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In the second episode of the third season of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Kevin J. Brown, President of Asbury University. Brown opens by discussing how proximity as an educator is a critical component of engaging and forming the moral sensibilities of students. Such an understanding also proves beneficial when mending the divide often separating generations. Part of what fosters that divide is the search on which younger generations are embarking to ground their faith in something authentic, something “less than” the accoutrements often associated with faith communities populated by previous generations. “Less than” then translates into more in terms of engagement and discipleship. As a member of Generation X, Brown then discusses the process by which he came to see business as central to his vocation and, in particular, how he came to see more at stake in business than mere financial transactions. That process led him to pursue additional graduate study in Scotland where he learned to integrate theology and business. Those lessons also helped Brown view education as a series of spaces in which students are formed toward holding and exercising rightly order their loves. Brown describes his rapid rise to Asbury’s presidency and the shift in vocational responsibilities he experienced, responsibilities that were on national and international display in 2023 during the Second Great Revival. While he and his colleagues sought to make sure the core educational functions of the university’s mission continued to be exercised, they also sought ways that lessons offered by the revival could etch themselves into the institution’s ongoing culture. Brown then closes by discussing the value of Church-related colleges and universities, and the ways the relationship with the Church proves critical now and in years to come.
Todd 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 Kevin Brown, President of Asbury University. Thank you for joining us.
Kevin J. Brown: Thanks for the opportunity, Todd. I’m so excited to talk.
Todd Ream: Your writing covers a wide range of topics, including virtue formation, artificial intelligence, and most recently the hope you find in Generation Z or persons born between 1997 and 2012, persons that constitute, for the most part, our traditional age college students that are experiencing college today.
To begin, what characteristics do you believe define Generation Z?
Kevin J. Brown: Well, when we talk about generations, we oftentimes describe or define them by their pathologies. So in that sense, you will often hear Gen Z described or characterized by their anxiety depression, suicidal ideation. I’ve been interested in the work of Richard Reeves, and he had this just devastating statistic recently that when young men, for example, are killing themselves, they’re using words like hopeless and useless more frequently, skepticism of institutions, and certainly there’s a lot of data on how younger generations, including Gen Z, have made up a larger composition of the “nones,” N-O-N-E-S, those who claim no religious affiliation.
But they’re also a generation that prioritizes authenticity. They’re the most marketed to generation in human history. And so there is this desire, this penchant for a symmetry between beliefs and values and words and actions, and I think that’s a really positive attribute of that generation. And as many of us know, they wanna make a difference. They want to do good. They want their activism to count for something and to move the dial on making their sphere or community or world a better place.
Todd Ream: In what ways do you think the characteristics of this generation compare with previous generations, in particular, perhaps millennials. In what ways are they similar, but in one ways are might they be different?
Kevin J. Brown: I don’t know if I would call this a difference, perhaps, it is certainly in terms of how Gen Z might approach college, for example. They really bring a strong practical sensibility. So what deliverables do I get for the time I’m spending and for the money I’m spending, this commitment that I’m making to a, a multi-year academic program? And they’re really asking that cost-benefit question. So I think that might be something that more characterizes this generation.
In terms of the Church and the Christian faith, I think they’re asking a different set of questions. Given where you are, Todd you’re obviously familiar with Steve DeNeff. He’s someone who I’ve long appreciated. I thought he made a very prescient comment in a sermon series years ago that he did on Proverbs, and this is like 2016 or 17, but he said that young adults today aren’t asking what the Church believes. They’re asking a different question, does it work? And that has certainly been my experience.
Another author said they’re not asking, is this true? Which is very much a question, you or I, were raised kind of the Josh McDowell, Norman Geisler eighties and nineties apologetics, which I love but not asking is it true, but is it good? Is this good? And I was compelled by a comment Russell Moore made, that young adults are walking away from Church. But they’re not walking away because they don’t believe what the Church teaches, but because they’re not sure the Church itself believes what the Church teaches.
This was an observation made recently by Jonathan Rauch. He’s an atheist. He’s not a believer but he’s written a book on when Christianity is at its best, it’s good for society, but he uses this expression, sharp Christianity, which I thought was really interesting. Again, it’s saying, it’s not that I don’t believe what you’re saying. I’m not sure you believe what you’re saying, and people are therefore stepping away from faith. So I think this is absolutely a generation that rejects a do as I say, not as I do approach to life.
