STILLPOINT Spring 2023

THE MAGAZINE OF GORDON COLLEGE

STILLPOINT SPRING 2023

WHAT HAS FAITH TO DO WITH...

Also in This Issue 8 The Hard Work of Hope 12 Honoring Bruce Herman

Faith at the Forefront After more than two years of remote or hybrid Chapel, the Gordon community eagerly resumed fully in-person worship during the 2022–23 academic year. As pandemic protocols waned last year, College leaders, including the Spiritual Life Task Force and the Chapel team, worked together to restore vibrancy to the Chapel experience and strengthen it as a vital part of campus life for students, faculty and staff alike. Most notably, a Friday service has been re-added to the Monday and Wednesday lineup to provide a more regular rhythm of worship gathering opportunities for campus. (STILLPOINT readers: You can still catch Chapel recordings on Gordon’s YouTube channel.)

CONTENTS FEATURE

Fourteen faculty members comment

on the role of faith in critical areas of life and work—from climate change to technological advancements, mental health, cultural FEATURE intelligence and many spaces in between.

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5 Inspiration

Glenn Deckert, Chief of Gordon Police

IN THIS ISSUE

12 Honoring Bruce Herman Gordon’s own “Ordinary Saint”

6 Up Front with

President Hammond Preparing the people of God for the work of God

8 Student Spotlight Cady Malkemes ’25

10 On the Grapevine

Scholarship snapshots and campus updates

31 Alumni Connections Alumni awardees and Class Notes

ON THE COVER Text here. At facesciis acculpa ad et etur?

Agnaturio blaboris nem quod quid ut asimo optatur maximporem. Net errore labo. Ut estias mos excestoratia et voluptasped ea dit est, odia aperiati adit, ut autasitatem rerum faci utemperrori dolliquam qui repuditis eum esequatet exceper itatatusciis ipitis restemp oreheni hilitiis dis consequia sequid ma velliqui utemped itaquist, ommod ut invenet re est asperitae mi, to evel illabo. Et et, ius, volut volupis ma dolor re net prae eturit, omnist et volorem peliati

INSPIRATION Do Everything in Love Glenn Deckert ’88, Chief of Gordon Police When Chief Glenn Deckert sips coffee to fuel long shifts patrolling campus, the mug’s inscription of his favorite translation of I Corinthians 16:13–14 offers an encouragement and a challenge. It is also the department’s theme verse: “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong and do everything in love.”

From day one on campus Deckert wants students to know he cares for each one as he cares for his own nine children—including several Gordon alumni (so far), a child whom he and his wife, Cheryl ’89, adopted and two toddlers who are with the family in foster care. He says, “We really intend to live out those words, and we work hard to, asking the Lord to help us to discern moment by moment how to do everything in love.”

Police officers at Gordon College are full-fledged Special State Police Officers, but they inhabit a unique role by operating in a Christian college setting. As a police department that explicitly adheres to Gordon College’s Christian identity, Deckert says, “That fact has to actually affect how we approach each interaction.”

“From the moment a situation is under control, we must remember this is someone that we’ve been called to love,” says Deckert. “So how then do I make sure—in a way that’s appropriate to the task at hand but is still genuine—that this person comes away knowing that I truly cared about them?”

Fostering a loving spirit begins with hiring officers who apply Christ-like characteristics to a high degree of skill, says Deckert.

Technical certifications are only one aspect of the job description— regular worship unites the team, sincere humility permits growth and constant prayerfulness leads to wisdom.

Deckert says, “We really try to approach our work considering—even if I’m just unlocking a door for somebody or jump-starting their car— don’t be on autopilot but remember that as a follower of Christ, every moment with another human being matters.”

STILLPOINT

The Magazine of Gordon College VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2

Heather Korpi, Editorial Director Stephen Dagley ’08, Creative Director Neal Ericsson, Design Center Director Joanne Steward, Senior Graphic Designer Madison West ’22, Graphic Designer Kristine Western, Staff Writer Mary (Hierholzer) Jacobs ’15, Contributing Writer Anne Lang, Copyeditor Dr. Mike Hammond, President Rick Sweeney ’85, Vice President of Communications and External Affairs UPDATE YOUR CONTACT INFO AND DELIVERY PREFERENCES

www.gordon.edu/stillpoint/updatecontact OTHER CORRESPONDENCE Editor, STILLPOINT | Gordon College 255 Grapevine Road, Wenham, MA 01984 stillpoint@gordon.edu PRINTING Flagship Press | North Andover, MA MISSION STILLPOINT magazine is one of two keynote communications (along with Gordon’s website) that exist to connect the extended Gordon community to the life of the College.

STILLPOINT offers meaningful, relevant news and stories to educate, inspire and engage Gordon and Barrington alumni, parents, donors and friends.

Send feedback and story suggestions to stillpoint@gordon.edu Opinions expressed in STILLPOINT are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Gordon College administration.

Reproduction of STILLPOINT material is permitted; please attribute to STILLPOINT: The Magazine of Gordon College.

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UP FRONT with President Hammond

Preparing the People of God for the Work of God One of my most meaningful academic mentors was an award-winning historian and professor. He had written dozens of books, lectured thousands of hours and was considered a leading expert in his area. But you’d never know if you ran into him on the street; he was as humble and gracious as he was accomplished. He always had time to encourage me and other students and took great care in editing and helping us improve in our scholarship.

As I met with Gordon alumni around the country on the Alumni Tour last year, so many cited relationships forged with faculty as some of the most transformative and lasting pieces of their Gordon experience. Gordon alumni remember their faculty mentors not only for their successes but for their hearts of service. They are wildly different in their personalities and areas of expertise, but one thing unites them: they serve Jesus, and they spur their students to do the same.

Dr. Michael Hammond is the ninth president of Gordon College. But if you ran into him on the street, you’d mostly know him as a Fighting Scots superfan.

president@gordon.edu www.gordon.edu/president @mike_hammond_gc

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It’s still true. Today at Gordon, our faculty spend their days walking side by side with students, checking in on their lives and challenging them in their academic pursuits. But they also walk on the front lines of their fields— researching, writing and speaking into issues that impact all of us. And they do so with such a deep desire to serve others through the gifts and wisdom that God has granted them.

So, in this issue of STILLPOINT, we’re bringing our beloved faculty experts to the forefront. You may remember our fall 2022 issue of STILLPOINT, in which a dozen alumni, staff and students posed the question that was driving their life and work in that moment. This time, we’re flipping that theme and asking 14 faculty to respond to the question, “What has faith to do with…?”

To borrow language from our founder A. J. Gordon, what is “the work of God” and why does “preparing the people of God” for it matter? Why should we be equipping scientists, artists, businesspeople and politicians to be excellent in their field as practitioners and Christians, to connect their heads (intellect and wisdom) with their hearts (care and service)? Spoiler alert: It comes down to loving Jesus and loving others—to viewing the patient, the consumer, the immigrant, the colleague as our neighbors and serving them as unto Christ.

There are many Gordon alumni who embody this spirit of excellence, both as practitioners and as humble servants of Christ, some of whom have served on our Board of Trustees. This past fall, the leadership baton transferred from the Hon. Herman J. Smith Jr. ’70, a former associate justice of the Superior Court, to Dr. Carrie Tibbles ’93, emergency physician and vice chair of education in emergency medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Both alumni have approached their remarkably successful work with a spirit of compassion, advocating for justice and forgiveness, care and understanding for those experiencing traumatic moments in the court and the ER. Thank you, Judge Smith, for your longstanding service to Gordon, and thank you, Dr. Tibbles, for accepting the charge to lead us onward.

With hearts and minds joined together in service,

IN EACH ISSUE

gs

Hammond Happenin

ordon parent” to my This year I added “G r r Bekah ’26 began he title as our daughte first year at Gordon.

Back in November, we were treated to the legacy of Dr. Marv Wilson as he shared wisdom and history during Chapel on our Explore Gordon ope n house day.

