Living Inside the Bible (Belt) Author(S): Shannon Carter Reviewed Work(S): Source: College English, Vol
Living inside the Bible (Belt) Author(s): Shannon Carter Reviewed work(s): Source: College English, Vol. 69, No. 6 (Jul., 2007), pp. 572-595 Published by: National Council of Teachers of English Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25472240 . Accessed: 22/01/2012 02:34
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Living inside the Bible (Belt)
Shannon Carter
Teaching writing in the Bible Belt for the past five years has taught me a num ber of things.Most significantly, perhaps?as much as I hate to admit?it has taught me the limits ofmy own tolerance for difference. In fact, the evangeli cal Christianity with which a number ofmy studentsmost identify functions? rhetorically, ideologically, practically?in ways that appear completely and irrecon cilably at odds with my pedagogical and scholarly goals. The social and cultural ex theories with which I most identify celebrate difference both empathically and plicitly, yet much of the traditional conservatism through which evangelical Chris tianity1 resonates seems to embrace familiarity above all else, representing difference not as a benefit to embrace and learn from but as a threat to overcome (see Kintz). A of courses be critical consciousness: awareness one's key objective my writing may of subject position and the partial and socially situated nature of one's understanding of the world. However, the goal of "witnessing talk" or "testimonial" appears to be quite the opposite: to "convert" the listener to the speaker's ways of knowing and a the living, conversion completely dependent upon the acceptance that speaker's or own subject position is farfrom "partial" "socially situated" but rather universal, and?above all?"True." right, Critics like Amy Goodburn, Priscilla Perkins, and Lizabeth Rand, however, have identified several rather ironic parallels between the critical position with which use in Imost identify and the Christian position my Bible-believing students may as, in mean Rand's words, "the primary sense of selfhood [... they] draw upon making In the of ing of their lives and the world around them" (350). comparing agenda
at A&M where she di Shannon Carter is assistant professor of English Texas University-Commerce, basic and courses in rects the writing center and the basic writing program and teaches writing graduate Lives: Rhetorical and the "Basic" Writer composition theory. She is author of The Way Literacy Dexterity (forth in and Communication and the Basic coming) and articles forthcoming College Composition Journal of Writing. on and Communication Aversion of this article was given at the 2006 Conference College Composition meeting.
2007 College English, Volume 69, Number 6, July Living insidethe Bible (Belt) 573
a critical education with that of Christian witnessing forChrist, for example, Rand as to suggests that both "act witnesses hoping to convert others the faith" (360). a a According to the former, "evil" results from lack of critical consciousness, blind com faith in individualism and themyth ofmeritocracy that ignores the function of our to munity and material conditions in determining life paths; according the lat ter, "evil" results from "a drive tomake ourselves the centre of our world," ignoring the function of God's plan in determining our life path (Taylor, qtd. in Rand 360). out to convert Among themany similarities Goodburn points is that both "desire to define as either 'unsaved' or 'uncritical'" the 'other,' persuade those whom they a to (348). As my neighbor put itonce after returning from trip India with theChurch was save of Christ, the ultimate goal of his missionary work there "to [them] from as an themselves." So, too, it seems my goal educator2 has often been to "save" my openly religious students "from themselves." Despite the surprising number of similarities between these communities of practice, however, the fact remains thatmany evangelical students find the academy to be openly hostile to their faith-based ways of knowing, being, and expressing themselves. Likewise, much evangelical discourse seems openly hostile to already ex marginalized groups (homosexuals, women, those of non-Christian faiths, for ample). For Luke, the Christian student who was the subject of Goodburn's study cited earlier, "valuing difference in perspectives leads to tolerating those whose un lifestyleshe finds irreconcilable with his religious beliefs. To tolerate difference dermines his faith that an individual must be saved in order to be accepted" (346). As Luke himself put it in a taped interview, "I don't need the university telling me that . not I should tolerate everybody [. .] because everybody's tolerable!" (qtd. in Goodburn 346). It is a gap that liberal academics and evangelical Christians may find impossible to traverse?intolerable, in fact.Chris Anderson tells us that that "as academics, it's time thatwe were more aware that our position is not beyond point of view" (20). More recently, Priscilla Perkins asserts that "teachers write off evangelical students much too quickly." She suggests that instead we teach evangelical students to "put [their] reading[s] of the Bible into dialogue with sometimes competing, sometimes complementary sources of secular, academic knowledge" via "an explicitly herme neutical to recent approach" (586). Contributors the collection Negotiating Religious Faith in theComposition Classroom address the disconnect between the academy and . religious faith by encouraging students to "learn to use tension between faith [. .] as a and academic inquiry way of learning more and learning better" (Vander Lei 8). Goodburn we suggests might best negotiate the gap bymaking use of what she sees as "the common thread between the discourses," which is "the language of social Rand critique" (334); contends that "we should invite students to explain why [. ..] [evangelical] discourse has had such significance in their lives" (364). 574 College English