Todd Ream: You referenced being known by their pathologies, and I want to ask a question that’s perhaps underneath, you know, that and that propensity oftentimes that we see, but reaching back at least as far as the 1960s, members of older generations are often perceived as viewing members of younger generations with pessimism, and in some extreme cases, maybe even despondence. Whereas members of younger generations often viewing, you know, older generations as being out of touch or even irrelevant.
In what ways do you think those ways of viewing members of other generations are byproducts of seasons of rapidly accelerating change?
Kevin J. Brown: It’s a great question. It’s a great point. I do think these perceptions you’re speaking to are accelerated by a digital ecosystem. And so, for example, if all the information I need is available to me in some kind of online format, if I’m a Google away or now, an AI language model away from an answer I don’t need the wisdom of older generations. And so maybe I can say okay, boomer, you know, some of these sarcastic statements.
But I think that goes the other way too, where it’s easier to look at younger generations and just think of them like, oh, the kids these days and not hypersee, which is an expression that’s used to like, what are those embers of potentiality that need to be fanned into flame for younger generations. So I’m Gen X and I think for a generation like myself, we can first and foremost remember we were young too.
And I’m in Christian higher ed and really on my best day here, I remember the kindness and the charity that was exhibited to me as a young student, men and women who went out of their way to just weave themselves into the fabric of my life, and it fundamentally altered the trajectory of my life. So there’s a lot of things that we do, but again, I think on our best day we are hyperseen into the lives of our students and remembering that all of God’s people, regardless of age, bear His image and bear those same relational, creative, productive capacities of any other person or generation.
Todd Ream: Now you mentioned charity just a second ago. What practices do you think we can implement in various communities, types of communities, that could foster that and then bridge these gaps when they do emerge?
Kevin J. Brown: Well, I think coming near is incredibly important and asking questions and getting into, like, in other words, not keeping young adults at a distance and then making evaluative judgments based upon that lack of proximity.
Just a really quick story. I remember years ago I was teaching and there was this student and he’s just sleeping through my entire class. And I’m trying to ignore him. And I just am getting increasingly offended like, what’s wrong with these students? And don’t you know how much money you’re paying? And doggone it, pay attention to what I’m saying. You know, all the things.
And at the end of class instead of saying something snarky to him, I think I made a comment like, wow you’re doing on the outside what I feel like doing on the inside. You’re tired. I’m tired too. And he said, you know, I apologize. I stayed up all night making a video for the school. They asked me to do this video and enter into some kind of competition, and I wanted it to just be its utter best. And I didn’t get any sleep. So instead of this student totally tuned out to what I was saying, he was tired because he had tried to do something on behalf of the institution that I worked for to advance its brand, to make it look better, et cetera.
Now that’s just one example, and not every example will be as noteworthy but I think it’s just to remember that we were young. And when we come close to young adults and we really hear their stories, it helps us to understand the variability in their actions. And certainly that proximity raises our moral sensibilities in a way that we can be charitable and we can be gracious towards them. But that’s harder to do when we do it at a distance.
Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. You mentioned hope and there’s hope that you find in this next generation as they begin to find their way into leadership positions in the Church, which will only grow in numbers.
In what ways do you think they’re beginning to have an impact on the Church and is the sense of hope that you see beginning to sort of take hold and take root?
Kevin J. Brown: Let me say something about, about what I’m hopeful for. First, I think we could say that Gen Z is bringing a different set of sensibilities to the table. As I mentioned, they have this desire to make a difference. They have this, this kind of activist instinct, you might say, to improve the world, to do good, and there’s again, a penchant towards authenticity. When they’re in, they’re in.
But another way of maybe characterizing the hope is that, there’s a 20th century Scottish pastor James Stewart and he had a theory on revivals and renewals. In summary that, that they are born out of this kind of like collective desperation and I believe, and this is not a, you know, things are getting worse, wagging my finger at, at culture kind of thing, but I just believe there’s this soul starved, meaning vacuum, this sweeping desperation across the United States and our world. And I think that that desperation, the kind that James Stewart was talking about is acutely felt by younger generations and they want something distilled and real to anchor into amidst the dynamism of, of this moment.