Always a h ighlight du ring the most w onderful ti me of the year , our family enjoyed ri nging in th e Christmas season wit h the campu s tree ligh ting festival an d annual Christmas Gala.

The Presidential Fellows are the real deal. It’s been a joy getting to know each of them through their work with Gordon’s Cabinet members this year.

Fighting Scots Nation cam e through during our ann ual Clash of the Tartans giving day this past fall, raising $235,000 from more than 2,000 donors —well surpassing last year’s tot al and setting a new record for Clash.

A little New England drizzle didn’t stop our alumni from coming back to campus for Homecoming and Family Weekend. Thank you for returning to this place to cheer, eat, support, play, race, celebrate and just enjoy being together.

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Cady Malkemes ’25 THE HARD WORK OF HOPE

The best day of the year is Carnival in Boston, says Cady Malkemes. Beginning early in the morning, colorful costumes, elaborate floats and energetic music fill the streets as Caribbean communities from across the city’s neighborhoods display each island’s personality and vibrancy. To Malkemes, the festival is a picture of Boston at its best.

“Carnival is not just representing one country or one culture,” she says. “It’s all the different Caribbean cultures coming together to celebrate the beauty within the diversity present in Dorchester.”

Malkemes was born and raised in Dorchester, one of Boston’s 23 neighborhoods, as the daughter of Paul ’95 and Glenna (Aron) ’94 Malkemes, who founded The Boston Project Ministries (BP) in 1995. She grew up alongside an organization that builds strong communities through programming, service and engagement. In living their mission of shalom, her family’s living room became an open place for the community to gather; neighbors were always welcome and quickly became family. Joining her friends and classmates in BP youth programs, Malkemes was not just “the directors’ daughter” but a fellow participant.

Alongside the familial benefits of living in close quarters with her neighbors, Malkemes also experienced firsthand the hardships an underserved community may face. Her neighborhood of 126,000 tends to make headlines for gun violence, poverty and lack of access to nutritious food that leads to physical health issues, says Malkemes.

For her, though, those articles tell the wrong story. While the harsh realities are undeniably present, there is good to share, too: The bravery and grace of hundreds coming together in tragedy as they mourn the life of a young man lost in gun violence and create a mural depicting him with the word “hope.”

The shared purpose in standing up for a cause as thousands of Bostonians, from the elderly to babies in strollers, embark on the annual Mother’s Day Walk for Peace in support of homicide survivors, organized by the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, where Malkemes recently interned. The neighbors who

celebrate the uniqueness and beauty of one another’s cultures—just like at Carnival.

When she thinks about her city’s story, she thinks about the stories of the individuals who comprise it. “I recognize the value of seeing people as Imago Dei—people as the image of God,” she says. “The value is not just them being human, but it’s their stories and testimonies.” Sometimes these stories unfold during intentional conversations, but a lot of times it’s through shared life and the simple act of making space for others.

Now a Christian ministries major at Gordon College, Malkemes recognizes the vast scale of issues that cities face. “It can be very overwhelming when you’re looking at a community that did not bring on these problems themselves,” she says, pointing toward factors like classism and education inequality. As a member of the Clarendon Scholars program at Gordon, Malkemes is part of a cohort preparing for service in the city.

“I see the value that God holds for me in being from the city, having grown up there and experiencing that lifestyle firsthand.

And now at Gordon I see the value of God bringing me to a new environment where I can learn new things to become a better leader in order to go back and love the people who already hold my heart.”

As she serves her city Malkemes wants to redefine its story— exemplifying how culture, diversity, friendship and love shine. On her own Malkemes knows she will not rid an entire neighborhood of its deeply ingrained hardships. But by grafting herself into the hard work already taking place to restore Dorchester, she hopes to play a part.

“It’s never going to be just me,” Malkemes resolves. “Just like my parents came into Dorchester, they weren’t going to enact this change right away. They came into a community that already cared. They came into churches already doing the work. They came to mothers and fathers who already saw the problems.

They came into stores that were trying to work to improve the economic status. They saw teachers, they saw principals, they saw schools that cared. We’re all different parts of the body of Christ. And I’m just one part of the movement within my community.”

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NEWS: ON THE GRAPEVINE

CAMPUS NEWS AND HAPPENINGS

New Programs This academic year Gordon re-introduced Bachelor of Science degrees in chemistry and physics and added a human anatomy minor as well as a philosophy and religion concentration in the philosophy major.

Sabbaticals

Campus Updates

Angie Cornwell (biology) completed a sabbatical in a vascular biology lab at Boston University, where she investigated the relationship between neuroinflammation and mild cognitive impairment using an aginginduced mouse model of dementia.

Last summer Drew Hall, which had been constructed in the 1960s as temporary housing, was decommissioned after a boiler system failure. The space has been restored as open lawn.

The College concluded a purchase and sale agreement for a planned transfer of a portion of Gordon’s land holdings around the Woodland parking area, which will be converted to a 55+ community. This transaction allows Gordon to pay down long-term debt, provides new housing options in the area and supplies the town of Wenham with additional tax revenue.

Thanks to the generosity of a donor, Frost Circle and Frost Hall Lobby are in the process of being transformed to improve accessibility, visibility and hospitality.

New Faculty Members

1. Dr. Ryan Daley ’13, Assistant Professor of Psychology 2. Kelly Foster, Associate Professor of Art 3. Dr. Ya Lin Huang, Assistant Teaching Professor of Music, Collaborative Pianist, Vocal Coach and Conductor of Men’s Choir 4. Dr. Gabe Southard, Associate Teaching Professor of Music, Conductor of the Gordon Symphony Orchestra and the Gordon Symphonic Band 5. Dr. Minji Kim, Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Choirs

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6. Dr. Michael Ritter, Assistant Professor of Public Health 7. Dr Mina Lim, Professor of Physics

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4.

ON THE GRAPEVINE

Publications Dorothy Boorse (biology) was the lead author of “Loving the Least of These: Addressing a Changing Environment,” a National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) report created in partnership with World Relief and the Evangelical Environmental Network.

Grants Gordon received a $380,000 Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Grant for equipment as part of the Life Sciences Consortium of the North Shore.

Susan Bobb (psychology) has received a National Science Foundation grant for her work in evaluating the dynamics of speech accommodation.

Damon DiMauro (French) published “Robinson Perkins’s ‘Accompt Book N° 2,’” in the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors Bulletin in September/October 2022; “From Slavery to Abolition in East Haverhill” in The Essex Genealogist in May 2022; “In Search of Clockmaker ‘Jonathan Mulliken of Falmouth’” in the American Ancestors Magazine in Spring 2022; and a translation of Laurent Clémenceau, The Old and the New: Christ in the Old Testament through Hendrickson Publishers in December 2022.

Sam Mason (biology) and Greg Keller (biology) published two papers this summer on disease ecology. The first, published in PLoS One in collaboration with four Gordon students and researchers at Endicott College, surveyed small mammals on the North Shore for the bacterium that causes Lyme Disease. The second, written with Katherine Hulting ’22 and Craig Story (biology), was the first study of its kind on the North Shore to investigate a parasitic and fatal condition in spring peepers and green frogs.

An article by Kent Seibert (economics and business), “When Leadership Goes Wrong: Self-Serving Shepherds and their Followers,” will be published in the 2023 issue of the Journal of Biblical Integration in Business.

Chad Stutz (English) was featured in an interview with Pastor Brad Lacey ’83 on his talk radio program The Great Message about “The Value of English Literature for Christians” (February 2022) and “The Gospel and Aesthetics” (September 2022).

Through a John Templeton Foundation grant, Dan Norton (psychology) has been working with the Multicultural Assessment and Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, evaluating a new test of visual short-term memory that is designed to screen for Alzheimer’s disease before someone shows traditional symptoms.

Mark Stevick (English) received six grants from Mass Cultural Council to produce the second Five Ponds Creative Writing Festival at Gordon College in April.

