We have been discussing something that challenges the Christian student at a very deep level. If the challenge is recognised it very often comes with a deep spiritual anxiety. So, at the very least we need to find ways of talking honestly about ourselves, our doubts, our hopes and our failures. And this "talking about" is not just with others - demonstrating to them and ourselves how self-critical we can be as we hog the discussion - it should also involve frank talking with ourselves. Both are needed.
When we examine the contents of the Christian world-view we often discover we are not living so close to the beliefs as we profess. That embarrassment should go deep within us, quite apart from the ribbing friends and peers might serve up about our arguments, good and bad. If being a Christian student means anything, it means learning to be open and teachable, transparent and honest. Honest with others, honest with God and honest with ourselves. And that is a troubling point which some of us take a whole lifetime to achieve. How do we know we are being honest? How do we know we are not just talking ourselves around?
What we have said so far indicates that when we start facing up to our task as students in the university we begin to plumb the depths of what 'counting the cost" means. If developing a Christian social perspective means anything it means committing ourselves to being Jesus' disciple, His student, as we go through our courses. Even before we have considered all the details involved in sociology itself, we accept that He has called us to the study of His creation and our part in it. Somehow, in all this we have to learn to be open and teachable. This is quite the opposite of being bravely dogmatic.
And so our goal is to learn how:
q to seek out the views and advice from more experienced students.
q to see how world-views operate in relation to scientific activity
q to clarify a responsible approach to the study of society.
Overall, we aim to clearer about who we are, about those who share our world-view and also about those who do not. As a matter of fact there is a lot of pretence generated by academic life. Universities are often dominated by a 'culture of avoidance' - and this culture stems from a deep down avoidance of ourselves. We have indicated that it is part of the Christian task to make progress in understanding this culture as we seek to progress through our studies. Our scientific appreciation of the world around us falls under the great commandments, Jesus' summary of the law - to love the Lord God with heart and soul and mind and strength and our neighbour as ourselves. That is very reassuring. If we approach our studies with this in mind we still learn matters of immense value whatever our 'success' level. We may get to the highest rung, with a string of PhD's and still miss out on this basic insight, the key to knowledge.
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In sociology there are at least two initial issues to be kept in mind. Firstly, students learn the details of the various perspectives that have been traditionally accepted in the social science disciplines. As well, they are expected to discriminate logically between these sociological perspectives. This is not easy, and often courses from the first year introduction are taught as if such logical discrimination is a natural consequence of enrolling in a course and opening a text-book. Sociology then becomes a matter of routinely referring to various "isms".
But any investigation of social life is always from some perspective and this perspective did not just drop out of the skies: it resulted from people developing their understanding from one generation to the next. And so these various perspective, even with the exclusion of a Christian social perspective, need to be investigated. They need to be understood from the point of view of those who hold them. And this is indeed why sociology as a university subject, can still challenge us as students of society to think through our own world-view. It may miss central facets of our experience, and do things the wrong way around, but we can still learn from a sociology that, from our standpoint, misunderstands the meaning and purpose of our studies. Like any other social action that we study in sociology, the teaching of sociology in a university course, can indeed be analysed and understood from the standpoint of those who are involved in it, in this case the course leaders, the lecturers and the tutors and of course, one's fellow students. It is still important to learn how to analyse human society no matter how good or how poorly our course helps us to do that. Students who have penetrated to this truth - and it is often the facts that are staring us in the face that are the hardest to accept - can make a significant and telling contribution to their course.
So, any Christian student enrolled in the social sciences confronts opportunities and problems. It will be rare for a class in sociology, anthropology, economics or politics to include a ‘Christian perspective’ alongside conventional approaches. Some keen Christian students will be provoked by this and all Christian students should be concerned. The student’s task is to learn to identify the main ideas in the various perspectives. That is fair enough. But if the student is invited to understand liberal, conservative, functionalist, Marxist, feminist, and ‘queer’ perspectives, as the range of choice available in post-modern global society, then it seems unnecessarily biased for a Christian social perspective to be left off the "menu". Why has it been excluded? Has it been a conscious decision of curriculum planners to do so, to present this absence 'in yer face'? Even if it is the social perspective of a minority, should it not still be considered when laying the foundations of the social sciences? These questions need to be considered. There will be similar questions that can be asked about, say, Islamic or Buddhist sociology and how traditional aboriginal peoples viewed themselves and their social institutions. Nevertheless, it is a rare event indeed for a Christian social perspective to be part of the perspectives on offer in sociology.
How then should the Christian student respond? It seems a bit unfair, doesn't it, that the Christian student should have to develop a perspective that is not included in the tutorial or lecture programme? Yes, it is. It is unjust. It is a curriculum injustice born of a peculiar spiritual blindness. But that is the spirit that dominates our universities and being a Christian student means developing a Christian curiosity about this spirit and about this absence.
