Faithful Learning: The Double-Edged Sword of Theology and the Disciplines
Introduction
I started teaching full-time in the middle of an academic year, jumping into 12 credit hours at the small liberal arts college where I’d managed to land a job. Fond memories of teaching a wide range of classes, getting to know students, and interacting with excellent colleagues still stand out to me. I remember wishing that I’d have more time to interact with my colleagues; I remember looking forward to something I’d already put on my calendar: the faculty retreat that was scheduled for two days before the fall semester started. What I’d imagined to be an off-campus retreat, perhaps complete with campfire stories, turned out to be two days filled with meetings in the back of the school cafeteria. For part of the time, we focused on something I’d grown to appreciate during my undergraduate days at a Christian university: the integration of faith and learning.
I don’t quite remember who came in to do this training, and that is probably a mercy. We watched clips from a Jesus movie (perhaps The Jesus Movie, but I can’t recall). The consultant would play a clip, say, of Jesus approaching his disciples, stooping down, and teaching them. He’d then pause and ask us if we’d caught this excellent way to integrate faith and learning. “Did you notice? Did you see how Jesus took a knee, how he got down on his disciples’ level? That’s what we need to do in the classroom. Get on our students’ level.” To the consultant’s credit, there is much we can learn from the life of Jesus not only about holy living but about teaching and caring for others. But he had zeroed in on an actor’s or director’s creative choice and made it emblematic of integrating faith and learning. I was a bit skeptical.
The main thing I took away from that faculty “retreat” (beyond my tireless insistence that we not call things “retreats” that actually happen on campus) was that faith integration turns out to be far more complex than I had thought as a student under faculty who had figured it out, who had made it look so easy. As a theologian, I began to hope that I might be able to play a role in faculty developing this ability. I also began to learn more as a teacher myself from colleagues who had developed skill integrating faith in the non-theological disciplines. I was on the same journey of the integration of faith and learning that had animated me as an undergraduate, but the stakes were different and the mountain seemed higher to summit.
Faith integration turns out to be both simple and complex, but sometimes it is the very simplicity that can prevent us from plumbing the depths of its complexity. Let me explain.
Visiting a Vocabulary Skirmish
Before we move forward with understanding faithful learning,[1] we need to see the topography of the discussion and, in particular, vocabulary choices along with their strengths and weaknesses. We’ll visit a battle of sorts—perhaps only a skirmish, one with which some readers may find themselves already engaged! We can imagine this battle being fought on at least three fronts, with different angles and emphases. Though the battle may occasionally rage, our goal is not to take sides but to take into account the strengths and weaknesses of various ways of talking about faith and learning.
The first front involves “integration language.” We often find ourselves drawn to this sort of language because it matches what we can feel in our own experience of these matters. We know something about our own faith, and we come to know lots of things about our disciplines, and we begin to notice ways—or hope to notice ways—that they fit together. Sometimes it takes quite the effort to make the connections, and we can be proud (in the right ways) of what we see and articulate in our work and for our students.
At the same time, weaknesses emerge from this “front,” this way of talking about faith and learning. First, the very nature of integration implies that we are joining two things that have been separated. The language itself begins with separation. While integration may be bringing together two things that have always belonged together, it still encourages and operates with the currency of separation. Second, this language can focus too much on the achievements of those who have been able to articulate connections between faith and learning in their disciplines. We can start to think about such integrations as profound achievements, something created by the brilliant and holy few. We might not put it this way, but this way of setting up the debate can imply this sort of thinking. The answer to these two weaknesses revolves around a slight reorientation. As one of my colleagues, Phil Davignon, has put it, faith and learning aren’t something we integrate. Rather, faith and learning are already intimately connected; our task is to discover a reality that is already there.
My goal here isn’t for you to abandon integration language but rather to see its strengths and weaknesses and to consider well how this language itself tends toward certain ways of thinking about and pursuing this important work.
The second front involves what we might label “worldview language.” This language emerged as Christian scholars sought ways to articulate how faith informs our view of the world. Scholars describe “worldview” in a variety of ways. For instance, philosopher Michael Palmer calls it “a set of beliefs and practices that shape a person’s approach to the most important issues of life, [helping one to] determine priorities, explain [one’s] relationship to God [or other supreme being, presumably] and fellow human beings, assess the meaning of events, and justify [one’s] actions.”[2] Anthropologist Michael Kearney puts it another way. For him a worldview is a people’s way of looking at reality, and “It consists of basic assumptions and images that provide a more or less sensible, though not necessarily accurate, way of thinking about the world.”[3] We can also consider a worldview “a comprehensive life system that seeks to answer the basic questions of life,” as theologian David Dockery puts it. He continues, “It is an all-encompassing way of life, applicable to all spheres of life.”[4] For Christians, worldview can be a way of articulating Paul’s command to take every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5), of “thinking with the mind of Christ.”[5] Each of these definitions help us understand the transformative significance of worldview thinking, because it touches all of reality.
