F r o m
t h e
P r e s i d e n t
What Would You Like To Be Famous For?
I
n a recent harris poll, 12% of the respondents to the question “If you could be famous, what would you like to be famous for?” answered that they would like to be famous for being good, for doing some humanitarian work. This response ranked highest of those given, and would encourage us, were it not for the fact that the next three most often given replies were for being a musical performer, an athlete or an artist, the total number of which more than doubled the first response. In other words, twice as many people would like to be famous for being a pop culture celebrity than those who would like to be famous for doing some act of good in the world. Only 2%, by the way, answered that they would like to be a famous religious leader. In a world where for many years, more people have been able to identify Michael Jordan than any current president, entertainment-based celebrity continues to be touted as a powerful influence in determining “who we want to be when we grow up.” Neal Gabler, in his 1998 book Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality, puts forth the thesis that entertainment has even created a sense in us that we live in a movie of which we are the director and the star, and that celebrity is the measuring stick of importance and significance in our world.The Harris poll mentioned above would seem to support that assertion. One of the most stimulating books on the problems of the university in America to come out in recent times is Harry Lewis’s Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education. Writing about Harvard, but generalizing about universities everywhere, Lewis declares that university education is becoming more and more irrelevant to public life. He blames this on its loss of focus, affirming that “the fundamental job of education is to turn eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds into twenty-one- and twenty-two-year-olds, to help them grow up, to learn who they are, to search for a larger purpose for their lives, and to leave college as better human beings.” Any of those who work with college students know this to be true. While universities continue, as Lewis puts it, to “succeed, better than ever, as creators and repositories of knowledge”, they often eschew their role of helping students, in loco parentis, grow up. I have the privilege of knowing several fine examples of university professors, who do, indeed, take a keen interest in the lives of their students outside the classroom, but they are the exception rather than the rule. This is not by any means entirely the fault of the disengaged university professor; large classes, academic committees, the priority of research—just to name a few—all keep the faculty member and the student apart. The point is that the university does not take upon itself the responsibility of shaping lives; it simply provides some raw materials for some pieces of that task. If
the “fundamental job of education is to turn eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds into twenty-one- and twenty-two-yearolds”, then more is needed out of the university experience than what it supplies. St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “Imitate me as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1), and the centrality of “following” for learning has been unquestioned in the Christian faith ever since. When Jesus commanded the fishermen by the Sea of Galilee to “Follow me”, He did not simply call them to a life of Bible study, much less a life of reading books and taking examinations. Scripture must have taken a central role in the life of the Christian disciple; the command of the Book demonstrated by Peter, Paul, James and others in the rest of the New Testament shouts of deep and disciplined study of the Scriptures. It was in the observation of a life, though, that the disciples “grew up.” It was the mercy and compassion, the zeal for justice and goodness, which they saw in the Savior, as He healed, taught, confronted, and comforted the sick and broken-hearted that did the most, humanly speaking, to change them from over-enthusiastic boys into men who were willing to die for the good and the true. I have long thought that fathers and mothers teach boys and girls how to live life much more than any movie celebrity ever could or should, and that the real influence of the “star” is over-rated at best, and probably closer to downright non-existent. In any case the parent is, for good or ill, a far more potent source for what actually happens in the life of a child, when he or she grows up. In Hollywoodland, a recent movie about the unsolved death of George Reeves, best known for playing Superman in the fifties television serial, Louis Simo, a private detective, who for many reasons gets involved in the case, contemplates the tragic, confused life of Reeves, and is moved at the end of the film to care for his son more deeply than he ever has before. As the interweaving plot moves back and forth between the lives of Reeves and Simo, it becomes clearer and clearer, which of the two roles—celebrity or father—is the more important. As a new school year comes upon us, and we have the privilege of living before students, teaching them, shaping them, serving them, it merits thinking once again about Paul’s injunction to imitate him, as he did Christ. Are we willing, as Paul would put it “in the power of the Holy Spirit,” to accept that responsibility? Pray for us, that we will, as God gives us grace. — Drew Trotter
Center for Christian Study 128 Chancellor Street u Charlottesville, VA 22903
Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage
PAID
ADDRE SS S ER VICE REQU ES TE D
Charlottesville, Virginia
Visit the Center's Web Site at: www.studycenter.net
Prax´• is, n. The practical application of a branch of learning.
