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In the thirty-fifth episode of the second season of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Jon S. Kulaga, President of Indiana Wesleyan University. Kulaga begins by discussing the details of his service during his college years as a campus radio DJ, highlighting which songs from the early 80s he would proudly play in his home today as well as songs from the early 80s he would not play in his own home today. He also talks about the communication skills he developed while serving as a campus radio DJ and how he began to think of that service as being part of the larger educational mission of the university. Kulaga then shares details concerning his calling to serve the Church and, as time passed, how that calling to serve the Church came to focus on leading Church-related universities. Over the course of his career, that leadership included roles in student affairs, academic affairs, advancement, and as a president. A common thread uniting those expressions of service is they took place at institutions that are part of the Wesleyan theological tradition. Reflecting on that experience, Kulaga details the commitments that define Church-related colleges and universities that are part of the Wesleyan theological tradition and, in particular, how those commitments find expression in curricular and co-curricular educational programs. Kulaga then closes the conversation about how those commitments also inform the academic vocation as well as how the Church and the university can work more closely together in the years to come.
- Jon S. Kulaga’s (ed.) Cornerstones of Spiritual Vitality: Toward an Understanding of Wesleyan Spirituality in Christian Higher Education (Asbury College, 2009)
- Jon S. Kulaga’s Edward Payson Hart: Second Man of Free Methodism (Spring Arbor College, 2007)
Todd C. Ream: Welcome to Saturdays at Seven, Christian Scholar’s Review’s conversation series with thought leaders about the academic vocation and the relationship that vocation shares with the Church. My name is Todd Ream. I have the privilege of serving as the publisher for Christian Scholar’s Review and as the host for Saturdays at Seven. I also have the privilege of serving on the faculty and the administration at Indiana Wesleyan University.
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Our guest is John S. Kulaga, President of Indiana Wesleyan University. Thank you for joining us,
Jon S. Kulaga: Oh, glad to be here. Great to be here.
Todd C. Ream: As a college student, rumor has it on campus that you may have served as a DJ at what is now Spring Arbor University’s SAU radio. Now I’ve searched for recordings of your programmings and alas, I’m gonna need to depend upon you for your honest cooperation in terms of those details. But first, would you please confirm your services as a DJ and what led you to serve in such a capacity?
Jon S. Kulaga: Yeah. Well, yes, I can confirm that that was one of my jobs on campus. I was a disc jockey that, and that was back in the day, you know, 1980, when we actually spun real vinyl. I mean, it wasn’t, it wasn’t programmed and it wasn’t automated. I had to work both turntables. So yeah, that’s true.
What, what, what really happened was two very pragmatic things. One is as a kid, as a high school kid in, at my local church, me and my best friend, I think we partly did it to get out of sitting with our parents, but we ran the sound for our church and it was up in the balcony. So we were behind and up behind our parents.
But uh, we were trained by a guy who, there was a radio series of radio stations in Michigan called Family Life Radio and he was one of their engineers and he attended our church. And so he helped my roommate and I, my best friend at the time, get our FCC license and which was a bigger deal than it is today. We had to be able to make calculations and, you know, calculate megahertz and all that kind of stuff. And so we got all that as high school students, preparation for college.
And then when we landed in college, I needed a couple jobs to pay for school. And so part of my employment was at the radio station, and the other one was, I was the mail carrier. We didn’t have trucks. We walked the mail around to all the offices, and it started the first day on campus. The very first day as a freshman, we attended a meeting for all those who were interested, and we walked in and we went, it was Friday, it was Friday night, we had the meeting and we had our licenses, which they couldn’t believe. But it was because of our friend.
And nobody, none of the upperclassmen wanted to work from 10 to midnight. The station went off at midnight. And so they said, well, why don’t you guys work it? And it literally took both of us to like, one turned the record on and one turned the other one off. And, you know, it took both of us to do those two hours. I think I sweat through my shirt. I mean, all 12 people listening, right. Yeah, so we started like from day one, my freshman year working there.
Todd C. Ream: That’s great. Now, DJs often have stage names, and I believe your tenure on the air there at Spring Arbor then would’ve paralleled, for example, a television show that has sort of become a cult classic out there, WKRP in Cincinnati, I think it ran from ’79 to ’82, which had, you know, DJs by the name of Dr. Johnny Fever, Venus Flytrap. By chance, did you have a stage name?
Jon S. Kulaga: I did not, I would, I probably looked more like Dr. Johnny Fever and I had the voice of Venus Flytrap. So you know that, yeah. No, I did not. It was still a Christian school. They didn’t know. They know the fact that they let us play Christian rock and roll was already a big deal. They weren’t gonna let you get too crazy on the air.
