Читать книгу The Outrageous Idea of the Missional Professor - Paul M. Gould - Страница 9

“Once upon a time there was an ant. The ant walked onto the road. The ant got run over by a car. The end.”8

“Ivan Illich was once asked what is the most revolutionary way to change society. Is it violent revolution or is it gradual reform? He gave a careful answer. Neither. If you want to change society, then you must tell an alternative story.”9

I’ve been telling the same story to my kids for years. It always begins with the grand words, “Once upon a time, there were four kids”—I then point to each one—“Austin, Maddy, Travis, and Joshua. They were the Gould kids. One day . . .” And then I launch into my story. The basic structure is composed of four parts. In act 1, the kids are on some adventure—riding horses, exploring a cave, swimming under a waterfall, traveling through a spacetime hole into a parallel universe or hiking in another world (favorites include Narnia, Middle Earth and Perelandra). But then, Billy Bob Thornton and the Bad Guys sneak up on our kids (I don’t know where or how I thought up the name of the bad guys; my apologies to the real Billy Bob Thornton) and try to capture them.

For years now, Billy Bob Thornton and the Bad Guys have been after my kids. A chase ensues (let’s call this part of the story act 2). Then a fight. But always, the Gould kids prevail against the scoundrels. In almost all of my stories, my kids have a few super hero-like powers—they ride horses like the wind, they shoot special cables from their arms (or cable guns) or swing up among the trees like Tarzan. They are expert fighters and always smarter than their opponents. The story at this point often involves things like mud bombs, slimy maple syrup, and the eventual tying up of Billy Bob Thornton and the Bad Guys. Call the flight and fight scenes act 3.

The final act, act 4, involves Billy Bob Thorton and the Bad Guys being dragged to the police station and put in jail. Usually there is a discovery of some great treasure (Revolutionary War guns stashed in a chest behind a waterfall, gold in another world, an ancient relic of some kind) and, on a few fortunate occasions, the parents (Ethel and I) arrive on the family jet (of course) and see the kids’ handiwork.

This is the basic structure of the story I have been telling our kids for years. They love to hear Billy Bob stories. Whenever we visit a new place or meet some new friends, I’ll work the scene or people into the story. It doesn’t matter where we are—sitting around a campfire on a beautiful summer night or snuggling in bed on a lazy Saturday morning—the kids are always up for a Billy Bob story. Our kids love stories. Even more, they love to be part of the story—the heroes, the good guys, the main actors—in a world of drama, intrigue, real violence, and real hope where the good guys always win (my kids!) and the bad guys always lose.

Have you ever wondered why we are so drawn to stories? Not just kids, but young and old alike? One reason is that stories invite participation. We are created for drama. I believe God made us to live a dramatic—a significant and storied—life. This is why we are drawn to story. Stories pull us out of ourselves and into a larger universe—stretching our imagination and awakening within us a desire for greatness.

Another reason we are drawn to stories is that they reveal. Stories help us get to know each other. They reveal something about the storyteller. Think about it: when two people go on a first date, they don’t pull out a list of facts (or CV’s) and begin to share them with each other, do they? No, they tell stories to get to know each other. Stories reveal things to us and about us in a way that nothing else can.10

Stories are important. I suggest that we think about the Bible as a story as well. The greatest story ever told. In fact, it is the story, the one true story about the world. And like any good story, it invites us to participation and it reveals. The Bible invites us to locate our lives and find meaning and purpose within its over-arching story. And the Bible reveals a loving, powerful, good God and a God-bathed world.

Act 1 in the biblical story begins with God and his creative activity. He creates a habitat and then he inhabits the habitat with creatures small and great including one being—man—created in the image of God himself. Act 2 is the fall of man. Man tries to live life apart from God and the results are truly catastrophic. In acts 3 and 4 we learn of God’s rescue mission to redeem and restore all of creation. This is the great story of God: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.