Oleksiy Svitelskiy (physics), along with Sumin Kyong ’17, published “Pushing nanomechanics across dissipation limit” in the Applied Physics Letters journal as part of a National Science Foundation sponsored project.

Presentations Kristen Cooper (economics) presented “Modeling & measuring welfare with the aspects of well-being framework” during the New Approaches to Normative Economics: An Interdisciplinary Workshop at Oxford University last June.

Jeffrey Young (economics) presented a paper at the History of Economics Society Conference in June 2022 entitled “Did Adam Smith Hold a Labor Theory of Value? Beaver and Deer Hunters in the Early State.”

Awards Kaye Cook (psychology) received The Kuhmerker Career Award from The Association for Moral Education in July of 2022.

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A Picture of Bruce Herman, Gordon’s Own “Ordinary Saint” An Eternal Conversation Through Art On a spring morning in Richmond, Virginia, five-year-old Bruce Herman marveled at the perfect, white globes carpeting his backyard lawn. Plucking one with wonder, he observed its tiny, round feathers. To his amazement, as his breath touched the orb, it disintegrated into little flying threads and revealed the stem’s termination point: yet another sphere. Young Herman instantly burst into tears—not because the dandelion fell apart, but because he felt full of joy.

Recalling the moment decades later with an equally fresh sense of awe, Herman says, “I remember feeling, ‘This is what God does.’

He makes things that he delights in, the way a four- or five-year-old child delights in them.”

Over his nearly 40 years as a professor in Gordon’s Art Department, including 16 as the Lothlórien Distinguished Chair in the Fine Arts, Herman taught hundreds of students to reflect God’s character as a maker who delights in creativity. Gifted with a keen eye to find wonder in the ordinary, Herman believes vivid inspiration occurs when an artist views life—from micro to macro—with an all-encompassing lens of wonder and vulnerability.

“What I have tried to do,” he says, “is to remove obstacles for my students to enter into deeper encounter with their world—with the world of light and shadow, with form and space, with color and texture and shape relationships, and the incredible intricacy and beauty of the physical universe.”

At the beginning of a new semester, Herman often warned his classes, “Everybody gets an F if I don’t learn something new.” His bold statement was usually met with nervous giggles, but Herman was serious. As he shepherds these students through encounters with the virtuosic goodness of beauty, he reveals how each artist’s unique experience with the world manifests in a completely original interpretation. And each interpretation can enlighten viewers and fellow artists.

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As a working artist, Herman’s inspiration takes on new life in his own series of paintings. His work is elemental, often featuring sanded-down wood or gold and silver leaf—textures that breathe into each work a life of its own and a sense of depth.

His portraiture and figures emit a luminous sense of the sacred because Herman captures something deeper than likeness: he captures a person because he values the person.

As Herman approaches each new canvas, he enters into a creative communion with his students, colleagues, family and inspirations—an artistic communion of saints. This phenomenon is far greater than “influence,” he says; it’s friendship. “My work is in conversation with all these people,” he says. “The great thing about art is you can be in conversation with people who have been dead for 500 years and people who haven’t even been born yet” Those who have experienced this creative communion with Herman heap praise on his wide-ranging and far-flung career that spans commissions, international tours and speaking engagements (not to mention starting an Art Department from scratch). But they also recognize an accomplishment as great as his artwork: his immeasurable impact as a mentor. “. . . I value Bruce’s friendship, his true modeling of Christian charity and hospitality, his great concern for the other, his commitment to his family, to each of his students and colleagues,” wrote former Professor of Art Jim Zingarelli in a tribute to Herman. “. . . what I most admire about this friend and brother in Christ: he is a faithful husband, father, grandfather, friend and mentor.”

Herman’s refined skills and strong relationships enable him to digest ideas perceptively and paint masterfully, but he says the process ultimately requires the humility of a small child.

“The artist is just a servant of this thing much bigger than themselves, and the work of art can only come into being if the artist manages to get themselves out of the way,” he says. “It’s about something so much bigger, so much better. And in my case, I know who it’s about: It’s always Christ.”

CELEBRATING BRUCE HERMAN

1984: Herman joins the Gordon College faculty part-time.

1988: The Gordon College Art Department is formed, and Herman becomes a full-time professor and the Department’s first chair.

1992: Herman is awarded the Junior Distinguished Faculty Award.

“Bruce Herman has had a deep impact on my art-making process–– teaching me to carve out abundant space for failure; to embrace the homely process of not just making, but also breaking, as a path that leads to good places.” Emmy Delaine (Short) Kangas ’20 1998: Herman helps envision and realize the Gordon in Orvieto study abroad program.

“Relationships are at the core of Bruce’s identity, and they anchor his role as an educator. Likewise, his paintings are suffused with conversations from a lifetime of devotion and dialogue between many people, narratives and histories.” Matthew Doll, painter, graphic designer and program director of Gordon in Orvieto 2002–05: “The Body is Broken” series is created.

2005–09: “Magnificat” series is created.

2006: Herman is named the Lothlórien Distinguished Chair in the Fine Arts, Gordon’s first fully endowed distinguished chair.

2011–Present: “Boundary Crossings” series is created.

2012–13: “QU4RTETS” series is created in collaboration with painter Makoto Fujimura, composer Christopher Theofanidis and theologian and musician Jeremy Begbie.

“Both of us now say that by thinking to serve the other, we discovered a new visual language, as the ‘bold imposing façades are all being rolled away.’ Our QU4RTETS paintings have shaped a new direction in both of our studio practices and will undoubtedly guide the next decade of our works.”

Makoto Fujimura, artist and author 2013–22: “Ordinary Saints” series is created in collaboration with poet Malcolm Guite and composer J. A. C. Redford.

“When I first saw Bruce’s remarkable portrait of his father, I was struck by its sheer sense of presence, so I asked if I might write a poem about it . . . presence and clarity, the mystery of personhood indwelling and shining through the material of paint and wood, the possibility that prayerfully made art might briefly lighten the dark glass of our fallen seeing and help us glimpse the hidden image of God which we all bear—I realized that this project was calling forth from me a new kind of writing.” Malcolm Guite, poet, singersongwriter and Anglican priest 2022: Herman retires from Gordon College faculty, continuing on as director of the Gallery at the Barrington Center for the Arts. He is “Bruce’s career has been not so much about his own further success but about the richness of relationships, and also about mentoring others.” Matthew Milliner, associate professor of art history at Wheaton College

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What has faith to do with the pressing issues of our day? If you know Gordon, you know the underlying answer to this somewhat rhetorical question is a resounding “everything.” But there’s a little more nuance to exactly how that plays out in various spheres of life and work, which is why STILLPOINT asked our faculty experts to weigh in.

In a world of mounting divisions and 280-character opinions, why do we push against easy answers and foregone conclusions? Why do we believe that listening is foundational to learning, love inextricable from leading? Because we know that Christ is King, and that impacts, well, everything. It compels us to be agents of hope and shalom to a world in need—to bring, as our founder once put it, uncommon courage and everyday faith.

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IN OPPOSITION OR INSEPARABLE?

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But the biblical narrative also illustrates the limits of communication and the gaps between people and between people and God. The perfect communicationas-communion between God and his creation was ruptured in the fall. Yet God did not give up on his people, continuing to communicate with them, speaking through prophets, burning bushes and a still, small voice.

God’s persistent communication with his people culminates in the ultimate bridging of the gap: the Gospel of John tells us that, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). As media ecologist Marshall McLuhan has famously said, “The medium is the message.” This is nowhere more true than the Incarnation: God’s message of love is no longer merely a spoken word through a prophet or burning bush or still, small voice. The message of love is the medium of a man, Jesus Christ, both fully divine and fully human; the embodiment of a loving God who would choose to enter into the blood and sinew, pain and joy, of his creation.

What has faith to do with communication?