Todd C. Ream: Now if you were, you know, thinking the way musical tastes change over time but some things become classics then. If you were to play music from that tenure at, you know, in time when you were on the air, you know, at home, what would you proudly play to this day?
Jon S. Kulaga: Today What I’d proudly play today?
Todd C. Ream: Yeah, yeah. What would you proudly still claim and potentially has classic status?
Jon S. Kulaga: Oh, well, classic status would be Petra. You know, this is the early beginnings. I mean, Larry Norman and Randy Stonehill still had a following in 1980. Larry Norman was still doing live concerts, you know why don’t you look into Jesus? He’s got the answer. I mean, so he, you know, some of the pioneers were still there.
This was the beginning of Amy Grant. This was the beginning of Steven Curtis Chapman. Brian Duncan was still singing for Sweet Comfort Band. He hadn’t broken off and gone solo. 2nd Chapter of Acts the Imperials, and that’s hardly Christian rock. But again, these are the forefront people. Sweet Comfort Band.
Just trying to think of Res Band. First was Resurrection Band, but then they shortened it to Res Band. Yeah, these are all the ones that, now, I played Stryper, but I wouldn’t necessarily call them classic um, the bumblebee outfits. I mean, I think they were the sort of the Christian alternative to Kiss. I think that’s what they were trying to accomplish.
You know, White Heart was out there for a period of time. Um, yeah, those are all what we were allowed to do at the station. And it was WUSAE. I think they may have changed the moniker now. It was 89 point three WUSAE. It rhymed and it was an education band, so there were no commercials and they basically had a very straight sort of not exhilarating program. You know, from 10 to midnight turned out to be a lot of symphonies and, you know, helped me get my homework done because they were hour long reels and it helped, you know, elderly who were listening to go to sleep.
But for four or five hours in the middle of the afternoon, we could Breakaway from our format and play whatever we wanted as long as it was Christian. And so, the show was called Breakaway. And uh, and that’s where I got to talk. I got I was live. I wasn’t just turning the news on, turning the news off, turning the reel on. That was 19 to 20 hours of programming.
But that section of breakaway is what I live for in terms of being able to really, I take calls from the residence halls, and play music so that, you know, I had freedom to play, you know, whatever I wanted.
Todd C. Ream: That’s great. Now since you mentioned them, I’ve gotta ask, Stryper has a 40th anniversary tour coming up here this year, and for a younger individuals who aren’t familiar with Stryper or think this may be in any way some figment of my imagination here, there’s a website out there with details for this tour. Rumor has it maybe you secured tickets. You care to deny or confirm this rumor.
Jon S. Kulaga: Well, I can deny it because I’m looking at, you know, 65-year-old men in yellow tights. I mean, you mentioned Jerry Garcia in a yellow onesie, spandex. I mean, it’s just not gonna be pretty. It’s just not gonna be a pretty tour, no, I’m staying away from them.
Todd C. Ream: Denied. Denied owning tickets. Got it.
Jon S. Kulaga: Can’t get you tickets and I’m not even trying to get tickets.
Todd C. Ream: Now, I asked you which music you would proudly still play in your home with your family or guests to this day, are there things that you played back in the day that you’d never play again?
Jon S. Kulaga: Well, I didn’t really enjoy Res Band. I didn’t enjoy Stryper. Um, they were, you know, every, there were a lot of these one hit wonder groups that came out. I wasn’t a big David Meece fan. I dunno if you remember that name. He was sort of the Barry Manilow of Christian music.
There always seemed to be like an alternative. You know, if you like, it’s like those cologne kiosks in the, in the mall that are fake. You know, if you like this, you’ll love this. And so if, you know, if you like Kiss, you’ll love Stryper. If you like Barry Manilow, you’ll love David Meece, you know?
Um, and we also played a lot of times throughout each other, not Breakaway because we really focused on what we were, this is like we’re breaking away. But there were other times we got to play a lot of Southern Gospel. So we did a lot of Southern Gospel at other formats, other times of the day. You know, I like the Cathedrals but, you know, I’m not a huge Southern Gospel fan. And maybe it’s because I played so much of it.
Todd C. Ream: Listened to hours and hours of it during your formative years.
Jon S. Kulaga: There were a lot of alternative rock bands that were just trying to carve out a niche. You know, I love DeGarmo and Key. I mean, I was one of the groups that I really enjoyed. That was back in the day when it was like five bucks to get a ticket and it was, everything was general admission. There were no reserve seats and you’d stand outside and they’d let the doors open and people would jump on the backs of chairs and run on the backs of chairs down to get a good seat because there was no first class tickets.
