GUEST EDITORIAL
The Kingdom of God possesses an odd economy of scale. That is, the very persons and events that one might expect to impact the world often do not, while other persons and events of seeming little interest leave a large wake. In the Kingdom, Jesus proclaims the virtues of a widow’s mite and a cold cup of water even as earthly kings and kingdoms are dismissed.A short while ago, several InterVarsity staff completed a highly informal, yet illuminating, survey.

Polling recent alumni from various Grad Christian Fellowships who had gained recent appointment to faculty posts, they asked something like, “What might our ministry have done to help prepare you for your current role and responsibility?” Again and again the response was, “We wish we had spent more time with Christian faculty.”

We are talking about the coming together of two persons: a faculty man or woman and a university student, each willing to devote a minimal amount of time, say an hour every week or two, for early breakfast or afternoon coffee. Naturally, the onus of responsibility for meeting is on both parties; however, it seems to me that the busy faculty person has a special role: to make their interest and time both known and available. To succeed, this meeting or sequence of meetings will need to be intentional. This generation is eager to witness an authentic life, a person who is working out what it means to be a follower of Jesus in the complicated, politicized, compartmentalized, post-Christian culture that is our dwelling place. There is a palpable hunger for such modeling.

Being one who passed clear through a graduate program never meeting another Christian, let alone a Christian mentor (though I earnestly sought one), I cannot even estimate what a difference the presence of such a person or persons might have meant. My abiding fear is that we — faculty, Christian workers and all the rest — have become so professionalized, so goal-driven, so product-oriented that we have edged out every minute of “hang- time” from our schedules. In doing so we sacrifice our opportunity to influence. Almost daily I find myself talking with colleagues about the next generation, about Christian strategies, transformations and priorities, weighing Reformed theologies over against Anabaptist ones, but all of this belongs to an empty set of conversations and speculations without person-to-person, incarnational investment. Mentoring is a critical investment to the longer view.

What I propose requires of us all the thing we hold most precious: our time. But how else and who else will mentor students in the ways, ideas, skills, goals, routines and honorable relationships that we have come to believe are so important? No, not a one of us has mastered it all. Not even close. But what if we were to share what we have learned — the fruit of trial and error and prayer in our lives? As the next generation benefits from this, will not God’s Spirit also underscore the gifts of His grace in our own lives? Since we are short on time, could it be that mentoring is compelling enough to rank as a higher priority than some of our present commitments? When I consider what my mentors have meant to my faith and personal development, my only response is a robust yes!

Cameron J. Anderson
Director, Graduate Student Ministry
canderson@ivcf.org

KEEPING UP
For years Steve Garber has been asking students to search themselves deeply, and the world around them. His recent book The Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving Together Belief and Behavior During the University Years, InterVarsity Press 1996, is a fruit of these years of work. It tells stories, relates studies and references the work of many thinkers to open the world of teaching to a Christian perspective. His deepest concern is that “typically the world of higher education is not a place where ideas and consequences are clearly connected, and so ‘the reality of the world’ has not yet been faced in all its fallen fury.” (p.15) “My study takes its place within a literature that ranges from sociology to psychology to educational theory to philosophy and theology.

The thesis amounts to this: the years between adolescence and adulthood are a crucible in which moral meaning is being formed, and central to that formation is a vision of integrity which coherently connects belief to behavior personally as well as publicly (chapter 1); The conditions of modern consciousness, especially as they’re manifest in a modern university, make it increasingly difficult for young people to come through these years with the habits of heart required to develop and sustain that kind of integrity. (chapters 2 & 3); The perspectives of the history of ideas, the ethic of character and the sociology of knowledge provide windows for understanding the challenge students face in forming a coherent life (chapter 4); and it is those who develop a world view that can address the challenge of coherence and truth in a pluralist society (chapter 5), who find a relationship with a mentor who incarnates that world view (chapter 6), and who choose to live their lives among others whose common life is an embodiment of that world view (chapter 7) who continue on with integrity into adulthood. Finally White Rose tells of students whose vision and virtues enable them to see into their own moment in history and to act with unusual courage in the face of one of the greatest horrors of the twentieth century (chapter 8).” (p.20-21) His concern is “how do we help students learn to connect what they believe about the world with how they live in the world?” (p.31)

