The need and the origin of Integration of Faith and Professions
The need for integration of Faith and Professions:
What is the distinctiveness of Christianity among all the great religions of the world? I believe one word can describe it all: Emmanuel, which is translated as God with us. While the Eastern religions stress man's spiritual salvation and the Greco-Roman philosophies champion temporal and rational enlightenment; Christianity is the immanent presence of the transcendent. While every religion or philosophy seeks to find the Supreme Being (God) or to achieve perfection, Christianity is God came to seek and to save man who was lost. (Lk. 19:10) God reveals Himself in Two Books: according the Father of modern Science Francis Bacon, The Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture. The Book of Nature includes the wonders of creation which reveal His eternal power and divine nature (Rm. 1:21), as well as man's conscience, which differentiates right from wrong (Rm. 2:15). However, man's depravity has darkened his thinking and heart that he no longer acknowledges the Creator. Therefore, God has to reveal Himself in a special way through His Son Jesus Christ, who made Him known to man.(Jn. 1:18) The Bible testifies about Christ (Jn. 5:39). As Augustine aptly put it, Faith Seeks Understanding, It is through Faith that we can understand God's general revelation in nature and His special revelation through the Scripture. All Truth is God's truth. Our faith in God who reveals Himself should be relevant to every walk of life, including the knowledge and applications in all kinds of professions. In the increasingly specialized and secularized world of the technological age, it is incumbent upon Christians not only to be a Christian witness in their professions but also to be a Christian professional who integrates faith with his/her vocations so that the message of God with Us can be made relevant to the contemporary world. Since most professionals attain their status through an university education, I will attempt to briefly trace the role of Christianity in developing the university system in the West, how western higher education has become secularized, and what are the challenges facing Chinese Christians in North America.
The Christian Heritage and the rise of the University
Christianity permeated medieval Europe through the Reformation. The Church not only dominated the religious life of the society but also influenced directly the civil activities of Europe including the universities. Any learned persons were schooled in the Scriptures as well as the classics. Augustine in the early church demonstrated in his Christian Learning the necessity of education in understanding and preaching of the gospel. With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, it was left to the churchman to maintain the literacy of the society. Medieval and Reformation learning concentrated largely on literacy, which depends on good Latin that went beyond the Scripture into pagan antiquity. However, the Scripture still reigned supreme as the authority over other aspects of culture. During the Renaissance of the 12th Century, a systematic recovery of ancient thought emerged in philosophy, science, medicine and law with the study of Greek. Some clerics during this period began to distance themselves from the church and devote to learning and teaching on their own. The word university was originally coined to refer to an association of masters and scholars to protect and represent its corporate interest. However, these associations needed the protection of feudal kings and princes. The separate judicial status granted to these scholarly associations by the feudal lords was the beginning of the modern day universities. Soon these associations of masters and students emerged as a privileged and independent force in Christendom. In addition to political kingdom and church, the university became the third pillar of a Christian society. Beginning in 1224 when Emperor Frederick II founded a university in Naples, and especially after 1350, every proud and powerful prince formed his own university in his own territory. By 1650, there were almost a hundred universities in Europe, three-fourth of them established before the Reformation.
Early universities organized themselves into four different faculties-the arts, law, medicine and theology. By far, the greatest faculty in most universities which was the prerequisite to all others was the faculty of arts. It included grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy. The influence of the Greek masters Plato and Aristotle was greatly felt among these disciplines. While Augustine in the early church has incorporated some of Plato's thoughts in his Neoplatonism, Thomas Aquinas in the middle ages worked mightily to demonstrate the general compatibility between Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology. Beginning in Italy around 1350 and spreading into northern Europe after 1450, a new kind of thought pattern has swept medieval Europe. Humanism, originated in Italian universities from the slang expression of the studies of humanities, preferred the study of ancient poetry and rhetoric to logic, the study of history to school traditions, and the study of moral philosophy to metaphysics. Its emphasis was to rediscover the ancient literary texts in their original languages lost in the dark ages. Christians were able to sort through and incorporate the new philosophy into Christian Humanism in both the Catholic and Protestant reform movements. While adopting a humanist curriculum, the reformers shifted the emphasis to the biblical languages of Greek, Latin and Hebrew. While pagan classics dominated the Humanist tradition, readings from the church fathers in their original languages also became fundamental to the Christian Humanists. During this time theological studies, the queen of all sciences, had left two lasting legacies upon the medieval and Reformation Christian thought. First, Holy Scripture was made an academic textbook, thus broadening its scope beyond its authority on church matters and worship. Another significant contribution was the systematization of the teaching of the Scripture and of the church. These systems were by no means all alike and the medieval and Reformation church allowed them to flourish and challenge each other. Therefore in those days, educated Christians always had a good handle in a theology, or a systematic presentation of the teachings of their faith, or in modern day language, they are all integrated professionals. The universities also had profound impact in the Christian church. Learning was not only treated as a tool for successful administration or career pursuit, but rather a gift of God. With this emphasis came the Renaissance gentleman, a group of learned men who were schooled in the classics, the church fathers, as well as the Scripture, many of whom eventually took an active part in the Reformation movement such as Calvin and Luther. Finally, the theologically trained pastorate emerged as the need of competence in the languages of the Scripture, the dogmatic teachings of the Scripture, and the oratorial skills in preaching the Word arose after the Reformation. During this period, integration was an essential part of the academic life.