They were playing all, I mean, I remember going to see 2nd Chapter of Acts over at Eastern Michigan University on the campus of Eastern Michigan, Ypsilanti. It was crazy. I mean, people were throwing coats and I’m, but it was five bucks and, and it was sold out but no special seats for anybody. Yeah, it was a different time.
Todd C. Ream: Thank you. On a slightly more serious note, then, in what ways did serving as a DJ allow you to communicate with your fellow students there on campus and foster within you, and in sense of involvement with the Spring Arbor community?
Jon S. Kulaga: Well, you know, you do, because we were an educational band on the radio, we didn’t have commercials, but we had public service announcements. So we did a lot of PSAs. And I got to know a lot of what was going on in the community just because I was reading them. And then we would receive requests to play.
And we were very much aware that a large retirement facility in all stages of care surrounded the outskirts of the Spring Harbor campus. And so we knew who the larger listening audience was. They probably turned the radio off during Breakaway and then turned it back on.
And so there were lots of promotions of what the campus was. We would promote the campus events on the radio. I don’t know if the students were always tuning in or anything, but I was aware of when I was in the game room or different places, especially during that Breakaway format, the school was playing it and you could see it, you know, you could hear it at different places around campus.
And so yeah, I was very cognizant of the fact that, I mean, I’m not saying I was the spokesman, but people were listening and I had a responsibility to make sure that I was representing the university well when the microphone was on. I was aware that it was more than just me, even though you’re alone in the room, and that’s probably the most difficult thing is that you’re alone in the room and you’re surrounded by nobody. But you’ve gotta generate this excitement and this enthusiasm.
And you know, you hear the DJs on the radio and they just sound so up. And I can visualize, you’re alone. There’s nobody, and you may have two people in the morning, but a lot of times back then it was just one person. And you’re trying to generate all this in a soundproof room. So but you were, but you’re aware of the responsibility and, and that I was able to communicate back and forth. And then of course we’d get requests and that was always fun.
Todd C. Ream: Yeah. What are some of the additional communication lessons you learned during your college years serving in such a role that perhaps you carry with you to this day even?
Jon S. Kulaga: Well, one of the communication skills that you develop as a, I don’t even know if they call them disc jockeys anymore as a radio personality, is that you have to do multiple things. It’s that, and being a youth pastor, were probably two of the most formative skills training for being a public speaker because you are with your left hand turning this volume down and shutting this turntable off. At the same time, you’re having to turn this volume up and start this turntable on your right while you are reading the weather and watching the clock.
Because you’ve on the back of the cover of the LP, every song had how many, how long the song was, but also had it handwritten. 19 seconds before the mute, before the lyrics start. So you knew you if you were talking the song down and then talking, this went on, you had 19 seconds before the lyrics started, and you never talk over the lyrics of a song.
And so you’re watching the clock, you’re doing this, you might be reading a PSA, you know, and you’re doing all those things simultaneously. And that’s why my first night took two of us to do it. But eventually you become really good at it and you’re very comfortable with it.
And as a public speaker, communicating, you’ve got a lot of things that are going on in terms of reading the audience, knowing your notes, knowing where you’re going. Maybe the slides aren’t working. You know, you’re reacting to whether or not you feel like the audience is with you or not. There’s a lot of things that go on inside the head of somebody who’s speaking publicly, and that four years really honed that ability to do multiple things while you’re talking.
Because you’re actually, you have to talk the whole time, right? I mean, so it’s not like you can do all those things quietly. You’ve gotta be reading something or talking and that was really helpful.
The other thing that I found on the other job, just real quickly I was a mail carrier, so my responsibility was I had two, I dunno if you remember the very large brief cases that slide projectors and carousels used to be in.
Todd C. Ream: Oh yeah.
Jon S. Kulaga: I mean, this is like a dinosaur conversation. But that’s what we packed all the mail in for the offices. And I would deliver the mail to the offices and also collect their mail and then bring it back to the mail room. That gave me a great exposure to the entire campus. It also kept me in shape because I climbed lots of stairs.
But that I took away from that, I knew so many staff and it gave me a great appreciation for all the people who make the university work that are not necessarily honored and not necessarily seen. And I carry that with me to today.
