I found Plantinga's chapter on vocation to be a difficult one in a way. The material was covered well in Prelude, so I understood his points about vocation, and I agree with them. My difficulty was that the entire section on vocation and education seemed to be a plug for christian liberal arts colleges in general and Calvin in particular. Now, I do not have a problem with plugs, but it did not seem to fit the message of the rest of chapter.
As I understand it, vocation means that we should serve God in all areas of our lives, trying to redeem every area of the world to bring the kingdom of God to earth as much as possible. In the section on vocation, Plantinga says that the Christian going to a secular school, “may expect to stand against these ideas without caving in to them and without hardening into pious anti-intellectuals. If so, they expect a lot.” Fair enough, being a Christian in a hostile environment is hard, but then he goes on to say that “if they expect to develop a mature Christian philosophy of life without the help of their professors – in fact, with the hindrance of some of their professors – they expect even more.” As students, we cannot be expected to maintain strong Christian beliefs with out our professors holding our hands? While I am going to a Christian college, and I do think that is the best thing for me, I am not expecting my professors to guide my Christian beliefs. To be honest, I know more dedicated, thoughtful, even intellectual christians that went to secular universities than Christian ones. I do not mean this in any way to denigrate Christian education, because I think it is a great thing, but to say that a well developed christian coming out of a secular school is some sort of miracle seems misguided at the least.
How are we to redeem education if we cannot participate in non christian institutions as students? C. S. Lewis himself was a student at a secular college, though he was not a christian at the time. Despite this, I have never read anything where he warns against students studying under non christian professors.
I can see where you are coming from with seeing this chapter as a "plug" for christian liberal arts. I think they did focus on it and although there is a lot of truth about Christian liberal Arts colleges being a good place for people it is not the right place for everyone. I think sometimes we fall into the trap of believing everything that our professors say because not only are they older and wiser and teaching us but also they for the most part share our same values and beliefs. This can cause us to not use our discretion and question them when we should. At a public university people are aware that their professors probably don't believe what they believe and therefore are maybe a bit more prepared to use their discretion in all areas of their studies. I really liked your interesting perspective.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to you when you discuss the thoughts about a Christian going to a secular university (except from more of the opposite point of view). My discipleship teacher in high school pretty much told my class that we should all go to secular universities and "change the world". We were strong enough Christians, now we needed to be an exmaple for others. At the end, he almost made me feel guilty for going to a Christian college. I feel like I'm at such a fragile point in my faith that I still want a Christian community... or and I just being a whimp?
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. I do not think that it's God's calling for every Christian to go to a Christian college. Yes, it may be more difficult to be a Christian at a secular college; whoever said that life was going to be easy while being a Christian? I think that a Christian college is best for me, and best for others too; however, if every Christian went to a Christian college, who would be at the secular college to share with non Christians the good news of Jesus Christ? Thanks for your thoughts on this topic.
ReplyDeleteThere are definitely times when going to a secular college can crumble your faith. I went to public school all my life, and it was a real challenge because only a few other students were Christian. But I cannot believe that the solution for us is to incubate ourselves away from the world. If we cannot believe in our faith in the real world, then what good is it? I do not mean that Christian colleges are bad, or else I wouldn't be here, but I think that we need to be able to take our faith and be able to live it out, even if the people we are around aren't Christian. Neither form of education is good or bad, they are choices for different people who need different things.
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