Biblical religion has been very important for our society. It can be argued that a good education should deepen a student’s knowledge of the Christian religion, even if the student is not a Christian. Even if the curriculum is based upon non-Christian assumptions, it can hardly avoid some explanation of the Christian religion and why it has been rejected as a viable world-view.
In this sense the absence of a Christian social perspective says a lot. We can ask: who made this choice in favour of exclusion? Could the social science curriculum have evolved without the conscious exclusion of a Christian social perspective even if nowadays the original reasons have been lost? Why have Christian scholars stood by and let sociology develop without presenting a social perspective based in a Christian world-view? Why have scholars, whatever their religious disposition, allowed the teaching of the social sciences to ignore Christian thinking about society?
Another task: collect the
views of your fellow students on this matter. Don't limit yourself to students
who think like you. Look for students of different backgrounds and ideologies.
Think about their ideas. Try and develop discussion with them.
All students, and not only Christians, should want to obtain answers to questions such as these. These questions have a critical potential. They are, as we have said, 'in the works', even before we begin our university study. And if we define ourselves as 'strong Christians', we might even discover that our own assumptions about university study are more in accord with the 'secular' assumptions of the sociology text-books than with the 'spiritual' convictions we say we hold. If so, we will discover that that it is not just the term 'secular' which is ambiguous. Our own practise, based upon our own world-view, produces this ambiguity when we, as Christians, say we have moved out of the sphere of our 'religious' beliefs into the 'secular' domain where reason rather than religion is the rule. As we take up our task as Christian students we begin to discern the failings and inconsistencies of our own world-view. We need to face these and try and explain how they have come into our thinking.
All social science students are confronted by what is present and by what is absent. All students have to give some account of religion. To be a student is to come to a view of the place and power of religion in our lives. Defenders of 'religion" often tell us that western civilisation has been powerfully influenced by ideas and doctrines derived from the Bible. So why does Christianity suffer from a chronic credibility problem in the university? Around the world university courses are shaped to help students understand the ambiguous place of religion in global society, and yet sociology as a discipline has still not accepted the fact that a Christian social perspective is one possible frame of reference from which to develop sociological insight.
A student is not usually in a position to cross-examine course lecturers about course content with this kinds of matters. The good lecturer should welcome such cross-examination, but keen students might have to take another tack. If Christianity is as important to the development of society as churches often proclaim (this is something sociology text-books do admit), one would think that all students would be given a better grounding if the Christian view was clearly elaborated. After all we are told often enough that civil society is about exploring the full range of options implicit in our multi-cultural society. Most people have not adopted alternative spiritual options, although some have taken one or other religious approach and then rejected it. These also need to be explored if we are going to develop well-rounded understanding in our studies - we need to clarify where we are headed and what paths we do not wish to take.
We are reminded continually that this era is one in which an inclusivist ethic prevails or should prevail. Ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, even species, are sometimes said to be no grounds for withholding rights from minorities (and even animals and trees). But when we start asking questions about the absence of a Christian social perspective from the sociological curriculum at the university we come into collision with an underlying exclusion which is a taken-for-granted assumption at the basis of modern (and post-modern) social science. This absence indicates an inner limit to the inclusive motif, and if we are Christian and we begin to sense the spiritual exclusion of our world-view we have to take it seriously.
The discussion above describes an intellectual and spiritual dilemma. It is a profound problem. If the Christian student would want to introduce discussion of a Christian social perspective into course-work, essays or tutorials then a set of well-entrenched communication hurdles have to be faced and negotiated. Such problems are not of the student’s own making. But they have to be negotiated and the process of being a student may mean considerable tension and misunderstanding.
It is not just the misunderstanding of 'others' about 'us'. At times we wonder who we are and about our own stupidity. We can be deeply embarrassed and others may not even know. John was Jesus' cousin and knew how completely wrong he had been about Jesus. He wrote something which is a great encouragement to all of Jesus' students: "Be reassured in the truth, for even when our hearts condemn us, God is much greater than our hearts" (1 Jn 3:19-20).
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August 2004 © A
Christian Calling in Social Theory and Research is a work written by
Bruce C Wearne (PhD), 29 Lawrence Rd., Point Lonsdale Vic 3225 AUSTRALIA,
61-3-5258-3913. Each chapter may be photocopied or retransmitted in its
entirety only with full acknowledgement of the author and the source. It shall
not otherwise be reprinted or transmitted without permission. This
personal project aims to encourage a positive Christian student
engagement in universities around the world which need to better understand the
vocation of science as an expression of our love for God and our
neighbour. Your comments are welcome. Email can be sent to bcwearne@ozemail.com.au
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~bcwearne/index.html