Pra xis
Permit No. 144
The Center for Christian Study is a non-profit education and outreach ministry serving the University of Virginia and Charlottesville-Albemarle region since 1968. Through programs, ministries, and partnerships, we provide opportunities and resources for the corporate and individual investigation of the truths of the historic Christian faith. Some of the ways we do this include courses, lectures, seminars, student-run fellowships, internships, mentoring opportunities, discussion groups, and special events. We proceed believing that men and women will be transformed by the Truth, which will be reflected in their thoughts and actions, both in their private lives before God and in their public lives as members of society, the family, and the Church. Center for Christian Study 128 Chancellor Street Charlottesville, VA 22903 Phone: 434.817.1050 www.studycenter.net Praxis is published quarterly for our friends and supporters. Carl Briggs, Editor carl@studycenter.net University Christian Ministries, Inc. (dba Center for Christian Study) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation EIN 51-0192618.
The Center for Christian Study pledges financial accountability through our membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
Thank You Thank you for supporting the Center for Christian Study. Through your generous contributions, you help fulfill the mission of the Center to serve Jesus Christ by fostering the serious consideration of a Biblical worldview within the university environment. Your support makes it possible for us to continue vital ministries to the students, faculty, and staff of the University of Virginia, as well as to the Charlottesville community and the broader region. All gifts are fully tax-deductible as provided by law.
Under Whose Authority? By Bill Wilder Director of Educational Ministries
INSIDE Move-In Day Lunch, 2006 Faith, Love, and Graduate School
Praxis V10 N3 Fall 2006
Pr ax i s
Why Be Famous?
For the Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods.
E
very Thursday morning the Study Center staff repeats these words together, joining our voices with the millions of others who have recited Psalm 95 over the centuries. In its context, these words serve as the basis for the call to worship that begins the psalm: “Oh come let us sing to the Lord! Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.” Thus begins a praise-filled meditation on the kingly authority of our God in this psalm and the next—in creation (95:4-5), in redemption (95:6-7), and in restoration (96:9-13). Nor do the psalms stop there. It is not uncommon for the psalms also to celebrate human kingship and authority. One thinks of Psalm 8, for example, where God’s name is lauded precisely because he has set man “in dominion over all the works of your hands,” putting “all things under his feet.” Indeed, there’s an entire category of psalms (the royal psalms) that celebrates the kingship of God and his human representatives. To modern Americans, including many Christians, this emphasis on kingship and power can strike a rather less worshipful note. We’re much more likely to remember the old aphorism—too true in a fallen world—that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” We may be sympathetic to the bumper stickers that urge us to “question authority.” For many of us, meditations on power and dominion are more likely to make us break out into hives than into song. It is precisely this disconnect between the Biblical worldview and our contemporary culture that has led the Study Center staff to focus our attention on the theme of authority in the coming academic year. Within our larger commitment to all of faith and life, we wish to choose a major theme each year that will help us think more intentionally about the world around us. This year we intend to explore the notion of authority in its various dimensions, trusting that sustained reflection on such an important theme will enrich every area of our ministry. We see this theme working itself out in a number of ways, formally and informally. Discussion group leaders will be encouraged to
focus on authority whenever possible, whether in the reading of texts or the watching of movies. One thinks, for example, of the Natural Law discussion group and its attempt to apply its convictions of an intrinsic moral authority in our world to contemporary debates about the meaning of marriage, the beginning and end of life, and bioethical issues such as cloning and stem cell research.
