything flows from this in a non-contradictory way.”³²In his book, Truth to Tell, Lesslie Newbigin laments the fact that our culture, as heir of Descartes, starts in the wrong place by elevating the human knower, instead of God, as the starting point in the search for certainty.³³Newbigin writes, “We have to offer a new starting point for thought. That starting point is God’s revelation of his being and purpose in those events which form the substance of the Scriptures and which have their center and determining focus in the events concerning Jesus.”³⁴This world, created by God, is a world that is moving in a certain direction. There is teleology in the world. History is linear, it is going somewhere; it has an ending. Furthermore, since God exists sans creation and brought all things into existence out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), it follows that there is a particular “givenness” to things that the scholar must come to terms with. Contrary to the postmodern critique, there is a reality outside of the human person, and the human being finds himself in a world that is not of his own making. Thus, humans do not have pride of place in matters of ontology or epistemology. God is infinite, everything else is finite; everything else is creature.

Second, God is for human flourishing. As originally created, all that God made was good (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25) and in the case of human beings, “very good” (Gen. 1:31). We didn’t come into the world flawed; rather, we came into the world whole. The biblical term for the wholeness God intends humans to experience is shalom. As theologian Cornelius Plantinga states, “Shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight—a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior open doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights.”³⁵When humans enter a state of shalom, they function in the way God intended them to function, and God is glorified. Thus, Aristotle’s eudaimonia finds its fullest expression in the Christian vision of human dignity and happiness. Humans, created in the image of God, are meant to flourish in light of their nature—in intimacy with God and harmony with each other and the created order.

Third, as image bearers, humans are accountable to God.³⁶As free personal agents made in the image of God, humans are given a unique place in the created order: our actions have consequences. This fact is essential to understanding the biblical plotline. We were not only made by God but for him. Failure to live acknowledging our dependence and accountability toward God leads to the deepest anarchy. It is here, as D. A. Carson points out, that the loss of a Christian worldview is most felt. Academia, and American culture in general, does not want to be accountable to anyone. Darwinism teaches us that we are determined. There is no longer any such thing as culpable sin. Rather, we are all victims. Crime is attributed to genetics and environment instead of moral indiscretion. The biblical account is clear, however: humans, created in the image of God are accountable for their actions. As scene 2 opens within the plotline of Scripture, this truth becomes all too clear.

Scene 2 within the biblical story is the fall of humanity. As Genesis 3 opens, the central question facing the first couple is, will they fulfill the purpose for which they are made? The answer, as is well known, is no. The immediate effect of Adam and Eve’s disobedience is a loss of shalom; things are no longer the way they are supposed to be. Alienation, shame, and guilt are experienced instead of intimacy and loving presence. Humanity is kicked out of their “shalomic home,” and must forge ahead in a cold and cruel world.³⁷Due to the “original sin” of this first couple, all of humanity will be born into the world in a state of alienation (between God and each other) and disharmony. There are at least two implications for integration by the Christian scholar related to the fall of humanity. First, since the Enlightenment, the autonomous man tends to minimize or dismiss sin.³⁸With the rise of Rousseau (and later Freud), the view that many of humanity’s problems arise from frustrations caused by civilization’s moral proclivities has become entrenched. Works from cultural anthropologists such as Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa³⁹ have supposedly confirmed the Freudian premise that apart from cultural mores there are no innate moral inhibitions. If, as Bertrand Russell argued in 1903, man is just a “collocation of atoms” in which “no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave,” then sin makes no sense.⁴⁰As Cornelius Plantinga has pointed out, “We can understand neither shalom nor sin apart from reference to God.”⁴¹Sin is ultimately an affront against God. This leads to the second implication of the fall: for the Christian scholar, a biblical view of sin and the human dilemma is essential in order to prescribe the correct solution. If sin is gone, then what need is there for a Savior? The trend within liberal Christianity to limit the human condition to terms of social justice only, distorts the central message of the gospel. According to Scripture, the central need for humans is redemption from the consequences of sin: something has gone wrong, shalom has been destroyed. Thus, while humans live in a state of alienation from God resulting from the fall, they still are created in the image of God (marred as it may be). The effect of sin includes all aspects of humanity: volitional, intellectual, and emotional. However, embedded within the creation account is the truth that God provides for his own: the stage has been set for God’s rescue mission.⁴²

Scene 3 of the biblical story opens with the coming of Christ. In the incarnation, Christ comes to earth “in the flesh,” forever removing the unbridgeable dichotomy between the spiritual and natural world. The birth narratives (Matthew 1–2; Luke 1–2) bring together two different orders: God and human beings. The desperate plight begun in Eden now finds solution in Jesus: the opening chapter of the New Testament declares that he will save his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). The prophetic anticipation of a Messiah and the promise given to Abraham (Gen. 12:1–3) find their fruition in the coming of Jesus. He is the solution to evil and the guilt of sin. Furthermore, the rush of the narrative in each of the gospels is toward the cross. Jesus came to die, to redeem humanity, and “to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). Thus, in Jesus we find the reestablishment of the originally intended divine order; humans can once again flourish in intimacy with God and harmony with each other and the created world, fulfilling the shalomic vision as God’s vice-regents. Jesus inaugurates the kingdom and one day he will consummate it.⁴³God the Father sent his Son on a rescue mission. As the gospel narratives close, and Jesus returns to the Father, he gives a final command: his followers are to be involved in outreach to the entire world (Matt. 28:19–20). Thus, the New Testament documents pulsate with a living tension between the “already” and the “not yet.” The kingdom has already come in Jesus, but it is not yet here in its consummation. Within this tension, we find the mission of the church to the nations: “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14).

