Four Necessary Skills for Christ-Animated Learning (Part III): Placing Academic Terms in the Christian Story

One of the odd things about those claiming that major portions of Christian and secular higher education are basically the same is that such a claim reveals an inability to understand complexity. They fail to recognize that key differences go all the way down to the way scholars use basic words. In fact, approaching scholarship through the Christian theological story results in a different understanding of even the most basic disciplinary language. This recognition is something that every Christian scholar should recognize and teach their students. To do that, I will discuss how I approach a few basic terms in my areas of specialization: development and student success.

Development

What does it mean to talk about development? In academia, we throw around the term quite often, usually paired with other things such as human development, student development, moral development, faith development, etc. Yet, my students often do not realize that the nature and substance of the concept vary tremendously depending upon the worldview or metanarrative associated with it.

To begin, when discussing human development, most discussions assume a linear understanding of development that corresponds with theistic or Western secular views of time. Yet, different areas of the world have different concepts of development. In his introduction to The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Gandhi explained how this different view influenced a friend who questioned his decision to write an autobiography. The friend asked, “What has set you on this adventure? Writing an autobiography is a practice peculiar to the West. I know of nobody in the East having written one, except amongst those who have come under Western influence.”¹ The reason for this reality is that Westerners have a linear view of time and development versus a cyclical view. In the cyclical view, one is less focused on seeing development as a linear pilgrimage to certain ends.

Yet, among linear Westerners, there are still different views about the meaning of development. For some scholars, paying attention to development simply means giving attention to the empirical realities humans encounter from birth to death, similar to how one might track how a person physically grows and then shrinks in old age. Yet, for others, development involves something more positive and normative. It carries with it the Christian view that involves progressing toward some higher or better ideal.

This latter use was common in one early 1949 Student Affairs document, The Student Personnel Point of View, which used “development” 45 times (sometimes adding “optimum development”). It declared, ” Our way of life depends upon a renewed faith in, and extensive use of, democratic methods, upon the development of more citizens able to assume responsibilities in matters of social concern, and upon the active participation of millions of men and women in the enterprise of social improvement.” Behind this vision of development lies an implicit vision of human flourishing that is sometimes not made transparent. One also sees an understanding of what the best methods are for achieving that development. In this case, it was “democratic methods.”

Similarly, Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development also proposed to outline the road that a person must take to develop. He indicated that the developmental journey involved going through six cognitive stages of moral reasoning through which individuals may proceed, and, like The Student Personnel Point of View, the actual end of development is really meant to further liberal democracy.²

It entailed an ability to reason based on the universal principle of justice. In this regard, he only understood one aspect of what Christians view as moral development (both regarding his primary emphasis on reason and his focus on justice). Thus, instead of focusing on multiple virtues or ways of reasoning, the virtues of God and theological reasoning that one should acquire and demonstrate in one’s thinking, affections, and behavior, since we are made in God’s image to acquire God’s multiple virtues, he only focused on one primary moral principle and secular forms of moral reasoning. Interestingly, he later toyed with the idea that perhaps the end should be agape love.

Of course, debates about progress, growth, or development, as well as the end to which we are progressing, growing, or developing, are why we have controversies about the phrase “the right side of history.” That phrase contains a Jewish and Christian assumption that history is headed somewhere that is morally better. That is why both traditions have a normative understanding of human development.

Christians have a unique understanding of the term, which carries multiple implications. First, we should recognize that God created everything, including humans, to develop. Many biblical commentators observe how God placed us in a garden in Genesis but expected us to end up in a holy city in Revelation. God created us to add human additions (i.e., culture) to what he created (i.e., nature). This kind of development is fundamentally good because God gave us the ability and the instructions to fulfill this creation mandate in Genesis 1.

Second, what we often consider “natural” or “normal” human development to death is actually not how God originally designed humanity to develop, since death is a result of the Fall. Thus, true or Christian development involves a new birth that leads to everlasting life in the Kingdom of God.

Third, Christianity reveals how we ought to develop, even within the unnatural human process that currently leads us to death. God’s revelation helps us recognize our need to acquire God’s moral virtues and reasoning to become more like Christ, bear God’s image (our original purpose), and flourish. Many scholars who discuss development do not have that view or only share part of that view.

Thus, we must recognize that other theories of moral development have different ends. For example, William Perry’s Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years³ saw students as moving from simple dualism to complex dualism, to relativism, to commitment in relativism. Certainly, Christians want students to move from simple dualisms to more complex thinking, but what is the end toward which we want students to develop? For Perry, it was a commitment within relativism.

Perry called his proposed journey an “epistemological Pilgrim’s Progress.”⁴ That terminology indicates how Perry understood student development to follow a journey similar to Christianity, but despite the Christian reference, he did not propose a theory that followed a Christian journey. Simply making commitments amidst relativism is not what Christian development in general or John Bunyan’s idea of Christian development in Pilgrim’s Progress entails. John Bunyan saw Pilgrim’s journey as a growth in sanctification and a test of faithfulness to God, and not simply a choice one made amid a range of relative options. A true pilgrim progresses toward what is true, good, and beautiful–the triune God.