D R . C H R I S T I N E G A R D N E R , A S S O C I AT E P R O F E S S O R O F C O M M U N I C AT I O N A R T S

“What difference does it make that we worship a God who speaks?” This is how I begin my Perspectives on Communication class. I follow up by reading Genesis 1 and asking students to listen for a repeated phrase. (“And God said…”)

According to Scripture, communication has everything to do with faith. God spoke the worlds into being with the power of his voice. As co-creators with God, so too can our words build worlds, shaping our identities, our relationships and our social worlds. At its best, communication is a creative, hopeful act. It is central to the project of shalom because it is all about listening well, looking for what unites us and offering hospitality to perspectives and experiences that are different from our own.

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The Incarnation suggests a model for communication that is embodied and present, self-giving and humble.

Communication as hospitality and invitation includes showing up and being there for others, as well as recognizing the disparities that exist between people.

An incarnational communication uses one’s voice to speak on behalf of the voiceless. As Proverbs 31:8–9 exhorts, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.

Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

The life of Jesus provides examples of effective communication for human flourishing. Jesus shows up, whether comforting the grieving or engaging a socially marginalized person in conversation. He uses parables instead of propositional arguments, anchoring his fantastical description of the Kingdom of God in quotidian examples of vineyards and watchtowers and sheep. The Incarnation cannot be reduced to a model for communication, but it points to a loving God who once spoke the worlds into being and persists in trying to communicate with his beloved creation in a way in which they can understand.

IN OPPOSITION OR INSEPARABLE?

What has faith to do with cultural intelligence?

D R . DA N I E L DA R KO P R O F E S S O R O F N E W T E S TA M E N T

If we look back 2,000 years to the New Testament, we see Christians grappling with cultural issues not that dissimilar from issues we face today. In Acts 6, there was an issue of discrimination in food distribution, with cultural prejudices influencing how widows were cared for. In Acts 15, Paul experienced contention with fellow believers in Antioch over specific cultural questions of circumcision and diets, and the Church had to wrestle with this. In the story of the Good Samaritan, we see deep-seated cultural and religious differences impacting someone’s livelihood.

Christianity gets into trouble, and has been in trouble historically, when we make it a local religion (“American Christianity,” “Asian Christianity,” “African Christianity”) or when we dig in our heels denominationally. These categories make no attempt to understand how varied cultural expressions play in how we experience God. As a Ghanaian-American, my personal cultural sensibilities affect my perception of God, my prayer life and how I see my sense of community. When we ignore the critical framework of culture (in all its variety), we fail to understand how the church should look and how the church should engage the world.

This is called cultural intelligence. It’s the capability to deal with people across cultures—in ministry, in the workplace, in our neighborhoods. The lack of cultural competency would compel us to see a particular peoples’ diets or family structure or practices and draw conclusions based on our own cultural understandings. A willingness to actively listen, interact with and learn from other cultures begins from the idea that we are all made in the image and likeness of God. It is seeded in a reverence for God our Creator because culture, and the people who embody it, are God’s creation. Multiplicity of culture doesn’t threaten the integrity of our own, but rather it widens and strengthens the beauty of God’s creation.

When we realize that sameness is not a prerequisite for relatability, we begin to view “different” as less of an imposition or a threat and more of an opportunity to orient toward better engagement. Cultural competencies

allow us to serve people who are not like us, even who make us uncomfortable. We can only render meaningful service in God’s world and to God’s humanity when we have first become self-aware about the prejudice and biases that hinder our ability to reach out to all people, and then attempt to learn by listening and being present.

Cultural intelligence is learned and can be done in small portions. First, just look for your neighbor and try to learn something new about them. Pause after you ask, “How are you doing?” and see if you can move past the rote “fine” and “good” responses. Without any specific transactional motivation, begin seeking and sharing stories, no matter how small. You may begin to realize that the neighbor who is slightly different in terms of culture or race or even generation actually has more in common than you thought.

Second, when you are passively listening to things that involve other cultures, like television shows or radio programs, try to catch your first reactions and ask, “What might be some implicit prejudices that make me reach a quick conclusion about this person? Why am I feeling something intense about this person?”

When we shift from a posture of fear to a posture of curiosity, we begin to realize that we can love people for who they are, that we can understand where they are coming from and appreciate what they bring. Each new neighbor, new job, new church is an opportunity to grow your cultural intelligence and in doing so, expand your worship of God our Creator by investing in his wonderfully diverse creation.

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What has faith to do with immigration?

D R . R U T H M E L KO N I A N H O OV E R PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

For some, it is their faith and faith community that sustains them in the process of dislocation and relocation.

For others, it is their faith that makes them a target, particularly religious minorities. Both were true for my grandparents when they fled the genocide of Armenian Christians by the Turks of the Ottoman Empire in the WWI era. They found refuge in the nearby island nation of Cyprus and built a new life there, in a growing Armenian diasporic neighborhood within Larnaca. They had a supportive school, church and jobs, where

they could finally emphasize the Armenian language and culture (denied under the Ottomans).

A year ago, I had the privilege of visiting Cyprus, interviewing Armenian Cypriots, and touring my family’s neighborhood, church and school. I have been writing on immigration and religion for some time and am now seeking to better understand my own family’s experience of genocide and migration, relocation, faith and hope.

In interviews, Armenian Cypriots shared that the 1950s was

What has faith to do with social welfare and human services?

SYBIL COLEMAN ’64 PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL WORK

To engage in the work of social welfare, we must first acknowledge human dignity. All persons are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26a) and therefore deserve to be treated with dignity and worth.

However, as Alan Keith-Lucas suggests in So you Want to be a Social Worker: A Primer for the Christian Student, “. . . dignity and worth mean something very different to a secular humanist and to a Christian. The humanist emphasizes autonomy and the ability of people to overcome their problems by their own efforts.”

To the Christian, however, people are of worth not because of their strength but, in part, because of their interdependence. “The Christian starts with an entirely 18 STILLPOINT | SPRING 2023

different concept of what the universe is like, what its purpose is, and what part human beings play in it, and this cannot but have implications for how and why they help others.”

As followers of Jesus, we are not to turn away from the condition of society or its fallen structures.

God himself is concerned with the condition of humans and the societal structures we have created. He calls us to work for change, to participate in his redemptive work in a world that is full of pain, loss, oppression, mental health crises, addictive behaviors, poverty and other social problems. Jesus’ life and teaching demonstrate that he chose the side of the oppressed,

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something of a sweet spot, a time of relative peace and harmony between Greek, Turkish and Armenian Cypriots. They lived, played, ate and went to school together; some even worshipped together. However, after Cyprus successfully gained independence from Britain in 1960, conflict soon arose between Turks and Greeks in the 1960s and 1970s, and most Armenian Cypriots were again forced to relocate. All of that which had been built up by Armenian Cypriots was slowly pulled apart.

Fearing they would become targets for violence once again, many Armenians left Cyprus. My relatives settled in the U.S. The faith that made them a target also sustained them in the rebuilding of a new home in the U.S. My family, Armenian Protestants, settled into American Protestant churches. Most of my extended family members married other Armenians, helping retain the culture and language. By contrast, my own father married a Dane.

the fatherless, the poor, the homeless and the downtrodden.

In Luke 4:18, Jesus clearly states what he was to do: preach good news to the poor, the blind, the suffering (both spiritually and literally). In Matthew 25:35-40 he states, “For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

After working as missionaries in India and then Lebanon (where my siblings attended Armenian schools), my immediate family settled in California, where we all spoke English to fit in and acclimate to the U.S. We children grew up with a sense of suffering without speaking of it. Our grandparents didn’t talk with us about the genocide or the pressure to leave Cyprus, exacerbated by ongoing language barriers. Yet some of my Dad’s generation struggled with the loss of leaving Cyprus—recalling a time before the island split in 1974, a time in which there had been greater harmony and welcome.

Growing up, my father was strict, old-world in many ways, but not defined by rage. Throughout his life, he was eager to engage with Turks as an opportunity to witness of God’s love. His recognition of the depravity of sin and the capacity of each one of us to inflict great harm, in conjunction with the depth of

In our modern context, Jesus could have expanded this list to include emerging concerns like threatening infectious diseases, natural disasters across the globe, immigration, economic downturn, the severe political divide in the U.S., global populations, aging issues, technology addiction and the health care system.