You know, I always challenge our people, do you know the person who cleans your building? Do you know their name? The person who you swipe your ID and see at the cafeteria every single day? Do you know her name? Do you know what she’s going through? Have you prayed with her? The dishwasher, the person who’s doing the salad bar? You know, there’s so many people, the facilities person you walked in and, and we know how to complain if the sidewalk doesn’t, wasn’t shoveled off. You know, we know how to do that, but do you know the person who actually shoveled your sidewalk?
So I got to see a lot of those people. I had to walk all the way to the facilities, which was, you know, further away. It was always across the street and down the road because that’s where the fleet of cars was, so I had to walk there. So I got to know the facilities people. And it just engendered within me this great appreciation of all the different entities that have to be mission-focused and mission-driven if the university’s ever gonna get out of dodge and, and do the thing for which they were called. And so that I kind of got that as a mail carrier.
Todd C. Ream: Thank you. Yeah, that’s a great experience, especially to have that as a student.
I wanna transition now to asking you some broader biographical details. Uh, when you were not on the air you earned an undergraduate degree in youth ministry from Spring Arbor. Then also earned a master’s degree in higher education from Michigan State and a PhD in higher education from Kansas State.
You were ordained to the ministry by the Free Methodist Church and recently transferred your ordination to the Wesleyan Church. Would you share a little bit about how you discern your calling to serve the university, as well as the Church, and how the two relate?
Jon S. Kulaga: Yeah, so serving the Church came first. For no other good reason except that I was really, I loved art and I was really good at math and my brother was in college to be an architect. I too was gonna be an architect. That was probably the sum total of my thought process in high school.
But the summer going into my senior year we had a regular tradition back in the day where you’d go to camp meeting and you’d go to summer camp, and I had just a significant recommitment. There were some things going on in my family. My dad used to be the superintendent of schools and he had left after two heart attacks to go into the ministry in the inner city of Pontiac.
And as my senior year, and I was graduating valedictorian, if things continued to go well and we were gonna be living apart. We were gonna be living over a hundred miles away and I would travel down to see him on the week, my parents on the weekends. So there were a lot of things going, but I had a significant encounter, recommitment.
At that time, felt called into the ministry. And I felt because of my camping experience and I’d been working at summer camps, I felt youth ministry was where I needed to go. So I went to Spring Arbor, changed my plans, went to Spring Arbor, and entered into the youth ministry program, graduated and went out to Kansas at a Free Methodist church in McPherson, Kansas to be the youth pastor. And it was a church of about a thousand had maybe 120 kids in my youth group and seventh through 12th grade and did that. Met my wife. She was coming home from Kansas State at the time, and we met and got married.
But after about three, four years, and I had been an RA at Spring Arbor, I’d been in student affairs work. I’ve been around student affairs work as a student, and I felt like maybe the seventh graders and the eighth graders weren’t really my niche. Loved them individually, but you know, maybe not 40 of them together. I thought, you know, maybe college work is where I need to go. Maybe it’s student affairs, you know, calling for sure, but maybe not the Church.
And I was being pressured at that point, gently, and, and I don’t blame anybody, but you know, they were pushing me into, you need to take a church, you know, you need to take a church. And I know, you know, they, they had pulpits that were empty and that’s not what I felt called to. And so that’s where I started to really feel like, yes to the students, but maybe not to the local church per se.
And so I moved and I had been ordained at that point in the Church, so I moved into Christian higher education, went back to Spring Arbor and started my career in student affairs. And um, that’s where I got my master’s from Michigan State. But that’s where I started to discern the call and you know where they are complimentary of course is student formation, you know, spiritual formation in the life of the student.
And so, you know, I felt like we were absolutely a complimentary ministry to what was going on in the church. Back then, you know, the churches sorta, the emphasis was the fact that the churches were sending their kids to the school. I feel like today we’re probably doing the opposite. We’re sending our graduates back to the church. You know, we’re training up an educated, faithful laity to sustain the population, the congregations of the church.
So they’re complimentary, but where they’re, where they are different though is that, you know, universities are not churches. And we can talk more about that later on, I think. But you know, they have a different focus. We are not a camp meeting, we are not a camp. We aren’t a church. We are an academic community.
And the life of the mind, you know, loving the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind, the Church may focus more on the soul and the spirit. Not that they don’t focus on the mind, but I think the Christian university that’s faithful to the Word of God really has an ability to have a huge impact on the intellectual capabilities of the mind, and so it has a complimentary but different ministry.
Todd C. Ream: Thank you. In addition to serving in a variety of professional capacities at Spring Arbor, you also served at Asbury University as the Chief Academic Officer, and then prior, between your time at Asbury and then accepting the appointment as President at Indiana Wesleyan University, served at Ohio Christian University as their chief officer.