But the biblical story isn’t the only story competing for your allegiance and inviting your participation. There are also the dominant stories of Western culture, what the philosopher Alvin Plantinga calls perennial naturalism and creative anti-realism.11 Perennial naturalism is the grand story of the scientific worldview. In this story, there is no non-natural reality, the fundamental problem in life is one of ignorance, and the way to “salvation,” usually understood as mastery over nature, is through progress, a progress made possible by means of technology and science.12 All of reality can be understood, and will one day be unified, through science (M-theory, according to the latest suggestion), and our lives (even though determined) need to somehow be made meaningful in a cold, purposeless universe. Creative anti-realism is just the story of postmodernism (at its most extreme). In this story, man’s fundamental problem is oppression, and “salvation” is found in self-expression. There is no one over-arching story that explains and unifies all of reality; instead there are little “stories” or “narratives” that give meaning to various individuals or groups of individuals.13

So, there is a three-way battle between Christian monotheism, naturalism, and postmodernism. Each story competes for our allegiance. Each story invites participation. Each story invites us to locate our lives and find meaning within its purview. It’s easy, if we are not careful, to confess allegiance to the biblical story all the while participating in the naturalistic or postmodern story. Faithfulness to Christ in this day and age requires wisdom, a vision for wholeness, and an understanding of the great story of God so that our lives can be integrated and find meaning within it. In this chapter we’ll explore in greater depth the biblical story and draw out some implications for Christian scholars and Christian scholarship in light of this great story of God.

Creation: The God Who Is There and Acts

Recall that the first scene in the biblical story is creation. The biblical drama begins with five important words that shape all that follows: “In the beginning God created” (Gen 1:1). The first thing God does is create a place: “the heavens and the earth.” But God didn’t stop there. Next he creates a people: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27).14 And finally, God gave his people a purpose: “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground’” (Gen 1:28). As God beheld his work he proclaimed it good: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen 1:31).

In this opening scene of the biblical story, we learn about God and man. For example, there is one God, not many gods as some of the other creation stories from this time teach, God is before/apart from creation (i.e., God is transcendent), and the creator of all reality distinct from himself. In fact, the phrase “heaven and earth” is meant by the biblical writer to encompass all reality distinct from God: God is creator; all else is creature. Thus, God is sovereign: everything depends on God and God doesn’t depend on anything. God alone exists a se (is self-existent); everything else exists ab alio (through another). Further, we learn in Scripture that this creator God is not absent from the world; rather his presence fills the universe. We live in a God-bathed universe (i.e., God is immanent). As Paul proclaims in Acts, “For in him we live and move and have our being” (17:28). Finally, God is orderly and purposeful (not capricious, random). Listen to the poetic cadence, repeated over and over in the creation account in Genesis: “And God said” . . . “and there was” . . . “God saw that it was good.” God has called into being an ordered world—a world full of promise, potentiality, purpose, and design. As Augustine cries out when considering a newborn infant, “you give distinct form to all things and by your law impose order on everything.”15

As we read the creation account in Genesis chapter one, we settle into this rhythmic cadence (noted above) until we arrive in verse 26 at day six. The rhythmic cadence is broken: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (1:26). Something new is taking place, something unique. Plants and animals were made “according to their kinds,” but God made humans according to his own kind (his likeness or image). We are like God, and on earth we represent God. As C. S. Lewis once stated, “there are no ordinary people.”16 Because we are created in God’s image, each person has great dignity. Each human being is literally priceless, so beyond worth that a monetary value cannot be placed on him or her.

Moreover, God created man for a twofold purpose (as seen in Gen 1:28): (1) to protect what has been given, and (2) to be fruitful and multiply. This two-fold purpose only makes sense in light of the fact that man is created in God’s image. Why are we to protect what has been given? Answer: as God’s image bearers, our rule over the earth should parallel or reflect God’s rule over us. Our part in the creation story is to care for the earth and all that is in it: its people, its cultures, and its animals. We are called by God to be stewards of the created order in ways that embody God’s own care and delight in the created order. Why are we to be fruitful and multiply? Does God just want us to multiply like rabbits for the sake of numbers? No, it is because we alone are image bearers. We alone reflect the glory of God, and God wants his glory to be multiplied. As we fulfill this God-given purpose and reflect his glory, we extend the image of God, and hence his glory, throughout all the earth. As John Piper states, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”17 Part of our God-given purpose in life is to extend the reach of worshipers throughout all of creation, so that all people give God glory.

