I have increasingly had an uncomfortable realization. It’s not necessarily one I thought I would ever even remotely embrace. Having grown up an avid reader of historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, detective fiction, comic books, adventure stories, and more, I have, like yesterday, always strongly defended the importance of creating fictional literary worlds and immersing ourselves in them. Indeed, I found they nurtured my spiritual and moral longings and imagination in wonderful and powerful ways. They cultivated my Christian moral senses and spiritual imagination.
At this point, though, I’m increasingly convinced that contemporary Christian higher education needs to emphasize less immersion in pretend worlds—video games, television, movies, and even fiction, etc.—and prioritize more the study of God’s creation—both social and natural. In this blog post, I explain why I am disturbed by this conclusion, but also why I think it is necessary today.
As mentioned yesterday, the line of thinking I will be advocating has some association with some suspect advocates. When I first started teaching American educational philosophy, it struck me how, in contrast to Christians, Deists and Unitarians tended to dislike fiction (it is likely why they had such a boring and mechanistic vision of the world). Yesterday, I described how Thomas Jefferson, as well as the father of American public schools, Horace Mann, both despised fiction and urged keeping children from it.
As opposed to Jefferson and Mann, however, I think our God-given imagination and desires to create and immerse ourselves in our pretend worlds are part of the image of God reflected in us. God created and incarnated himself in his world. As J.R.R. Tolkien reminded us, we are imitating God by being sub-creators of fictional worlds. Yet, I do think we have neglected the study of God’s creation at the expense of studying human sub-creations.
Why do I think that? I increasingly encounter emerging adults who are simply unfamiliar with basic social and natural sciences. They do not know how the social and natural worlds work. They have not been engaged in deep observation and reflection of reality.
Instead, they have spent most of their time immersing themselves in, thinking about, examining, and critically engaging imaginary worlds through youth fiction, video games, staged social media productions, movies, or online fantasy worlds. Thus, they have failed to acquire the wisdom from doing what Solomon suggested: “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!” (Prov. 6:6) or other parts of God’s creation.
Educating Our Senses
The famous Christian educator, Jon Amos Comenius (1592-1670), taught that a strong education must first be grounded in the ability to use the senses that God gave us to engage the natural and social worlds. He wrote in his philosophy of education, The Great Didactic,
If any wish to devote his life to learning, the multitude of objects which the Creator has placed before his happy gaze is infinite, and… he will find his most useful occupation in discerning the treasures of divine wisdom that the Creator has provided, and in thus preparing for himself the bulwarks of a happy life. Man’s senses, therefore, must be early brought to bear on the world that surrounds him, since throughout his whole life he has much to learn, to experience, and to accomplish. (p. 58)
As academics, we often encourage students to go to the original source, but we fail to realize that books written by sub-creators are not necessarily original sources in key areas of life—the true original source would be God’s natural and social creation. Thus, Comenius insisted that we
must, as far as is possible, be taught to become wise by studying the heavens, the earth, oaks, and beeches, but not by studying books; that is to say, they must learn to know and investigate the things themselves, and not the observations that other people have made about the things. We shall thus tread in the footsteps of the wise men of old, if each of us obtains his knowledge from the originals, from things themselves, and from no other source. (p. 150)
Books Are Not the Original Source
To those who study old texts and great texts, this point sounds heretical, but it is one we should remember when educating students—especially young children, but also college students.
I was struck by this observation when reading about Charles Dickens’ regular schedule in the book Rituals. Dickens would usually finish his work around two in the afternoon and then take a three-hour walk around London. Not only was it good exercise and helpful for his mental processing, but it also gave him source material as he studied the social world for material for his fiction. He went to the original source by studying the social and material world of London.
Comenius shared what he called the golden rule for teachers: “Everything should, as far as is possible, be placed before the senses. Everything visible should be brought before the organ of sight, everything audible before that of hearing. Odours should be placed before the sense of smell, and things’ that are tastable and tangible before the sense of taste and of touch respectively.” We must ask students to study their own reality.
I remember assigning a book for class that used this kind of approach to great effect: College Hook-Up Culture and Christian Ethics. The author, Jennifer Beste, asked students to attend a college party, not to participate, but to be observers of what was going on so they could accurately describe it and then analyze it. She found that this exercise, without moral haranguing, produced something in students. It led them to wise moral observations that they had not reached before about the problematic nature of collegiate hook-up culture—simply by close observation and study of the actual social world as a removed observer.
In my study of higher education curriculum, I find that Christian universities have tremendous strengths in Bible, theology, and philosophy. Yet, they often only require one course in social science, and this course is usually an overview of theorists (perhaps learning about Durkheim, Marx, Weber, etc. in sociology) rather than actually getting students to study the social world. Comenius would likely remind us, and Christian Smith has, that this approach is likely why much of sociology is so corrupted by ideology. Students are taught from books and theorists first, instead of the necessary observational skills to observe and understand their social world. Similarly, not one Christian university has a required general education course that examines how businesses and the larger economy actually work, and non-science majors often have only one science course, but it often does not involve actually studying nature. Whether Thomas Sowell said this quote, its truth is accurate: “Too much of what is called ‘education’ is just an expensive isolation from reality.”
Consider what one of the highest responses was to a question we asked on the Baylor Faith and Character Survey. We asked them to rate their response to this question on a scale: “I am spiritually moved by the beauty of God’s creation.” Close to 90% of Christians said this was often or always true. In contrast, the answer was 30% for other religious students and, unsurprisingly, 15% for those claiming to be nonreligious. By keeping our students from contemplating God’s creation, we miss a key source of spiritual inspiration.
That is what attracted me to qualitative research in my doctoral program in Christian ethics. In my readings, ethicists made plenty of moral generalizations and judgments about the empirical nature of the world that were not in line with what I knew about the actual social world. Theorizing at an abstract level is much easier than slowly gathering data, analyzing it, and then drawing data-informed conclusions. Yet, I found that once one undertook the hard work to gain a deeper understanding of particularities, one gained a deeper form of moral wisdom. It not only helped to consider the ant, but it also helped to consider the ant hive of college educators and students by observing them and asking them deep questions about their moral lives.
Today, I find university administrators continually spew out rhetoric about the noble higher purposes of higher education, but when I interview students about what they think is the purpose of higher education, I find that this highfalutin rhetoric has definitely not penetrated students’ thinking (for more on this topic see my forthcoming book, Unleashing the Image of God: Discovering Your Identity, Purpose, Vocation, and Character). The rhetoric largely appears to comfort parents, donors, faculty, and staff instead of actually shaping students’ views. Close study of the empirical world helps us stop living in a fictional story disconnected from this reality or other realities. We need to recognize when the high ideals, virtues, and practices we proclaim are likely not actually penetrating the minds, motives, and actions of the students we teach. When we recognize that reality, we will adjust our teaching accordingly. It is time to do a better job of acquainting students and ourselves with God’s other book of revelation.
