GUEST EDITORIAL: CLIFF BAJEMA, MADISON, WI
Band of Gideon

All praise be to Midian,
high priesthood of learning!
Its droves of wise scholars
are like sands of Mendota;
its camels of science
place the landscape in ambush,
surround all instruction,
and pillage as looters,
every green sprout of faith,
each grain of belief.

Disciples of Yahweh,
who once were the stewards,
who planted the seedlings
and reaped the first harvest
while trodding the wine press
of learning most freely,
must now cower mutely
in their lofty church towers
and somewhat-safe pews
on the fringes of schools.

Such is the judgment
of God when His people
divide the true homage
of their head and their psyche:
giving soul to believing,
to prayer and aspiring,
yielding mind to dry logic,
research, earthly baalim,
supplying in effect
their own daily bread.

Is there somewhere a Gideon,
quite powerless, renownless,
an incorrect weakling
who can blow the loud trumpet
and kindle the torchlight
and raise the clear challenge
of faith and of triumph
which shatters like vases
self-assurance of foe,
and sends him in flight?

Little band known as Gideon,
be girded with courage!
for the priesthood of Midian
will fall from their bases.
Though their schools like the locusts
now blanket the region,
and their judgments of reason
declare faith out of season,
the Lord gives the land
into your praying hand!

'Tis the weakest of peoples
who disable the mighty.
For these God has chosen--
the despised and the broken--
to turn into naught
the things that are prized.

KEEPING UP
Mark Noll has recently presented Christians in academe and in the church with a powerful picture of where we evangelicals are in today's world. Noll's book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Eerdmans 1994) is for you and me who "live and move and have our being" in the world of higher education. It is a very helpful explanation of the striking phenomenon that I see on every campus I visit. There are many times more evangelical or orthodox believers on faculties than at any time in the past 30 or more years, but their presence is often all but undetectable in most cases. I don't mean in ads in student newspapers but in scholarship and in teaching.

Noll says, "The much more important matter is what it means to think like a Christian about the nature and workings of the physical world, the character of human social structures like government and the economy, the meaning of the past, the nature of artistic creation, and the circumstances attending our perception of the world outside ourselves. Failure to exercise the mind for Christ in these areas has become acute in the twentieth century. That failure is the scandal of the evangelical mind." (pg. 7) and "on any given Sunday in the United States and Canada, a majority of those who attend church hold evangelical beliefs and follow norms of evangelical practice, yet in neither country do these great numbers of practicing evangelicals appear to play significant roles in either nation's intellectual life." (pg. 10)

That is the fact. The explanation? ". . .the evangelical ethos is activistic, populist, pragmatic, and utilitarian. It allows little space for broader or deeper intellectual effort because it is dominated by the urgencies of the moment." (pg. 12) Not our genes but our evangelical sub-culture and its habits are the creators of this sorry state. Noll warns "For Christian thinking about the world, the key question is what happens to a community when it tries to work out a Christian orientation to, say, the conundrums of modern nuclear physics,to the complexities of health care reform, to the meaning of traditional principals for a pluralistic society, to the interpretation of classic texts, to efforts at evaluating Communism in the twentieth century, to the issue of how music reinforces or subverts traditional morality, to the debate over which books should be assigned as the literary canon --that is, to the whole range of modern questions in which it is absolutely essential to exercise sensitivity concerning the interpreter's stance over against the data being interpreted, self-criticism about the way pre-commitments influence conclusions, and critical awareness of the symbiotic connections between methods and results. If that community's habits of mind concerning those things to which the community pays most diligent attention and accords highest authority--that is, to the Bible and Christian theology --are defined by naive and uncritical assumptions about the way to study or think about anything, so will its efforts to promote Christian thinking about the world be marked by naivete and an absence of rigorous criticism." (pg. 130)

Believing scientists in particular are to be found on every campus but to what affect? His analysis is ". . .to be an evangelical scientist has been to hold a vocational rather than an intellectual position. With some notable exceptions, the way for most evangelical scientists to get along was to go along in silence about the contested, highly controversial theoretical issues that dominated scientific discussion in the evangelical movement. The result has been a catastrophe for scientific thinking among evangelicals." (pg. 178)

Noll shows how our unique history from colonial days up through the 1950's has formed us to be ill equipped und poorly motivated to be the salt und light our world of higher learning needs. But he ends on a note of wonderful hope. The cross of Christ has conquered sin and death. If we follow in His train, change can come. The way forward? "The Gospel of John tells us that the Word who was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of a glorious grace and truth, was also the Word through whom all things--all phenomena in nature, all capacities for fruitful human interaction, all the kinds of beauty--were made. To honor that Word as he deserves to be honored, evangelicals must know both Christ and what he has made." (pg. 253)

MODELS OF MINISTRY
This is part of a conversation with a former InterVarsity campus staff member who is now a missionary in Asia teaching university level English. It gives some idea of how an American faculty person can serve in another country, both helping educationally and with the Gospel.