The Secularization of Higher Education
Although over 55% of Americans agrees that religion is "very important" to their lives, almost no one thinks that religion is "very important" in higher education. A few years ago, a group of Christian students at Harvard University were labeled as promoting "hate crime" on campus even by the chaplain of the university when they spoke out against homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style according to
their belief in the Bible. Until the Civil War, most of the American institutions of higher learning were founded by churches, often with governmental tax support. As late as 1890, President James Angell of the University of Michigan, a strong promoter of Christianity on campus, reported that more than 90% of the 24 state universities conducted chapel services, at half of which attendance was compulsory. Why has Christianity, which played a leading role in shaping higher education in the West historically become almost alienated in scholarly institutions. George Marsden traced the roots for the secularization of American higher education to 3 factors: (1) technological, (2) ideological and (3) cultural pluralism. Technologically, American universities which used to be led by clergies had to produce competent scholars and professionals in order to be competitive in the modern world. Along with professionalization also came specialization. In order to achieve greater scientific objectivity to perform a technical task, the Creator was temporarily laid aside in order to develop the mechanism and theories of a specific discipline. Although this development was not inherently anti-Christian, it was exploited by the ideological secularists for their advancement of secularism. The Scientific Revolution in the 18th and 19th Century ushered in the age of Enlightenment, in which the advances in modern science has bolstered the human pride of self reliance that the traditional dependence on the Almighty has been rendered irrelevant or unnecessary. The school of positivism proposed an evolutionary view of development of human society. Civilization evolved from an era of religious dominance (or superstition) to a metaphysical ideal, and finally to the triumph of enlightened science. Many Protestant thinkers have embraced these thoughts in their liberal theology. Finally, as the American society became increasingly diverse, the criteria for cultural pluralism demand all viewpoints to be heard in the public arena. Liberal Protestantism accommodated this challenge by eliminating the exclusivistic elements of the Christian heritage by replacing it with only a moral outlook. With this emphasis, a dominant view emerged that science which provides ultimate guidelines for intellectual scholarship and theology which guides personal morality can operate in separate but complementary realms. Thus, Christians on the secular campuses or in the secular world are expected to keep their faith in a closet of their private lives which should not have any influence on their professional performance. Scientific American, the eminent journal for the highly educated scientifically literate readers, recently commented on how Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Center of Human Genome Research who is an outspoken evangelical Christian, can be successful in spite of his religious faith. They also dismissed a long time featured columnist who happened to be a Christian just because he raised question about the accepted paradigm of evolution.