as a I argue that inasmuch these believers "live in world always already bibli cally written" (Kintz) and large segments of the academy are likely to remain hostile to faith-based ways of knowing, we would do better to help students speak to and across difference by employing what I have called elsewhere a pedagogy of rhetori cal dexterity,3 an approach that trains writers to effectively read, understand, ma nipulate, and negotiate the cultural and linguistic codes of a new community of on practice (Lave andWenger) based a relatively accurate assessment of another, more familiar one. That familiar community of practice may be one associated with or or "play" (like fantasy football quilting), "work" (like plumbing or computer pro as gramming), or even, I will explore here, one's faith (perhaps evangelical Chris as to tianity).While I agree that it is important for such students, Rand suggests, "examine the reasons evangelical discourse has had such significance in their lives," I believe rhetorical dexteritymay be ofmore immediately practical value to students more to as it explicitly asks them to think of literacy in terms conducive maintaining both their faith-based and their academic literacies without being required to sub stitute one for the other. Rand suggests that our questions for students "might in clude: How does the struggle to overcome sin affect your life and the decisions you or are make about yourself others?" and, perhaps, "How you limited in your under can see to standing ofTruth?" (353). Though I certainly how responding such ques our we I tions might generate in religious students the critical consciousness desire, re can also see how some students (like Luke) might feel compelled to generate sponses more defensive than reflective.Moreover, as so many of my students have so said, true faith is a "feeling" that cannot be explained, articulating the reasoning behind one's faith in terms the secular world can understand may seem impossible. As Chris Anderson puts it, faith is "a leap that cannot be justified to anyone who . a hasn't made that leap," making "religious experience [. .] like difficult language" (22, 26). In the rest of this essay, I attempt to articulate the ways inwhich rhetorical our to use dexterity might enable students literacies they already possess (like deep in to those the knowledge of the Bible and its applications day-to-day life) negotiate a basic writer for at academy expects them to exhibit. I begin with "James," whom, sense of leastwithin his first semester of college, the Bible represented his primary a "selfhood." In thatmuch of the current argument rests on the tensions between and one that is often to community of practice that "lives inside the Bible" perceived of two students in our be openly hostile to it, I continue with the stories graduate were to ties with both their reli program who?though they able maintain deep some rather les gious communities and their academic ones?experienced painful and the The sons early on about the irreconcilability of Christianity academy. a at conservative and literacies following section takes much closer look evangelical the Given the com as articulated in public discourse within and beyond academy. Living insidethe Bible (Belt) 575
maneuvers plex political, rhetorical, and intellectual that conservatives and to evangelicals have made defend the conservative, evangelical student against those to we to perceived be threatening, would do well understand the conflicting episte mologies that fuel this perceived?and, in fact, often quite real?threat. Academics, us to con particularly those of in the humanities and social sciences, appear many as servative and evangelical leaders promoting agendas of "secular humanism" and as own "cultural relativism," agendas they view antithetical to their position. Build ing on the tensions and the conservative rhetoric that exposes these, I then return to James, who?despite our class's attention to "literacy" and my regular attempts to validate his Christian literacies?still found this biblical worldview slipping away to from him. I end by discussing what I thinkmay have contributed this loss and ten how a pedagogy of rhetorical dexterity might have helped James "learn to use sions between faith [...] and academic inquiry as a way of learning more and learn ing better" (Vander Lei 8).
Communicating across Difference
When I asked students in a basic writing class two years ago to describe an object that best represented literacy for them, James started with what seemed most obvi ous to him: the Bible.
Before I was [just]a childthat went to church.I believed the Bible was somethingyou sure were to so never one read ifyou weren't that you going heaven [...] I read it. But I started to mature from a child that went to to a I to day church churchly child. started understand the older Christians and the purpose of being a Christian and the role a that the Bible played in Christian's life.All because one day [...] I felt itwas my job to . . . saw me a came be the clown. [ .]When my mother [. .] acting like fool she slappedme in the back of the head in frontof allmy friendsand maid [sic]me go to the front of the church to sit with the senior . I even saints. [. .] couldn't fall asleep because the old ladies wouldn't letme to me or because they would either pinch wake be making to [sic]much noise praising theLord so I had to listento themessage. [...] I mean don't me I get wrong always heard the Message but I actually listened that time. . how [. .]That's the front pue [sic] saved my life, (emphasis mine)
That semester, James taughtme the difference between "a child that goes to church" and "a churchly child"?an emotional shift as profound for him as it is valuable to the other "churchly" members of his "House." He was, however, surprised to hear that could so anyone be confused about what that difference might be, and itwas only after several meetings with him that he began to understand the disconnect I in his own experienced reading essays because of my illiteracies in that community of practice. As James explained it tome when we met inmy office to discuss revi sions of the previous essay: 576 College English
It's like this.A childwho just goes to churchis an illiterateChristian because he can't/ee/ it.He may feel something somewhere else, like in school with his friendsor atwork, but that feeling ain't theLord because he's not in hisHouse. A churchlychild, though, he [is] literatebecause he canfeel it.Like I felt it.