It is important to understand that the first humans did not come into the world flawed. Rather, the first humans originally experienced life as it was meant to be. The Garden of Eden was literally a garden of delights. The biblical world for this wholeness that God intends for us is shalom. As Cornelius Plantinga states,

Shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight—a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be (italics added).18

We were created to flourish. God wants us to function properly. And the creation account gives us a picture of what human flourishing—shalom—looks like: intimacy with God, harmony with self, others, and the created order as we live out our God-given purposes.

God is there and God acts. This creation account is incredibly subversive with respect to the two other dominant stories of the west. Naturalism tells us that there is no God and man is the product of blind evolutionary forces. Postmodernism says there is no ready-made world. There is no way things are supposed to be, or if there is, we can’t know it. Both views present a God-absented world.

What are the implications of the creation story for the Christian scholar? First, because God is creator of all things, all things (including all things known) somehow point to and illuminate the divine. And since knowledge of God is an intrinsic good, in fact the noblest, greatest good of all, then theoretical knowledge is intrinsically good and worthwhile as well. As John Henry Newman, writing in 1873 states:

God “has so implicated Himself with [the creation], and taken it into His very bosom, by His presence in it, His providence over it, His impressions upon it, and His influence through it, that we cannot truly or fully contemplate it without in some aspects contemplating Him.”19

As a scholar, patiently look for these connections between the object of your study and God. As a scientist, look for the hand of God in the molecule, in the laws of motion, in the rhythm of a hummingbird’s flutter. In literature, listen to the voice of God through the text: How does Jane Austin’s Mr. Darcy reflect the heart of God? What does Dante’s Inferno or The Divine Comedy teach us about the justice of God? Maybe the connections aren’t always so obvious, but they are there. Go find them and then proclaim them in ways appropriate to your discipline.

Since all knowledge can illuminate the divine, it follows that the pursuit of knowledge is intrinsically worthwhile and valuable. In today’s market-driven culture, the university is struggling to justify its existence in any terms other than productivity, efficiency, and usefulness.20 But if the pursuit of theoretical knowledge is justified solely based on some non-cognitive benefit, then large parts of the university (most notably the humanities) will continue to struggle to justify their existence. In the biblical account and its shalomic view that all reality is rightly ordered, theoretical and (so-called) practical knowledge are both intrinsically valuable—illuminating the divine and fulfilling human purposes.21

Second, since God is the creator, human life is inherently religious and communal. We have been created by God to respond to him, to love him, to worship him, to delight in him and to enjoy him. Thus, at its core, human life is inherently religious. All of human life is lived in response to God in either communion or rebellion. Further, as image-bearers of the triune God, we are essentially communal. We were created to live in community with God and with others. Recall Genesis 1:31: all that God made was proclaimed “very good.” But then, in Genesis chapter 2, we find these startling words: “It is not good for man to be alone” (2:18). Think about this for a moment. Adam had the Garden of Eden; he had a guilt-free, shameless relationship with the God of the universe, yet he was lonely. The point is this. We need each other. It is not just, “Jesus is my personal friend and I don’t need anyone else.” Don’t let your ability to thrive on solitude as a scholar result in isolation both inside and outside the academy.22 We need the community to thrive; it is how we have been hardwired.