The Person of Christ and the Task of Integration

There are four implications related to the person of Christ and the task of integration. First, with the incarnation we see that the supernatural and the natural realms are not closed off to each other.⁴⁴While God is the transcendent Creator of the universe, he is also immanent within his creation. God is present and active within history and nature. The supernatural can be known because we live in a spiritually “open” universe. Marsden states, “Acceptance of the incarnation, however, seems to presuppose that we can know about the transcendent through ordinary contingent means such as the testimony of others and evidence drawn from our own experience.”⁴⁵

Second, in God’s progressive revelation, we learn that God created the world through the divine agent of the Logos (John 1:1–3). Christ, the second member of the Trinity, is the divine Logos. The Logos is the agent of creation for both the human and nonhuman world (see also 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16–17; Heb. 1:3). Furthermore, we learn in Colossians 2:3 that in Jesus are hidden “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Thus, the world is intelligible because it is created by intelligence. Jesus, as the divine Logos, imparts information to us. The philosopher and scientist William Dembski states, “Information—the information that God speaks to create the world, the information that continually proceeds from God in sustaining the world and acting in it and the information that passes between God’s creatures—this is the bridge that connects transcendence and immanence. All of this information is mediated through the divine Logos, who is before all things and in whom all things consist (Col. 1:17).”⁴⁶For the Christian scholar, Jesus must be viewed for who he is—the smartest person ever. Jesus possesses intellectual virtue to speak on all matters of reality.⁴⁷A large part of the anti-intellectualism that evangelicalism suffers from is due to a truncated view of the person of Jesus. Jesus is often taken to possess spiritual or moral authority to speak into a person’s life, but when it comes to matters of reality, Jesus is not often thought of as a reliable source of authority. Thus, while Jesus isn’t a scientist per se, making pronouncements on quarks or relativity theory, the Christian scholar needs to acknowledge Jesus as the source for the very possibility of science itself. The possibility of scholarship, Christian or otherwise, is due to the fact that the divine Logos speaks, and information is imparted into all of reality. As Christian scholars, this truth should cause us to courageously advance a Christian view of reality within academia.

Third, at the heart of God’s redemptive purpose is the renewing of the human mind.⁴⁸Scripture repeatedly speaks of the non-Christian mind as futile and hostile to God (e.g., Rom. 8:7; Eph. 4:17–24; Col. 1:21). For the redeemed person, there is a radical change in one’s orientation, and this radical change includes the life of the mind. One of the greatest passages ever penned on spiritual formation by Paul, Romans 12:1–2, puts the mind front and center in the process of transformation unto Christ. Christians are to “be transformed” by the “renewing of their minds,” and ultimately this redemption of the mind results from the gospel.

This leads me to the last implication for the Christian scholar: Jesus’ mission must be the Christian scholar’s mission. Jesus came “to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). Furthermore, he entrusted this mission to his followers before he ascended to heaven (Matt. 28:19–20). Therefore, any view of scholarship that leaves out this missional aspect loses sight of the overall purpose to our work. The philosopher Greg Ganssle states, “It is not enough to integrate Christian beliefs with our research, we must integrate all that God calls us to in terms of his redemptive Christian mission with all we do as scholars and teachers.”⁴⁹Any definition of integration which leaves out the mission of Christ as it relates to the scholar’s work and life will ultimately be unhelpful.⁵⁰

The fourth scene in the plotline of Scripture is the coming of the Spirit. As heirs of the new covenant, Christians have been given a deposit in the form of the third person of the triune God (Eph. 1:13–14). It is the Holy Spirit who enables people to understand and know the truth of the gospel (1 Cor. 2:14). The Spirit convicts people of their sins (John 16:7–11) and is a helper and guide for the Christian (John 14:16). For the purposes of integration, it is important to keep in mind that it is the Spirit who enables the Christian to exercise faith in God. While the “content” of the faith (i.e., the knowledge claims) are available to all, only God can bring about “saving faith” for those he chooses to draw to himself (John 6:37).⁵¹

The climax of the biblical plotline is the renewal of all things as Christ reconciles everything to himself at the end of the age. The climactic vision of the Bible found in Revelation 21 and 22 pulls together all the plotline and sub-themes found in both the Old and New Testaments. All things are renewed/reconciled in Christ (Col. 1:19–20). There is a new heaven and new earth (2 Peter 3:13). Mankind will experience perfect intimacy with God and each other (Rev. 21:3–4) and will worship God and the lamb for eternity (Revelation 5). In a word, shalom will be fully restored. Things will once again be as they should be.

This discussion does not simply constitute an exercise in theological “throat-clearing.” Rather, the point of reviewing the biblical story is that it has a point. History is going somewhere—there is a purpose! As Christian scholars, our scholarly work and life need to take place within the context of this great drama. Without the context of the metanarrative of Scripture, the Christian scholar runs the risk of compartmentalizing his scholarly work and life from his personal piety. However, as should now be clear, the biblical plotline has many implications for the integration of the two tasks into the scholarly life. These implications include not just the task of integrating our Christian beliefs within a specific discipline, but the task of integrating all God calls us to with all we do as scholars.

The Fully Integrated Life of the Christian Scholar Made More Concrete

As we have seen, then, Christianity is fundamentally about a person: Christ, the second person of the Trinity. But, Christianity is also a claim about reality—a reality created and sustained by Christ. As such, a Christian worldview includes propositions about the way the world is. A person and propositions, personal and abstract, the soul and the mind. More concretely, a fully integrated life for the Christian scholar in our day and age might look something like this:

A Christian scholar is integrating his faith with his scholarship when he is engaged in either explicit Christian research or latent Christian research (the mind), while seeking God with all his being (the soul), which flows into worship of God and pursuit of people through his scholarly work and life (mission: redeeming the soul and mind).

This working definition of a fully-integrated life for the Christian scholar captures both an inward focus (the mind and soul of the Christian scholar) as well as an outward and upward focus (toward others and God). In the remainder of this section, I will attempt to unpack this working definition.

First, let’s consider the implication of what I am proposing. What is the net result if Christians within academia begin to live integrated lives as prescribed above? In short, what are we after? A new Christian theocracy within the academy? A place at the table? Respectability? Marsden and others are rightly wary of a new establishment of Christian dominance.⁵²I agree that within the pragmatic academy, pluralism is the best method for dealing peacefully and with equity among diverse people and belief systems.⁵³Gone are the days of Constantinian Christianity where Christianity rules the culture. Rather, we should be principled pluralists—recognizing that to be a Christian is always to stand in tension with what the Bible calls the world.