And just one, one really quick story to, to characterize this Asbury, is known for a lot of things, but particularly recently, a couple years ago, the what we call the Outpouring Revival. And 50,000 people came to our little two stoplight town in a 16-day period. But during that time a popular publication reached out and asked me specifically why was, why was Gen Z reacting to this in the way that they were? You know, I’m not a cultural commentator, but I was happy to marshal an answer at least and try.
I said, well, I think look at what they’ve experienced since they were born. I mean, all the way from September 11th, we had a financial crisis. But even look at the last three years where you do see global wars and you see economic uncertainty. You see this really dysfunctional political environment. You see racial injustice—that’s really important to younger generations. And all of it is, these micro computers that we carry in our pocket make us hyper aware of these things. And then of course we had a global pandemic to boot.
And I, I ended that by talking about them, they are witnessing a lot of moral failures with key institutions, whether that might be a Christian camp or a Christian university, certainly churches leaders, authors of books that they are aware of. That new information comes out. So I just ended, I said, I think they want something more. And the next day I was with a group of students and I said, hey guys you know, I was asked this question by this magazine yesterday about you and, and here’s how I answered. What do you think of my answer?
And there was a pause and, and one of the students said, yeah, I think that’s right, but I wouldn’t put it the way you did. He said, we don’t want something more. We want something less. And I said, oh, talk to me, elaborate. What do you mean by that? And we don’t want all the stuff, we don’t want all the accoutrements of faith. Give me something real to anchor into amidst this, this dizzying moment. We want something less. And I just thought that was such a fascinating expression.
So they don’t, they don’t just want another opinion. I think opinions and propositions for this generation are just dead on arrival again, they want something real. And when they’re in, they’re in. That’s the good news.
Todd Ream: Thank you. I want to ask you about your own discernment process as a member of Generation X, if I may, as I believe you mentioned. You earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in business from the University of Indianapolis, followed by service with Wells Fargo Bank.
At what point did you know business would play an important role in terms of how you understood your vocation?
Kevin J. Brown: My own testimony, I played basketball at the University of Indianapolis and I spent probably less than 30 seconds determining my major. I just thought, hey, business, I’ll get a job and make money. I mean, I wish I was exaggerating. Unfortunately, that was the extent of what went into it. And so I kind of fumbled through college. I always thought of myself more as a basketball player and then some of these just big identity questions I had to wrestle with toward the end of college, which is another story, really a part of my testimony.
But I came to see business differently and I did go to work in banking, but I, I came to see that the Christian life, if what we celebrated at Easter is true and Jesus Christ rose from the dead, then this world is turned upside down. What Paul says in 2 Corinthians learning to see the unseen. All the maps have been redrawn, and that has implications for every domain of my life, including what occurs in the commercial marketplace. And so that was just a whole new way for me to think about the business discipline both as a practitioner when I worked in banking and as a teacher who taught business.
Todd Ream: In what ways did you find your service with Wells Fargo to be vocationally fulfilling?
Kevin J. Brown: It was fulfilling because it met this instinct toward a scoreboard. I, again, grew up an athlete and I just really love the idea of partnering with a group of men and women, locking arms with them to achieve a common end together. And so it really scratched that itch, and kind of an achievement itch and you have a scoreboard that you can see every day. So I enjoyed that.
I enjoyed the opportunity to be a salt and light witness in what, what you could call a secular marketplace. Interestingly though, I don’t know if I use that expression, but I’m not quite sure that is an accurate representation of the banking environment I was in. It was non-Christian, certainly. But it was highly religious, you know, Durkheim defining religion by what it does. It was a place where people are pining for meaning and transcendence and beauty and community.
And so in that sense, what an important space to be in like Paul, I’m not Paul, but to say I see you are a religious people and these gods you’re naming I have, I have a name for one of those gods too. So an important place to be a salt and light witness, and that was very vocationally fulfilling as well.
Todd Ream: Now you already had a bachelor’s and a master’s, but then you returned to school, earned a second master’s from the University of St. Andrews, and a doctoral degree from the University of Glasgow. What questions prompted you to return to school? To go back to school?
Kevin J. Brown: I come from a family of educators and I went into banking. I knew shortly after I got married that I really wanted to teach. I serve an administrative role right now, but my preference is to refer to myself as an educator, before an administrator. That is a deep, deep love of mine. What to teach I was not clear about, but St. Andrew’s was my opportunity to dip my foot in the pool of serious theological work with just some amazing professors and some amazing co-travelers other students to think through that content with.