As with the first “front,” this one brings some weaknesses to the debate as well. First, worldview language can be very intellect-heavy, even if many definitions try to nod to such things as “practices” (see Palmer above). As philosopher James K. A. Smith has critiqued in places such as Desiring the Kingdom, worldview-based thinking can tend toward treating humans like each person is simply a “brain on a stick.”[6] Second, the worldview debate in some cases can make the entire project seem far easier than it actually is. “Developing a Christian worldview” can come across like something we can handle by getting people into the right course or weekend conference. Set aside a secular worldview, take up a Christian worldview. It is not that easy, as can be seen by the third weakness: mixed results. It doesn’t take much exploring to find both teachers and students who developed a strong “Christian worldview” and then simply walk away. While this challenge has been plaguing Christians since New Testament times, it still raises the question: is there something about the intellect-heavy nature of worldview language that makes it more common for this to happen? Perhaps not, but still a weak point worth attention.
The third front is more recent, spurred by the work of Charles Taylor on social imaginaries. As he puts it, “By social imaginary, I mean something much broader and deeper than the intellectual schemes people may entertain when they think about social reality in a disengaged mode. I am thinking, rather, of the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations.”[7] Or, more simply: “the way that we collectively imagine, even pre-theoretically, our social life in the contemporary Western world.”[8] Social imaginaries are primarily carried in images, stories, legends. They are also deeply related to practices that we may take for granted: “The social imaginary is that common understanding that makes possible common practices and a widely shared sense of legitimacy.”[9] This “front” helps us see that our faith and learning come together in complex ways that other vocabularies might neglect.
One advantage of social imaginaries as a framework is that it can help us notice elements that worldview language can miss. For example, David I. Smith has explored how seemingly basic choices such as textbooks actually encourage and imply things about the purpose of a field of study, implications that matter deeply for Christians. In a lecture available online,[10] he demonstrates how many language textbooks imply that the primary purpose for learning a foreign language is to become a tourist. It’s implied in the structure of textbook chapters, the vocabulary taught, and the examples used.
The three fronts of this “skirmish” help us see something about the underlying condition. On one hand, new solutions always introduce new problems. “Integration” introduced problems that “worldview” may help with, which can minimize some important issues that “social imaginaries” might lay bare. We shouldn’t expect this to change, no matter what vocabulary we adopt. Fuller and more varied vocabularies are needed to help us see and grasp what we need without oversimplifying. On the other hand, we see a continuing introduction of new problems, challenges, and temptations to minimize because of something deeply true: when we undertake the “task” of faith integration, we are charged with articulating the relationship between the Logos and All the Things He Holds Together (Colossians 1). We attempt this while retaining the right posture of worship, worship of a God who not only speaks and shows but is also always still invisible. We never leave the theological task, no matter how deeply we pursue a discipline, because, as the late theologian John Webster reminded us, theology’s subject matter extends to “God the Holy Trinity and all other things relative to God.”[11]
Wielding the Double-Edged Sword
Faithful learning requires a double-edged sword. But before we talk about that image, we’ll look at two “daggers” that are useful for this fight. The sword and the daggers are all useful and helpful. But problems can occur if we limit ourselves to the “daggers.”
Dagger 1
The first “dagger” that can be useful in connecting theology and academic disciplines is the low-hanging fruit each discipline provides. Each discipline has some of this fruit, and it often provides motivation and enthusiasm for new faculty when they find it. For example, in nursing (which I’ll use consistently as the examples in this section), Christians often recognize that helping the sick connects with the idea of being the “hands and feet of Jesus.” Nurses certainly have that opportunity, and many students feel drawn to professions such as nursing because they sense a calling to serve those in need. This connection is a good one, and one that shouldn’t be neglected.
Two temptations accompany low-hanging fruit, however. First, we can miss the deeper connections that our disciplines have with the Christian faith if our only focus is on the low-hanging fruit. Second, we can become content with the “flavor” and forget to climb higher on the tree to get other fruit, if you will. Both of these temptations have more to do with our own temptations as limited human beings than with the particular connections that the low-hanging fruit provides. In short, we must discipline ourselves to be thankful for low-hanging fruit but continue to press ourselves into a deeper explanation of our disciplines and of God’s revealed truth.