But the pluralism we ought to subscribe to is not what Lesslie Newbigin calls “agnostic pluralism.”⁵⁴According to Newbigin, with agnostic pluralism, “we are free to have our own opinions provided we agree that they are only personal opinions.”⁵⁵This type of agnostic pluralism will only get Christians a seat at the table at the cost of making the table relative. The type of pluralism Christians should strive for within the secular academy and the net effect of employing the model of integration offered here is what Newbigin calls “committed pluralism.”⁵⁶With committed pluralism, the gospel message is proclaimed not as a system of honorable values, but as a truth that corresponds to reality. As such the proclamation of the gospel becomes part of the continuing conversation that shapes public doctrine. With committed pluralism, Newbigin states, “we can look for and work for a time when Christian leadership (not Christian domination) can shape society” and “shape the plausibility structure within which people make their decisions and come to their beliefs.”⁵⁷

This “transformational Christian vision,”⁵⁸coupled with a sense of vocation, informs and motivates the scholarly enterprise for the Christian. But what does it mean to say one’s scholarship is Christian? Does this mean it must employ theological or religious language at every turn? The short answer is “no.” Some scholarship will be explicitly Christian.⁵⁹In explicit Christian research, the scholar is asking a distinctly Christian question directly about the subject matter of the particular discipline (or view within) or applying distinctively Christian concepts to a particular problem or issue. The Christian scholar may find his discipline basically valid, yet lacking in certain ways when viewed from a Christian perspective. Many of the academic disciplines (or views within) have much in common with Christian faith, yet are lacking in its overall vision of truth. The Christian scholar, by correcting errors and supplementing narrow visions of truth from a Christian perspective, contributes to the transformation of the discipline.

But scholarship within the secular academy doesn’t have to be explicitly Christian in order to count as faithful integration. One’s Christianity can be, and often will be in applied disciplines, latent. By latent Christian research I (partly) mean what C. S. Lewis had in mind in his lecture to an assembly of Anglican priests and youth leaders in Wales during Easter, 1945:

I believe that any Christian who is qualified to write a good popular book on any science may do much more by that than by any directly apologetic work. The difficulty we are up against is this. We can make people (often) attend to the Christian point of view for half an hour or so; but the moment they have gone away from our lecture or laid down our article, they are plunged back into a world where the opposite position is taken for granted. As long as that situation exists, widespread success is simply impossible. We must attack the enemy’s line of communication. What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects—with their Christianity latent. You can see this most easily if you look at it the other way round. Our Faith is not very likely to be shaken by any book on Hinduism. But if whenever we read an elementary book on Geology, Botany, Politics, or Astronomy, we found that its implications were Hindu, that would shake us. It is not the books written in direct defense of Materialism that make the modern man a materialist; it is the materialistic assumptions in all the other books. In the same way, it is not books on Christianity that will really trouble him. But he would be troubled if, whenever he wanted a cheap popular introduction to some science, the best work on the market was always by a Christian.⁶⁰

Thus, while the Christian scholar might not quote from the Bible in his published research, his research is consistent with and/or implies a robust Christian worldview. The philosopher Stephen Evans provides a helpful distinction between two different types of latent Christian research.⁶¹First, there is purely vocational Christian research where, for example, a Christian mathematician constructs the same mathematical proofs as a non-Christian, or a Christian chemist performs the same experiment as a non-Christian, yet the motive in the case of the Christian is to honor God by doing the best scholarship one can. Doing excellent work, contributing to the development of new knowledge, or demonstrating that it is possible to be a thoughtful person and still be a Christian all bear witness to the kingdom of God and qualify as latent Christian research. Second, Evans discusses implicit Christian research (this kind of latent Christian research is captured nicely in the C. S. Lewis quote above) where, for example, the scholar attempts to show something Christians know to be true without using overtly Christian terms or concepts, or a particular research program or hypothesis is motivated by Christian concerns without being overtly Christian.⁶²

Whether a Christian scholar engages in explicit or latent Christian research is often a function of the intended audience. The more explicitly Christian, the more visible the faith dimension will be within a particular research program or end product. With latent Christian research, it is possible that the reader would be unaware of the imbedded Christian assumptions (such as the intelligibility of language, the uniformity of nature, the reality of an external world) within a particular work, and he would therefore need to begin to ask probing questions in order to tease out the specific worldview implications. Both types of Christian research are needed, and it is up to the particular scholars (ideally a group of scholars) within a discipline to formulate an appropriate strategy to begin transforming the discipline where necessary.

At this point a distinction should be made between theoretical and applied disciplines. While this distinction isn’t clear-cut (applied disciplines have a theoretical basis and theoretical disciplines have some practical nature), it is still a significant factor when considering the various dimensions of integration. William Hasker succinctly states, “One discipline (i.e., theoretical) aims primarily at teaching its students to know something, the other (i.e., applied) at teaching them to do something.”⁶³As a general rule, the more applied the research, the more latent one’s Christianity.⁶⁴At the applied level, a mechanical engineer will (often) perform the same equations and utilize the same methods in his scholarly research whether or not he is a Christian. His Christianity will be latent—consistent with a Christian worldview, but not explicitly Christian. As the mechanical engineer explores the theoretical basis of his discipline, probing issues concerning epistemological or metaphysical “foundations” will become more pressing and ultimately more explicitly Christian. In other words, the foundations for the possibility of science, such as the uniformity of nature, the intelligibility of nature, etc., can be grounded only in a theistic worldview.