God’s love and grace, made it easier for him to extend grace.

In my study of my family’s trajectory, and this region, I have been heartened by the role of grace, truth-telling and forgiveness.

I am grateful for the possibility of migration, the opportunity for new starts. And I do not want to forget the pain that often necessitates relocation. I want to continue along the path of forgiveness and further the work of reconciliation (even when other side may not acknowledge the atrocity). I am thankful for the life of my father, his faithful and countercultural way of being and living and loving—not othering, not sinking into zero sum tribalism but rather living a life of hospitality, welcoming newcomers, as he and his family once were. His faith helped him transcend common cycles of bitterness, embrace hope and practice hospitality.

in the image of God. Let us engage the needs of society in an affective manner. This will require the wisdom of God, wisdom that permeates every aspect of personal and societal life. Let us look for ways to demonstrate love and justice that honors God and his design for all creation.

As social concerns and discords mount, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed and look away.

But let us instead look into the face of the poor, the blind, the suffering and see a person made

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What has faith to do with climate change science?

DR. DOROTHY BOORSE ’87 PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY

The massive fires in California and other Western states during the 2019–2022 fire seasons offer a stark reminder that the region is in a megadrought not seen since 800 CE. Meanwhile, a close family member of mine recently moved to Tampa, Florida, just a month before Hurricane Ian pummeled its Gulf of Mexico coast. One risk-multiplier for such extreme events is a change in atmospheric composition due to greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels. The Western North American drought is worsened by climate change because increased global temperatures generally make wet places wetter and dry places drier. Hurricanes are stronger when ocean water is warmer and sea levels are high, both of which occur when the atmosphere and ocean are warmed.

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I was recently lead author on the second edition of Loving the Least of These: Addressing a Changing Environment, a 2022 report by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) with collaborators World Relief and the Evangelical Environmental Network. I was joined by numerous advisors, reviewers and other writing contributors as we attempted to put a human face on people affected by climate change.

We hope to introduce American evangelical readers to the changes in our world that affect all of us, particularly those who lack resources and future generations.

Since the report’s first edition, published by the NAE in 2011, more scientific research has supported the concern that an increase of energy-trapping gasses in the atmosphere as a result of human activities alters our climate on a global scale.

The stories of fellow believers around the world remind us that Christians are one Body. People leaving their low-lying island homes or their drought-stricken farms because climate change is occurring—they are beloved of God. Those who are not believers also need us to show the love of Christ, not only through words but also through our efforts to protect them from preventable harms.

Christian relief and development organizations have been making that link between faith and climate action for decades. They see that field and construction workers struggle in extreme heat, mountain villagers seek water from melting glaciers, and Arctic dwellers respond to the loss of land stability and marine life. Urban dwellers, particularly minorities and the poor, are affected by heat waves, which worsen asthma and heart disease.

Our faith calls us to care for all of these as for ourselves.

My science training at a Christian liberal arts school gave me broad expertise in environmental science, a lifelong passion to relate my science to other fields in order to face interdisciplinary challenges, and an integration of my faith into everything I do and learn. As I teach, I encourage people to do what they can to solve climate change, with personal decisions such as eating less meat, being more resource-efficient, voting for systems that make energy use more efficient, caring for the most vulnerable, making your church facility more sustainable and joining a group such as any of those involved in the report.

It is an honor to work alongside others to promote the Kingdom of God by furthering justice for the marginalized and prevention of further climate disruption.

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What has faith to do with mental health?

D R . DA N I E L N O R TO N ’ 0 5 A S S I S TA N T P R O F E S S O R O F P S Y C H O L O G Y

Psychological disorders are when our minds cause us anguish or limit our ability to do the things we find meaningful. Their striking prevalence currently calls us to action as people of faith. Jesus said that we will be judged on how well we provide water for the thirsty and clothe the naked. Is lacking mental health like being naked or thirsty? Yes, in the sense that it is a form of real suffering. Lacking mental health is also different than thirst and nakedness in that it’s often unclear what we should “give” to someone suffering from a psychological disorder. In the absence of clear provisional mandates like water or clothes, people offer their neighbors struggling with psychological disorders whatever comes to mind. For Christians this could be prayer or ways to be righteous. Superbly intentioned, these suggestions are often received as painful judgments, ineffective to soothe the thirsty throat.

Early in my training as a therapist, I found that even the best psychological treatments could be received as judgments if I failed to first establish trust and care with my patients. It seems that most of us need to hear a message of acceptance before we can receive help that has a message of change. Relationships where we do feel loved and validated become a place where we may ask for practical suggestions.

They say something like, “Wow, anxiety kept me safe!

I’d better keep that anxiety flowing so I can remain safe next time.” And to be sure, they do help us, as anyone who has finished college, walked safely along a steep embankment or played a more socially conservative role to fit into a new social group can attest (anxiety helps us do all of these things). Often, though, anxiety is too strong or too constant, limiting our ability to enjoy the safety and bounty of the world we inhabit. For some of us, this reaches the level of a disorder requiring treatment. For all of us, our mental health is seemingly diminished compared to what it could be. We’re missing out on the abundant life that Jesus offered.

Part of Jesus’ answer for how to experience real life and the Kingdom of God applies to this modern problem of anxiety. His counterintuitive message was that we should die unto ourselves—lay down our lives, utterly exposing ourselves to the danger we fear most, for the sake of a friend or even a stranger. How would your life be different if you were able to “let go” in this way?

One of the most common challenges to mental health today is problematic anxiety. The brain systems that generate anxiety are ancient, and they evolved to cope with things like sabre-toothed tigers and the possibility of not making it through the winter. In our society, real fears abound. I have a long list of fears that my anxiety mind pores over, and you may as well. Compared with our ancestors, though, life today is relatively safe (at least in terms of things that would kill us, like accidents, murders by hostile neighboring tribes, animal maulings, etc.). Nonetheless, the vestiges of our “survival mode” anxiety still cause us to identify and then avoid feared stimuli like the plague. The fact that we continue to live following the application of that strategy causes our anxiety minds to think they are doing a great job— barely keeping us alive amidst a sea of perils!

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What has faith to do with public health?

D R . H E AT H E R S I P S M A M A S T E R O F P U B L I C H E A LT H P R O G R A M D I R E C T O R A S S O C I AT E P R O F E S S O R O F P U B L I C H E A LT H

Over the past decade, a systematic separation between the Christian church and public health has become more and more apparent. Public health has generally distanced itself from the Christian church primarily due to disagreements—or perhaps assumptions—on traditionally held values and beliefs. Christians may see the field of public health as wrought with policies and programs that are misaligned with their convictions, whereas public health professionals see them as effective strategies for addressing and improving health among populations.

This separation results in polarization, intolerance and ultimately ineffective strategies for improving health.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of this gap between Christianity and public health is that the two should, by design, be intricately connected. Great synergy exists between following Jesus and working in public health. Christ’s call to love and serve one another is mirrored in the overall aim of public health, which is to improve the health of communities. When we consider health holistically—including aspects of physical, mental and spiritual well-being—the alignment is clear.

Working in public health allows us to love and serve individuals and communities, and to follow Jesus’ example of servant leadership. Jesus himself encourages this posture in several instances. In Matthew 25:40 he says, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me” Thus, our work and learning in public health can be amplified when paired with this Christian calling.

By allowing a gap between Christianity and public health to exist, and even grow, we perpetuate tension and do a disservice to our communities. We need future leaders marked by love to stand in this gap. We need open, authentic dialogue; a spirit of courage and compassion; and a strong network of believers to support and encourage one another so that we can serve in a loving, informed and productive way. Together we can create robust solutions to public health challenges that are effective in reaching both Christians (who may be skeptical of public health) and non-Christians (who may be skeptical of the Christian faith). This strengthening of Christians in public health will enhance our capacity to effect great change and have an important impact for God’s Kingdom.