The full transcript is available upon request. (No personal or place names are used to protect the on-going ministry of this faculty member.)

Q: What kind of ministry ability is most needed for a faculty member to bring to the country you work in?

A: A deep knowledge of scripture and relational skills are essential for effective ministry. In predominantly non-Christian areas a faculty member needs skills in friendship evangelism and one to one discipleship. Outreach and witness are almost exclusively through personal relationships.

Q: What would such a person say to his fellow faculty who said, "Why did you come over here?"

A: Our country is in a unique situation right now because there is still a high degree of religious tolerance. Our official government papers say that we are here under a Christian organization. So if asked why I have come, I reply, "I work for an organization that is interested in assisting educational development in developing nations. They have placed me here as part of a partnership with this university."

Q: Can one make a real contribution, help raise educational levels, make the universities more effective?

A: Definitely! There are a vast number of ways to contribute to making universities here more effective. The important thing is that you are willing to operate at the level of your institution and make your contributions slowly and humbly.

I remember one high level Swiss physicist from our team. When he was looking for physics books in the library he discovered that the entire library collection was organized alphabetically according to title. There was no subject or author catalogue in fact, no catalogue at all. The only way to find a book was to read the stacks. He and his wife quietly got next to the librurian. They were able, very gently and over a period of time, to suggest ways to reorganize the library which made the books more accessible, without embarrassing the librarian by emphasizing her lack of knowledge or skills.

Other faculty members on our team have designed lab manuals, written text books, designed curriculum, trained junior lecturers, advised thesis students and have made many other contributions. In my own department I was able to initiate a theater program, help in library acquisition, write syllabi for several courses, and contribute to faculty development projects. Once you're accepted there is much you can do but initially you have to earn the right to be heard and not to come in as a pompous know-it-all which would put people off.

Q: How about academic support? Do you find, for instance, in English teaching that you and your students have adequate library resources etc?

A: Resources will vary from university to university, but in my country they are generally way behind American universities. Our English department library, for instance, may have about ten thousand volumes. The important government universities acquire equipment and books from a variety of inter-governmental programs. Small private universities, like the one where I teach, have higher fees and therefore have some funds for equipping libraries and laboratories. In the universities in the provinces, you may find little in the way of any resources to support academic programs.

Q: How about spiritual support for a person who goes out? Is it adequate?

A: That would depend on where you are. I think the InterVarsity- like movement in our country has a fairly good network within the major state universities plus some private universities. So you might find someone trained through the student movement in the university community or you might find a small Christian fellowship group.

There ure usually Christians in any university, but they may be merely nominal Christians with little understanding of the Christian life or desire to witness. Our missionary faculty try to identify the Christians, looking for the potential to be trained in Christian discipleship. At the same time they are careful not to make their activities with Christians too visible because they want to build bridges of friendship to non- Christians. Most communities have a church, and, if the faculty member confesses to being a Christian, it would be acceptable, in fact expected, for him to attend church.

By going out under the umbrella of a Christian organization, the faculty member has the support of that organization within his country of service plus the support of the Christian community at home. This kind of support from like-minded people is essential for faculty members who are working overseas with the goal of witnessing for Christ.

Q: If an American professor would like to do this on a short term basis, can they be of any use without learning the local language?

A: You could be of use academically but I doubt if you would be of use spiritually. What you want is relationships and most of these people are not terribly fluent in English. Particulurly if you qo to some of the less prestigious schools. The faculty at the main government universities almost all have Ph.D's from overseas so you wouldn't have trouble there with English only. However you would if you went to some of the second level type of universities.

Q: Would you say there is still a strong need for Christian faculty in Asia?

A: Absolutety! Universities in several countries have requested faculty from a variety of academic disciplines. It is difficult to say how long these openings will exist. We are eager to see a number of Christian faculty join our team in the near future.