a From him, I learned that "living inside the Bible" the rightway is "feeling" that can a a "save" person's life,but it is also perspective that can be understood and truly appreciated only by others who have likewise experienced the "Message" in this way, a feeling that only other literate Christians can experience or understand and one that is central towho the person is?in the classroom, in the church, at home? a everywhere, in fact. It is feeling intimately connected with "the Lord's House" and one the person can "stay close to" only by reading the Bible?a book that, as many have found, is largely unwelcome in the academy. our are no In rural East Texas university, graduate students often less likely to on a as source as rely "spiritual identity the primary of selfhood." However, English careers graduate students "Alex" and "Mona" explain, early in their college the dis connect between the same Bible-based reasoning with which theymost identify and the hostile ways inwhich that Bible-based reasoning was received forced them to keep their Bible-believing identities "in check." These painful experiences taught them the impossibility of revealing their lives lived "inside the Bible" in terms leg ible to readers unconvinced of the Bible's "infallibility" (or even of its relevance to contexts extending beyond the churches that reproduce its value). This process is an never easy, I am told, and many such students believe themselves to be playing contexts. as and Mona an aware artificial role in academic Moreover, Alex taught me, ness of the negative ways inwhich the Bible is viewed in the academy is often hard won. "con Alex, a PhD student inEnglish who "for the past fifteen years" has been a in tinuously enrolled in school" (completing high school year early and her BA just two years) has experienced this dissonance rather sharply and consistently, despite "I a (or perhaps because of) her ambition and intelligence: grew up in Southern was his lifefrom Baptist family [...]. When I four,my bass-playing father changed to on one of rock and roll at smoky night clubs Black Gospel Sunday mornings." as a From that point on, as Alex describes it,her "religious family functioned either well-oiled machine or a cult [.. .] I'm not sure which one." the The disconnect Alex experienced between the tacit expectations of Baptist church and more secular ones was vast, but itwas also a dissonance necessitated by her faith.As she explains,
I were Because Christians are to go into the world of the unsaved, my cousins and sent to . . an unsaved where we were to set a public schools [, .] place always good for our and School us an for example teachers peers. provided opportunity witnessing we were told to a Bible with us to school so that and possible conversions; carry daily we use to saved. when the time came, would it help others become Living insidethe Bible (Belt) 577
was a But though her Bible verymuch part of her family,her church, and in fact her sense of self, she learned rather quickly thatwithin many communities of practice in use the academy, its is strictly forbidden.
a as an Once I turned in paper in which I used Biblical passages argument. I failed. Aftermeeting with the teacher,I got the feeling that the reason I failed came directly frommy choice to quote theBible. I did nothing but remove thequotes andmy paper an "A." in a I was not to use received Even personal opinion paper, allowed evidence that appealed tome. I am outraged by this incident to thisday.
Despite the insensitivity of her professor's actions, however, Alex persevered, be coming a very successful undergraduate English major and, now, a top graduate student.Much of her ability to, in her words, "mesh my faith-based religious views with my fact-based academic view of the world" can be attributed to her hyperawareness of context. This is an ability, as Deborah Brandt puts it, to "amal new gamate reading and writing practices in response to rapid social change" ("Ac cumulating" 651). An evangelical Christian herself, graduate student "Mona" articulates a similar point of dissonance between her faith and her schooling: "I was in a class several years ago when the instructor-led discussion drifted to the origin ofmankind." There, a she witnessed fierce but rather empty debate between the professor and two stu as dents, the former dismissing creationism "myth," the latter dismissing evolution same inmany of the ways?neither, according toMona, speaking with any real un derstanding of the opposition's argument but obviously relying on, as she explains, "what they'd been told by others." Still, believing the professor to be "a man of critical thinking and open-mindedness," she "approached him after class."
Instead of and he me listening discussing, however, dismissed and my arguments by me telling that theBible is to be viewed like ancientGreek mythology [...]. I said no but realized that academic and more, my professor my Evangelical student peers had much more in common than they realized.
Despite themany?sometimes ironic and largely unconscious?similarities between these two communities of practice, however, the dissonance remains. And, likeMona, Alex iswell aware that the battle between these rather different communities of not own are practice is her and, in fact, that they largely irreconcilable. Alex says, "I understand that academics look at facts and evidence. However, religion ismostly about feeling. IfGod wanted to,He could easily give us evidence thatHe exists. If He inHim did, though, believing and trustingHim wouldn't be the same" (empha sis in original). More than feminists and twenty years ago, other social theorists began treating and intuition as feeling, emotion, valid epistemological sites, taking seriously as of that a pects experience post-Cartesian worldview has regularly dismissed. Still, 578 College English
even in areas scholarship like these routinely ignores the function of faith, likely to or assuming it be "anti-intellectual," "closed-minded," even counterproductive. seem Faith does not knowledge, but rather its complete opposite.
