Dear friends,
Some of you in our Facebook
group on Engaging the University were not at the IFES World Assembly, but have been in
conversation with me for some time about the topic. Others who were at the
World Assembly seem to have discovered these issues for the first time. Still others
are excited, but also somewhat confused as to what it does and does not entail
for IFES ministries. So, I thought I should lead with a brief historical
preamble by way of orientation.
My wife and I first met Prof.
Terry Halliday at an IVCF-USA Following Christ conference in Atlanta, in the last week of
2002. This was a conference for graduate students and faculty (called
postgraduates and lecturers in the British-influenced universities!). I was a plenary
Bible expositor and Terry led a track for social scientists. It was a fruitful
encounter and we have remained friends with a shared concern for the
intellectual credibility of our IFES movements in the world of the university.
Over the past decade, I have
helped with graduate student and faculty events in the US, UK, South Africa, and Hong Kong. I
have also been involved in several public dialogues and debates with
non-Christian scholars in universities in the US, Western Europe, India, Malaysia
and Indonesia.. Sadly, some of these events have not been sponsored by the national
IFES-affiliated movement; and even where they have been, they are usually seen
as marginal to the vision of the movement.
Immediately prior to the 2007
World Assembly in Toronto, Canada, some of us in IFES organized, in conjunction
with Tyndale University in Toronto, a 2-day symposium on the theme “Engaging
the University”. This was partly in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the legal founding of IFES (at
Harvard University in 1947). The main speakers at this pre-World Assembly
symposium were Prof. John Stackhouse (Regent College), Kelly Monroe (Veritas Forum
founder) and myself (IFES). Participation by senior IFES leaders, including
staff of the Canadian and American movements, was disappointing.
In his inaugural address at the
Toronto Assembly, Daniel Bourdanne challenged us to take the world of the
university seriously. He likened the university to a lake where many churches
and para-church organizations like to come and fish. They haul the fish onto
the beach, count them, and leave the lake untouched. Daniel suggested that IFES
ministry is not only about catching fish, but also about studying the ecology
of the lake, cleaning up its polluted waters, and making it more conducive to
the flourishing of marine and plant life. And we throw the fish back into the
lake!
Daniel invited me to present an
updated version of my Toronto paper (on “Engaging the University”) to the IFES
Senior Leadership Team at its annual meeting in 2009. The paper was
subsequently circulated among the IFES International Executive Committee. I don’t
know how deeply this was discussed by the latter, but I received appreciative
comments by individuals. I also spoke to the topic at the General Secretaries
consultation that was held in Malaysia in March 2010, as it has been
incorporated into the 2020 Living Stones vision.
I suggest that this paper,
along with the presentations by Terry Halliday and Dr. Charlie Hadjiev at the
Krakow World Assembly, form the basis for all our subsequent discussions and
elaborations. The “Story of the University” video, which Wesley Chiang so ably
put together (with a little help from Jeremiah Goh and myself), will also be
available soon on the IFES website (www.ifesword.org/media) so that every
national movement can use it as a training resource.
I would also suggest that we
view all three Word & World evenings at the Krakow World Assembly as a
whole. That is how I intended them, and I am grateful to the program team (and
Martin Haizmann in particular) for giving me complete freedom to choose the
presenters and moderators whom I wanted
and to fashion the evening formats in collaboration with the latter. The first
evening elaborated the conceptual basis of university engagement, and the next
two provided examples of what we are trying to do- helping Christians think
about the various conversations that make up university life. We took “Social
Media” and “Economic Injustice” as two typical global conversations.
So, it would be a great pity
if, having read or listened to these various papers and oral presentations,
some of us still believed that “Engaging the University” is only- or even primarily-
about “graduate and faculty ministries”, or focusing on elite, research universities.
(Terry highlighted the latter in his presentation because we agreed that his
was a huge and glaring defect in most of our countries).
It would also be a deep failure
of communication if some of us continue to think that the foundations of IFES-
prayer, Bible study, personal discipleship and evangelism- are being muted by
the call to engage the university. Rather, we are calling for these foundations
to be taken more seriously than ever. For example, “Scripture engagement”
should be helping students read the world of their academic studies and
university life through the eyes of Scripture, enabling them to be
disciples of Jesus on their campuses. This is different from reading the Bible
merely for information or as an end in itself. The way our students read and interact
with the Bible should be different from a Bible study in a local church or a theological
seminary, because our context is different. Thus, “Engaging the University has implications
for every aspect of our ministry in IFES, not least the choice and training of
our staffworkers.
In conclusion, let me suggest
that “Engaging the University” involves, at least, 3 dimensions:
(1) Understanding the “culture”
and dominant worldviews of the modern university, and how these shape the
characters, values, priorities and lifestyles of students and faculty
(Christians included).
(2) Forming learning and
witnessing Christian communities, comprising students, researchers, faculty and
administrators, who engage holistically, prophetically and dialogically with
the diverse conversations, academic and non-academic, that, constitute university
life. This will naturally include what is traditionally called “evangelism” and
“apologetics”. But it goes beyond them to being willing to learn from others
and to make Christian contributions to study, research, administration and
teaching.
(3) Seeking to influence
universities so that they become more humane and just institutions, instruments
of the Kingdom of God rather than of Mammon. This implies that we care about the
moral, intellectual and spiritual flourishing of individuals and of systems.
Yours sincerely,
Vinoth Ramachandra
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