Perhaps an example of explicit and latent Christian scholarship is in order. Paul Moser’s article, “Jesus and Philosophy: On the Questions We Ask,”⁶⁵begins, “What if anything, has Jesus to do with philosophy?” Moser goes on to argue that Jesus as Lord means that he is Lord of our time, the research we engage in, and the very questions we ask. Furthermore, philosophy done under the authority of Jesus becomes agape-oriented ministry. Moser argues that faithful disciples of Jesus must transcend the discussion mode and move to the obedience mode of human discourse. Doing philosophy in the obedience mode means moving beyond mere questions to loving God and people in service to the mission of the church. Moser unabashedly brings all of the knowledge at his disposal, including Scripture, to bear as he asks the question, what does Jesus have to do with philosophy? Even given the Christian renaissance taking place in philosophy, Moser’s answer to this question serves as an indictment of much of Christian philosophy as it is currently practiced (i.e., in the discussion mode only). Moser explicitly critiques the discipline of philosophy from the perspective of the person and mission of Jesus Christ. If taken seriously (and applied), Jesus as Lord will lead to the transformation of the scholar as well as the discipline as it moves from perpetual questioning to agape-oriented service.

The intelligent design movement can be identified as a latent Christian research program in the spirit of C. S. Lewis. Their critics notwithstanding, intelligent design scientists such as William Dembski⁶⁶ and Michael Behe⁶⁷ are not engaged in religion masquerading as science. Rather, they have developed criteria that can be used to identify a cause as either natural or intelligent.⁶⁸Intelligent design should be categorized as latent Christian research because these scientists are not explicitly arguing for the God of Christianity. Rather, they are applying the canons of science to the evidence, judging the best explanation for the apparent design found in nature to be actual design. The implication of this science is clear: naturalism is false. Christianity is rendered plausible by the findings of intelligent design science. A recent example of the power of latent Christianity is the pilgrimage from atheism to theism by Antony Flew.⁶⁹While Flew has to date only embraced an Aristotelian theism, doubtful about the possibility of special revelation and miracles (notice the influence of Hume here!), he cites arguments for intelligent design as the primary evidence causing his change in belief. Theism, and ultimately Christianity, is rendered more plausible for Flew because of the evidence for an Intelligent Designer.

But the fully integrated life of the Christian scholar is concerned with more than just the end product of research; the scholar’s character is important as well. In general, Christians are called to love and seek God with all of their being. And this holistic and personal love of God by the Christian motivates our need to be both morally and intellectually virtuous. For the Christian scholar, he must not compartmentalize his academic work from his spiritual life. Christ as Lord means that he is Lord of all aspects of our lives—including the research projects we engage in and even the very questions that we ask. It is not enough to just “be a moral Christian” or “be a faithful church attendee.” Lordship unto Jesus demands that all aspects of our being, including our thought life and academic work, lead to and result in love and worship of God and others (cf. Luke 10:25–28; Matt. 22:37–39).

And there is a two-way causal connection between moral character and intellectual virtue (including one’s ability to “see” the truth). A vicious moral character can undermine good thinking, and futile or lazy thinking can contribute to moral deficiencies. For example, a scholar (say, a scientist) captivated by his own pride, may lack certain intellectual virtues such as “epistemic humility” and “a love for truth” and find himself incapable of learning from experience (or younger colleagues or graduate students) or acknowledging the inadequacies of his initial beliefs should they prove wrong. And as we saw earlier, Paul agrees. Character formation requires (and begins with) a renewing of the mind: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2); and having “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Col. 3:10); and, “Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness” (Titus 1:1).⁷⁰While discussing the importance of the intellectual virtue of integrity for the Christian scholar, Douglas Henry states:

[T]hough a scholar simpliciter aims proximately to understand, interpret, extend, or appropriate the resources of an academic discipline, a Christian scholar aims ultimately to express devotion to God through commitment to Christ and submission to his Spirit, and to do so qua scholar . . . a conception of Christian scholarship that focuses exclusively on content fails to recognize the wider range of resources needed for it to thrive. Those resources fundamentally include all the virtues.⁷¹

Thus, the fully integrated life is a life of intellectual and moral virtue, which ultimately is an expression and reflection of God’s nature as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as a fully integral being.

Finally, in allowing the grand story of Scripture to illuminate our path, we see that Christian scholarship is never an end in itself.⁷²Rather, the goal of all scholarship must be firmly placed within the framework of Scripture. While an understanding of the metanarrative of Scripture will sometimes but not always change the way we do scholarship, it will always change the way we view people. The shalomic vision of intimacy with God and harmony with each other must always be front and center in the scholarly efforts of the Christian. God is on a rescue mission, reconciling lost people back to himself (see Luke 19:10). As ambassadors of Christ (2 Cor. 5:20), we are called to participate in this mission.

The worship of God and pursuit of people are intricately related, as John Piper has so persuasively stated: “Mission is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exist because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man.”⁷³The worship of God and pursuit of people are antithetical to the posture of the modern university. Grants, publications, institutional ranking, and individual achievement are ultimate for the university. Thus, any scholar, Christian or otherwise, who desires to succeed in mainstream academia today is tempted to make these goals ultimate as well. But for the Christian, this cannot be. God is ultimate, and God is for people. Yes, the Christian scholar should be concerned with grants, publications, individual achievement, and institutional prestige, but this concern should always be viewed within the context of service to Jesus as Lord. Perhaps the greatest test for the Christian scholar in academia today is whether or not he can trust God for his job (including tenure) while he worships God and pursues people as his ultimate priority.

The unique mode for the Christian scholar’s worship of God and pursuit of people is through his scholarly work and life. By producing (either explicit or latent) Christian research, the Christian world and life will be restored to the status of “plausible” within the marketplace of ideas. As is well known, Christianity is no longer viewed (by many) as a plausible option today. Thus, the work of the gospel is severely hindered. As J. Gresham Machen warned in 1913:

False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. Under such circumstances, what God desires us to do is destroy the obstacle at its root.⁷⁴

The Christian scholar is on the front lines of the battle of ideas. Christian professors need to realize they are already witnesses whose lives and scholarship either help or hinder others’ belief in God. If Christian professors begin to actively examine and challenge the anti-Christian assumptions within their discipline and present a winsome picture of a whole life, centered in God, only then can the soil be made fertile once again for the advancement of a robust view of the Christian world and life.⁷⁵

Furthermore, Christian scholars need to work hard to resist the impulse of isolation and individualism so often engendered in academia. As ambassadors for Christ, they should look for opportunities to invite other professors (and students) into their lives. By being the hands and feet of Jesus in a world where Christ is routinely ignored, ridiculed, or relegated to the private area of life only, the Christian scholar is living Jesus’ example of going to the lost, telling the good news of the kingdom, and showing the benefit of kingdom living (see Matt. 4:23; Mark 1:14–15).⁷⁶Thus, the Christian vision of human dignity and happiness should lead the Christian scholar to pursue people and worship God through his scholarly efforts as well as his life.

