A Sacred Journey: Faithful Presence in the Secular Academy

By Paul Nicholas Wilson

Paul Wilson believes God is poised to perform a mighty work through “believers in the workplace”—including the secular university. The Rev. Billy Graham had the same insight.

But Christ followers in secular institutions must explicitly embrace secular work as God’s work. Likewise, seminaries, churches, and pastors must step up their efforts.

In this book, the author shares his struggles of being a follower of Christ at secular places of learning. At times, he felt there was little or no integration of his faith and vocation due to a lack of courage and time.

Get answers to questions such as:
• What are the perils of living a double life by not identifying yourself as a follower of Christ?
• How can Christ regain a foothold at secular institutions of learning?
• How can educators help students move closer to the Lord outside of class?
• What does a faithful presence look like in the academy?

A Sacred Journey presents a Gospel-centered framework for Christian witness on campus where Ph.D. students, faculty, and staff, can serve as salt, light, and leaven in their secular university environments. We must reclaim the sacredness of our academic vocations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664231337

Paul Nicholas Wilson

Paul Nicholas Wilson is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Arizona. He has been nationally recognized for excellence in student advising, teaching, and research. The Alumni Association of the University of Arizona awarded him its Extraordinary Faculty Award while the Western Agricultural Economics Association named him a Fellow, its highest honor. Wilson and his wife, Ellen, have three wonderful adult children, an amazing daughter-in-law, and two exceptional granddaughters.

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Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English

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ISBN: 978-1-6642-3132-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-3134-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-3133-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021908187

WestBow Press rev. date: 05/19/2021

To Ellen Anne, whose

love, support, wisdom, and encouragement

made my academic journey possible.

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Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1.     A Bumpy Journey

Travel Alerts

2.     Trip Adviser: Knowing the Roadway and Fellow Travelers

3.     Choosing an Alternate Route: The Dualism Trap

for Christian Faculty

Merging Into Academic Traffic

4.     Travel History: Embracing the Integration of Faith

and Vocation

5.     Your Vehicle: The Gospel Positioning System (GPS)

6.     Setting Your GPS Cruise Control: A Faithful

Presence in the Secular Academy

Rules Of The Road For A Faithful Academic Presence

7.     Driving Etiquette: Love Your Colleagues

8.     Daily Fuel: Fruit of the Spirit

9.     Avoiding Road Rage: Tongue-Driven Encouragement

10.   Optimizing Your Travel Time: The Pursuit

of Scholarly Excellence

11.   Roadside Assistance: Stewarding

Complementarities in the Academy

12.   Sharing Travel Advice: Facilitating the Common Good

13.   Rest Stops: A Traveler’s Plea to Seminaries,

Churches, and Pastors

14.   A Prayer for the Journey

Endnotes

Preface

It is the business of the Church to recognize that the secular vocation, as such, is sacred. Christian people, and particularly the Christian clergy must get it firmly into their heads that when a man or woman is called to a particular job of secular work, that is as true a vocation as though he or she were called to specifically religious work. … In nothing has the Church so lost Her hold on reality as in Her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation. She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments, and is astonished to find that, as a result, the secular work of the world is turned to purely selfish and destructive ends, and that the greater part of the world’s intelligent workers have become irreligious, or at least, uninterested in religion. But is it astonishing? How can anyone remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life?

—Dorothy Sayers¹

While attending church regularly for most of my life, I do not recall a sermon, a class, or a seminar focused on the sacredness of everyday work. Granted churches and pastors often tip their hat to the importance of all work, professions, and stewardship (i.e., the creation mandate) in God’s kingdom, but the sacredness of work and our role as followers of Christ in the secular workplace has been missing, at least in my faith communities.

The fact that 72 percent of Christians do not integrate their faith into their workplaces where they spend 45 percent of their time may explain the increased secularization of our society over the last six decades.² The church is losing or has lost its moral and cultural standing, in part because we have cultivated an almost Gnostic-like reality in our fellowships where special revelation spiritual matters are taken care of on Sundays, and possibly one night or an early morning during the week, while during the rest of our week we live and work exactly like our unbelieving colleagues and friends in our often mundane, repetitive jobs. This dualistic worldview lessens the impact of our Christian discipleship. Tom Nelson has gone so far as to personally confess pastoral malpractice for not connecting Sunday’s worship to Monday’s workplace.³