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President Carter’s stance on human rights, his commitment to racial reconciliation, and his call for Americans to make sacrifices in the interests of energy conservation have stood the test of time.

But at the time these earned him scant credit.

His moderation on difficult ethical issues, notably abortion, was discarded by large numbers of his fellow believers who were shortly to make their home in the emerging conservative movement that elected Ronald Reagan.

What has faith to do with government and politics?

D R . T I M O T H Y S H E R R AT T PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

It all began with Jimmy Carter. In 1976, I was between undergraduate and as-yet-unknown graduate studies. I had come to faith in my first year at university, and that had de-railed most of my (admittedly) not very well formed plans for career and future. So I eagerly seized the opportunity offered by a friend who worked for the BBC World Service to write some short articles on American politics, which was already an abiding interest. Over the course of the next year, I would compose answers to listeners’ questions like: Why does the United States have a President and not a Prime Minister? Who will win the U.S. presidential elections?

Little known nationally in early 1976, then-Governor Carter mounted an effective primary campaign, defeating one establishment heavyweight after another on his path to the Democratic nomination, and he did so as a Christian who was unabashedly “born again.” To a still-new believer, his response to abstract questions like, “What has faith to do with government and politics?” was to embody that relationship: a fellow believer running for, and winning, the presidency!

Four years later, Carter bowed out, defeated. He had struggled with a familiar litany of practical challenges: high inflation and a stagnant economy, a rocky relationship with his own party in Congress, low approval ratings that encouraged a damaging primary challenge to his leadership, and to top it all off, the Iran hostage crisis.

Politics is competitive and bruising, as Carter discovered, but this should neither surprise nor deter the would-be public servant. Government is not a necessary evil; it is vital as one of many ways humans exercise their obligation to care for God’s created order. Government is tasked to secure justice.

Government should also foster conditions that help nonpolitical institutions, like families, businesses and charities, make their unique contributions to human flourishing.

Although humans have had to endure governments disfigured almost beyond recognition, it remains no less true that government’s origin, and the standard against which all governments are judged, is God’s.

Jesus Christ is the one to whom “all authority in heaven and earth is given,” and Jesus’s willingness to undergo execution is the truest exercise of kingly authority. By it, he disconnected governance from violence and self-interest and made it synonymous with love.

Citizens, no less than those elected to legislative or executive positions, also hold divine office.

While Christians usually have “a responsibility to play a positive role in supporting the social order for the good of all,” writes Carter in his book Sources of Strength, he warns that when we confront unjust laws or worse, mere compliance with authority is not enough. “The essence of [Christ’s] teaching,” he writes, “is to enhance justice, truth, freedom, service, and love. This must be our guiding light when we are considering how best to fulfill our role as Christians in society.”

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What has faith to do with entrepreneurship?

DR. JEFFREY STEVENSON DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP DIRECTOR OF THE KENNETH L. PIKE HONORS PROGRAM A S S O C I AT E P R O F E S S O R O F S P A N I S H

God, the original entrepreneur, engaged in six days of creative activity followed by one day of rest— intrinsically connecting the Christian faith and entrepreneurship from the very beginning. If, as Scripture suggests, we are uniquely created in the image of God, then it follows that, like God, it is in our DNA to create new things given the raw materials of the preexisting created order. In so doing, we become co-creators with God, engaging in entrepreneurial activity that results in something new, something “good and very good.”

Due to the fall, though, it is entirely possible to engage in entrepreneurial activity primarily motivated by self-interest and self-fulfillment, with the goal of making a name for ourselves. True entrepreneurship as envisioned in Scripture compels the Christian entrepreneur to engage in entrepreneurial activity not for self-aggrandizement, but as the practical outworking of the Great Commandment, “to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves.”

The Christian doctrine of vocation since the Reformation teaches us that we love and serve our neighbors through the faithful exercise of

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the time, talents, resources and relationships God entrusts to us.

Therefore, the Christian entrepreneur understands their role in the process of creating and managing new businesses, profit or nonprofit, as a stewardship for which they will one day give an account (2 Cor 5:10). In this context, the work of the Christian entrepreneur engaged Monday to Friday (and sometimes Saturday) in the creation of a new businesses that adds real value to people’s lives, that provides people with meaningful employment, which in turn allows them to provide for their own families, is just as spiritual and essential to God’s purposes in the world as the pastor who prepares and delivers a sermon on Sunday morning and cares for their congregation.

A proper understanding of Christian vocation thereby serves to address the “Sunday to Monday gap,” wherein some vocational activities are erroneously seen as more spiritual or more important than others. This relates to the Reformation doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Author and theologian Dr. Amy Sherman argues that human beings were originally intended to be royal

priests, given a mandate to rule (engage in God-honoring entrepreneurial activity that allows for the flourishing of others), fill the earth (Gen 1:28), and to then nurture and continue to develop what we have created (Gen 2:15). Sherman argues that Christians should understand themselves as agents of flourishing, called to actively pursue shalom in every corner of society.

In the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) at Gordon College we are engaged in the process of equipping students from all academic majors with the Christian worldview, practical tools and realworld opportunities that will allow them to act as agents of flourishing, both within the church and in all spheres of society. This is a large part of what “preparing the people of God for the work of God” looks like in the 21st century. The relevance of a Christian liberal arts education in today’s world is evident: There is no area of human activity—be it the arts, music, education, politics or science—where God does not intend and call us to become his cocreators for the common good and his glory.

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What has faith to do with creating art?

M AT T D O L L , D I R E C T O R O F G O R D O N I N O R V I E T O

On the first day of our excursion to Rome, we walk across the entire city on a pilgrimage to St. Peter’s. On the way we stop at the cloister at Santa Maria della Pace and at the Tempietto.

Both were designed by the architect Donato Bramante and are essential to understanding the enormous church at the end of our journey. At his Tempietto we see architecture that resonates order, rhythm and measure. Its proportions are incredibly lucid and scaled to allow our presence to feel welcome, perhaps invited, to contemplate a sacred space.

What most people overlook when they come is the fact that the Tempietto marks a traditional location where Peter was crucified upside down. For our pilgrimage to deepen, we must pause along the way and acknowledge this further element of significance, this moment of human scale and dimension, before we arrive at the enormous basilica.

Rome is easy to frame as an “ancient” city. The danger in that framing is that you refuse to truly encounter it. We do not go to Rome to simply adore the past.

We go to feel the weight of the city, the weight of its history, the variety of its materials. We also go to encounter the art, the saints, the layered narratives and spaces to begin paying greater attention as we start new conversations.

Conversations that are equally about basic design, light and color, proportion and scale—as well as about faith, hospitality, accessibility, citizenship and about others or about, as Nigerian writer Teju Cole wrote, “who counts as kin.”

Bramante was 50 when he began his major architectural works in Rome.

Like so many others, before and after, Bramante came to study the forms of the past in order to invent new ways of building within the urban setting of a Rome scattered with ruins from a thousand years earlier.

Significantly, Bramante died with his work unfinished. In faith he designed something he knew he would never

see to completion. He was working on something made to endure forever. And while that is clearly not the only way to imagine our work’s realization, just think of the implications. Our contemporary sense of accomplishment, self-worth and belonging are too often tied to instant algorithms of affirmation. What if we didn’t work with these expectations running us down? What if we worked with a longer view?

A. J. Heschel said, “faith is not clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.” I would say the same thing about art.

Art is not a series of formulas to be learned for the sake of expression.

Thank goodness there isn’t one way to make a painting. Neither is faith a simple transaction for belief. Art and faith present constant opportunities for communion between individuals and communities, between ideas and solutions, between man and God. Art and faith reside at the core of our yearnings for understanding. They both require serious commitment to exploring the world through the senses and devotion to be translated into shapes, language and patterns that can be understood.

