Incarnational Pedagogy

Over the course of the past two decades, I have moved away from the phrase “integration of faith and learning”. This has been a focus on my writing and professional work since the early 1990s when I wrote a paper similar to this one in applying for promotion to Full Professor. I have expanded on these ideas at length in the manuscript I have underway. Rather than repeat those ideas, I’m focusing much more on what I’ve learned since coming to Spring Arbor.

Too often the Integration phase inadvertently suggests that there are two different spheres that need, through special effort, to be brought together in conversation. I have come to see that such efforts are not representative of either the complexity of God’s world or the nature of God’s work. Furthermore, too much of the Integrationist rhetoric has been couched in overly philosophical “worldview” language that separates right thinking from right living. This has been problematic for Christian university students and has contributed to the data that Ron Sider summarizes on how evangelical students are not markedly different from their secular counterparts in terms of attitude and lifestyle.

I have not found a suitable alternative to the Integration phrase, largely because any construction I attempt falls victim to the same dualism mentioned above. Rather, I have adopted something of a General Orientation – a belief that a call to be a discipling faculty member means being open to the Voice of God wherever that is expressed. I may be as likely to grasp new understandings of what Jesus’ Gospel calls in the middle of an Introductory Sociology class as I am to understand the dynamics of human experience through considering the challenges one of Paul’s epistles is addressing. In any case, two things are required of me. First, I must be continually open to new learning wherever its source. Second, I have an obligation to be open about that learning to colleagues and students.

One of the joys of teaching sociology in a Christian liberal arts institution is that I’m constantly pushed in new directions. As I teach various classes and interact with differing groups of students and colleagues, I am required to rethink my positions however subtly. As a disciple, I am aware that I am continually growing not simply as a scholar (which is important) but as a person following Jesus Christ. I have been very aware in recent months of the ways in which the classes I teach are teaching me. The dialogue with students, the overlap in readings between courses, the DC [Dining Commons] conversations, and life in the political world all seem to be reinforcing each other. I am changed in midst of that process. I have come to realize that the Holy Spirit is a vital component of pedagogy – things often happen in class that seem fortuitous or even happenstance, but I have come to see that THOSE things are the real stuff of Christian learning (not my creative PowerPoint illustrations). My role as a follower of Jesus is to remain open to that learning regardless of how accidental it may seem. The disciples on the road to Emmaus said, “didn’t he explain everything to us?” That experience of learning is not something that was unique in their experience but happens to us whenever we have the openness to hear that voice. Moving from openness to expectancy is what gives the class its vitality.

But it is not enough for me to have those experiences myself. I must be open about sharing my learning with others. This is the proclaiming component of relating sociology to Christianity. In my early teaching years, I was reticent about making too much of my own views because 1) I don’t believe in indoctrination, 2) I’m very aware of the power differential in the classroom, and 3) I want to avoid having classes on “the Hawthorne View of the World”. But last semester, I took a new risk. In the Sociology, Faith, and Justice class I decided that it was important to share what I had been reading and how it had been framing my own thoughts about Empire, Rights, Power, and the Kingdom of God. As we went through the class, I was amazed at how much my own thoughts deepened. The last night of class, I shared a summary of where we’d been and what it had done to advance my own reflections on Justice and Spirituality.

Through that experience, I learned that the most important thing I was doing in terms of faith and learning was allowing the Spirit to teach ME. Then it became possible to share that learning with the students – not as a definitive position but as an illustration of how faith and learning are co-determinative. By sharing my own story, I grant permission for the students to pursue their own linkages and be willing to share those as well. I’m not sure I’m happy with this label, but I’d call it Incarnational Pedagogy. The result is that the expressions of faith and learning present in my work are not about the content of sociology and a cursory view of scripture but is about an indwelling, active, presence leading to Truth (at least as close to it as I can express at the moment). The classroom becomes that laboratory where we work together to sort out issues of learning and living with Christ as the lens and motivator of our efforts.