Why another book discussing the theology of vocation and more specifically the professorial vocation within the halls of secular universities? This volume stands on the shoulders of giants like Timothy Keller, Steven Garber, Darrow Miller, Tom Nelson, Christian Overman, and Gene Veith who have done the generalized heavy lifting over the last fifteen years on showing the modern church how to integrate our Christian faith into our workplaces.⁴ On the academic side, influential authors and academics such as Walter Bradley, George Marsden, Rae Mellichamp, and Mark Noll have challenged followers of Christ in the academy to strengthen their witness in the workplace through their research, teaching, student interactions, and public service.⁵ In my academic field of economics, esteemed colleagues such as Ken Elzinga, Chris Barrett, John Mason, John Tiemstra, P. J. Hill, Dave Richardson, Vern Eidman, Brian Fikkert, Edd Noel, Bruce Wydick, and others have been instrumental, often without their knowledge, in my thinking about the integration of the Christian faith and scholarly work.⁶ All these academic giants have inspired and motivated a generation of Christian scholars in their professional journeys in higher education. Yet these faithful, God-serving authors have had less of an impact on Christians in the academy than I would hope for or expect.

A recent example of this puzzling lack of impact is a recent, one-day Christian faculty conference I attended in Fort Collins, Colorado. This valuable faculty gathering was designed to encourage Christian academics to integrate their faith and academic responsibilities by learning from successful faculty who integrate their faith and vocation. Three major universities are located within a one-hour drive of the conference site: Colorado State University (ten minutes), University of Colorado (one hour), and the University of Northern Colorado (thirty minutes). Combined, approximately forty-five hundred faculty (full- and part-time) teach and conduct research at these three schools. Of the thirty-one preregistered attendees at the conference, only five faculty represented the schools listed above; all other attendees were affiliated in some formal way with the sponsoring organization and/or were from out-of-state universities! Thankfully, additional local faculty and graduate students slightly increased the number of attendees on the day of the conference.

So back to my original question: Why this book and why now? First, I struggled daily with my Christian witness in the secular university, and I observed other Christ-following faculty struggling as well, or they had just given up and ignored any link or bridge between their faith and their work. Sharing what I learned over my thirty-six-year career with graduate students and faculty may encourage others in their academic journeys in an increasingly less welcoming work environment.

Second, I hope to bring into the open the messiness and imperfections of working as a follower of Christ in a secular university. Most contributors to the theology of vocation literature are pastors, seminary professors, leaders in Christian organizations, faculty in Christian colleges and universities, or faculty on campuses with vibrant faculty ministries. Their biblically and experientially based insights, while insightful and extremely useful, fail to capture the day-to-day challenges of a Christian faculty member in a research-centric university with forty thousand students who interact daily with faculty colleagues, staff, and administrators who do not profess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This faculty member may benefit from minimal Christian support on, and possibly off, campus.

Third, the highly influential faith and work movement has effectively targeted business owners, entrepreneurs, CEOs of large corporations, and those with important administrative and managerial responsibilities, particularly those who manage hundreds if not thousands of employees.⁷ But most faculty do not supervise thousands of employees or administer millions of dollars. Only the faculty ministries of InterVarsity and Cru (Faculty Leadership Ministries, Faculty Commons) work on a consistent basis with faculty in the secular academic environment. Their positive impact for Christ has been unevenly distributed, in my experience, across the country. For example, faculty and ministry staff working in southeastern and southern universities have written most of the books concerning the integration of faith at work on university campuses. This present volume shares what followers of Christ can accomplish by God’s grace, without a supporting faculty ministry and their full-time staff.

In addition, from my vantage point, campus-serving churches, and even less so their denominations, have poorly served the spiritual struggles or countered the downright dualism of their congregants who teach and do research on their neighboring campuses. As noted by Greg Forster, our churches have promoted a leisure time Christianity, a hobby that takes up several hours a week (at best) rather than being a full-time way of life.⁸ Church-going faculty have adopted a nonoverlapping, two-sphere worldview of faith and vocation.

But the intent of this volume is not meant to be a critique of the church and its leaders; strategies for strengthening faculty Christian discipleship will reveal themselves soon enough throughout these pages and the cited resources. My prayer is that this material will encourage the Christian witness of the graduate student teaching her first class, newly minted assistant professors just beginning their careers, assistant professors concerned about upcoming tenure decisions, associate professors taking on more responsibility in their departments, and full professors with increasing leadership roles throughout their secular organizations. Also, with nearly half the faculty on secular campuses being adjunct, part time, and nontenure track, my hope is that the following material gives these less appreciated teachers the courage to embody a Christian witness in their important responsibilities.