And through my advisor at St. Andrew’s, I was connected with my eventual advisor from the University of Glasgow. And these are just extraordinary people and displayed a different kind of way of thinking about education and knowledge and wisdom. And so it was an amazing experience and was necessary not only from an accreditation standpoint, but a preparation standpoint to enter into the field of higher education and teaching.
Todd Ream: So interestingly enough as we opened, your writing, you know, is, is in several different domains, oftentimes domains that we don’t see a lot of overlap.
Is there a question underneath that sort of drives you intellectually and as an educator in terms of you want to walk beside young people, in pursuit of answering that question?
Kevin J. Brown: Yeah, very well said. A friend of mine, he’s a pastor, he wrote a book that he had some editing support years ago from Margaret Feinberg, and she made a really fascinating comment to him which has now turned into like my icebreaker question when we have dinner with other families. But she said, I think every pastor really only has three or four sermons, just concepts, values, beliefs, messages that are just so deep in their heart, and those just get recycled hundreds, if not thousands of times. Things that they are talking about.
I think that’s true even beyond pastors. And for me, this, this idea of virtue has always been something near to my heart. I think it’s one of the fundamental enduring questions that we ask ourselves. Not only how do we adjudicate right and wrong, but who am I becoming? And if we take Ephesians 2:10 seriously for we are what He has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. There’s this teleology that I’m designed for something and my fulfillment is bound up in realizing the creator’s design in my life. And so what is that? And it’s why I love Augustine’s definition of virtue that it is ordered love.
And so I actually think Christian education is the space where we get to live out this understanding of education at its best. We’re not just populating brain receptacles with information and moving a student down the assembly line. This is a whole person. How do we get you to think about your teleological ends so that you can flourish as a human being live into the fullness of full life and honor and glorify God?
And so that’s not just what I know, it’s what I love. It’s not characterized by the faculties above my neck, what I think and what I utter, but also what am I orienting? What am I motioning toward, as Augustine might say? And so that has been something really close to my heart and that I’ve been passionate about and trying to think about really for decades in some ways more mature than others.
And then you said it with, I think another animating question was that, I mentioned in college, I was like, I’m just going to play basketball and whatever on what I major in. I just had men and women who were so formative in my life that were asking me these questions and a guy saying, we’re gonna go to the Big Boy on Thursdays and read Scripture together, and have breakfast and a men’s Bible study. I had a pastor who was so powerful in my life, and a friend group who challenged me as well. That changed everything.
And so, again, on our best day, this is the kind of holistic, multidimensional education we want to provide because it’s not just simply fostering the economic potential of our students, as important as that is. And that is a function of college. But that’s not the full function of what we seek to do. We’re seeking to live into an Ephesians 2:10 understanding of what it means to function and flourish as someone created by a Creator, in created world, and to navigate that orderliness in a God-honoring salt and light witness.
Todd Ream: Thank you very much.
After serving on the faculty at Anderson University here in Indiana, you were appointed to the faculty at Asbury University. Very quickly, though, you know, are also added administrative responsibilities.
Will you please describe the discernment process that led you to accept that appointment in Asbury and also to accept that appointment that now includes administrative responsibilities?
Kevin J. Brown: Yeah, very quickly, years ago, a woman by the name of Sandra Gray who taught at Asbury University was on the board of a mission organization. And I knew the president of that organization and she was a banker who had transitioned into Christian higher ed. And so through this connection I just said, can I connect with her? I really want to hear her story.
And from the time I connected with her via email to when we sat down and met, she had been promoted to president, so she was the 17th president of Asbury University. We met in 2007, months after she had accepted the new role, and she connected me with some individuals within the school who I had coffee with every year. And in 2013, an opening became available that I thought was a good fit with my graduate work.
It’s a great community. My kids were younger at the time, and so I’m thinking about, you know, schools and those kinds of considerations. And I’m originally from Louisville and my parents are still there. I have a sister there. And so more proximate to family. So those were some of the more practical elements that went into deciding to come to Asbury.
But given my background in banking, I knew at some point I wanted to dabble back into some administrative oversight, whether that would be a chair or a dean. I just wasn’t sure what that would look like.
Todd Ream: In terms of dabbling back in then, in 2019, you did more than dabble, you were appointed the 18th president of Asbury University. Would you describe the discernment process that led you to accept that appointment?