Bill Wilder engages authority issues of another sort in a presentation last spring on The Da Vinci Code at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia. photo by Carl Briggs
Several of the lecture series at the Study Center are even more intentional in their focus on authority. This fall Justin Holcomb , Director of Graduate Ministries at the Center for Christian Study, lectured on Islam and Christianity: Comparing Revelations, a series inevitably dealing with each religion’s claim to divine authority. In Be Thou our Vision: Paul’s View of Life in Light of Christ in His Letter to the Ephesians, a Faith & Life Lecture Series in October and November, Bill Wilder will speak on a letter in which authority of all kinds (apostolic, marital, parental, civil) is addressed. Two lecture series in the spring deal with other dimensions of authority. W. Bradford Wilcox, a University of Virginia professor and member of the board of directors of the Center for Christian Study, and Study Center President Drew Trotter will consider Parental Authority: A Christian Approach, while Ken Myers, executive producer of Mars Hill Audio, will speak specifically to the challenges of contemporary culture in When Oprah Talks, People Listen: Contemporary Cultural Authority and Christian Proclamation. Finally, a Faith and Life Special Lectures Series will explore several sources of authority: The Authority of Scripture, Thursday, Oct. 12, 7 p.m., by Bill Wilder; The Authority of Tradition, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 7 p.m., by UVa Professor Robert Wilken; The Authority of Reason, Thursday, Feb. 1, 7 p.m., by Yale University Professor Nicholas
Continued on last inside page
The Center for Christian Study welcomed new students and their families to the University of Virginia at the August 19 Move-In Day Lunch.
Move-In Day Lunch Draws 400 By Wes Zell Director of Undergraduate Ministries
T
HE STUDY CENTER's Fall semester began on August 19th with the MoveIn Day Lunch for new students and their families, a now-annual event that began in 1999 with a small group of parents who wanted to welcome members of the arriving class in the name of Jesus. Each year since then, on the Saturday before courses commence, we've filled the building with first-years, transfers, moms, dads, siblings and, of course, lots of lunch fixings. Due to a committed group of parents and students – who not only pass the word about the event but work incredibly hard to host it – the gathering has grown considerably; what started as a circle of parents and undergraduates sharing names and sandwiches was this year attended by an estimated 400 (including over 100 new students). A couple of very important things take place at the Move-In Day Lunch. First, as you might expect, relationships happen. New arrivals meet one another and begin friendships that will last through college and beyond. Campus ministers meet the folks with whom we will pray, talk and share meals for the next eight semesters. Parents might even meet total strangers with whom they’ll plan a wedding in the not-so-distant future! The day is full of possibilities that will unfold over the upcoming months and years. These relationships happen because of the other important thing that takes place, which is hospitality. Upperclassmen cut their summer vacation a few days short in order to care for new students, blowing up balloons and keeping the coolers stocked with ice. Parents who are guests at the lunch one year volunteer as hosts the next, sometimes driving a couple of hours (and facing MoveIn Day traffic!) in order to serve food to 18-year olds that they have never met. As a result, incoming students discover a thriving Kingdom-centered
community and are welcomed into it by professors and returning students who remind them that Jesus has come ahead of them to this place. This is further accented by their introduction to campus ministry staff from Agape Christian Fellowship, Anglican College Ministry, Cavalier Life, Chi Alpha, Impact, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and Reformed University Fellowship. The presence of these organizations at the Move-In Day Lunch models for students the collaborative and interdependent nature of ministry at the University. Among those who this year officially welcomed the incoming students and their families was parent chair Melanie Jones, who attended the lunch four years ago when her son Harrison began at UVa. She has stayed connected with the event because “what we didn’t know then was that this short luncheon would be the doorway to Christian community for his next four years.” Also speaking were UVa Fourth-Years Molly Warrick and Jimmy Holland, who reflected on both the importance of studies and the importance of deeplyrooted friendships. “While independence at UVa is so highly praised,” Warrick said, “I know that there are many people here, including Christian organization leaders and professors, who truly want to invest in your lives.” This was further emphasized by Economics Professor Ken Elzinga, who encouraged students to find places for both nurture and mission as Christians, and by Study Center President Drew Trotter, who stressed studying well and participating fully in the life of the University as ways to serve the King. This, too, is our prayer at the Study Center; that this lunch continues to be a vehicle for students to be welcomed and then become welcomers themselves, so that followers of Jesus at UVa would continue to grow in their care for one another and for the University as a whole.