The final implication is related to the second: since man is inherently religious, there is no such thing as neutrality. Recall Paul’s speech to the Areopagus in Acts 17. His entry point with the Athenians was his observation that they were very religious. We can rephrase this statement by observing that in the academy, there is no such thing as neutrality. Every discipline has its own control beliefs, faith presuppositions, and axioms (we’ll talk more about this in chapter 8). Part of our job as scholars is to understand and expose the faith commitments of each academic discipline so that we can advocate an alternative picture of reality (where needed) based on the biblical vision of reality.

The Fall: Violation of Shalom

Act 2 of the biblical story is the fall of humanity. Things are no longer the way they are supposed to be. Shalom has been violated. Sin, suffering and death have entered the world. It doesn’t take much to convince us that something is not right. When we come face to face with evil—embodied either in a terrorist flying a hijacked plane into a building or an earthquake that devastates an entire nation—we have this sense in our gut that this isn’t the way the world is supposed to be. Daily we read of wars, famine, disease, disaster, injustice, slavery, genocide, rape, and murder. Time spent researching a topic doesn’t always bear fruit (e.g., in the form of a publishable article). Tenure isn’t always awarded. The prestigious position or hoped-for research money doesn’t materialize. Marriages struggle. Friendships grow cold. Children rebel. Our own hearts are often far from God. This is not the way the world is supposed to be. So, what exactly happened?

As Genesis chapter three opens, the question facing the first couple is, will they fulfill the purpose for which they were made? The answer is a resounding no. God tells Adam and Eve that they should not eat of one tree and that doing so results in death. The scene introduces another character, Satan, in the form of a snake. Satan’s strategy is to deceive Adam and Eve by first undercutting God’s authority (“You will not surely die,” Gen 3:4) and then God’s goodness (“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil,” Gen 3:5). Adam and Eve decide to try to meet their needs in their own way, instead of following God, and “fall” from the shalomic state of wholeness, delight, and grace. Because of sin, man no longer enjoys relationship with God, but rather is alienated from him; because of sin, man no longer enjoys harmony with others, but experiences strife and murder; because of sin, man no longer enjoys harmony with the created order, but encounters disasters and dangers at every turn. Because of Adam and Eve’s original sin, all of humanity is damaged, born into the world in a state of alienation from God and others. Sin defiles every inch of creation. It corrupts our inner lives, our relationships, our work and play, even our rest. We are no longer whole because of the wickedness in our hearts and the injustice of our actions.

There are at least two implications related to the fall for the Christian scholar. First, the received role of the academic is a fallen role; not fallen full stop, but nonetheless fallen.23 As a university professor, God and man are served. But just as the businessperson does not enter into the profession and uncritically play the received role of the businessperson, so too the Christian academic ought not to enter the academy and uncritically play the received role of the academician. As Nicholas Wolterstorff states, “To serve God faithfully and to serve humanity effectively, one has to critique the received role and do what one can to alter the script.”24 There is no aspect of the university untainted by the fallenness of humanity. The values, norms, and culture of an academic department or discipline are shaped by fallen humans and thus by the dominant stories they embody.

Second, people tend to deny culpable sin and thus misdiagnose the core human problem and solution. In our society, there is room for evil, i.e., bad things that happen to people. But sin, understood as an affront to a holy God, is rarely acknowledged. Hence, the solution to man’s problems can be found in education and technology (according to the naturalistic story) or in expression and giving voice to individual causes (in the postmodern story) instead of in repentance and trust in a gracious and personal God. Without culpable sin, there is no need for a Savior. Without an understanding of shalom in terms of a relationship with God (as well as its other dimensions), there is no need to seek forgiveness and restoration. As Christian scholars, we can help, in winsome and appropriate ways, to show how the strife, dissent, and pluralism so characteristic of the academy is ultimately due to the fallenness of man against a personal God.