Would you please describe the discernment process that eventually led you to accept the appointment as President of Indiana Wesleyan?
Jon S. Kulaga: Again, lifetime career. I’m in my 37th year, in terms of serving a CCCU school. So I’ve committed my career to Christian higher education. I hadn’t really looked anywhere outside of that. I’m theologically Wesleyan, so I would need to be able to function within that theological framework. I’m not sure that there are some wonderful, faithful Christian schools of a different denomination. I’m not sure they’d be interested in me because if you look at my resume, it’s pretty obvious my theological preferences the lens through which I read Scripture.
At Spring Arbor and I was working in the academic field, I was in over their degree completion campuses. There were 14 of them at the time in 2006. I had some different people speak into me about the fact that maybe I was cut out for a provost academic, maybe I should be leading in that way. So I had people speak into me in terms of leadership ability, and I had been a vice president for development at Spring Arbor for four years, but really was enjoyed that meeting with alumni. But that’s a grind. You’re on the road a lot. Lots of pressure in terms of actual dollars, and then it goes back to zero July 1. What are you gonna do for me this year?
But really the life of the mind, the integration of faith and learning was something that has just been ingrained in me and I love, and so that’s what led me to the opportunity at Asbury. And I would say, you know, in terms of discerning the call, and I like to talk specifically about Indiana Wesleyan, but really the, the convergence of, you know, Buechner Frederick Buechner talks about vocation being where the world’s great need meets with your greatest joy. That’s maybe a, that’s a loose rendering of his quote.
But the idea of what brings you joy and what does the world need, well, what brings me joy and what does the school need. At the time, Asbury needed some, they had no, in 2007, they had no online programs, they were in a little bit of a situation that was financially not great. They’d had an interim president. I had done a lot of adult learning. And so this was something that I could bring to that school.
At Ohio Christian, again, that was a school that was denominationally owned, Asbury’s independent, so there’s no denomination affiliation. Asbury had a denomination, but again, it was Wesleyan, it was Holiness. It was a smaller school. They had some needs at the time that I could help fulfill. And at that time I was thinking I’d been a provost Chief Academic Officer for 10 years, and this was a smaller school in Ohio. It brought me closer to my elderly parents who were in Michigan, and I thought, this might be a, this might be the opportunity.
The one with Indiana Wesleyan is really interesting because by that, by the time we came to Indiana Wesleyan and the opportunity arose in the January of 2022, the announcement came out that the president here was retiring soon. You know, we had been at five, we had been at Michigan, we’d been at Kansas, we had been at Kentucky, and we’ve been in Ohio. The packing up and moving was not something that we always look forward to.
In the words of C.S. Lewis I was the most reluctant candidate when it came to the Indiana Wesleyan because I said, you know, Lord, I have an outgoing personality. I interview well. I can think on my feet. I can get myself a job that you don’t want, and I can kick down a door that maybe you’re not calling me to. And so just by virtue of maybe force of personality or whatever.
I saw it and I was super interested. I’ve been sort of gravitationally revolving around Indiana Wesleyan, you know, for my entire life, you know. So I was very aware one of the the dean for the School of Education at Asbury was a Marion College alum. So, you know, and I couldn’t escape Indiana Wesleyan no matter where I went. But I said, you know, Lord, I don’t want to, I don’t want to do this if it’s not Your will. So people know me, they know my background, they know where I’m at. If you can have the heart of kings in your hand, you can have the heart of a search committee, and I’m not contacting them.
So, you know, February, January turned to February, February turned to maybe early March, and the deadline was approaching and the headhunter, the firm that they’d hired called me and said, how come you haven’t applied? And, and I said, how come you haven’t asked? And he said, I’ve sent you two times. He says, check your junk mail, your spam mail. And there were two times that he had personally reached out to me and asked if I would apply. And I said, okay. I said, he goes, the deadline’s tomorrow. He goes, I gotta have a letter from you at least showing interest.
So I went in, cleaned up the letter, and I hadn’t really updated my résumé. So I did real quick thing there and I got it off that night and made the deadline. And then I let it go. I said, you know, Lord, I’m in. If you want me to have it, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna worry about it. Another month goes by or so, and I get a contact. You know that, you know, if you give me, if you make the top seven these numbers are fudgy, but if you make the top seven, you have to have a personal interview with the little owner of the head hunting firm, search firm. I said, great.
Get a call a little bit later, hey, you’re in the top seven. Great. I had a two hour phone call, let it go. Have not talked to my wife about this. Have not mentioned it, have not, have not mentioned this at all to Lena. We have all of our adult children living 30 miles away.
