The other day I was at Gordon College to hear a talk given by Dallas Willard, professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. The subject, generally, was the state of evangelicalism today. Dr. Willard addressed the issue of postmodernism for evangelicals today, suggesting that (1) we have yet to truly see where postmodernists will go with their ideas (few, if any, are really saying anything new, historically speaking) and (2) Christians have an opportunity and an obligation to engage them at their own game, that is, with strong scholarship within the academy.
He said that he is seeing in his evangelical students at USC (and I assume that this is not particularly unique to the Trojans) an increasing desire to pursue scholarship with excellence. He is seeing more and more young men and women who believe that their calling as Jesus' disciples does not preclude them from becoming excellent scientists or philosophers or writers or anything other scholarly endeavor. His excitement for this prospect is one that I share.
And yet, Dr. Willard warned, these same students that seem so promising on one level simultaneously faced a rather precarious prospect. Many of those students, he is sure, will inevitably face hardship in their academic careers (or professional careers, for that matter). When they do, he asked, will they have the strength of character, rooted in Christ, to persevere through those temporal hardships? Will they recognize that a life in Christ is not necessarily about earning the greatest possible level of success in a chosen field? Or will they succumb to the pressures of the world that advises us to lie and cheat from time to time so that we can obtain a greater degree of influence "for Christ"? It's a good question.
The hallmark of evangelicalism, according to Dr. Willard's talk, is that we've always professed the possibility of a real, experiential relationship with God. We believe that's what the Bible offers through Jesus and many (I would hope all) of us would be able to describe our own relationships with the Divine in much the same way that we might describe our relationship with our spouses or best friends or colleagues. We have, from the start, differentiated ourselves from other brands of religion as a relationship that fundamentally changes our lives, from the inside out. We profess a connection with God that makes us into people with divine characters. The problem, he states, is that when the world has looked at much of our evangelical leadership lately, they have not seen the evidence of that transformed life (we could cite the fairly recent disclosures of a former leader of the National Association of Evangelicals).
That's the point: we can be the best scholars that we were created to be. We can pursue learning with as much vigor and ability that we've been given. And we should, to God's glory. And yet, if we have not the ever-transforming character of a true disciple of Christ, all our scholarship will reflect a life that is no more God-saturated than our neighbors who work hard with no regard for Jesus. One way or another, our lights are shining before humankind. The question is, what are we projecting through that light?