The Integrated Life Applied: Where We Go from Here

Each of the essays contained in this book embody and express this integrated life. We begin with Charles Malik’s original address as delivered and subsequently published, first by Crossway (then called Cornerstone Books) in 1980 and more recently by EMIS, the publishing arm of the Billy Graham Center, in 2000. We believe that the message of Dr. Malik needs to be heard again today to motivate a new generation of Christian scholars and to encourage those who have been faithfully serving Christ in the (often) hollow halls of academia. Malik’s message was then, and is now, a wake up call to Christians—and especially to Christian scholars. And Malik doesn’t waste words. The battle lines are clearly drawn; the soul and mind of men and women, even Western civilization, hangs in the balance in an epic battle between Christ and anti-Christ, the church and the world, a robust Christianity and anti-intellectualism and a shallow faith. Charles Malik’s words and his life leave an indelible legacy within academia and within the church.

Charles Malik’s legacy also lives on within his son, Habib, who with the same prophetic voice and vision asks, “What then, in addition to Charles Malik’s Two Tasks . . . is required of a believing and committed Christian in today’s era of clashes?” Since its inception, Christians have lived in a state of perpetual crisis, continually assaulted by hostile worldviews as well as a host of spiritual challenges. Such is the call of the Christian in a fallen world. Communism, the clash which took up most of the twentieth century, and which Charles Malik himself bravely fought against on the world stage, is now largely behind us. Yet, there are new challenges today facing the Christian believer. Habib calls to our attention six such areas of conflict. First, there is the crisis of post-Christian Europe, which faces spiritual and physical demise as millions of Muslims, without any desire to assimilate into European culture, stream into the continent in search of economic prosperity. Second, there is the challenge of supporting Christians in the Middle East whose very survival is threatened on every side by oppressive regimes and extremist Islamists. This extreme and dangerous Islamism receives its own treatment by Habib, and we are reminded of the need to understand this mindset as well as to pray for the rise of a moderate Islamic voice that would speak out against this radical and violent wing within its own religion. Fourth, he discusses the importance of Russia and the Orthodox faith, reminding Western Christians of the importance of praying for and helping the Orthodox Church revive herself. Fifth, Habib discusses the culture war raging in America, reminding us once again of the need for being both media savvy and academically adept as we navigate within a culture that loves to erect simplistic caricatures of anything that smacks of Jesus Christ. Finally, Habib implores us, like his father before him, to be more ecumenical—for Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants to find common ground and common causes and to begin to work together.

Charles Malik’s two tasks message was built upon and expanded in his book, A Christian Critique of the University. Peter Kreeft discusses this important work, bringing his own insightful analysis and commentary to bear upon the important question asked by Malik: “What does Jesus Christ think of the university?” After discussing the importance of the university, Kreeft examines Malik’s critique of the sciences and humanities, noting that many of the same criticisms apply today: pride, self-aggrandizement, skepticism, cynicism, nihilism, and hurriedness. Most helpful is Kreeft’s discussion of Malik’s solution to the current crisis in the university. Yes, there needs to be strategy, organization, mobilization, and moxie, but ultimately the solution involves Christian professors and scholars being a certain kind of person—a kind of person that Malik calls a person of being. And what is this person of being? It is the person who has Christ, who has regained his spiritual center and lives moment by moment in light of that reality.

Academics are notoriously known for being “all talk and little action.” In his essay, Walter Bradley dispels that myth, sharing from a wealth of his own experience practical ways to minister to students and colleagues within academia. From student movie nights to intense group discussions with colleagues around serious Christian books, Bradley shares some “best practices” that he has learned over his nearly forty years as a university professor. Even such mundane things as building a bridge are turned, in the hands of Christians like Bradley, into opportunities to be the hands and feet of Jesus to a lost and needy world. Endearingly, Bradley brings to our attention something I suspect is true for many great men and women of faith in the university—behind the university professor is a spouse praying, sharing, and co-laboring in the work of the gospel to these same students, colleagues, and significant others, and in the process providing a more complete picture of the Christian world and life to a secular mindset desperately (even if unknowingly) in need of such a vision. May we all, along with Dr. Bradley, be able to look forward, at the end of our career, and one day, our life, to that final “post tenure review” in heaven with humble assurance.

But while all university professors have much in common, there are still some great divides—most notably between the sciences and humanities. In chapter 6, Princeton physicist Robert Kaita expertly discusses some of the unique challenges and opportunities of being a Christian scientist (not a follower of Mary Baker Eddy!) in the academy today. Kaita begins by discussing Paul’s speech on Mars Hill in Athens as an example of a heuristic approach to evangelism in academia. Sensitivity to the biases, beliefs, and values of our audience are critical in deciding how we ought to communicate the timeless truths of the gospel. This need for sensitivity is evident in the raging and often emotional battle over intelligent design and evolution. Kaita brings to our attention the fact that many times even scientists are talking past each other—for words such as “theory” and “science” mean very different things to, for example, biologist and physicist. And these semantic differences have very practical implications in various issues regarding faith, science, and the relationship between the two. But, faith and science, the book of Scripture and the book of nature, come, as Kaita reminds us, from the same God, and both reveal him in a unique way. And with both of these “books,” as with the two tasks, there is a common need to communicate in a language and life that can be heard by its audience. Kaita’s chapter helps us to see how this can be done.