One of his many references is to T.S. Elliot in his essay The Aims of Education. Garber comments, “Elliot’s point is that education, always and everywhere is about the deepest questions of life and the world. The great tragedy is that in the twentieth century, laboring under the myth of neutrality, education in the west attempts to offer a value-free answer to the questions ‘what is man?’ And ‘what is man for?’. Not only is it philosophically and pedagogically impossible to do so - which creates its own problems in terms of truthfulness about what is actually happening in education — but its fruit is Postman’s technocrat’s ideal: ‘A person with no commitment and no point of view but with plenty of marketable skills.’” (p.82)

He later points out “to settle for a split in one’s consciousness — the dichotomy between the private and the public - is to settle for two realities, a private world with no meaningful connection to the public world.” (p.103-104) A peculiarly apt challenge to us is found in his chapter heading quotation from Francis Schaeffer, “In an age of relativity the practice of truth when it is costly is the only way to cause the world to take seriously our protestations concerning truth.” (The God Who Is There) Garber helps us further by pointing out Augustine’s belief that “Teaching is incarnational at its heart” (p.136). This book will place your practice of teaching and how you work with your students in a new light - a Biblical light - and equip you with a new heart. I highly recommend it.

Alister McGrath gives me hope and a good serving of confidence. In his recent book A Passion For Truth: The Intellectual Coherence of Evangelicalism, InterVarsity Press 1996. (Yes I know it’s IVP and I’m InterVarsity, but believe me, I’m not just pushing IVP - they are turning out some good books these days!) McGrath is looking at the world of thought that confronts and surrounds us. Evangelicals are facing modernism and the “posts” — post-modernism, post-liberalism, plus religious pluralism. We may be tempted to faint! But McGrath shows how strong our position really is and how weak and inconsistent are the positions arrayed against us.

His chapter titles go from our own central beliefs to the attitudes of our opponents: Chapters
1- The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ,
2- The Authority of Scripture,
3- Evangelicalism and Post-Liberalism,
4- Evangelicalism and Post-Modernism,
5- Evangelicalism and Religious Pluralism.

He shows the ground of our arguments to be the “particularity of Christian revelation” (p.26). Trusting to which, frees us from going down with the sinking ship of foundationalism, i.e. a universal validity accorded to reason by the enlightenment. Our “authority is inherent in the person of Christ. . . . Evangelicalism is strongly counter-cultural at this point; in a western cultural context in which the right of individuals to create their own worlds is vigorously asserted, evangelicalism declares that it is a movement under the authority and sovereignty of Christ.”(p.30)

McGrath helpfully points out the strong difference between “reason“ and “rationalism”. The enlightenment mistakenly took reason to be the only source of the knowledge of God - thus converting reason into rationalism. “Rationalism is one thing, a rational faith is quite different.” (p.167) He traces the development of this dominant confusion in a brief but very useful passage in the chapter on the authority of scripture. McGrath describes how the prejudice against the miraculous rests upon rationalist presuppositions not on evidence or reason. Then he shows how much of Biblical criticism falls into this error and is thus rendered problematic or even useless. He also helps us to understand the role of doctrine and narrative in scripture thus helping us deal with some of the claims of the “post-liberal” movement.

