a conference for
graduate students,
faculty, and
professionals

Pursuing Virtues as Academics and as Christians
An Introduction

by Bob and Debbie Clark

[T]he fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

· Gal. 5:22-25

It's not always easy to see how the exhortations of the apostle Paul to young churches in the ancient Mediterranean world are relevant to followers of Jesus Christ in the academy of the twenty-first century. Nevertheless, a few of us at the University of Kansas, who are trying to be faithful followers of The Way (as those ancient Christian fellowships called it), have been thinking a great deal in recent months about issues that Paul raises about living as Christians in the real world. We've found that our community — like those young churches 20 centuries ago — is just the place for pursuing virtues.

Building on our participation in InterVarsity's Graduate Student and Faculty Fellowship at the University of Kansas, we formed a discussion group that began with two books: James Sire's Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling and Paul L. Holmer's Making Christian Sense. These texts stirred our curiosity, spurring us to think about "intellectual virtues" (as Sire puts it) and to follow through on Holmer's discussion of "capacities." We wanted to take our reading a step further, to participate more deeply in the conversation — and so our reading group has turned into a writing group.

Sire rightly notes that "nothing is more practical and more abstract at the same time than the virtues" (108). In other words, virtues are not merely ideas; they represent the capability to be a person of moral character and to put that character into practice. What's more, that practice consists not merely of doing right in particular instances. It reflects a life that makes sense in its wholeness — faithfully living out of a solid center of identity and purpose that informs each discrete decision. It is a life which has been trained (disciplined, discipled) in a particular grammar of living that finds its grounding in a community and tradition. In our case, we are part of the broader Christian community and of our local KU academic and Christian communities.

The essays in this series will derive from our grappling with the particular question of what a virtuous Christian community in the academic communities of eastern Kansas might look and act like. We've learned several things through our reading and writing discussions. First, in talking about virtues we are dealing with a matter that most certainly is "located" at the heart of who we are, whether it is labeled character, capacity, or disposition. The matter of virtue lies near the core of our very being and defines who we are. Second, because of their practical nature, virtues depend upon (even demand) a social context. The virtues do not finally come into being until they are practiced in public.

This venture has proven risky. A group of us had to be willing to get together and speak forthrightly about our lives, situations, and struggles. Not only that, but we then had to commit some of those ideas to print and to the scrutiny of our peers — and now of you, our readers. Some of us are graduate students, some are faculty, and some have gone on into the wider world. We represent various areas of academic study, different stages of professional accomplishment, and an amazing array of church affiliations. We learned much about ourselves and about each other. But we think we've learned something, too, about how to pursue Christian virtues in the academy.

In order to put together this collection of articles, we have met regularly to read, discuss, and reshape our writing. The specific virtues we have chosen to write about come from ideas mentioned in Sire's and Holmer's books, from classic lists of the virtues (theological and cardinal), and from among those mentioned in Scripture (see, for instance, Phil. 2:1-5, Col. 3:12-15, Gal. 5:22-26, and Rom. 12:1-2 and 9-13).

Throughout 2002, we plan to contribute about twelve essays in the "Pursuing Virtues" series for FollowingChrist.org. We trust that the feedback and interaction during that time will not be merely an intellectual exercise. We hope that this endeavor will be a profitable one for all of us as we read, reflect, and converse with one another. May we continue to be transformed in character by this aspect of our common life, the grace of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit. In that spirit and to that end, we offer them to you. 

Bob and Debbie Clark serve as team leaders for InterVarsity Graduate & Faculty Ministries in Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa and live in Lawrence, Kansas, with their remarkable son, Peter.

Essays in the "Pursuing Virtues" series:

Welcoming the Unknown: Hospitality for Academics, by Elizabeth M. Topp

Perseverance, Calling, and the Path to Virtue, by Carey Johnson

Out of the Box: A Conversation on Courage, by Kerri Anderson

 

Members of the Kansas Virtues Writing Project, 2002.