Dagger 2
The second “dagger” is a focus on pragmatic answers. There is some overlap here with the first dagger, in that often times the low-hanging fruit can be deployed in pragmatic ways, but the distinction is importance since the first is about discovery and the second about application. Pragmatic answers are necessary, because we should expect theologically informed work to yield impact, especially as Christians grapple with serving church and society. However, oftentimes pragmatism can encourage us to be satisfied with surface-level truths that seem convenient while ignoring deeper issues that are also informed by our theological understanding as Christians.
Let’s turn to two examples to flesh this out. Nursing, again, provides an example because the surface level of “nurses help people who are sick” can prevent students from grappling adequately with some of the deeper challenges of being a Christian in current health care systems. Questions of access and of provider conscience in relation to specific health care procedures are two wide fields of deep and challenging issues. We cannot allow pragmatic answers to prevent us from helping students grapple with some of these deeper faith-informed realities as well.
Another way that this dagger of pragmatism can prove challenging is when surface-level truths align with values our disciplines already find worthy. In short, we all want to belong, and so finding Christian reasons or values shared by our disciplines can be tempting. We can say, “Look, I’m a Christian, but I care about this too.” That is much easier than when our theological knowledge puts us at odds with disciplinary orthodoxy. As Nathan Hatch put this challenge many years ago,
“Like children long rejected, evangelical scholars are still too anxious to be accepted by their peers, too willing to move only in directions that allow them to be ‘relevant.’ The result is that we have been far more inclined to speak up when our Christian convictions are in tune with the assumptions of modern academic life than when they are at odds. It is much easier, for instance, to set oneself in the vanguard of social progress than it is to defend those Christian assumptions that the established and fashionable intellectual circles of our day regard as obscurantist and fanciful. Yet it is this tougher mental fight that we must not avoid.”[12]
Pressing beyond these two useful-but-tempting daggers can provide one route to resisting this tendency. Pressing beyond leads us to our “double-edged sword.”
The Double-Edged Sword
As we turn from these two useful-but-limited daggers, a word about “double-edged swords.” In common parlance, “double-edged sword” is often used as a metaphor for something that has both positive and negative sides, carrying something of the idea of, “Be careful as you use this good edge, so that you don’t get cut by the bad edge.” While I certainly can’t fight the battle of entirely reclaiming this phrase, this use isn’t the one that I’m after. A double-edged sword was a useful weapon not because one edge was helpful and the other not; instead, having a sword with two useful edges was far superior to a sword with only one. In our use here, then, let me make clear: a double-edged sword is a good thing, and when it comes to the work of theology and the academic disciplines, the work requires both edges to be done well!
The first edge of this sword is a simple Christian confession: Jesus Christ is Lord of all. We learn this from the Apostle Paul who reminds us of Christ’s lordship in Colossians 1:17, when he says that “by him all things hold together.” Instead of quoting this important verse and simply moving on, however, I want to point out a few things about Colossians 1. Verse 17 occurs right in the middle of a passage that was likely some sort of early Christian hymn, speaking of Christ’s divinity, Christ who is the image of God (v. 15), the Creator of the visible and invisible (v. 16), the head of the church (v. 18), the firstborn of the dead (v. 18), and the one in whom reconciliation happens (v. 20). Further, these verses themselves are nestled within a chapter in which Paul focuses on the redemption of people. It’s about salvation! The verse before this section (v. 14) speaks about redemption and the forgiveness of sins, and the verse after this section returns to the notion of redemption overcoming alienation (v. 21). When we only think about verse 17, we can miss how all of this exalted language about Jesus Christ flows from Paul’s pen as he writes about personal salvation. Thomas’ confession of “My Lord and My God” (John 20:28) is never far from or separated from “Christ is Lord of all” and “by him all things hold together.”
These pieces belong together! In the Christian academy, we can often be tempted to draw lines between “integration of faith and learning” in the classroom and various sorts of “university ministries.” Chapters like Colossians 1 remind us how foolish that distinction is. Christ holds all things together, even the personal-salvation pieces and the deep truths explored in academic disciplines.
This truth must form the first edge of how we engage with theology and the disciplines because we must expect to see ways our disciplines make this truth manifest and connect to the mission of God. If we believe Christ is Lord of all, then we should look expectantly for that evidence as we explore the created world through disciplinary lenses.
Further, the connection between “Christ is Lord of All” and “Jesus, My Lord and My God” means that for Christians, their work in specific disciplines is always connected to God’s work of sanctification. Our paths of sanctification and discipleship to this Lord are at least partially along the paths of the disciplines to which he has called us.
Not only should we cultivate this expectation in ourselves—the expectation to see how Christ is Lord of all, even in our disciplines—we must also cultivate it within our students. We can and must show them examples where we find them, but we must also admit that we ourselves are also always still on a journey of faith, finding and rejoicing at new ways of seeing the lordship of Christ. We can admit sometimes we miss it, and we can challenge our students to look for it in their own studies.