Redemption: The Coming of the King

From Genesis 12 to Revelation 20, we read about a God on a rescue mission to redeem the enslaved, to save the lost. God calls Abraham to be a blessing to all nations (Gen 12:1–3). Sub-themes and individual scenes in God’s redemptive story include the exodus, the nation of Israel, the giving of the Law, monarchy, exile and return, and the prophets. Each event and sub-theme within the Old Testament weaves together a tapestry of the sovereignty and grace of God in the life of his people and sets the stage for the climax of God’s rescue mission. The climax is the coming of Christ. In the incarnation, God himself takes on a human nature and enters the created order. Think about this for a moment. It would be like the author of a book taking on the nature of one of its characters and entering into the story—Lewis going to Narnia (as a talking animal, surely) or Tolkien going to Middle Earth (as a Hobbit, undoubtedly).

Motivated by love, God sends Jesus: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world” (1 John 4:9a). The “good news” is that humanity can be redeemed and shalom can be restored through forgiveness of sins in Christ. “God . . . sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Man (and ultimately all of creation) is redeemed from all the consequences of sin: death, alienation, disintegration, and slavery to his passions. This is how love invaded our planet. This is how the revolution of the human heart began. And this is the great revolution in which God invites our participation.

Further, from Jesus’ opening words (in Matt 4:17–19) to his last words (in Acts 1:8), the progress of the gospel, this good news about the Kingdom of God, was foremost on his mind. God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, that through him and his descendents all the nations of the earth would be blessed, finds its fulfillment in Christ. The mechanism, the thing that makes the gospel work, is the death and resurrection of Christ. As Paul states in 1 Corinthians 15:17, “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” After his work on earth was done, Jesus went back to the Father, promising to send a helper, the Holy Spirit, who will give his followers power to proclaim the good news to others (see John 14:26 and Acts 1:8). Thus Jesus inaugurates the present age by commissioning his followers as “sent ones” as well: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21). Jesus will return to finish what he has started; the Kingdom in all its fullness will one day be revealed.

Christians today find themselves living “between the times” of the first and second coming of Christ. This period is sometimes called “the last days” (2 Tim 3:1) and is also called “the age of the spirit” and “the church age.” Moreover, it is the intersection of two ages—the present age and the age to come (both talked about in Matt 12:32). The Kingdom of God is already among us, but it is not yet fully consummated. The question naturally arises, why the delay? Why didn’t Jesus inaugurate his Kingdom in all its fullness and power at his first coming? Or, why doesn’t Jesus return sooner and perfect the Kingdom? The answer is that God has deliberately delayed the return of Jesus so that more people have the chance to hear the gospel and repent before it is too late. In short, we live in an age of gospel proclamation. The followers of Jesus, as apprentices of Jesus, proclaim the good news of the forgiveness of sins in Christ to the world and embody the message in life and action.25 We have been redeemed to be a witness for Christ, to flourish in light of our nature, to embrace the scandal of grace. The question before us then is this: Is it possible to be a faithful follower of Jesus without thinking about or living out one’s life in terms of advancing the gospel? The answer is no. Part of our task as Christian scholars is to join with God in the process of redeeming souls and ushering in, together with the church, shalom and blessing to all the earth.

There are at least two implications for the Christian scholar with respect to the redemption of Christ. First, Jesus’ mission must be ours as well. Just as Jesus was sent by the Father, so too we are sent by the Son. Jesus’ mission of seeking and saving the lost (Luke 19:10) and of healing the sick and bringing justice to the oppressed (Luke 4:17–21) must be our mission as well. Jesus commanded as much before he ascended to heaven (Matt 28:19). As the philosopher Greg Ganssle states, “It is not enough to integrate Christian beliefs with our research, we must integrate all that God calls us to in terms of his redemptive Christian mission with all we do as scholars and teachers.”26 In short, we must live missional lives. Wherever Christ is denied or shalom is violated, the mission of God’s people exists. Thus, missional living is not just about going on a “mission trip” with a church (however important this may be). For professors, the university context is front and center as a mission field, a place where people are in need of redemption and ideas are taught that either further or hinder the progress of the gospel.