Kevin J. Brown: I received a phone call that my name had been thrown in the hat, and so I had not sought to apply, and then it’s just a matter of, do you want to move forward? And I shared that with my wife and she was like, no, absolutely not. You’re not doing that. So that was that.
And I did speak to some, some mentors and people I deeply respect on how I should think about that. And they encouraged me to go through the process and see where doors open and close. And so that was the attitude I took. The doors kept opening and amazingly, I was named the 18th president of Asbury.
Todd Ream: You referred to yourself as an educator at your core, as a teacher and as a writer, but in what ways did accepting that appointment mean that you needed to leave behind certain dimensions of your vocation, but also perhaps maybe even add dimensions to it?
Kevin J. Brown: Yeah, there is I mean, you really burn your ships when, when you, you go from something like a professor to a president. It’s not to say that there may not be a teaching opportunity in the future, but it’s not like you can just slip back into that previous role. That felt very vulnerable and continues to, so I knew that I was stepping into something vocationally that was different and relationally that was different.
This is our community. I mean, Wilmore is a small town. Asbury is here. The hiking trips and Christmas parties and potluck dinners and kids at the same soccer game, all those things have really been facilitated through this university. And so overnight, I’m going from this to this asymmetric position where I’m making decisions that affect men and women that I love.
But my mandate from the board is not, hey, make sure you take care of your friends or heighten your relationships. It is a fiduciary of the school to make decisions that are in the best long-term continuity of the school and to continue to fulfill its mission. And so that was really unnerving because it put me in a different relationship with this community that had been so part and parcel of my relational network, and even to some degree, my self understanding. So that was a significant challenge.
Todd Ream: As you already mentioned in February 2023, Asbury experienced what came to be known in one, in one phrase, it’s second great revival. 53 years earlier, Asbury experienced the first great revival.
What ongoing impact, if any, has that second great revival continued to have on the Asbury community as you’ve led it?
Kevin J. Brown: I have been asked this question a lot, and which I really appreciate. I think when we talk about our campus, I always want to, you know, joke a little bit that well, you know, students are floating around in monastic robes, holding candles, singing hymns, you know. It’s great. There has been this wonderful, blessed holy residue after that I have just deeply, deeply appreciated.
And so I’m proud of our students and I hope we are never, ever the same. So in one sense, I don’t want us to ever kind of, you know, go back to normal. In the other sense, if someone came to our campus and saw us, we would look like a Christian university. But when I’m asked this question, I try to just respectfully also say beyond Asbury, I think there’s so much more happening with Gen Z.
And my, my prayer has been that in 5, 8, 10 years, we would look back at February 2023 and say that was nothing, that there would be revivals that would eclipse what we’ve experienced in recent days and would come to understand that as a, a mere tremor that was preceding just an earthquake of godly revivalism across the world, across the Church. That’s my deep hope. Things are wonderful here, but there are just some really encouraging signs and signals of things happening among Gen Z throughout the United States and throughout the world.
Todd Ream: As Asbury’s president then, in what ways, if any, was your experience during that second great revival similar to or different from the way President Dennis Kinlaw experienced the first great revival that occurred on campus 53 years earlier?
Kevin J. Brown: I think two similarities I would mention. The first would be there’s a wonderful testimony given by Dr. Kinlaw. He was in Canada when the revival broke out in 1970, and he came to campus. He came up the stairs of Hughes Auditorium, about to walk in and he thought, you know, as president, do I need to get on stage? Do I need to say something? And I walked in and was just so overwhelmed by God’s Spirit, the power of what was happening there. He said, I took the back corner seat.
And I think many of the leaders at Asbury, myself included, had a similar instinct to not put your thumbprints on this thing. Because it was bigger than us and I’ve called it like an unspoken, uncoordinated humility. It’s like everyone just knew. I’m pretty good at messing things up when I put my thumbprint on it. And so I think that was one similarity.
The other was just a strong conviction that at some point, we have to return to, we have to return to what we do. A revival, an outpouring, an awakening, whatever you might call it, that is a kind of fruit of our mission, but it’s not our mission. I wake up, my colleagues wake up, and we think about our students. We think about their intellectual rigor and their spiritual formation as they prepare to go and be ambassadors and change agents for the Lord in the days ahead. That’s what we think about. We think about their care on campus, et cetera.