The Challenge facing Chinese Christian Professionals:
Christ teaches that Christians are to be salt and light for the world. (Matt.5:13-15). The question that we should ask is: Can we be a Christian Professional instead of a Professional who happens to be a Christian? We are all reminded that we should live a life worthy of our calling as a Christian (Eph. 4:1) and we should conduct ourselves in our daily life with the help of the Holy Spirit in order to yield the fruits of the Spirit (Eph. 5:15, Gal. 5:23). Do we also have a distinct responsibility to practice our profession with a Christian framework. God gave us two mandates in the Bible: the Creation Mandate (Gen. 1: 28-31) and the Missionary Mandate (Acts 1:8). We have to balance these two mandates in our lives. Every Christian has a calling in his/her profession. We are to be God's steward in managing the world and its resources, We are also entrusted with the task of bring the lost world to a saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many of us have a mindset that we are tentmakers on this earth. Our jobs are only a means to support ourselves and our heavenly calling of being Ambassadors for Christ in the secular world. Some secularists have ridiculed Christians as "so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good". Historically speaking, the Reformation has liberated Europe from the dark ages by bringing the focus of the intellectual world to God's revealed Word instead of the tradition of the Church. It is also well recognized that Christianity is the mother of modern science because of its emphasis on glorifying God in the attempt to understand His creation. The Enlightenment has gone too far in its emphasis of the success of modern science that Post- Modernism has set in at the close of the 21st Century. Multiculturalism in America not only promotes diversity but also relativism. At the same time, Chinese scholars are yearning for the truth that they failed to find in the atheistic framework of Communism. Yuan Chi Min's "Jumping into the homeland that I have been dreaming of" captured some of the mindset and the Chinese intellectuals who have become disillusioned about the future of China. At the same time, the rapid development of market economy in China has left a spiritual and moral vacuum that may have precipitated the call of Chinese Premier Zhian Zhe Ming for return to the moral teachings of Confucianism. In the Republic of China the government also encouraged the teaching of ethics in the professional programs in many state universities. Christianity has ushered in the modern age of scientific advances. Modernization without its Christian root will be like removing a young child from his mother. He will not grow well. Chinese professionals have also become a siginificant force in American society. Over 3,000 mainland Chinese scholars have become professors in American colleges and universities, including the prestigious Ivy league schools, not to mentioned Chinese academicians from other Far Eastern countries. Big corporations such as Bell Lab, Amoco or IBM are populated with Chinese professionals. Among them are many Christians, including the 1998 Nobel laureate in Physics, Dr. Daniel Tsui. If Chinese Christians in the professions also can become Chinese Christian Professionals, we have a unique opportunity of shaping the futures of America, or our mother country, China. The journal Asia Weekly recently referred to the overseas Chinese scholars as the future leaders of China. Many of them have become significant players in the political scene of China, including the former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Education and many leading academicians. The former chairman of the Committee for Reform of the Chinese Minister of State told Asia Weekly that the Chinese expatriates brought back to China their western training and experience which were instrumental in the intellectual reform in China. Chinese professionals in America have also played a significant role in Sino-American diplomacy and relationship. We as Chinese Christians professionals in America, by God's grace, may one day become an influential force in building the 21st Century America as well as China. If we can present Christianity as the major force that shape not only the technological but also the moral framework of modern societies, God's kingdom will be greatly magnified.
An Example in integrating Christianity with Life Sciences: The Intelligent Design Movement
When I was a sophomore in college in California, I became a Christian through the Chinese Christian Fellowship on campus. A Zoology professor who taught evolution as a fact challenged me when I questioned him about his certainty in evolution. He told me "wait till you get into biochemistry!." I took up the field of molecular biology in graduate school partially in response to his challenge. After teaching and doing research in this field for 25 years, I found that the issue of evolution is not only scientific but also philosophical. Thomas Kuhn made famous the idea that science progresses by paradigmatic shifts, or changing of worldviews. For almost 150 years, the paradigm of evolution has dominated life sciences as the only acceptable theory to explain the origin and development of life. The secular scientists often dismissed the Creationist argument as irrelevant because of it religious overtone. However, the accumulation of anomalies such as the explosion of fossil finds in the Cambrian era some 500 millions years ago, the irreducible complexities of the biological systems, and the failure of natural selection to account for macroevolution, have prompted some scholars to propose an alternative model of "Intelligent Design" as a valid program for research in life sciences. The issue is not religion versus science, but rather alternative but equally scientific model for developing future research programs. While the evolution paradigm precludes any assumption of intelligence behind the phenomena in nature because of its naturalistic emphasis, the "Intelligent Design" model allows for design in nature, which may have certain patterns as the starting point of research. While some Christians accept evolution as the way by which God created the world, most believers are open to the Intelligent Design movement as a fresh idea that is consistent with the biblical doctrine of Creation. If this movement is successful in gaining scientific credibility, which is predicted by many of its advocates, it is a good way of introducing to the professional world the relevance of the Bible to the modern world.
In summary, integration for a Christian professional is the essence of the gospel. It is the exemplification of "God with us" by showing the relevance of our faith with modern society as well as our daily life. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can not only live the spirit filled life by bearing the fruits of the Spirit, we can also offer to our profession the Christian contributions that are essential in developing the modern society.
References:
George M. Marsden and Bradley J.Longfield, "The Secularization of the Academy", Oxford Univ. Press, 1998.
Joel A.Carpenter and Kenneth W. Shipps, ed. "Making Higher Education Christian", Christian College Consortium, St. Paul, 1987
William A. Dembski, ed. "Mere Creation: Science, Faith & Intelligent Design", Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, 1998
Pattle Pun, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology,
Wheaton College,
Wheaton, IL 60187'
630-752-5303
pattle.p.pun @wheaton.edu