The humanities are often beguiled by a different set of issues, most notably a postmodern mindset that seeks to “deconstruct” the text and rip it from its historical context and its intended authorial meaning. The result is that students (and professors) in the humanities, as John North points out in chapter 7, have become victims of many competing voices. Yet within the “canonical” text of the humanities, if we allow it to speak for itself, we find the voice of God speaking to the angst and longings of the human heart. King Lear asks, “Who is it who can tell me who I am?” This question, which as North points out is really everyone’s question, is answered within each discipline of the humanities (i.e., the voice of God is present, if we allow it to be heard). Most notable in North’s essay, however, is his passion to faithfully live out the two tasks within the context of academia; his many personal stories of interaction with students and colleagues serves both as a challenge and example of what a fully integrated life can look like within the university.

In chapter 8, William Lane Craig offers some final thoughts on the two great tasks of the Christian scholar. After reviewing the nature of the battle and need for Christian scholars to live fully integrated lives, Craig gets very practical. First, Christian scholars should engage intellectually, not only with their chosen discipline, but with the Christian faith as well. Gone are the days of the polymath. Instead, university professors have often become so specialized that all other intellectual domains, including one’s faith, become increasingly neglected. The result for the Christian professor is often minimal knowledge of Scripture and theology. Craig offers sound advice to help Christian professors begin to attend to the intellectual component of the Christian faith. Second, Craig emphasizes again the importance of integrating one’s Christian faith with one’s discipline. And finally, Craig encourages us to be mindful of our personal, spiritual formation unto Christ.

I offer one final thought, actually a reminder of a God-placed longing I think we all tend to forget as the burdens and responsibilities and wounds of life multiply upon us over time. And this longing is best expressed through the mouth of my seven-year-old son, Austin. One night, as I was tucking Austin into bed, he asked, “Dad, would you rather die as a hero by saving someone else or die of old age?” I thought for a minute before answering, and then said, “I would rather die of old age than to die a hero’s death saving someone, but if called upon to do so, I hope I would have the courage to be the hero God wants me to be.” And then I said, “But Austin, I think you are actually asking two questions, for in your question you are also asking, how can one live a heroic life? And the answer to that question is to allow your life to be a sacrifice daily to God, to live a life where Jesus is your King and Master.” I believe that the deep undercurrent in my son’s question expresses the same question and longing we all have: is Jesus really the answer in death and life? In these pages, you will read of battle-tested wisdom and insight from men who are living heroic lives. You will also hear of many other men and women who are living heroic lives in which they daily die to self on the front line in the battle for the souls of others, embracing Malik’s vision of Christian wholeness and leadership in the university. May we all have the courage and grace to follow their example as we look to Christ.

Discussion Questions

1. How do the two tasks relate to a fully integrated life for the Christian scholar?

2. What are some other highlights of Christian scholars or scholarship that you are aware of since Malik’s 1980 message? Low-lights? In your own institution?

3. Is there a para-church ministry on your campus or in your region that you can partner with? Is there a Christian study center on your campus? If not, what could that look like at your university?

4. Gould describes graduate school as a “bootcamp” where the university conforms you into its own image. How was your graduate experience? How can you help encourage Christian graduate students today?

5. Why is an understanding of God’s larger story important to the task of integration? Does any specific aspect of the metanar-rative play a more crucial role in your discipline?

6. Why does our view of Jesus as smart, or intellectually virtuous, matter?

7. Do you agree that Christians should be principled pluralists within secular academia? Why or why not?

8. Is your research mostly explicitly Christian or latently Christian (in either the implicit sense or the purely vocational sense)?

9. In what ways is your discipline in need of transformation?

10. Do you see the university as a mission field? Review how God called you into the academy.

1. See page 64 in chapter 2.

2. See page 63 in chapter 2.

3. See page 60 in chapter 2.

4. See page 60 in chapter 2.

5. In May of 2007, the faculty ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ changed its name from Christian Leadership Ministries to Faculty Commons.

6. Alvin Plantinga, “Advice to Christian Philosophers,” first published in Faith and Philosophy 1, no. 3 (October 1984): 253–71. Page references hereafter are from James Sennett, ed., The Analytic Theist: An Alvin Plantinga Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 296–315.

7. Ibid., 312.

8. Since the fall 2006, Noll has been the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame; he replaced now retired historian George Marsden.

9. See page 64 in chapter 2.

10. Mark Noll,The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerd-mans, 1994), 1. Noll calls his book “a historical footnote in support of Malik’s sage words [contained in his Two Tasks message],” 27.

11. Ibid., 3.

12. Ibid., 51. This theme will be picked up and discussed by Habib Malik in chapter 3.

13. George Marsden,The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

14. Ibid., 6.

15. “The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America,” Time, February 7, 2005, 42.

16. Books and Critics,Atlantic Monthly, December, 2002, 126.

17. Quentin Smith, “The Metaphilosophy of Naturalism,” Philo 4, no. 2 (2001): 4.

18. For a discussion of the founding of the Society of Christian Philosophers see Kelly James Clark, “Introduction: The Literature of Confession,” in Philosophers Who Believe, ed. Kelly James Clark (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), 7–21.

19. This author numbers himself among those privileged to study philosophy at Talbot, and is now in a leading secular PhD program. For more on how God is using Talbot School of Theology (part of Biola University) in making inroads into the larger philosophical world, see Agnieszka Tennant, “Masters of Philosophy,” Christianity Today, June 2003, 46–48.

20. For an account of how the Veritas Forum began, see Kelly Monroe Kull-berg, Finding God Beyond Harvard: The Quest for Veritas (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006).

