This post was written by Patrick Rist on October 18, 2007
Academic Initiative staff member Paul Gould is co-editor (with Bill Craig) of a just-released book, The Two Tasks of the Christian Scholar: Redeeming the Soul, Redeeming the Mind. Here is the conclusion of an interview with Paul, conducted by his publisher, Crossway Books & Bibles (CBB):
CBB: You say that Christians who teach at secular institutions are on the frontlines of the church, not just warriors in the battle for ideas. Explain the consequences of ideas for everyday Christians and the church in particular.
PG: Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, said that if he were to do it all over again, he would begin building his ministry by focusing on professors. And the reason, as Dr. Bright realized, is that university professors exhibit an incredible influence on society at large. There are something like 600,000 professors in this country. These professors represent the highest educated sector in our country, and they are all located centrally and mainly within one institution: the university. Furthermore, these 600,000 professors influence 16 million university students through their teaching (I have seen many lectures used as bully-pulpits). And the influence extends—by training our future high school and elementary teachers—to the over 80 million school-age children in our country. Add to that the fact that almost all business leaders, politicians, lawyers, and film producers come through the university, and we are in a position to see that the influence of this very small population is enormous. Hence, reaching professors for Christ, or training and equipping Christian professors to live out a faithful witness within secular academia, has untold strategic importance for the kingdom. Further, ideas have consequences, and the university in general and professors in particular are the gatekeepers of ideas, influencing directly or indirectly all aspects of thought and life in our world. Malik understood that the heart cannot receive what the mind cannot entertain, and thus a key component in reaching our world for Christ must include helping people first imagine a world where Christianity is real. Christianity must be defended winsomely and rigorously outside the church, and the life of the mind must not be neglected inside the church, or Christianity will simply be seen as irrelevant.
CBB: What do you hope this book will stimulate among not only those who are in the university but among thinking Christians everywhere?
PG: The common thread that unites this book is the call to an integrated life—where head and heart are united and flow into helping hands (or as I put it in the book, a ready pen or clarion voice for academics). The two tasks apply to all Christians everywhere, and thus the theme can be easily applied in other fields. I think that much of the discussion in the book is directly relevant to high school and elementary teachers in the public school system. Further, I was recently talking to a businessman friend of mine about the model of an integrated life that I unpack in the first chapter, and it dawned on me that this model could be easily applied to business or any other vocation, simply by changing some of the particular details.
Historically, the mark of a viable person, and I would argue, a viable church or ministry, has always been one in which head, heart, and hands were integrated. This model of viability has become unraveled in our modern (and postmodern) times, and the result is that our culture has become compartmentalized: secular/sacred, private/public, work/play, and so on. But there is no biblical justification for such a compartmentalized life: Jesus is Lord of all, all of who I am and all of what I do. I think that this theme embodied in Malik’s two tasks is incredibly important for the church today. While the primary audience for the book is Christian scholars, I hope that people who are not Christian scholars by vocation will pick up this book, read it, and then think through creative ways to live out the two tasks within the context of their own life and ministry.
CBB: What are the most important elements of the task of integration for the Christian scholar and how is this book a wake-up call to readers?
PG: In my introductory chapter, which sets the framework for the entire book, I tried to look at the fully integrated life from a couple of perspectives. First, I grounded the two tasks message (and the integrated life) within the metanarrative of Scripture (e.g., creation, fall, redemption, and renewal). It makes no sense to say to someone that your mind and soul need redeeming if there is no understanding of what the soul is and what we are being redeemed from. Secondly, I try to unpack in more concrete terms what a fully integrated life could look like for Christian scholars. While you’ll have to read the book to see just exactly how I defined the fully integrated life, for now I’ll just say that it attempts to capture both an inward focus (on the mind and soul of the Christian scholar) as well as an outward and upward focus (toward others and God). The subsequent chapters in the book, which are by various contributors, unpack one or more aspects of this fully integrated life and apply it to various aspects of the university or the unique challenges of being a university professor. Dr. Craig’s and my hope is that this book will serve as a wake-up call to readers toward a renewed vision of the good life, the necessity of entering into the battle, and the importance of being good stewards within the difficult halls of academia with all that God has graciously given us. Malik did not have in mind soft and tame Christian scholars within academia.
CBB: Give examples from the book of what kinds of efforts will be involved in “transforming the mind of the university” so that it is a place where Christian ideas are considered a legitimate option.
PG: In general, to see the university transformed will take boldness, wisdom, sensitivity to the spirit, a willingness to be used by God, a willingness to fail, and the constant reminder that one belongs to Christ, not the university. I love Walter Bradley’s chapter because he shares with a humble heart practical ideas on how to reach out to colleagues and students with the message of the gospel. His thirty-five years of ministry at Texas A&M and now Baylor model for us a life of boldness and intentional outreach to the lost that is refreshing. Bob Kaita, the Princeton physicist, reminds us that we need to be sensitive to the spirit as we navigate how and when to share the message of Christ. Using the apostle Paul’s message on Mar’s Hill as a heuristic device, Kaita shares from his own life and various ministry outreach opportunities how he has learned to be sensitive to the Spirit in discerning the audience’s needs and ability to “hear” the message of Christ. Bill Craig, in his concluding chapter, shares about how there has been a transformation within the discipline of philosophy over the past thirty years: faithful Christian philosophers have, by the grace of God and the winsomeness of their lives and scholarship, literally brought Christianity back into mainstream philosophical discourse—so much so that many of the best and brightest philosophers in academia today are Christians.
CBB: The book seems far more than just an intellectual pursuit. Would it be safe to say that your collective personal experiences as Christian scholars in secular institutions have uniquely drawn each of you to this topic?
PG: The university is a wonderful place. At its best, it challenges you to think and seek truth, and become a better person in the process. Of course, in many places the university is not at its best. But it could be through the lives and presence of Christian scholars. This book is the outgrowth of the fact that all that is good, true, and beautiful comes from God. As Christian scholars, that fact draws us… no, forces us, to make connections, to ask the question: How does my life fit into the whole? This question has drawn and will continue to draw many to grapple with how to live out in any context the two tasks of redeeming the mind and redeeming the soul.
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