And so, as you can imagine, it was really unnerving to have so many people come to some of our students because this is home for them. And so some of our students even felt alienated from the space. Back in 2021, we had planned to have the college day of prayer on our campus for February 23rd, 2023, which talk about holy coordination.
And so during that time, a metaphor emerged and I’m not quite sure its origin, but it certainly made sense to me that a fire is brightest when it’s largest. And you know, I thought in that sense we’ve had this like multi-week, massive spiritual bonfire. But a fire is hottest when it is simmering down into these, these burning coals. And could it be that, what looks like dying down, is actually becoming hotter.
And so in that sense, we just thought we need to return and do the things we do well here, and let new torchbearers take these white hot embers of spiritual, holy wonder, anything you want to call it. Take that out and see what the Lord is doing throughout the world.
And I say that because I didn’t know this, but I came to learn that Dr. Kinlaw had done something similar where he had moved services to a local church off of campus, so that Asbury College at that time could renew educational continuity and predictability of classes. And I thought that was really fascinating.
I think a major contrast, the New York Times called this the digital or social media revival. Because of social media, because of digitization, you’re having that spread to the nether regions of the world. And so that was interesting to deal with. And there’s some good and bad and ugly that is associated with that. But certainly a contrast between now and 1970.
Todd Ream: Now as you are five to six years into your presidency and experienced these kinds of events, for individuals who are seeking to discern whether or not to accept a comparable appointment at a different university, what advice would you offer them?
Kevin J. Brown: I would say a few things. I would say that humility is tantamount. And that’s not a, oh, it’s good to be humble, or I’m not saying I’m a humble person. I’m saying I’m not sure someone would survive without it, the need to be a great listener, to be charitable, to really try to understand others. Higher education, as many know, is just so characterized by shared governance and so I think a humble posture is really important.
I think it’s really important to understand what it means to be a Christian university, Christian and university, to take both of those descriptors very seriously. And so I think any leader has an obligation to think about a university, academic excellence, inquiry, cultivating a well furnished mind, joining this great tradition of great thinkers and teaching our students themselves to think well, but also to be a Christian university.
And that means we don’t reason to Christianity here. We are reasoning from it. That is our, that is our starting point. So we’re always gonna seek to mine the depths of a knowledge field whatever that might be, but we’re gonna bring that exploration to bear against our Christian tradition, to understand it.
And as I said earlier, it’s not just what we believe, the faculties above our neck. It’s what we love, what we desire, what we want. And so what are those habituating practices that shape our loves in a godward direction? That is a part of the Christian university experience. So I think a leader would have to think about the totality of, of all of those areas.
I’ll also say, to go back to the point about humility, I have this running journal of things that I have learned as a leader. And unfortunately they’re not because I had a cup of coffee and, oh, here’s a thought, and you know, right. I’ve learned it the hard way. I’ve learned it by making mistakes. I’ve learned it by potentially offending people. And so a humble spirit helps us to learn.
And when I’ve lacked that humble spirit, I don’t move forward and now that is affecting the institution. But when I am assisted when, when I can wrestle myself into that place through the power of the Holy Spirit that’s, that is how we learn. I looked this morning to date, I have 84 different entries of things that I have learned. And again, oftentimes it’s through something challenging.
So if, if you’re in administration at a Christian institution, that doesn’t mean you’ve left learning to the classroom. All of us are learning at all times, and we all have a responsibility to wake up and think about what it mean to be a university that’s Christian and takes both of those descriptors seriously.
Todd Ream: Before we close our conversation, I want to ask you formally about something where we sort of talked around the edges of it already, and that’s in particular, how do you define the characteristics and or qualities of the academic vocation?
Kevin J. Brown: I’ll answer the question this way. There’s been quite a discussion about the value of higher education and Christian higher education in the United States, and I think that is a live question that continues to be addressed. How we answer that question about value is going to be directly proportionate to how we understand the purpose of higher education.
So as I mentioned earlier, if this is about populating a workforce with market ready skills that are relevant to a given environment to, to move forward, like what, what does a society need? That’s one way of thinking about value. If you think about some of these life skills, those intangibles that are, are difficult to be a great thinker, to be well-read, to be lettered. Years ago it used to be to train clergy for the Church so there’s a broad way of thinking about it.