Overall, Christians need to realize that any time the word “development” is used, there are numerous philosophical assumptions associated with the word that are connected to various ideological ends. Christians, however, should be taught to think about both individual and communal development according to and within the Christian story.

Student Success

Within the discipline of student affairs, one will find a variety of definitions of “student success.” For example, George Kuh defined student success as: “higher-than-predicted graduation rates and better-than-predicted student engagement scores.”⁵ Kuh’s definition defines student success according to the institution.

Early student affairs thinkers had a larger vision of student success, but it was still linked to a secular entity. For example, the American Council on Education’s revised 1949 statement mentioned earlier, The Student Personnel Point of View, articulated its end as “education for a fuller realization of democracy in every phase of living.”⁶ For these leaders, democracy served not merely as the country’s political philosophy but as a guiding philosophy to education and life. Thus, the student affairs movement claimed, “Our way of life depends upon a renewed faith in, and extensive use of, democratic methods, upon the development of more citizens to assume responsibilities in matters of social concern, and upon the active participation of millions of men and women in the enterprise of social improvement.”⁷ Colleges and universities, therefore, needed to inculcate in students “a firm and enlightened belief in democracy.”⁸

Christians in student affairs need to think differently about both student success and the end of education. As one vice president for student life who has worked in state universities and Christian institutions, shared with us, “The state university is forming people in a particular kind of public citizenry project. We’re doing something really different. We’re shaping people to be members of the body of Christ in a full mind, body, spirit holistic way. I think it’s just a completely different project.”⁹ We agree.

Thus, Christian student success must start not with the institution, the nation, or some other institution’s ideological agenda; it must start with the reality that the student is made Imago Dei, in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27). Without that understanding, the whole of the discipline and “student success” can become distorted. We simply cannot understand the whole student and student success without understanding God and our relationship to God.

Success in the Christian story means recognizing that the true telos of every student is to fulfill God’s purpose for them. That involves at least three things. First, all students need to understand their intrinsic worth and value as image bearers of God. Second, they need to recognize that God designed them as image bearers to fulfill the creation mandate. This entails being excellent as image bearers and in all of our sub-identities (member of Christ’s body, neighbor, friend, student/profession, citizen, male/female, family member, etc.). Third, since creation is fallen, both we and creation need to be reconciled with God through Christ. Part of our new purpose then becomes joining with Christ in reversing the Fall and bringing about God’s original design for God’s world on earth. Teaching students to understand, embrace, and live out these three things becomes the foundation for student success. If a Christian university only judges student success according to criteria that are good for the institution’s survival (e.g., retention) or the nation’s agenda, and not student flourishing within God’s overall story, it is fallen and unfaithful.

Conclusion

As one can see, the basic terms used in the discipline of student affairs become radically transformed by placing them in God’s story. The same proves true in other disciplines—even more technical disciplines.

I wrote in The Outrageous Idea of Christian Teaching about how Peter Alonzi, a professor of economics at Dominican University, shares a simple pedagogical strategy for helping students think about economics Christianly. He explains it simply, “There are times in my economics course when pausing to behold allows me to share with students my sense of the presence of God in economics.”¹⁰ By “pausing to behold, he means placing simple economic terms in the Christian story. For example, he says regarding resources, “While taking resources for granted is a convenient assumption, it is most important to remember that natural resources are not just there. They are gifts. So at the very beginning of the course, we pause. We call natural resources by their true name – gift – when we say thank you to the creator.”¹¹ He places even what seems like a basic term, “resources,” within an understanding of the Christian narrative that transforms our economic perspective.

Every Christian professor should think about how placing the fundamental terms they use in class within the Christian story may change how students understand those terms. It also teaches them to think Christianly and critically about the words we use in academia.

1. Ghandi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997), xxv-xxvi.
2. Lawrence Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Development: Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice, Essays on Moral Development, Vol. 1 (San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1981), 17-18.
3. William G. Perry, Jr., Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College Years: A Scheme (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999/1968).
4. Ibid., 49.
5. George D Kuh and Association of American Colleges and Universities, High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter (Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2008); Kuh et al., Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter.
6. “The Student Personnel Point of View,” American Council on Education Studies 1, no. 1 (1937): 2.
7. The Student Personnel Point of View.”
8. The Student Personnel Point of View.”
9. Perry L. Glanzer, Theodore F. Cockle, Elijah G. Jeong, and Britney N. Graber, Christ Enlivened Student Affairs: A Guide to Christian Thinking and Practices in the Field (Abilene Christian University Press, 2020), 12.
10. Peter Alonzi, “Pauses,” in Becoming Beholders: Cultivating Sacramental Imagination and Actions in College Classrooms, eds. Karen E Eifler and Thomas M. Landy (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014), 86.
11. Alonzi, “Pauses,” 89.