I fear, however, that such a professor is unusual, even rare. I’ll justify this fear a bit more in a moment. But, if I am right, then the Christian voice and witness within the secular university is weak. If only a scattering of missional professors exist within the secular university, genuine transformation of academic cultures and the culture at large will not take place. Those Christian professors who are missional can be written off as an anomaly and largely ignored. Sure, we will win skirmishes. Debates and articles against the latest claims of Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking can satisfy the already convinced. Perhaps we will see a few new converts. But institutional change, where Christianity is seen (once again) as a viable option and the Christian voice within the academy is clear and articulate, will not take place and the Christian witness will be stifled. The idea as well as the embodiment of the idea of a missional professor is outrageous.
I long for a day when the idea of a missional professor is no longer outrageous. What would the secular university look like if missional professors were commonplace? Instead of being an anomaly, easily explained away, the presence of a movement of missional professors both locally (wherever the university can be found) and across academic disciplines (wherever learning can be found) would truly be revolutionary. I write this book as an invitation and challenge for Christian professors to join the revolution.
Isn’t it Enough Just to be a Christian and a Professor?
Imagine the apostle Paul visiting America in the twenty-first century. Further, imagine that he has been commissioned by the church to examine the status of Christianity within the American professoriate. What would he find? Perhaps he would write something like the following letter:
Paul, a “sent-one”—sent by Jesus Christ and God the Father. To the church, the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Tim 3:15) in America:
The spirit of the Greek academy is alive and well, just as it was in my day. The amount of knowledge that the university has amassed is amazing. What an incredible God we serve. The God of the molecule! The God of Augustine, Dante, Lewis! The God of trains, planes, and automobiles! Wherever the gospel has taken root, learning has followed. Many of the great discoveries over the centuries were made by Christian scholars who were guided by the conviction that God has created an orderly world. Christians now teach and lead and serve within the many great institutions of learning in the land. Praise be to God! Not surprisingly, I’ve also found idols within the university and the hearts of those who work there, just as I did in Athens (see Acts 17:16). They are not as obvious (not carved in stone at any rate), but they are still present. I shall now summarize my findings (forgive the staleness of my writing style, I’ve been out of practice for a couple thousand years and am still learning some of the new language).
It is an empirical fact that there are Christian professors in the secular academy. To be sure, there may be fewer at more elite universities, a few more at so-called research universities, more still at liberal arts colleges, and so on. But Christian professors are present in the secular university—teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, conducting high-quality research and serving on committees in their departments and within the university at large. Moreover, Christian professors are not confined to religion and theology departments. They can be found in every academic discipline—from the theoretical to the practical, the sciences to the humanities. Wherever learning is taking place, Christians and Christianity can be found. This brings my heart great joy as I recall my speech in the Areopagus in which I stated, “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). I was quoting a Greek poet to make the point that God is the answer to life’s fundamental questions. So, it makes sense to me that Christianity and Christians would be found in each academic discipline, since all knowledge somehow points to our great God.
I have found that many Christian professors in the secular academy view themselves as distinctively and self-consciously Christian. They desire to bring honor to God. They faithfully attend church and raise their families to know Christ. They serve in the church choir and in their children’s Sunday school classroom, and participate in a small group within their church. At work, they desire, and often succeed, in being a respected and competent practitioner of their guild. They teach well and make time for students (or at least faithfully hold office hours). They read and sometimes write articles or books that draw connections between their faith and their own academic discipline. They participate in scholarly conferences as members of good standing, and many participate in distinctively Christian scholarly societies as well. They are men and women of character, Christ-like to be sure in moral conviction and practice. There is much to rejoice in as we consider the presence and conviction of many Christian professors within the secular academy.
But why does the church, “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15) not commission Christian professors into service? The university is an incredibly important mission field. Ideas are discussed and advanced by professors, and these ideas are often hostile toward Christianity (see my second letter to the Corinthians chapter 10 for more on the importance of ideas). Millions of students and fellow professors study and work at the university each year; many are lost and in need of the Savior. Technologies are being developed in the university that could be used to meet the many needs of the world. Christian professors are strategically placed in one of the most important institutions in your society to be a witness for Christ. But, sadly, there seems to be this great divide between the “secular” and the “sacred”—a divide unfamiliar in my day and age. The result is that often Christian professors have disconnected their jobs (or large parts of their jobs) from their Christianity, no longer measuring their lives in terms of the progress of the gospel. And the church supports this split when they don’t affirm and intrinsically value the calling of Christian professors as professors. My heart breaks.
May Christian professors have the heart of Jesus, who, after looking at the harassed and helpless crowds, had compassion on them and prayed for the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the harvest field (Matt 9:36–38). I end this report with my last words to the church in Rome: “Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him—to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen (Rom 16:25–27).
What can we learn from this imaginative exercise? If the findings of this imaginary letter are at all close to the actual state of affairs with respect to Christian professors (and graduate students) within the secular academy, and I submit that it is, then there is much to rejoice over and some challenges to consider. The main challenge before us is to live “a joined up life” where work and play, church and family, head and heart and hands all work together to serve God and man under the banner of the gospel. In short, Christian professors ought to be missional professors.
I offer three reasons to justify my claim that we are falling short in this area.4 First, many twenty-first century Christians scarcely see the world from a distinctively Christian perspective. Instead, our natural patterns of thought, imbibed since we were born and shaped in secular undergraduate and graduate schools, are those informed by the scientific and/or postmodern worldviews. Hence, we need to constantly remind ourselves of the biblical worldview. It is not second nature.
Second, the human heart is rebellious and deceitful. From personal experience, it seems that the propensity of the human heart is to turn toward self. Good intentions, over time, and if we are not careful, turn into ways to advance self-serving agendas; the desire to live faithfully for Christ, over time, and if we are not careful, wanes and needs to constantly be fed or it will be replaced with a desire for self-aggrandizement or self-fulfillment, and so on.
Finally, while experts within their own particular fields of study, Christian professors often possess a Sunday school level of education when it comes to matters theological and philosophical. A missional professor, however, must be competent, even well versed, in such matters. Sadly, this is rarely the case, and the result is a patchwork attempt to integrate one’s faith with one’s scholarly