Todd C. Ream: I was gonna say in the household where I live, that’s living dangerously.
Jon S. Kulaga: Well, it’s an emotional roller coaster as you know, when you’re, when you’re being, when you’re going, you have to picture yourself there. They want your educational philosophy. You’ve gotta write all this stuff and you have to put yourself in that position metaphorically to feel what you would, you know. And I just wasn’t gonna take her on that rollercoaster ride until it meant something.
So it got to be Memorial Weekend and I got a phone call that I was one of the four finalists and I’d have to drive to Indianapolis for an in-person interview at like June 6, 7, 8. So in 10 days I was gonna have to be in Indianapolis interviewing. And I thought, you know what? I should probably include Lena in this conversation, because now it’s getting serious. And she had known the discontent and, and that I was looking and I mean feeling the need to, and and she’s been with me the whole way.
So I had always felt called, but I just didn’t want to push. And I’m confident, but it wasn’t an ego thing where it was like, you know where I’m at? You can call me. No, it was just like, it was almost a Gideon type of a thing where, Lord, you can do this. I have faith that you can bring my mind, my name to somebody’s mind. And so all along the way, I held it very lightly and until finally just materialized.
So and again, where I’m in another Wesleyan institution I’ve served my entire career except for a short stint at Kansas State, which is theologically nothing, all the schools I’ve served have been theologically in the Wesleyan family.
Todd C. Ream: Along those lines then, in terms of understanding that particular family theologically, amongst your numerous books include Edward Payson Hart: Second Man of Free Methodism, and Cornerstones of Spiritual Vitality: Toward an Understanding of Wesleyan Spirituality in Christian Higher Education.
When you think about the Wesleyan Armenian theological tradition, what commitments do you believe prove most critical in terms of how colleges and universities such as Spring Arbor, Asbury, Indiana Wesleyan, et cetera, understand themselves and then put those commitments into action in curricular and co-curricular programs?
Jon S. Kulaga: Yeah, well, that’s a whole day. Yeah, that’s part of the whole reason we do things. Briefly separate from maybe what all schools do. Um, you know, I think, you know, there are wonderful schools in the Council of Christian Colleges and, you know, that all do wonderful at integrating faith and learning from their perspective. And so, you know, and we’ve got schools, if you know Indiana and you know the I-69 corridor the Holy corridor um, you know, we’ve got wonderful schools between Indianapolis and Michigan, that, that all accurately and effectively talk about integration of faith and learning. So that’s not unique to the Wesleyan Armenian tradition.
What the Wesleyans tend to bring is a more emphasis on personal holiness. We were part of a holiness movement. I’m not sure there’s a movement anymore. Certainly there are churches and denominations that still emphasize this idea of not only just social holiness, but personal holiness, but that conjunctive theology that Paul Chilcote writes about in some of his writings that both/and we were talking earlier before we went on that, you know, the Reformed and Calvinist tradition follows the tree up to John Calvin and he wrote The Institutes, which is a more systematic theology.
We follow our tree up for our branch to the trunk of John Wesley. And he didn’t write an Institutes, he wrote a journal. He worked his theology out in his sermons. And in his journal, and you could see that also in the writings and the sermons of Francis Asbury, who he went on a mission sent to United States, and again, horseback rider writing his sermons out.
So this idea of working it out is a little more messy and a little more sloppy, but it’s this both/and. It’s, it’s head and heart, it’s personal holiness and social holiness. Charles Wesley wrote the hymn Unite the Two, so Long to Disjoined Knowledge and Vital Piety. It’s both knowledge puffs up. Well, that’s why you need to connect it with vital piety, with spiritual formation. And I think the Wesleyan tradition does a really good job.
And the other thing, I think the Wesleyan tradition, the Wesleyan theological lens, besides the Holiness, a couple things, one is we have a great emphasis on sanctification, which is part of the holiness, but it’s not just about getting saved. That’s the bottom rung of the ladder. That’s not, that’s not the end all, be all. With our lack of emphasis on any kinds of eternal security we do believe that your relationship with Christ is secure as long as you continue to pursue Him. So we don’t focus a lot on that aspect.
What we focus on is, okay, now that you’re saved, really, it’s kind of just begun, and now you have a lifetime of being conformed into His image. And so there’s so much wonderful the optimism of grace in the Wesleyan theological tradition where, you know, grace is not only something that’s— grace is not just something that God does to you and for you and in you. Grace is a power that He wants to emanate through you.