The second edge of this sword reminds us the reality of our stage in the biblical storyline; it reminds us that the Fall is real and its impact creeps into even surprising places. If creation itself waits and groans for redemption (Romans 8:19), then we should expect to hear those groans as we study creation. If sin divides us from our very selves, as Paul gets at in Romans 7, we should expect that even our reason, and the rationality of our disciplines, to experience the effects of the Fall.
A couple of implications emerge from this realization. Our disciplines are only properly situated within reality when they’re connected to this aspect of the biblical story, and when this aspect impacts our expectations. Further, we shouldn’t be surprised when our disciplines uncover brokenness, or when our disciplines themselves reach their limits and either leave us unsatisfied or begin to lead us astray. Indeed, if we ourselves begin to expect this reality, we can also help our students see this reality, to help them expect it, identify it, and respond well to it.
We need both edges of this double-edged sword, even if we find one “edge” more interesting or useful at certain times. Learning and learners, teachers and students, scholars and readers, exist and thrive within the story of God’s redemption. We must recognize two things: 1) that Jesus is Lord of all, and that includes our disciplines—and that means our disciplines will discover this lordship in unique ways—and 2) that evil and brokenness from the Fall seep into all things, including what our disciplines study, and including the methods we often seek to employ.
Conclusion: On Imagery
I’ve chosen some violent, battle-related imagery in this essay, focusing on daggers and a double-edged sword. For some, that might be uncomfortable. For others, it might be comforting— teaching at any level feels like a battle at times, inside and outside of the classroom. Other images make different aspects of teaching and learning, of faith and the disciplines, easier to see, and those images are needed. One excellent place to turn is David Smith’s and Susan Felch’s Teaching and Christian Imagination,[13] which usefully employs images of journeys and gardens.
I’ve found space for this battle imagery for several reasons. For one, journeys sometimes have bandits, and gardens this side of the Fall still have weeds! This battle imagery reminds us that the stakes are indeed high, and the work is not easy, or safe. This lack of safety will only become more true as disciplines insist on methodological standards that deny Christian truth and social stands that encourage hostility toward orthodox Christian belief and practice. Whatever imagery we find most helpful, we must invite our younger brothers and sisters, our students, into our disciplines in order to love God and love God’s world. We must do so in a way that enchants them with the True Story and equips them to be salt and light without sacrificing excellence in the field to which the Living God has called them. For whatever terminology we use to describe the task, or the imagery we use to animate it, our work must always be aimed at faithfully serving and guiding the students God has placed in each of our classrooms.
Questions for Reflection
1. How does your discipline’s view of the world help you see God’s truth better? How can you, in your discipline, effectively communicate that to the church?
2. Where do the truths of the Christian faith challenge your field? (Consider especially the presuppositions.) How does the gospel prepare you to challenge them in the classroom and in your scholarship?
[1] For more on this topic, see my book Faithful Learning: A Vision for Theologically Integrated Education (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2023).
[2] Michael Palmer, Elements of a Christian Worldview, 24; quoted in Strom, “What Is a Christian Worldview?” in Christian Worldview and the Academic Disciplines, eds. Deane Downey and Stanley Porter (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2009), 14.
[3] Michael Kearney, World View, 41; quoted in Strom, “What Is a Christian Worldview?” in Christian Worldview and the Academic Disciplines, 13.
[4] David Dockery, “Shaping a Christian Worldview,” in Shaping a Christian Worldview (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2002), 2.
[5] Ibid., 3.
[6] Smith, James K. A. 2009. Desiring the Kingdom : Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. Cultural Liturgies, V. 1. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic.
[7] Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), 23.
[8] Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2007), 146.
[9] Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries, 23.
[10] David I. Smith, “Faith, Practices, and Vocation: The Life of a Christian Scholar,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6LCL_Q9Kqw&feature=youtu.be (accessed October 19, 2023).
[11] John Webster, “What Makes Theology Theological?” in God without Measure I (New York T&T Clark, 2016 )., 213.
[12] Nathan Hatch, “Evangelical Colleges and Christian Thinking,” in Making Higher Education Christian: The History and Mission of Evangelical Colleges in America, eds. Joel Carpenter and Kenneth Shipps (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 166-167.
[13] David I. Smith and Susan M. Felch, Teaching and Christian Imagination (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016).
Jacob Shatzer
Associate Provost and Dean of Instruction, Associate Professor of Theological Studies | Union University
This essay was originally delivered as a plenary address at the 2023 IACE Faculty Development Conference.