Secondly, we must never lose sight of the fact that we need the gospel as much as the lost do. Prior to conversion, our greatest need is the gospel. Once converted, our greatest need is still the gospel. Consider the great truth that “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith” found in Ephesians 2:8. What is interesting is that Paul was writing to believers, not unbelievers. The gospel is not just the way to enter the Kingdom of God; it is also the way of growth and grace in the Kingdom of God. As Tim Keller states,

The gospel is not just the “ABCs” but the “A–to–Z” of the Christian life. The gospel is the way that anything is renewed and transformed by Christ—whether a heart, a relationship, a church, or a community. All our problems come from a lack of orientation to the gospel. Put positively, the gospel transforms our hearts, our thinking and our approach to absolutely everything. The gospel of justifying faith means that while Christians are, in themselves still sinful and sinning, yet in Christ, in God’s sight, they are accepted and righteous. So we can say that we are more wicked than we ever dared believe, but more loved and accepted in Christ than we ever dared hope—at the very same time.27

Restoration: The Making of All Things New

The climactic vision of the Bible found in Revelation 21 and 22 pulls together all the plotlines and sub-themes found in both the Old and New Testament: all things are renewed/reconciled in Christ (Eph 1:9–10; Col 1:19–20); there will be a renewed heaven and earth (2 Pet 3:13, Rev 21:1); and mankind will once again experience perfect intimacy with God and each other (Rev 21:3–4). God will bring heaven—his presence—to earth. And we will delight in God. Man has gone from a garden (the garden of delights) to a city (Jerusalem). Shalom in all of its dimensions will be fully restored. We will (once again) experience life as it is meant to be—intimacy with God and harmony with self, others, and the created order as man eternally lives out his purposes. This great story, full of promise, intrigue, real violence, and real heroes, ends with all things made new:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Rev 21:3–5)

One final implication for the Christian scholar in light of the restoration of all things is this. Since man’s chief end is shalom (in all its dimensions), the activities of the Christian scholar find further justification in terms of their contribution to the cause of shalom. If part of shalom is being rightly related to reality—possessing true knowledge about God, self and the world—then the pursuit of all knowledge, both theoretical and practical, is justified and worthwhile. Both kinds of knowledge are important and should be pursued as part of our vocation as Christian scholars in service to God and man.

Entering God’s Story

As Author, the triune God invites us to join his story. This is why a self-centered life built on the pursuit of prestige, success, money, or power will leave us unfulfilled. When Jesus said we must lose ourselves for his sake in order to find life (Matt 16:25), he was recounting what the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have been doing for eternity. A life built on self-interest, self-advancement, and self-preservation is a life contrary to human nature. We were not meant to function with everything and everyone revolving around us. As Tim Keller states, “self-centeredness destroys the fabric of what God has made.”28 We were made to join in to his story, his drama, his dance: “The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this three-Personal life is to be played out in each one of us: or (putting it the other way round) each one of us has got to enter that pattern, take his place in that dance. There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made.”29 God is inviting us to this eternal dance as we locate our lives within the great story of God in the Bible. I close this chapter with two practical steps we can take toward finding our places in God’s story.

First, our response to God begins with faith. Faith allows us to enter into the story, right now in the twenty-first century (we’ll discuss the virtue of faith in chapter 6). The Bible presents us with an alternative reality—a story of the world that is subversive, running counter to the Western story we imbibe from the world. Faith requires that we step into the story. Faith requires that we act. Faith requires that we join the dance, entering a trust-relationship with the triune God. In doing so, we find out that the story itself is self-validating and self-reinforcing. In fact, Jesus argued as much in John 8:31: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” We must step into it and personally participate in it in order to see its truth most clearly.

Second, we are to follow Jesus. His standard invitation in the New Testament is “follow me.” To follow Jesus is to step into the big story of God, to make the story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration our story as well. It is to make Jesus’ mission our mission. It is to reorient and restructure our lives to be consistent with the ways of Jesus. It is to live a life of brokenness and humility, broken as Jesus was broken, humble as Jesus is humble, and to allow the grace of God, the music of the gospel, to flow from within our souls to a lost world.