So you have the Great Wesleyan Movement of the Salvation Army. You know, William Booth was a Methodist, but he was a Wesleyan maybe a Shiite Wesleyan. I mean, he was hardcore. But that idea that, yes, because of what God’s grace has done in me and for me and to me in terms of transforming me every day into more and more and more in the likeness of Christ in this life, not the next. But His grace can also be operating through me.
And so a lot of your social ministries, a lot of that emphasis on making a difference in the culture, in society. That, that’s that personal holiness and social holiness. I think there’s that a defining characteristic, I think of a lot of Wesleyan ministries and a lot of Wesleyan denominations. And hopefully, I mean, our moniker at Indiana Wesleyan is world changers. You know, that is a shorthand for what I just said. Because like all of what I just said can’t get put on a billboard. But it’s world changers because of what God has done in me and for me and to me. I have a responsibility to go out and He’s gonna do through me and change the world.
That, that other Christian colleges would say the same thing, but I think with the optimistic that the optimism, that we have the optimistic view we have of grace, where when we read John 3:16 and it says, “For God so loved the world that He gave us only begotten. So that whosoever,” that’s a legitimate offer to every single human being. You have not been not chosen. That’s a legitimate offer. I think that’s a very optimistic, it does God’s reputation very well that He’s making a legitimate offer to literally everybody.
Todd C. Ream: Thank you. In terms of that grace-filled optimism that animates Wesleyan institutions of higher education, what do you see as their greatest contributions that they can make in the future to Church and society as we’re moving forward?
Jon S. Kulaga: Well, you know, there have been some authors who have said, you know, the problem with the evangelical mind is that there isn’t one. I think that’s a little harsh. I think, you know, there have been wonderful people. I mean, going all the way back again, John Wesley was Oxford trained. You know, so he wasn’t, you know, lacking an academic pedigree.
But I think again, our contribution, there’s a couple things. I think a lot of the Wesleyan institutions have continued to stay very true to a biblical worldview where a lot of your other mainline churches who may have more of a life of the mind have walked away from the heart and walked away or misinterpreted what the heart means and have compromised on many cultural issues. I’m not talking about Christian nationalism, but I’m talking about a biblical worldview that holds a, a biblical perspective on human sexuality, on marriage, on family.
A lot of your Wesleyan schools are holding the line on that kind of a thing. I think we need to, what I would like to see and what we’re trying to do at Indiana Wesleyan is also just make sure that we are doing our part to enter into the life of the mind, to really contribute intellectually. I think, you know, the schools that trace their theological heritage to people like Jonathan Edwards or John Calvin, you know, they’ve had this longer tradition of actual intellectual contribution.
And I think, you know, a school the size of Indiana Wesleyan and the quality of the faculty that we have, we need to be part of that as well. We need to be contributing to the church, to the larger capital C Church, to help us think well. Harry B. Meyers, friend of C.S. Lewis, you know, talked about, you know, if we don’t cultivate, if we just think we can cultivate souls and not the mind, we’re gonna see some dire results. Again, that’s a shorthand of a longer quote.
But, you know, people like him, people like Arthur Holmes with the Idea of the Christian College, I think there are people who’ve been, who’ve written about this. And from the Wesleyan perspective, again, we have something to offer. We have a lens through which we interpret Scripture, and I think that voice needs to be multiplied tenfold. And, and in service of not only the Church, but also society.
Todd C. Ream: Wonderful, thank you. As our time unfortunately begins to become short, I want to turn now to asking you about the Christian academic vocation then, and in your opinion as a university president, what qualities and/or characteristics are definitive of the Christian academic vocation?
Jon S. Kulaga: I don’t know where you want to go with that one again, I think that the Christian college, the Christian academic location, but the Christian university, we have a very unique community. There are some covenantal schools where everybody, including the students have to sign that they’re Christian and there are more missional schools where it’s the faculty and staff that have to sign it, but not the students, but where the majority of the students are Christian but you don’t have to sign that.
But either way, you are signing one thing or the other that you are committed to the mission, and the values, and the lifestyle of that school. You don’t do something like that at state universities. So we really focus on community, developing community but around the mission. So missional alignment is one of those values. Commitment to and alignment with the institution’s mission and values, I think, are emphasized far more and rightfully so at a Christian university.
As opposed to, I don’t know if you have to sign something at Ohio State that you are committed to the land grant vision of the university or, or Michigan State or Kansas State, you know? But here we take our values, our biblical worldview, our lifestyle commitments very seriously. Beyond that, you know, I think there are things like we talked about in terms of, you know, curiosity, intellectual curiosity. This ability of being open-minded, being able to learn new things.