21. To sight just a few highlights, consider (1) the Baylor University’s 2012 plan, in which Baylor University seeks to establish itself as a premier and explicitly protestant Christian research university comparable with other first-rate research universities such as Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and the University of Chicago; (2) the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), an international higher education association of intentionally Christian colleges and universities, which has grown from thirty-eight members in 1976 to 105 members in North America and seventy-five affiliate members in twenty-four countries by 2006; and (3) high quality explicitly and implicitly Christian research published in leading academic journals and books as well as a reputable interdisciplinary journal, Christian Scholars Review. For more on the renaissance in Christian higher education see Michael Hamilton, “A Higher Education,” Christianity Today, June 2005, 30–35.

22. Dawkins is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University; Dennett is the B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University; Harris is a PhD candidate in neuroscience at an undisclosed university.

23. For more on this new wave of atheism, see Jerry Adler, “The New Naysay-ers,” Newsweek, September 11, 2006, 47–49. But these examples can be interpreted in more than one way. Recently, Richard Shweder, a professor of comparative human development at the University of Chicago, argued that these books by Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris reveal that “the armies of disbelief have been provoked.” Atheism has gone from an advancing movement to being on the defensive, all in the period of one generation. Perhaps, Shweder wonders, “the popularity of the current counterattack on religion cloaks a renewed and intense anxiety within secular society that it is not the story of religion but rather the story of the Enlightenment that may be more illusory than real.” Minimally at least, what these examples reveal is, for Christian academics, there can be no neutral ground, no opting-out from this debate. See Richard Shweder, op-ed, “Atheists Agonistes,” New York Times, November 27, 2006.

24. The article is by Stephen Meyer, “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories,” Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 117 (2004): 213–39. Even more recently, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, whose book The Privileged Planet is discussed by Robert Kaita in chapter 6, was denied tenure at Iowa State University; Gonzalez claims that the reason is because he is a proponent of intelligent design. See Geoff Brumfiel, “Darwin Sceptic Says View Cost Tenure,” Nature, 447 (May 24, 2007): 364. In this article, Robert Park, a physicist at the University of Maryland, states regarding Gonzalez, “Anyone who believes that an intelligent force set the Earth’s location doesn’t understand probability’s role in the Universe. . . . Such a person is hardly qualified to teach others about the scientific method.” All this is despite the fact that Gozalez has distinguished himself as a stellar scholar.

25. For more, see Joyce Howard Price, “Researcher Claims Bias by Smithsonian,” Washington Times, February, 13, 2005.

26. For more on this, see Marsden, Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, 25–43.

27. For a summary of the report, see Thomas Bartlett, “Professors Are More Religious Than Some Might Assume, Survey Finds,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 20, 2006, A26. For the full report, see http://www.wjh.harvard. edu/soc/faculty/gross/religions.pdf.

28. Conversely, 80 percent of the general population believes that the Bible is either the “actual word of God or the inspired word of God,” whereas only 48 percent of professors hold this view, with the percentage significantly decreasing the more elite the school.

29. C. S. Lewis, “On the Transmission of Christianity,” in God in the Dock:Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 116.

30. Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), xxiv.

31. D. A. Carson,The Gagging of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 201–2.

32. Francis A. Schaeffer, Escape from Reason (Downers Grove, IL: InterVar-sity, 1968), 25.

33. Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 26–28. Of course we can only actually begin with our own epistemic situation, and not God’s. Rather, the point is that God is no longer seen as the ground of our knowledge in this post-Cartesian world. God has created man as knowing creatures, and this theological grounding provides justification for how it is that human subjects can have knowledge about the objective world. Alvin Plantinga has argued this point in his own way, stating that warrant (i.e., that which in addition to true belief is necessary for knowledge) supervenes on among other things, a properly functioning cognitive faculty operating according to a design plan. See Alvin Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

34. Ibid., 28.

35. Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 10. Yes, this is Alvin Plantinga’s brother.

36. Carson,The Gagging of God, 206–9.

37. Hence, Cornelius Plantinga calls sin “culpable shalom-breaking.” C. Plan-tinga, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, 14.

38. Carson,The Gagging of God, 216–17.

39. Margaret Mead, Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization (New York: Wm. Morrow, 1967), as cited in Carson, The Gagging of God, 217.

40. Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” in Why I Am Not a Christian (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1957), 107.

41. C. Plantinga,Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, 12–18.

42. As Carson points out, God generously provided for his image bearers in the garden. Even after the ravages of sin, God provided clothes for Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:21), showing his continued love and care of his people. Carson, The Gagging of God, 234.

43. Carson writes, “Thus the kingdom, viewed as that subset of the reign of God under which there is life, can be understood to be a bringing back into history of the final kingdom of blessedness that still awaits.” Carson, The Gagging of God, 262.

44. Marsden, Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, 90.

45. Ibid.

46. William Dembski, Intelligent Design (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999), 233.

47. For helpful discussions on the topic of Jesus as being smart, see Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998), 61–95; Douglas Groothuis, On Jesus (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2003), 23–35; and Dallas Willard, “Jesus, the Logician,” Christian Scholars Review XXVIII, no. 4 (1999): 605–14. Groothuis’s work does a good job of demonstrating Jesus’ use of reason and argumentation. Passages such as Matthew 22:15–33, Luke 2:41–52, and many others reveal the fact that the incarnate Jesus, out of his human nature, and not just as the eternal, divine Logos, possessed the highest intellectual virtue.

48. See Brad Green, “Theological and Philosophical Foundations,” in Shaping a Christian Worldview, eds. David Dockery and Gregory Alan Thornbury (Nashville: Broadman, 2002), 68–73.

49. Gregory Ganssle, “The Next Breakthrough in Christian Scholarship,” unpublished paper delivered at the National Faculty Leadership Conference, Washington, DC on June 25, 2004.

50. I will deal more with the issue of mission more fully below. For now, let me be clear that the redemptive responsibility of the Christian scholar is holistic, integrated, and interdependent, not oversimplified, propositional proselytizing.

51. I am not making a theological claim regarding the relationship between human freedom and God’s sovereignty in relation to saving faith. Whether one holds to a libertarian view of human freedom or a compatibilist view of human freedom, the biblical truth remains the same: it is God’s Spirit that enlivens a spiritually “dead” person. Whether the human agent plays any role (apart from passive recipient of God’s grace) in saving faith is not necessary to address here. The point is that the Spirit must regenerate a person in order to transfer him from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.