Faith, Hope, and Love in Graduate School B y C ristina T orres K esler
that covered anything and everything about which our Faith had something to say. Topics HEN I FIRST ARRIVED of interest to me ranged from the fundamentals in Charlottesville, my goal of Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism, Islam and the Qur’an, Christian viewpoints on femiwas to gain an expertise in nism, the Talmud, the Apocrypha, the Book of cancer cell signaling through Common Prayer, and the list continues. a doctoral program in Microbiology. What I did not realize was that I would inadvertently Within this context of my spiritual development, I met and married my husband and find myself connecting to a wealth of meansoul-mate Mike Fuller. Early on in our dating ingful opportunities to academically pursue God’s Word. Up to this point, I hadn’t known relationship, he encouraged me to involve that Christianity could be so intellectually myself with the GCF women’s Bible study and stimulating! In a Christian culture accountability group, which rapidly that often reduces Christianity to became a second family for me. Here, I discovered the kindness of Lois simple concepts without the conWesterlund, a GCF volunteer leader, textual overview that defines why these concepts are imperative to whose nurturing heart taught me the understanding Christ, it has always power of Godly wisdom and love. In the months before Mike and I marbeen difficult for me to find much ried, Bill Wilder of the Study Center motivation to study scripture. The Center for Christian Study, gave us the inimitable gift of perthrough the Graduate Christian forming our premarital counseling, Cristina Torres Kesler Fellowship (GCF), provided me after which he traveled to Miami, with resources that ultimately taught me how Florida to officiate our wedding ceremony. His connection to us during this significant to better comprehend and value my Faith. Moreover, these resources provided vital time in our lives has meant the world. As my time in graduate school and GCF foundations for communicating my Faith effecnears its end, I realize just how formative my tively to peers who often held distorted views time with the center really was. The invaluable of Christianity. Over the years, I have found myself relentfriendships developed through GCF have lessly enjoying the Splintered Light Bookstore, brought me infinitely closer to the heart of on the first floor of the Center. Instead of a God, and the center’s deep commitment to a compilation of children’s books and self-help comprehensive understanding of what we as paperbacks characteristic of many Christian Christians believe has revitalized my love for bookstores, I discovered a collection of books His Truth.
W
O ctober & N ovember L ectures at the Center for Christian Study
s on -> m ra rog ovies P l F a l i t y, M hor Aut
Special Lectures
Faith & Life Lecture Series
The Authority of Scripture Bill Wilder, Director of Educational Ministries Thursday evening, October 12, at 7 p.m.
Be Thou Our Vision: Paul's View of Life in Light of Christ in His Letter to the Ephesians Instructor: Bill Wilder Monday evenings, 7 – 8:30 p.m. Oct. 16, 30; Nov. 6, 13
The Authority of Tradition Robert Wilken William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of the History of Christianity University of Virginia Tuesday evening, November 7, at 7 p.m.
Saturday Seminar Show & Tell: The Christian and the Movies in Contemporary America Speaker: Drew Trotter Saturday, November 4 Session 1: 9 – 11:30 a.m., Session 2: 12:30 – 3 p.m.
Under Whose Authority?, continued from front Wolterstorff; and The Authority of Experience, Thursday, March 15, 7 p.m., by Drew Trotter. This so-called quadrilateral of authority has often been used to stress “the primacy of Scripture,” “the wisdom of Robert Wilken tradition,” “the disciplines of critical reason” and, following John Wesley, “the Christian experience of grace” (my emphasis). Our own use of these topics will perhaps be a bit broader and more general, reflecting a wide range of orthodox Christian perspectives and provoking (we hope) an energetic discussion of how God’s authority does—and should—work itself out in our lives. Authority is not an easy topic to discuss. We are averse to the topic, and the reality, for both good and bad reasons. We have chosen authority to be this year’s theme at the Study Center precisely because Nicholas it is crucial to bring a Biblical Wolterstorff perspective to bear on this most contentious of issues in our culture. Our goal is the transformation of our minds, the kind that comes from prayerful and corporate reflection on legitimate expressions of God’s authority as well as on false claimants to that authority. We hope too for a transformation of our hearts, the kind that comes from the glad worship of the one who is the great king above all gods.