But all of that comes back to, you know, intellectual curiosity, critical thinking all those things come back to, what does it say in Scripture? know, because if you’re open to everything, you know, if you’re open to anything, you fall for everything kind of a saying, but we, we always bring it back to the Word of God and the work of Christ. And that is a virtue and a skill that we need new professors coming into our universities to be able to hold.
You know, I say here at Indiana Wesleyan, you know, we don’t follow a donkey. We don’t follow an elephant. We follow a lion and a lamb. We aren’t interested in the politics of things as much as we are interested in how those things are informed by Scripture. And that ability, that discipline, that perseverance, that diligence to do the hard work of saying how does this square with Scripture is really just so needed in the academy today.
Todd C. Ream: You echoed a couple of the virtues that you believe are essential for the exercise of the Christian academic vocation. In the age in which we live, are there any vices do you think that we need to be vigilant against that can be damaging or problematic in terms of the full exercise of the Christian academic
Jon S. Kulaga: Well, one of the vices is allowing a political party to do your thinking for you. I think there are Christian colleges who love policies of a certain political party or presidential administration, and they wrap themselves around that too tightly. They lose their prophetic voice in the process.
We hear warnings about Christian nationalism all the time, and we also hear warnings about secular globalism all the time. And I think there are Christian colleges because of certain commitments, lean one way or lean the other. Both are dangerous. And depending on what group you track in, you’ll hear more about one than the other.
But I think that’s a particular vice is when you delegate your, your commitments and your thinking to a third party and you aren’t doing the hard work yourselves. It’s easier to just receive it and then indoctrinate. We’re not in the indoctrination business, but we are in the education business, but we’re in the education business from a biblical worldview. And so when we forfeit that, then we become generic and we’ve lost our purpose for existing.
Todd C. Ream: Thank you. For our last question then today, I want to ask you about the relationship that the university shares with the Church. We’ve talked about this in various ways through our course of our conversation, but I wanna frame it this way in particular, in the sense that in what ways, if any, is the health of the Christian academic vocation as we exercise on our campuses related to the health of the relationship that the Church and the Church-related universities share?
Jon S. Kulaga: Well, there’s no doubt that there’s some kind of a symbiotic relationship that exists. Now at Indiana Wesleyan, we are owned by our denomination. At other schools you’re affiliated so in the one hand an affiliated school, and then there’s, then there’s truly just independent, so you’ve got wonderful Christian schools that are completely independent. I’ve served at one of those. You’ve got some that are affiliated. I’ve served at my alma mater is affiliated, not owned, and this one is owned. So that relationship becomes much more intertwined when you’re owned.
But we are definitely tied in a very real way to the health of that denomination, but we can’t rely on that denomination. If the denomination continues to shrink, then they aren’t sending us the number of students they used to the financial strain. We actually receive a decent amount of funding from our denomination annually. There’s lots of talk every time I go to the denominational meetings that that should be reduced. The pressure and strain on the churches, it should be reduced.
So as the churches send less and as the churches contribute less, the conversations revolve around, well, then what to what degree should they be able to exercise control? If you are not affiliated, they have no control. If you’re affiliated, they have a little control, maybe 50 plus one on the board. We’re two thirds. We have to have a one third laity and one third clergy from the Wesleyan denomination on our board.
I think the health is really important and but that just brings to light though the, the need for communication between the two entities—reminding the churches, we are not a church. We will have people here that we have to dismiss, that you get to allow to sit in your congregation every Sunday because they’re just attending. But there are employees, so we may have to dismiss somebody.
We are an employer. We may have to dismiss a student, a student that you might allow to come to your church multiple Sundays because they’re merely attending. But here they’ve signed something, and we have to hold them accountable. Likewise, you know, we aren’t focused solely on salvations and baptisms, although we do a lot of that. You know, we have a mission that’s academically driven and more intellectual than perhaps you.
So that conversation has to go back and forth, and we gotta start making more and more partners because we couldn’t survive if we just relied on the denomination. For us as an owned school by denomination, it be the, the relationship is much more intimate, and therefore, the communication has to be that much more thorough than perhaps other schools.
Todd C. Ream: Thank you very much. Our guest has been Jon S. Kulaga, President of Indiana Wesleyan University. Thank you for taking the time to share your insights and wisdom with us.
Jon S. Kulaga: I’ve enjoyed it. Thanks a lot, Todd.
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Todd C. Ream: Thank you for joining us for Saturdays at Seven, Christian Scholar’s Review’s conversation series with thought leaders about the academic vocation and the relationship that vocation shares with the Church. We invite you to join us again next week for Saturdays at Seven.