52. Marsden, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, 13–24.

53. Ibid., 45–46.

54. Newbigin, Truth to Tell, 58–64.

55. Ibid., 59.

56. Ibid., 84–85.

57. Ibid., 85.

58. From C. Stephen Evans, “The Calling of the Christian Scholar-Teacher,” in Faithful Learning and the Christian Scholarly Vocation, eds. Douglas Henry and Bob Agee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 29.

59. Following David Wolfe and Ronald Nelson, William Hasker provides a good discussion of the various integrative strategies, that is, the compatibilist, transformationalist, and reconstructionist strategies. In what follows, I shall loosely follow Hasker’s terminology regarding the strategy of tranformational-ism. Thus, one of the primary questions asked by the scholar engaging in explicit Christian research seeking to transform a particular discipline (or aspect of the discipline) is, how does a distinctively Christian view of x transform the dominant view of x within the discipline (where x is, e.g., economic theory, human nature, reality, or whatever)? See William Hasker, “Faith-Learning Integration: An Overview,” Christian Scholars Review XXI, no. 3, (March 1992): 231–48.

60. Lewis, “Christian Apologetics,” 93.

61. Stephen Evans, “The Calling of the Christian Scholar-Teacher,” 34–36. Evans also provides a useful “relevance continuum” to help make sense of the ways in which academic content and the Christian faith are likely to be integrated in various disciplines. For example, while issues pertaining to faith are relevant to every discipline, they become more relevant as one moves from mathematics to the natural sciences, then to the human sciences, then to history, then to literature and the arts, and finally to philosophy and theology. Ibid., 40.

62. It is sometimes a bit more difficult to determine if one’s own research or another’s qualifies as latent Christian research (since it is not overtly so!). The following might be helpful: in order to determine if the end product (i.e., published articles or books) of one’s research or another’s should be properly categorized as latent Christian research, one of the following second-order questions must be affirmed when applied to a particular research program or end product: “Does y imply Christianity?” (to determine if the research qualifies for what Evans calls implicit Christian research or Lewis calls latent Christian scholarship); or “Is y consistent with Christianity?” (to determine if the research qualifies for what Evans calls purely vocational Christian scholarship), where y stands for a particular research program or end product. To ask second-order questions is to assume a vantage point one step removed from the particular research program or end product. Since the Christian assumptions are embedded within the research in this case, it is necessary to ask second-order questions about the research itself in order to determine if it qualifies as Christian research. Notice, this sets a natural boundary of acceptability for the Christian scholar. The thoughtful reader might ask at this point, “But, given this definition, wouldn’t research conducted by many non-Christian scholars qualify as latent Christian research?” The answer, counterintuitively, seems to be a qualified “yes.” However, as will be discussed further, even if the scholarship itself is consistent with Christianity or even implies Christianity, the integration of faith and scholarship for the scholar (Christian or other-wise) is not obtained. The object of the integrative task as defined above is the person (i.e., the career of the epistemic and moral agent) and not just his published work. For the non-Christian, an integrated life will fail to be obtained because the truths (or implications from the truths) produced from the latent Christian research are not fully integrated with the rest of his belief system. Furthermore, following the often cited aphorism “all truth is God’s truth” as well as the fact that much of Western society still operates out of an inherited theistic framework, we would expect to find much truth within academia, even from non-Christian sources.

63. William Hasker, “Faith-Learning Integration,” 239.

64. Of course this is only a general rule, and counter-examples are easy to come by. For example, the sub-discipline of applied ethics is highly theoretical—employing metaphysical truths to real-life situations. As such, one’s Christian perspective might be more explicit than latent in this case.

65. Paul Moser, “Jesus and Philosophy: On the Questions We Ask,” Faith and Philosophy 22, no. 3 (July 2005): 261–83.

66. See Dembski, Intelligent Design.

67. See Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box (New York: Free Press, 1996).

68. Dembski’s criterion is called specified complexity. Behe’s is called irreducible complexity.

69. Antony Flew and Gary Habermas, “My Pilgrimage from Atheism to The-ism: An Exclusive Interview with Former British Atheist Professor Antony Flew,” Philosophia Christi 6, no. 2 (2004), 197–211.

70. Of course, this insight goes back to at least Plato and Aristotle, and was picked up and developed by many Christian thinkers in the ancient and medieval period, including Augustine and Aquinas. There has been a sort of revival in the interest of so-called virtue ethics including attention to the intellectual virtues. Two popular-level introductions to these topics of intellectual virtue are J. P. Moreland, Love Your God with All Your Mind (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1997) and W. Jay Wood, Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000).

71. Douglas Henry, “Intellectual Integrity in the Christian Scholar’s Life,” Christian Scholars Review 33 (Fall 2003), 72–73.

72. While Christian scholarship is never an end in itself, it is also not merely something of instrumental value. Knowledge is an intrinsic good, and scholarship as the pursuit of knowledge is as well. However, the pursuit of knowledge ought to be viewed as a subordinate goal, good in and of itself, but subservient to the ultimate goal of the glory of God (see 1 Cor. 10:31). C. S. Lewis states this point eloquently in his address given in the fall of 1939 to students at St. Mary the Virgin Church in Oxford, England, “I mean the pursuit of knowledge and beauty, in a sense, for their own sake, but in a sense which does not exclude their being for God’s sake.” See C. S. Lewis, “Learning in War-Time,” in The Weight of Glory (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2001), 56. Thus, scholarship is something to be pursued both for its own sake and for God’s sake at the same time.

73. John Piper,Let The Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 11.

74. J. Gresham Machen, “Christianity and Culture,” Princeton Theological Review 11 (1913): 7.

75. As Marxists and feminists have shown, it only takes a committed and vocal minority to advance a particular view within academia.

76. For other examples in Scripture of the go, tell, show model to ministry, see Luke 9:1–2; Luke 10:1, 9; and Acts 4:32–35.

↑ Back to top