Thank You The Center for Christian Study would like to thank the following parents, students and friends who volunteered for the 2006 Move-In Day Lunch:
Event Volunteers Sarah Anderson (Parent ’07) Julie Andrukonis (UVa ’06) Hilah Barbot (UVa ’09) Chris Burger (UVa ’07) Mallory Butler (UVa ’09) Sam Carr (UVa ’07) Becca Chuckney (UVa ’08) Johanna Cluver (UVa ’08) Sarah Daubert (UVa ’09) Lucy Dunderdale (UVa ’07) Lissa Power-deFur (Parent ’08) Elly Donovan (UVa ’09) Ken Elzinga (Faculty) Lee Ellen Fleming (UVa ’09) Andrea Grimes (Parent ’07)
THE STAFF & CENTER . . . Bill Wilder taught a six-week series on 1 Corinthians in the Circle Teaching Fellowship at Trinity Presbyterian Church Aug. 27-Oct. 1. . . He will present a paper at the November meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society on The Use (or Abuse) of Power in High Places: Paul's Account of Gift-Giving in Ephesians 4:8 and Psalm 68. . . He will speak Dec. 8 at the Charlottesville Senior Center on The Da Vinci Code. . . Justin Holcomb preached in the Charlottesville area at Christ Episcopal Church Aug. 13 and at Mt. Olivet United Church of Christ June 25, July 16, and Aug. 6. He taught June 18 at Third Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Va. at adult education classes on What is the Bible and How Did We Get It. . . Justin spoke July 1 at the Young Americans Foundation conference in Washington, D.C. on Sudan and the role of the church in community development at a panel discussion on private solutions for helping people in need. . . He is teaching a fall semester course at the University of Virginia on Death and Dying. . . Drew Trotter spoke on June 21 to parents, students, and friends of the Center in Atlanta on College and Culture: The Spiritual State of the University in America Today, and he spoke Sept. 8 at a Faith & Law meeting at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. on The Movies and America: The Influence of Film in Our Society. On Sept. 16 he presented his Faith & Life Weekend Seminar on Show & Tell: The Christian and the Movies in Contemporary America at First Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem, N.C.. . . He will participate in the Virginia Film Festival in Charlottesville Oct. 2728, introducing and leading discussions of several films. The film festival’s theme is Revelations: Finding God at the Movies. . . Drew will attend the meeting of the American Academy of Religion Nov. 17-20 in Washington, D.C.
Planning Committee
Regional Volunteers:
Din Botsford (UVa ’07; Registration Chair) Catherine Brown (UVa ’07; Student Chair) R.J. Carey (UVa ’07; Program Chair) Ila Hughes (UVa ’07; Volunteer & Stewardship Chair) Melanie Jones (Parent ’07; Parent Chair) Kate Lumpkins (UVa ’07; Logistics Chair) Molly Warrick (UVa ’07; Communications Chair) Catie Yielding (UVa ’07; Hospitality Chair)
Betty Case (UVa ’76; CCS Board) Anne Flint (UVa ’77; Parent ’06, ’08) Don (UVa ’77; CCS Board) & Robbin Flow (UVa ’78; Parents ’05, ’08) Kristi Lumpkins (Parent ’07, ’09) Elizabeth Massie (UVa ’80; Parent ’08, ’10) Elizabeth Robinson (Parent ’07, ’10) Carolyn Spurgeon (Parent ’07, ’10) Pat Wiegard (Parent ’01, ’07)
Jesse Grimes (UVa ’07) Michael Guthrie (UVa ’75, ’76; CCS Board) Ginny Harr (UVa ’08) Sarah Hester (UVa ’07) Tara Hegyi (UVa ’08) Tommy (UVa ’79) & Kemp Hill (UVa ’80; CCS Board) Jimmy Holland (UVa ’07) Corley Hopkins (UVa ’08) Barrie Humphries (UVa ’09) Harrison Jones (UVa ’07) Elizabeth Jordan (UVa ’08) Lansing Lee (UVa ’09) Greg Lowden (UVa ’08) Drew Macklin (UVa ’09) Krisan Marotta (CCS Board) Brendon Marotta
Kathryn McCann (UVa ’06) Nate McFarland (UVa ’08) Marsha Montague (UVa ’09) Caroline Nettles (UVa ’09) David Newsome (UVa ’09) Chris Oldham (UVa ’06) Natalie Race (UVa ’07) Hunter Sinclair (UVa ’09) Shannon Spurgeon (UVa ’07) Marie Trotter Lauren Vida (UVa ’09) Emily Wade (UVa ’08) Lee J Webb (UVa ’07) Collin Wilson (UVa ’09) Jon Yagel (UVa ’09) Craig Wood (Parent ’06; CCS Board)