In the chapter on post-modernism McGrath warns of the undermining of our Gospel presentations when we make them dependent on enlightenment assumptions. “Evangelicalism needs to allow its’ approach to evangelism to be re-shaped and fashioned by the New Testament, rather than the out-moded presuppositions of a now defunct enlightenment.” (p.176) He also helps us keep up the fight for the reality and the importance of truth. “Academic integrity and political responsibility alike demand a passionate commitment to discovering, telling and acting upon the truth. It is important to insist, not just that truth matters, but that Christianity is true.” (p.191)

Those who deny the reality of truth simply involve themselves in contradictions. For example he quotes Richard Rorty who asserts our own personal conventions determine what is truth - for us, then asks: “But if this approach is right, what justification could be given for opposing Nazism? or Stalinism? Rorty cannot give a justification for the moral or political rejection of totalitarianism, as he himself concedes” (p.197). His last chapter on the pressures today for religious pluralism and against the stand that Jesus is the only way to God is explicit and encouraging. In fact the whole book should give courage to us to humbly and lovingly stand for the truth of the Gospel, with passion and confidence. Read this - you’ll be much better equipped to be salt and light on campus.

MODELS OF MINISTRY: STARTING A "GRAD IV"
An interview with Dr. Brent Seales, Assistant Professor in Computer Science at the University of Kentucky. Brent was in a “grad IV” at UW-Madison and has been at Kentucky for six years.

FN: Why would a prof consider that starting a grad IV was important enough to justify the time / resource investment?

Prof. Seales: Time management is essential in order to wear all the hats owned by a faculty member. It would be easy to fill a schedule with only research, or just teaching alone. But almost everyone in the university community agrees that “service” is part of our charter. Professors as teachers also agree that mentoring students, which usually goes beyond what is taught in the classroom, is also part of our mission. And most importantly, we as believers agree that our core faith principles should be integrated into all aspects of our lives, including the university duties of research, teaching, mentoring and service. Involvement with graduate student ministries is a serious time and resource investment that is absolutely in line with our mission as university faculty and believers.

FN: How does one get ideas, info about what a grad student fellowship might look like? Is there any help available to get one going? How, who, and what gets it going?

Prof. Seales: There are more and more grad student fellowship alumni who have moved into faculty and staff positions. They represent a valuable resource because of their direct experience. I have found the conferences hosted by InterVarsity to be very valuable for exchanging ideas, finding resource material and locating people who are experienced with grad student ministries.InterVarsity staff who work with undergraduates often have contact with graduate students. This can form into a core of graduate students who are interested in exploring the issues and concerns of being in the university for post-graduate work. This is how the group at the University of Kentucky was formed. Every student group needs a faculty sponsor, and the resources and knowledge that a committed professor can bring to a new group is enormous. Students key in on this kind of initiative and implicitly understand that important things are involved. My experience is that students will more readily follow the example set by faculty when they see them continue to commit time and resources to ministry even when other responsibilities are substantial.

FN: What does it do for you once it’s there? What does it do for the students, for the church? Does it help or hinder their performance as grad students?

Prof. Seales: Graduate student fellowships provide a powerful mechanism for mentoring students in faith and profession, and forces faculty who are involved to articulate their own mission more clearly. In particular, it is all too easy to get lost in the details of professorial duties, forgetting or intentionally boxing out our faith principles. Graduate student ministries present us with the challenge of making our faith real and integrating it with our respective work.The local church is enriched when graduate students bring to it the diversity and intensity of the university. Many church members have no contact with the university other than through its students, and it is important for them to see the trends and struggles that students face.Performance as graduate students, professors, or anything else is absolutely dependent upon the grace of God. He expects us as believers to make Him Lord of every aspect of our lives. God is the ultimate performance enhancer. Our individual faith journeys will entail different commitments and directions, but the elements of personal devotion to God and regular worship within a body of believers are essential. They do not hinder any aspect of what God has called us to do.

FN: Thank you Brent.

Readers can contact Dr. Seales via his home page. www.dcs.uky.edu/~seales

InterVarsity has graduate Christian fellowships in approximately eighty university campuses in the United States, served by some fifty InterVarsity graduate campus staff. If you are teaching graduate students and would like to help them form a fellowship, [please be in touch with us; see the Contact page for full information].