Art and faith are also models of resistance. They resist the shrinking of dialogue and combat cynicism by remaining grounded in celebrating dignity. They orient our speech, challenge our sense of power and clarify definitions of success. As our most recent cohort of Orvieto students put it, “Faith and art for us is about finding meaning and depth in a lived experience of learning. About making new work in that soil.”

Should we not be participating in the making of our world? Art and faith are linked in their dual hope and urgency. So, like Bramante, we should keep on making even when the end extends beyond our limitations.

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What has faith to do with performance?

NORM JONES P R O F E S S O R O F T H E AT R E A R T S

Before I went to graduate school to study theatre, I was a youth pastor for five years.

When I informed the church board that I would be leaving my position to study theatre, one member said, “You should not enter such a godless profession.” “Theatre is filled with blasphemers, idolators and liars,” said another.

On my first day of grad school, I stopped by the department office to check in. A nearby door opened, and an affable looking gentleman stood smiling in the doorway.

“Norm, have you got a minute?” he asked.

It was Saul Elkin, the department chair and renowned theatre scholar, director and actor. I entered his oak paneled office and walked to the wingback chair he indicated.

After a few pleasantries, he asked, “Where have you been?” “Excuse me?” I replied. “You Christians. Where have you been? I have never understood what happened to you.” Dr. Elkin was genuinely curious and not at all judgmental. We discussed how the church led a resurgence of drama in the Middle Ages. “The dramatic arts seem like such a perfectly natural avenue of expression for the church,” he said.

That first conversation planted a seed in me that was nurtured throughout my graduate education. Word quickly spread about my background in ministry. In contrast to my experience with the church board, I was now consistently sought out to discuss the integration of theatre and faith. The contrast of the opinions of some well-meaning Christians and my grad school experience created a desire in me to “baptize the imagination” of Christian students so they could be encouraged to enter theatre arts with joy, confidence and strong and abiding faith.

So, what has faith to do with theatre? It all begins with stories. People in every culture and throughout history have told stories. Of course, the best example of their significance is Jesus’ consistent practice of telling stories throughout his ministry. Recently, I heard an interview with a playwright. Asked why she writes plays, she said, “Because I want to know if others feel the same way I do.” For both the hearer and the teller, a story helps us realize our shared human experiences.

Stories help make sense of our lives.

Likewise, stories are foundational to understanding our faith. And some stories are elevated to works of art, expressed on the theatrical stage—making faith and theatre intricately connected. Theatre is the act of embodying words as a character other than ourselves and the acceptance of that act by a participating audience. This is called the dramatic impulse. Ecclesiastes 3:11 helps us understand this dramatic impulse as God-given: “He has set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

This verse expresses a fundamental truth about theatre and other forms of art. We experience tension between being made in the image of God (“eternity in our hearts”) and our mortality (we fall short of expressing our eternal selves). Psalm 8:5 states we are “made a little lower than the angels” and Paul writes in Romans 7:15 “that we no longer have the power to do the good we want to do.” The conflict between what we were intended for and what we struggle with on this side of eternity is the essence of theatre.

Far from my church board’s original understanding of theatre, I have found theatre to be quite the opposite of a godless profession. The stage, the stories expressed there and the broken people who embody them—they are sacred.

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IN OPPOSITION OR INSEPARABLE?

What has faith to do with marketing and sales?

GREG SMITH A S S O C I AT E P R O F E S S O R I N T H E P R A C T I C E O F B U S I N E S S A N D M A R K E T I N G

What has faith to do with marketing and sales actions, roles and careers? After all, isn’t the world of marketing filled with deception, falsehood and manipulation?

Isn’t the goal of marketers to convince people to buy things they don’t need or push people to buy more than they want?

It can be easy, based on the actions of some, to conclude that Christians either need to compromise their faith to be successful in these activities—or simply avoid them altogether. Not so.

At its core, sales and marketing is the process of coordinating an exchange between people that have needs and wants. Companies and individuals need to sell their products; consumers need the products these companies and individuals sell. Imagine what would happen without those exchanges. Businesses that don’t have consumers for their products and services stop operating; without businesses, consumers don’t have access to products they need. The cascading effect would be catastrophic. Good marketing and sales prevent this from happening.

Facilitating this exchange is a noble and worthy cause but, regrettably, the sales and marketing functions have received a bad reputation. It’s not the principle or the foundation of the discipline that is the problem but rather the practitioners who veer from ethical values when creating and conducting promotion. Ethical lapses, of course, are not unique to marketers or salespeople; every type of employment has temptations and opportunities to steer away from what is right and true. Marketers may face increased opportunity for moral shortcomings, but that does not undermine the entire system. In fact, it only increases the need for ethical marketers to turn the tables on a discipline that has historically been devalued by the practices of some participants.

Prior to teaching, the bulk of my career was in leading teams who interface with

existing and potential customers. I have worked alongside hundreds of strong, ethical sales and marketing professionals, including many Christians, who have demonstrated their gifts through these roles, gained incredible job satisfaction and had a lasting impact on those they served.

Conversely, I have also seen my share of bad marketing behavior and have been presented with opportunities to participate in marketing activity that was suspect, incomplete, inaccurate and manipulative.

Choosing not to do marketing and sales that way made all the difference in the relationships I built and the results I achieved.

The world needs Christians in these business roles and functions.

Marketers who will promote goods and services that consumers need— to the consumers who most need those products. Salespeople who will look out for the best interest of their customers. Marketers and salespeople who will act within a framework of faith as they do these jobs.

Skeptical? Look no further than Jesus, the master marketer. He knew his target audience, which is the foundation of solid sales and marketing. He knew what that target market needed and spoke directly to those needs. He spoke to that audience in a way they would understand through stories and parables. And he never once dipped into deception or manipulation to boost his following or achieve results.

In the end, Jesus, the master marketer, facilitated the greatest of all exchanges: the gift of the Kingdom of God in both this life and the next—for those that needed it. His impact spans thousands of years and billions of souls. As Christians gifted in sales and marketing, we can follow his footsteps and be salt and light in an area that is often viewed as leaning toward darkness.

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What has faith to do with healthcare?

DR. SEAN CLARK ’88 P R O F E S S O R O F K I N E S I O L O G Y A N D D I R E C T O R O F H E A LT H C A R E P R O F E S S I O N S

Many of us are familiar with Jesus’s title as the Great Physician—the miraculous healer of both bodies and souls. Dozens of times throughout the Bible we see Jesus referenced as such. We know the story of the woman who bled for 12 years, the Centurion’s ill servant, the paralytics and lepers and blind people, the daughter of Jairus and Jesus’s close friend Lazarus—all who were healed by the Great Physician.

Healthcare is also redemptive. The consequences of poor choices, misfortune, the aging process and disease fills our waiting rooms. As we implement and utilize our knowledge and understanding of the body and medicine, we begin to see healing, recovery from injury or illness and resumption of a normal way of life. These small redemptive, healing moments are tiny ways of participating in the redemption of the entire created order.

And while these examples were all undoubtedly miracles from God, the life of Jesus helps frame a biblical understanding that can impact the way we think about, address and deal with healthcare in our modern contexts.

Throughout that redemptive process—no matter how small—we practice hospitality. As patients sit with providers, they invite us into their story: their family health history, their concerns, pains and fears. Many times, this means an invitation into the messiness of life. In the tough moments, being hospitable in hardship may mean walking with someone through terminal illness, conveying hope without skewing them toward false promises.

All throughout Scripture, Jesus walks with the marginalized and exhorts his followers to do the same: give food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, shelter to the homeless, clothing to the naked and care to the sick. The needs to be met are physical, unique to the flourishing of the human body: one of the centerpieces of all creation, God’s handiwork.

As healthcare practitioners, we acknowledge the body is a temple to be stewarded as a gift from God. We prescribe and embrace healthy practices like regular exercise, nutritious meals and good sleep habits.

For Christians in healthcare, stewardship of bodies is inherently spiritual; we see the human body as the earthen vessel through which the spirit and soul function.