And here’s what I would say. There’s a wonderful illustration given by A. W. Tozer years ago, and he was using the illustration for a different purpose, but I think it works here. He talks about three men going into the forest, a poet, a naturalist, and a lumberjack. And what do these three men see? Well, the poet sees metaphor and perhaps these large trees are like the stately kings and queens of years past, dominating, overseeing, attending to the forest and what occurs within it.
And the naturalist sees nuance. They can see the things that the untrained eye cannot see, what’s, what’s helpful, what’s harmful, what has been there. And the lumberjack sees economic value and potentiality. They might see lumber that can become a desk or a canoe, whatever, whatever it might be. So I like that illustration because we would not minimize a forest to any singular description based upon the poet, the naturalist, or the lumberjack.
And I think there’s something quite similar that can be said for higher education, and especially Christian higher education. Yes, there’s an economic dimension. Students are paying money and they’re making some kind of cost-benefit evaluation within their minds about the time and the money being spent relative to their opportunity cost and the present value of their future prospects, income stream, et cetera. And I think schools have to take that seriously.
But there’s so much more going on. They are becoming intellectually rigorous thinkers, not only is that better for society, we believe that is part and parcel of a better life. And they are becoming deeper in their fulfillment of their Christian faith, what they believe, what they practice, not just what they know and their theological insights, what they love, what they orient their lives towards.
And then finally their service instinct, what they give themselves to. The CCCU, the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities and also, I think that same year, Cardus think Tank out of Canada both had done similar studies about how are Christian school graduates different from their secular counterparts at other colleges and universities.
And they found that graduates of these faith-based institutions are more likely to select into a perhaps lower paid, but higher meaning, higher service field that they felt a, a, a missional instinct that whatever they did had to advance some community that they were in. So they felt like they had a purpose, a purpose to go and to be salt and light.
And so I see that as very much an outcome of the kinds of institutions that we are promoting when we answer that value question. So it’s not just, can I get a job? As important as that is. Are my skills going to be relevant? What do I love? What do I know and can I cultivate those judgments and sensibilities and practices to live well, let my light shine before others so that they may see my good works and honor and glorify God who’s in Heaven?
Todd Ream: For our last question then, I want to ask, in what ways is the health of the academic vocation on a campus such as Asbury, a Church-related university, in what ways is its health reflective of the health that the relationship that a particular campus shares with the Church?
Kevin J. Brown: I think they’re related. I think we have to say that a rising tide and the vitality of a faith-based of a Christian, thriving Christian institution is going to lift other ministry boats and vice versa. So there certainly is an interdependence. I do think there can be more dialogue between these institutions.
I heard someone say recently, like we say, all politics is local, all religion is local. What are we doing here to support our local church? Certainly we are encouraging students to attend. We’re encouraging them to serve. We’re training and educating them so they’re prepared to enter ministry spheres and add value. And to be this God honoring witness.
But I think there’s also that interdependence plays a role, churches can play as well. They can make significant overtures to the next generation. That is so important. I was familiar with the church that was near a college, and they just said, we’re gonna make food for these students every other Sunday. It came at a great inconvenience. But it was a significant overture to get those students there. And it was a way to say we’re voting for you. We care about you, teaching our students and anyone else that they’re not just consumers. Church is not just the consumption of information.
And I think a significant role of interdependence is discipleship. So if, if we have this hot wire of Gen Z spiritual enthusiasm, what needs to happen to plug that into an ecosystem of maturation and discipleship? Churches need to show there’s no Sunday to Monday asymmetry. And I think most importantly for both colleges and universities, and for ministries, churches, parachurch ministries is to make it costly. And I’m not talking about monetarily speaking. I’m talking about make it meaningful. Make it something that it obligates you.
I think a mature understanding of belonging is obligation, commitment, and responsibility. There’s this quote I share a lot by Henry David Thoreau, where he said the value of something is how much life it costs you. And so if something, if a school, if a church, if a ministry doesn’t cost a lot of life, are we inadvertently communicating that it’s not high value, that it’s low value?
And so I think that there are opportunities for those bridges to be more secure and securely built, better dialogue between Christian colleges and universities and churches but undoubtedly, they’re interdependent, not independent. And the health of one will invariably affect the health of the other.
Todd Ream: Thank you very much. Our guest has been Kevin Brown, President of Asbury University. Thank you for taking the time to share your insights and wisdom with us.
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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.
