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THE CHALLENGE OF MINISTRY BETWEEN CHURCH AND CAMPUS

“You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out– perhaps a little at a time.” “And how long is that going to take?” “I don’t know. As long as you live, perhaps.” “That could be a long time.” “I will tell you a further mystery,” he said. “It may take even longer.”

So ends the intense, but friendly conversation between Dr. Ardmire, professor of Greek New Testament at Pigeonville College, and Jayber Crow, an intellectually earnest undergraduate plagued by the great questions that sons of Adam and daughters of Eve ask in every century and every culture. They do not go away; in fact, Jayber would have been glad to give them up, “except that my questioning would not give me up.”

From 25 years of living my life among students, I would put it this way: sooner or later, every thoughtful student has a soul-straining experience something like Jayber’s. It is part-and-parcel of the movement from child to adult, from the faith of one’s family to forming one’s own faith. With his professor’s gentle prodding, Jayber decides that he has misread his calling to the ministry, and taking up scissors and comb, spends the rest of his life cutting hair in the little town of Port William, Kentucky...living out his questions, day after day, year after year. His questions are not cheap, nor are the answers; ones that require a life never can be.

This dialogue is at the heart of the newest novel by one of America’s best storytellers, Wendell Berry. True to Berry’s gift, whether as poet, essayist, or novelist—described by one critic as “the prophetic American voice of our day”—Jayber Crow offers us a story of the 20th century, of relationships and responsibilities, seen with uncanny truth and grace.

What of this for us? As we try to understand the challenge of campus ministry at the dawn of the 21st century, there is much to be learned from Jesus about learning that can be light to the pastoral path in a pluralizing, post-modern world. At the very heart of his life and labor, Jesus is the shepherd of his sheep, and in that calling he offers us an apprenticeship in learning to care for people. Two truths stand out: 1) he takes people and their questions seriously, and 2) he understands that we learn as we live. Both have significance for men and women whose own work may someday include the college campus.

The Essay Questions
“Bad books always lie. They lie most of all about the human condition.” So argues the great American novelist Walker Percy. I think of this wisdom often, as I talk with students about their learning and lives. It is a deep truth, offering insight into every discipline, every vocation. Bad political theories lie, as do bad economic paradigms, as do bad artistic visions...and they lie most of all about the human condition. This is the stuff of life, of every life, and it has far-reaching consequences.

As I attempt to hear and understand students, I find that it is the stuff of their lives—principally the actual work they are doing as students—that needs to be taken seriously. For a host of reasons, some theological, some historical, some sociological, ministry to students often overlooks this central responsibility. Too many times pastoring people means attending to their “private” lives, or to what is falsely understood as “the spiritual life.” I meet a lot of students in the course of a year, and it is always true that they hope and dream for a meaningful connection between what they are doing as students, and their faith. If we offer a compartmentalizing discipleship, we offer something less than Jesus offered.

Think of Jesus and the rich young ruler (Luke 18). A question is asked and Jesus responds, asking his own question not as a diversion but as a means of probing more fully the meaning of the man’s question and his life. A few more words pass, and Jesus invites him into a fuller faith, a more complete discipleship, one that will require rethinking what matters most to him. Because he understands the truth about the human condition, Jesus goes for the heart, as it is out of the heart that everything else comes, i.e. how we treat people, why we work, what we learn, even the meaning of money. Jesus does not allow for a compartmentalized faith, and nor should we.

Time and again, it is in the context of taking the task of learning seriously that the most important questions come. A few months ago I had a long conversation with a student just finishing his Ph.D. at Georgetown University. He had read something I had written, and wanted to ask about its implications for his own work in political theory. An hour or so into the discussion, with his whole heart he said, “Yes, that’s it! Camus sees it so clearly!” We were talking about moral complexity, and its political implications; and the brokenness of the world seemed to surround us. We began talking about Camus’ novel, The Plague, which frontally addresses this issue. Most every week his question comes to me, incarnate in a face or letter, always with the deepest earnestness, “If God is in heaven, why is there so much groaning on earth?” What would you say? What do you say?

By the way, do you read the comic pages, even a little bit? Perhaps you remember the spring day when “Frank and Ernest” were musing over the meaning of life, and a little boy walked by with schoolbooks under his arm. Out of the mouth of one of these disheveled characters came the wisdom of the ages, “School is mostly true/false, kid, but real life is all essay questions.”
   