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But perhaps more often, hospitality comes down to choosing love in the everyday ways, like sitting a minute longer with a patient despite being incredibly stretched for time, so that they feel valued. Choosing love means maintaining a posture of humility despite hard-earned degrees and expertise. Choosing love means practicing grace and trust with coworkers so you can function together to best serve your patient.

Our call as Christians who serve the Great Physician is to care for those who are in need, those who others may neglect. In healthcare, as in many other fields, that’s not always easy, but it’s the power of Christ that allows us to be able to step into the gap and to care with both competence and compassion.

IN OPPOSITION OR INSEPARABLE?

What has faith to do with technology?

DR. RUSS TUCK PROFESSOR OF COMPUTER SCIENCE

This helps the team learn quickly by trying things and getting feedback, answering questions like, “Does this work?” And “Is this really easier and faster for users?” and finding things like, “Now that it’s working, we wish it would do this.” In our everyday lives, it might look like, “Is my morning routine working? How can I improve it?” and “What can we do now to improve the way we do this?”

Agile development is a posture of learning and refining. It takes a dash of humility and a sprinkle of courage to be looking for change and not to be wed to things exactly as we’ve crafted them.

The second practice is blameless postmortems: When something fails (like a website going down or a security breach), we try to understand what happened and change the system so it doesn’t happen again. And when the problem is human error, we assume the person was trying to do the right thing, and think the system shouldn’t be so fragile that a mistake causes such a big problem.

Then we try to make the system safer to use, so mistakes are less harmful and easier to fix.

We’re not trying to put blame on anyone; we’re trying to find out what happened and prevent it from happening again. In a way, blameless postmortem is a posture of grace; it’s an acknowledgement that we are human and we make mistakes.

The goal is to make the system better, and that has many applications in society.

While any one of us could pinpoint 100 ways technology impacts our day-to-day lives in terms of convenience, connection and access, there are two practices in the field that can be applied more broadly, and one problem that is widely shared.

The first practice is agile development, which addresses the fact that we rarely know the best solution for a problem when we start trying to solve it. First Corinthians 13:12 reminds us of the limits of our knowledge: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (ESV). Agile development is the process of knowing more. It is a rhythm (often two weeks) of making modest, tangible improvements, and then deciding with the user or customer what improvement to make next.

When I look at my field of computer science, I see a critical need for more women and people of color at the table. We are solving problems by writing software and designing systems, and we do that best when we really understand and care about the problems we’re solving. When part of the community is not well represented in the problem-solving group, their problems can easily be overlooked or misunderstood and not solved well. This problem is shared with some other fields, and also with many churches, schools, businesses and other organizations.

So if we apply agile development to representation in computer science—and many other places—how do I practically value diversity? How can take steps to welcome people who are different from me? How do I learn from them? And if we apply blameless postmortem, why is it that others are coming from a harder place to begin with? How do we change our system to make it easier to bring people to the table?

At the end of the day, those pulling up chairs next to us at the table and those benefitting from the products we’re creating there—they are our neighbors. Agile development (the humility to learn and courage to refine) and blameless postmortems (the grace to understand and courage to improve) are mechanisms by which we can better love and serve those very neighbors.

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STARTERS

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entors. xperts.

Catalysts.

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30 STILLPOINT | SPRING 2023

ALUMNI NEWS

Alumni Connections Class Notes You can find Class Notes online at www.gordon.edu/ stillpointalumninews.

You will need your Gordon ID number to view this passwordprotected page; please contact alumni. office@gordon.edu if you need assistance.

Alumni Awardees At Homecoming and Family Weekend this past October, Gordon honored six alumni with annual awards to recognize their impactful work and faithfulness to Christ. Their stories are both global (Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana) and local (Boston and its North Shore). They touch the lives of orphans, give voice to people with developmental or intellectual disabilities, and nurture pathways for racial healing.

As missionaries, executives, educators, inventors, entrepreneurs and bridgebuilders, each one is changing the world by impacting their corner of it.

See what the Alumni Awards tradition is all about: www.gordon.edu/alumniawards

A. J. Gordon Missionary Service Award: Barbara (Gration) Harbert ’76 Born and raised in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a missionary kid, Barbara Harbert didn’t always know the Lord would call her back to mission work. After graduating from Gordon, she taught in Virginia for three years and then worked for InterVarsity and the Urbana Missions Conference. After leading a Kenyan team with InterVarsity, Harbert’s heart began to turn back to missionary service. She and her husband, Scott, applied to Africa Inland Mission (AIM) and began a life of ministry in Kenya, where she is involved in two different feeding programs for orphans.

Alumni of the Year: John “Jack” L. Good III ’66 Known best for his caring and giving spirit, the late Jack Good is the namesake of the College’s Jack Good Community Service Award, which is annually bestowed upon an alumna or alumnus whose life and work reflect his legacy (see below). A well-known and beloved member of the local community, Good dedicated decades of his life to volunteering and serving in leadership roles at organizations at many North Shore nonprofits. Good was the founding chairman of the North Shore Chamber of Commerce, member of the Beverly Rotary Club and volunteer firefighter for the Essex Fire Department.

He spent his career in executive roles at Northeast Health Systems, Beverly National Bank, Danversbank and People’s United Bank.

Entrepreneur of the Year: Dr. Samuel Sennott ’04 Researcher and entrepreneur Sam Sennott is an associate professor at Portland State University (OR), where he leads the Universal Design Lab. He and his team help people with developmental or intellectual disabilities access parts of everyday life, mainly in communication support for children and adults who have complex communication needs.

Sennott is the co-creator of the awardwinning Proloquo2Go communication app and co-editor of a book in which he focuses on educational policy for people who can’t speak. Sennott holds an M.S. from Simmons College and Ph.D. from Penn State University.

Jack Good Community Service Award: Megan (Footit) Lietz ’09 Megan Lietz is the founding director of the Race & Christian Community Initiative (RCCI) at the Emmanuel Gospel Center in Dorchester, Massachusetts. RCCI comes alongside White evangelicals to help them learn how to engage well in issues related to race. Lietz spends her time teaching, facilitating hard conversations, offering thought partnership, and nurturing

pathways through which racial healing can take place—with the ultimate goal of helping people honor the image of God in one another and work together toward shalom. Lietz holds master’s degrees from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and Boston University and previously worked at Abundant Life Church in Cambridge.

Winifred Currie Award in Education: Marie Patfoort ’67 As a teen in the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), Marie Patfoort ’67 advanced her studies under tutor Dr. Winifred Currie ’45, the namesake of her award. When the Congo fell into a bloody revolution in 1960, Patfoort, with the help of Dr. Currie, was smuggled out of the Congo and into the U.S. She finished basic studies at a Bible institute in Rhode Island, and in the early ’60s came to Gordon, where Dr. Currie was a professor. After becoming the first Congolese woman to receive a college degree in education, Patfoort returned to what was then Zaire to teach, and then returned to the U.S. to pursue continued education and citizenship and spent many years teaching in Whitefield, Maine.

Young Alumni of the Year: Freda Obeng-Ampofo ’08 Freda Obeng-Ampofo is a global public policy professional with a regional focus on Africa. She is also the founder and chief mixer at KAEME, a premium Ghanaian company specializing in personal care products that are locally sourced and free from additives and dyes. KAEME was featured on CNN Business’ Voices of the Pandemic and on CNN’s Quest Means Business with Richard Quest in 2020. In 2021, KAEME won the Skincare Brand of the Year award at the Ghana Beauty Awards.

Obeng-Ampofo, who also holds a master’s in public affairs from the prestigious Sciences Po in Paris, was named in the 2021 Choiseul 100 Africa list of future African leaders under 40.

Hall of Honor Inductees Jeannine Cavallaro ’93 | Volleyball, Women’s Basketball Zachary Hall ’16 | Men’s Tennis Aaron “Wes” Hillman ’70B | Men’s Basketball

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Referrals for fall 2024 are limited to two per alumni and are due December 1, 2023.

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