Christian Academic Coping Mechanisms, Part 1

Recently, I have been thinking about the two adverse reactions that I have observed in Christian academics; either they compartmentalise their two worlds in order to keep both from ravaging the other, or they become extremely cynical about both Christianity and academics. I will begin this blog by confessing that I have been guilty of both responses.

Compartmentalisation, as defined by myself, is an unhealthy method of navigating the differences between two social spheres which we inhabit. The compartmentalised person ensures that certain elements of him/herself are only evident around people who appreciate these elements, and that other elements are hidden when they could potentially disrupt a given social sphere. To a certain degree all people are compartmentalised, and balanced compartmentalisation is a necessary ingredient for properly functioning society; for example, it would be ludicrous to treat our spouses, children, colleagues, and friends with the same sort of affection, and thus we properly compartmentalise these affections, keeping marital, parental, collegial, and companional affection in their proper spheres. However, compartmentalisation becomes distorted when it forces us to sacrifice integral truths in order to preserve the "peace" of any given sphere.

I will begin with the academy. In many ways, the academy feels (perhaps correctly, in some cases) threatened by the gospel, for its claim to explain the purpose of the universe and human life appears to directly compete with that of the academy. Academics are often uneasy about the gospel, not because the disbelieve in absolute truth (as they speciously claim), but rather because it challenges the absolute truths that they base their lives on; asserting that truth is fully revealed in Christ means that one must scrutinise one's area of study through the scathing light of the gospel, and academics fear that such intense scrutiny would utterly incinerate and overwhelm their areas of study. In response to this fear, I have two things to say. When we follow Christ, we must follow him unconditionally, otherwise we are not following him at all; thus, in following Christ, we are always risking the loss of our acadmic status, just as we risk the loss of wives, children, parents, dead fathers, and unplowed fields. The second point is that, for Christians, academics is always a secondary concern, because Christ must always be their first concern. Basically, I am saying that the academic fears are legitimate; Christ will alter our lives, and this alteration is not predictable - there are any number of things that he could do with our academic careers. The recompense for such uncertainty is the knowledge that God will always change our lives for the better; even when God seems to be tearing up all the things that we hold most dear, we may still behold his goodness and say, with Job, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him."

But I return to compartmentalisation. In the face of the academic fear of Christianity, many Christians simply "shut off" their Christianity when they approach academic issues; since progress in one's field often appears to require full submission to the System (I say "appears," because in reality it is often the "rebels" who are both most original and most successful), such Christians supress their Christianity, assuming that suppression is necessary for advancement in a university setting. While this situation does avoid the naive response of Christians who simplistically articulate a wholesale condemnation of the university (more about this later), it produces an equally tragic scenario, for a failure to bring Christianity to one's area of study is a failure to proclaim Christ as lord of that area.

Conversely, evangelical churches do not often allow the academic's God-given inquisitiveness into their midst. They accept all people, provided those people are sportsy, television oriented men, and emotionally oriented women; when someone attempts to scrutinise and examine the world that God made, and the theological complexities that he has revealed to us, they are told that God deals in simple truths and a gnostic hatred of the world, and that they should therefore humble themselves and submit to this simple, gnostic gospel.

Academics are thus afraid to use their God given spiritual gifts (yes, I consider the academic mind a spiritual gift), and they therefore hide them, just as they hide their Christianity at the university. Not only does this situation rob the church of an integral part of Christ's mystical body - the mind of Christ - but it produces Christians who are aliens among their own people. These Christians are usually very guarded, and difficult to get to know, but if you do take the time (and it will take time) to actually care about their pain and loneliness, you will be showing showing them the Christian compassion that they rarely receive.

I believe that the integration of the academy and the church begins in the church. Christians often blame Christian scholars for compromising or abandoning their faith, but I think that the church needs to recognise its own immense role in such compromise. When a country refuses to train its soldiers in combat and provide them with proper equipment, we blame the country, and not the soldiers, when they surrender to the enemy; similarly, I submit that it is not fair for a church to discourage its academics from developing Christian scholarship, and then to blame its scholars when they abandon the church. Academic Christians begin the integration of faith and academics when they find a Christian community that will allow them to be open and honest about all things Christian and academic (even if these Christians do not understand the academic niceties involved, they can still help by exercising compassionate listening skills). Christian scholars need such a community for support, otherwise they will never have the immense stamina needed to exist as a Christian "going against the grain" of a secular university.

Watch for part 2 of this post, which will discuss the second coping device of academic Christians, cynicism.