Missions Methods and Principles
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 57, No. 1 – Fall 2014
Managing Editor: Terry L. Wilder
Edited by David S. Dockery. Nashville: B&H Academic, 2012. xii + 538 pages. Hardcover, $39.99.
Following and building upon his call for a return by Christian higher education to the integration of faith and learning and the unity of knowledge in Renewing Minds: Serving Church and Society through Christian Higher Education, David Dockery, now president of Trinitity International University, has edited this work in an effort to describe in some practical ways, the outworking of his thinking. In doing so, Dockery recruited twenty-four other contributors, twenty-two of which serve at Union University, where he formerly served as president. The other two, Kenneth Magnuson and Klaus Issler, serve at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Biola University, respectively.
Faith and Learning certainly should be read alongside Renewing Minds. In his introduction, Dockery built upon an abbreviated and reworked form of Renewing Minds, constructing his emphases upon the Great Commandment that we love God and laying the groundwork for application by the contributors into their various fields of study and teaching. Considering that Renewing Minds could be called a manifesto of sorts and the fact that almost every contributor taught at Union at the time of publication, Faith and Learning might be called a manifesto for the life and work of Union University and a practical exploration of how that looks in practice. Dockery divided the book into three sections: Foundational Commitments, Christian Faith and the Disciplines, and Concluding Applications. Within the middle section, professors of various disciplines within the University attempted to develop Dockery’s ideas and to apply them to their respective disciplines with unequal success. As with any work of this nature, with many contributors, the chapters vary in quality and even in focus and direction, leaving the book with the typical imbalances. Using specialists in multiple fields can produce a great deal more detail, expertise, and insight. At the same time, it usually produces disconnectedness and weaker writing over the whole of the project. The brevity of this review prevents a discussion of all twenty-four chapters, but two chapters bore special interest to the reviewer, one in the first section and one in the third.
Klaus Issler’s chapter in the first section entitled simply, “Philosophy of Education,” is an excellent effort given the confinement of only twenty-one pages. His philosophy grows out of and folds back into the Bible and theology, which is not the case in every Christian philosophy of education. Of special note is Issler’s emphasis upon the work of the Holy Spirit in education and “the teaching-learning process.” An entire paragraph is worthy of note here.
The distinctively Christian factor relates to the transformational encounter with God in regeneration and God’s subsequent dynamic participation in the lives of each Christian. Along these lines, then, Christian teaching is an intentional interaction superintended by God the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:12; 1 Pet 1:2) who indwells ( John 14:16) and empowers (Eph 3:16) both Christian teachers and Christian learners, with the broader goal of transformation into Christlikeness (Rom 8:29; Gal 5:22-23; Eph 4:13-16). When teachers and learners are genuinely walking with the Spirit of God, His divine, transforming power makes it possible to exceed what is normally expected of our human capacities (Gal 3:3; Eph 3:16). This divine enablement permits a greater flourishing among those with the spiritual gift of teaching (Rom 12:6-7; 1 Cor 12:28-29; 1 Pet 4:11). (98)
While the chapter moves from theology and Scripture into philosophy, it never veers from the former very far nor for very long. This is a welcome approach to the discipline.
In the third section, Thomas Rosebrough and Ralph Leverett co-authored a chapter entitled, “Faith and Transformational Teaching.” In 2011, Rosebrough and Leverett co-authored a book called Transformational Teaching in the Information Age: Making How and Why We Teach Relevant to Students.
While the chapter is well-written and provides relevant and helpful informa- tion, one could be forgiven for being confused concerning just what sort of transformation the authors seek and what faith has to do with it. No discussion of faith can be found in the chapter, and the desire to reach “spiritual goals” in teaching only resides in the first few pages. Other than a glancing reference to Galatians 5 and the gift of the Spirit, which the authors call “spiritual qualities” (477), and the mention of Jesus and Paul (“two of the most transformational figures in the Scriptures were teachers”) the chapter is void of Scripture. How Jesus could be categorized only as one of “two of the most transformational figures in the Scriptures” is simply stunning.
In the rest of the chapter, the authors quote Plato but never Jesus. They spend much time on Piaget, Vygotsky, and brain research in a chapter devoted to the relationship of faith and transformational teaching, but none on exploring what the Scriptures might add to their topic. In the interest of the integration of faith and teaching, Rosebrough and Leverret present a model that sets spiritual goals as only equal to social goals and, in their diagram, both the spiritual and social goals appear to be set below academic goals.
The connection between Dockery’s thinking and the chapter, “Philosophy of Education,” is apparent. The connection of the book’s introduction to the chapter, “Faith and Transformational Teaching,” is puzzling.