Finally, this discussion of the integration of faith and work primarily targets the relationships with colleagues and staff in the academy. Our students, research programs, and public outreach responsibilities must receive our Christ-serving attention, and this volume does not totally neglect these important topics. But the main thrust of the current argument shines light on how our professional and collegial relationships, within departments and colleges, can bring glory to God.⁹

Our dualistic thinking, where we separate our work and spiritual lives, weakens our ability to transform the world for Christ. Too often we put ourselves under pressure to evangelize our workplaces and get discouraged when the opportunities for evangelism and witnessing fail to present themselves on a regular basis. This frustration is indeed the case in a secular university. We (I) mask our faith behind an avoidance of conflict, maintain arm’s length relationships with non-believing fellow workers, and keep our mouths shut when hot political or policy issues come up throughout the day. We take a safety-first approach to the academic workplace, neither hot nor cold (Revelation 3:15–16) or by our silence, deny Christ (Matthew 10:32–33). I know. I failed many times to honor my Savior and my profession of faith over a period of thirty-six years. Recognizing the difficulty of working in an environment that is apathetic or hostile to Christianity with little faith community support, I propose that a faithful presence characterized by prayer, love, fruit of the Spirit living, excellence, complementarity, and support for the common good plants faith-seeking seeds in the academic workplace that will produce a spiritual harvest, but you may not see the crop yield this side of eternity.¹⁰ What might this reformation of work look like for the follower of Christ in a large, public university? Please read on. Soli Deo Gloria

—Paul Nicholas Wilson

Acknowledgments

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.

—Proverbs 27:17

Any successful writing and research project rests on the collaboration of a significant number of people. First, to my former colleagues and administrators at the University of Arizona, you deserve my gratitude for maintaining a productive work environment where I could, albeit imperfectly, engage the academic community from a Christian worldview. Second, many thanks to Phil Alderink, Walter Sickel, Jim Taylor, and Hsin-Fu Wu who read all or a part of the manuscript and provided me with valuable feedback. A special thanks to Jerome Kayl who used his artistic talents to illustrate the key integration models in Figures 1 and 2. Finally, my deepest appreciation goes to the outstanding team at WestBow Press for their encouragement, creativity, and professionalism in seeing this project become a reality.

My dad, Bill Wilson, first introduced me to what a faithful presence in a secular vocation, being a tsaddiq, looks like. A man of unquestionable character, my dad was a model of consistency at home, in business, at church, and in the community. I learned by watching him and listening to him. He did not wear a different hat depending on the role he was playing at the time. His integrity and sacrificial love for others shone through his words and actions, 24/7, 365 days a year. He owned his mistakes and failures, repented, asked for forgiveness, and moved on.

Living a consistently faithful presence in any secular vocation takes a support team. I was fortunate to have strong teams over nearly four decades through my church fellowships but primarily by participation in Bible studies. Don Buckhout, Tim Held, Curt O’Connor, and Bruce and Bob Wray in the late ’70s and early ’80s set the bar extremely high. Throughout the ’90s and into the first decade of this century, fellow leaders in Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) sharpened me and encouraged me in my holistic walk with the Lord. Peter Gough, Steve Hagedorn, Gordon Marvick, Darin McDaniel, Jim Richardson, Steve Salajko, John Tabor, Charlie Taylor, and dozens more served as outstanding examples of men of faithful presence in their chosen callings. For twenty-five years, the Van Wanning Group (named for a giant of a saint, former B-52 pilot, and BSF discussion leader) has gathered faithfully at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesdays at a bagel shop to study God’s Word. I am indebted to Render Aggen, John Arico, Keith Franklin, Greg Jester, John Lebbs, Bob Plimpton, Walt Sickel, and others for their friendship, faithfulness, and wisdom.

During the first decade of this century, Ellen and I joined Steve and Ann Richmond, Bob and Beth Minor, Candy Egan, and Roger and Cheri Phelps in our homes for in-depth Bible study, prayer, dessert, and therapeutic laughter. Sharing intimate doubts, struggles, sins, and heartbreaks with fellow Christ followers strengthened my witness in my secular work environment. Finally, in most recent years the participants in the Cornerstone Community Church’s Thursday Morning Men’s Bible Study in Greeley, Colorado, have continued this tradition of iron sharpening iron.

My family deserves much credit for supporting me throughout my sacred journey in the secular academy. Ellen, as noted in the dedication, has been a bastion of strength and encouragement throughout our married life, and particularly while I was working on this project. Our children, Jessica, Jonathan, Mark, Ann (daughter-in-law), and our granddaughters, Amelia and Evelyn, have provided more love and joy over the years than I deserve.

A final acknowledgement is in order. When referring to generic individuals throughout this book I have chosen to use she and her instead of he or she and his or her. This editorial decision recognizes the increasing number of women serving on faculties in the secular academy.

Chapter 1

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A Bumpy Journey

Calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion, dynamism, and direction lived out as a response to his summons and service.

—Os Guinness¹

Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be