Being a missional professor is not just about “getting the missionary job done.” It is first and foremost about being a certain kind of person. As Christopher Wright states, “If our mission is to share good news [in all its dimensions], we need to be good news people. If we preach a gospel of transformation, we need to show some evidence of what transformation looks like . . . The biblical word . . . ‘holiness’ . . . is as much a part of our missional identity as of our personal sanctification.”30 In short, we need to become whole people. We need to integrate all that we are and do as Christians with all that we are and do as university professors. The gospel is not just something to believe, it is also something to obey. In the next chapter, we will consider what kind of person we ought to be. As we shall see, the Bible is passionately concerned about the character of God’s people and their commitment to the God whose mission they are called to share.

Questions for Personal Reflection or Group Discussion

1. Think of your favorite story. Why are you drawn to the story? How does the story invite participation? What does the story reveal about the storyteller?

2. Gould suggests that there is a three-way battle between Christian monotheism, naturalism, and postmodernism for your allegiance. Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not? What is the dominant story of your academic discipline?

3. Discuss the implications for Christian scholarship in light of the doctrine of creation. Do you agree that all truths discovered somehow point back and illuminate the divine? What might this look like in your academic discipline?

4. What is the “received role” of the university professor? In what ways is this received role good and useful? In what ways is it fallen and in need of correction?

5. Gould states that the university is a mission field. Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?

6. Do you agree that you need the gospel as much as the non-believer? How is the gospel not just the “ABC” but the “A­–to–Z” of the Christian life?

7. How can you more fully enter the story of God as a university professor?

8. The very short story I tell my children when they beg for “just one more story” before bedtime.

9. Quote from Costello, Streets of Hope: finding God in St. Kilda, 145.

10. Thanks to my friend Mike Erre for these two points about the importance of story. See his Why the Bible Matters.

11. Plantinga, “When Faith and Reason Clash,” 16.

12. Lest you doubt that perennial naturalism is a story that invites participation, consider the February 21, 2011, issue of Time magazine. On the front cover there is a picture of a human head connected to a computer cable. The cover reads, “2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal*” and the “*” (also on the front cover) says, “If you believe humans and machines will become one. Welcome to the Singularity movement.”

13. Opitz and Melleby summarize the main story-line of perennial naturalism and creative anti-realism respectively in terms of three main acts: matter­–ignorance–progress, and culture–oppression–expression in The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness, 61–2.

14. More fully, man was created on the sixth day, after the earth (i.e., the “place”) was populated with plants and animals in order to make it suitable for human life.

15. Augustine, Confessions, 10.

16. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, 46.

17. John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad! (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993), 11.

18. Plantinga, Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, 10.

19. Newman, The Idea of a University, 51.

20. This state of affairs is well documented in Donoghue, The Last Professor.

21. Wolterstorff, Reason within the Bounds of Religion, 126–27, asks, “Could it be that [theoretical knowledge] is itself a good thing? Could it be that it is itself a dimension of shalom, a component in human fulfillment? . . . I find it impossible to answer no to this question. To me it seems evident that understanding, comprehension, knowledge, constitutes a fulfillment of our created nature . . . I want to say that a theoretical comprehension of ourselves and of the reality in the midst of which we live—of its unifying structure and its explanatory principles—is a component in the shalom God meant for us. Where knowledge is absent, life is withered.”

22. Donoghue talks about the “scholarly personality” of an academic in which the capacity to thrive on solitude is essential to professional survival in academia. See The Last Professor, 19.

23. Wolterstorff, Educating for Shalom, 272.

24. Ibid.

25. For a good discussion of the over-arching story of Scripture, see Roberts, God’s Big Picture. According to Roberts, believers today live within the “Proclaimed Kingdom.”

26. Quoted in Gould, “The Fully Integrated Life of the Christian Scholar,” 39.

27. Keller, Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, 2.

28. Keller, The Reason for God, 227.

29. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 176.

30. Wright, The Mission of God’s People, 29–30.