Getting all A’s and Flunking Life
There are echoes of Berry’s wisdom in Frank and Ernest. It is in the living of life that we begin to understand. True knowing is integrally linked with doing. The best books, the most interesting lectures, even incredible sermons, can only go so far. Walker Percy reminds us that “it is possible to get all A’s and still flunk life.”

Jesus the rabbi understood this, profoundly. When asked by a teacher of the law (Luke 10), “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” he asked a question. “How do you read the law?” The man gave the right answer; he seems used to getting all A’s. Jesus said to him, “Do this and you will live.” As Luke tells it, the man wanted to justify himself; that is, he wanted to push back at the meaning of the word “neighbor,” he wanted to abstract it, to intellectualize it, to detach himself from it. These are skills much prized in the modern university, perhaps in the academy in every generation.

And so Jesus told him a story about a man who is bruised and beaten on his way to Jericho. So very familiar to us, it is. But hear it again in light of Jesus’ insight about the way we learn, that we learn as we live. Two religious leaders walk by, each one justifying himself as he does so, having theological, historical, and sociological reasons to detach himself from what he sees and hears. And then, surprisingly, the Samaritan stops. He does not abstract, he does not objectify; instead he knows that what he sees and hears on the road is his neighbor, and therefore he does something about it. It is not a long story. Jesus asked another question, “So who was the neighbor?” One more time, the man gave the right answer. Knowing the truth was not his problem; it was doing the truth that caused him to stumble. The epistemological and moral are bound up together, always! But it is the moral, the way we live, that is the way into true knowing, true learning.

Faithful, effective ministry among students understands that moral learning—“an intellectual penetration and exploration of a reality which we can grasp from the beginning in a schematic and abstract way, but which contains depths of meaning and experience into which we must reach,” in the words of Oxford theologian O. O’Donovan—is what deeply Christian discipleship is all about, and it requires that our beliefs be worked out in the push-and-pull of life. It does not happen any other way.

A couple of years ago I was speaking to a group of college students on Martha’s Vineyard. One had just returned from a stint with the Peace Corps in Africa, where she had seen and heard the unimaginable. So much sorrow, so much injustice, and all so very complex. Most of what I said that week had to do with this question: are you forming a worldview that is big enough for the brokenness of the world? We talked during the week, and I could tell that she was a bit reluctant to “buy in.” About a year later I got an out-of-the-blue letter from her as she was doing graduate study in international health and development. Simply, she said, “I just could not understand what you were saying last spring. But now, I think I do, and I am rethinking what I believe and why.” Living with the tension of her beliefs amidst the brokenness of the world allowed her to see and hear more clearly.

A Final Word
Walking along with students, offering a word from God about the way the world really is, is at the heart of pastoral ministry to the campus. No one of us can be an expert in the specialized arenas that make up a modern university. But we can help students with resources for deepening and developing an understanding of God, human nature, and history for understanding the world and their place in it.

Here are some that I trust, as they represent “mere christianity” with a thoughtful integrity and full of grace and truth at the very same time. Each are deeply rooted in the gospel of the kingdom, and would be excellent tools for learning, both for you as you keep up with the campus culture and for students, faculty, and administrators who want to think and live christianly within their own vocations.

1) Mars Hill Audio. A remarkable audio journal on contemporary culture featuring interviews with authors, analysts, and artists, edited by Ken Myers, a former NPR producer. http://www.marshillaudio.org

2) Critique. A critical commentary on books, films, and poetry, all with the intent of offering help in thinking things through, edited by a very gifted teacher, Denis Haack. 1150 W. Center St, Rochester, MN 55901

3) Ivy Jungle Report. An online account of what is going on within the world of higher education, particularly with an eye to its implications for campus ministry. http://www.ivyjungle.org

4) Regeneration Quarterly. A very well-done magazine written for folk who are serious about historic orthodoxy within Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions. http://www.regenerator.com

5) The musician Mark Williams has a website that offers a good reading list for students who want to learn. http://www.mark-williams.com/library.html

A final word. The college years are critical ones, as so much is decided which lasts for the rest of life. As you study and prepare for pastoral ministry, I pray that your heart will be open to students, helping them to learn about Jesus, and to learn about learning too. May the Father grace you, may Jesus teach you, may the Spirit encourage you.

By Steven Garber, Scholar-in-Residence, Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, Washington, D.C.