Living inside the Bible
In evangelical Christianity, the Bible serves as the primary source from which the power of familiarity resonates. As Linda Kintz explains, in this community of prac tice all "legitimate participants [...] live [...] inside a world of textual quotations and references to biblical passages, interpretations, and reinterpretations among a com . munity of believers who know all the same stories and all the same passages [. .] a Liv[ing] inside the Book [...] gives believers world always already biblically writ ten" (33). Given that somany ofmy students "live inside the Book," it should not be surprising that some rely on the Bible and its teachings to make their arguments. However, the function of the college composition classroom seems to be, at the very least, to enable them to speak to readers who do not, likewise, "live inside the Book": readers likeme, for instance. The goal of witnessing talkmay be to "save" the lis tener so he or she will, likewise, "live inside the Book";4 however, this is not an appropriate aim for academic rhetoric, whose goal is often pluralism. Inasmuch as, for our most religious students, this "biblically written" world is the one with which theymost identify, it seems productive for us to ask that they think ofwhat it takes to be considered literate within that world. To articulate this position would not re writers to the secular world as more valuable than the reli quire accept ultimately even gious one (or vice versa) but rather to help those not "Christian-literate" understand what it takes to be considered a literatemember of the biblically written world. To articulate this position would require writers to think of literacy inmuch more and active terms than most school situated, "people-oriented,"5 commonsense, based versions of literacy allow. Understanding literacy as social rather than alphabetic, situated rather than to universal, and multiple rather than singular requires writers consider themselves a contexts. to be simultaneously literate and illiterate in number of different I am, contexts for example, literate inwriting center studies and associated but largely or illiterate inmatters relating to chemistry video games like Grand Theft Auto. My devout Mormon student is, of course, a deeply "literate" Mormon, but may know some very little about the Baptist communities of practice inwhich of her classmates are as of theNew quite likely highly literate. In other words, the findings Literacy a Studies have proven, literacy is not set of stable, portable, rule-based skills that enable the user to encode and decode all texts "correctly," regardless of the type of text, the conditions under which the text is encoded/decoded, the purpose of the Living insidethe Bible (Belt) 579
text or text, the people surrounding the text, the place inwhich the is situated, the experiences of the readers/writers who put the text to use. Of course, developing in our students the flexibility and critical consciousness necessary to negotiate the texts theywill encounter throughout college and in their lifeworlds beyond requires that we they begin to think of literacy in a differentway. In this process of development, treat literacy not as an abstract set of rigid standards but rather as a blend ofmutable social forces deeply situated in time and place. Literate practices, at least as I am seeing them here, are those sanctioned and as a endorsed by others recognized literatemembers of particular communityof prac tice. As in any community, the literate practices of evangelical traditions in Chris tianity are those sanctioned and endorsed by other literate members. Those of us who are not literatemembers of this particular community of practice are less likely to be able to tell the difference between someone who truly does "live inside the Bible" (Kintz)?what James calls "a churchly child"?and someone who is going through themotions (a "child that goes to church"). a Literacy thus becomes both set of socially sanctioned, community-based "skills" and contentthat is validated, produced, and reproduced within that same community content of practice. Relevant thus becomes shared knowledge among members of a given community of practice, and these members extend, reshape, validate, invali content most date, reproduce, and archive the appropriate for them and their key new objectives. From this perspective, developing literacies depends not on a lit learner's to obtain autonomous nor on eracy ability skills, any generic content-knowl edge, but rather on rhetorical dexterity. The latter, as I noted earlier, calls upon students to effectively read, understand, manipulate, and negotiate the cultural and a new on a linguistic codes of community of practice based relatively accurate assess ment of a more familiar one. on Rhetorical dexterity relies two overlapping theoretical traditions: theNew Literacy Studies and activity theory. "NLS approaches," according to Brian V Street, on "focus the everyday meanings and uses of literacy in specific cultural contexts to we and link directly how understand thework of literacy in educational contexts" In other (417). words, NLS is primarily concerned with the way literacymanifests itself in various contexts out-of-school and, through these findings, with exposing the artificiality and irrelevance of formal literacy education as it exists inmost in school contexts. NLS then redefines as a literacy education itself matter of reading and various are negotiating contextualized forces that deeply embedded in identity formation, political affiliations,material and social conditions, and ideological frame works. This theoretical framework necessarily flattens hierarchies among literacies; of one instead literacy's being inherentlymore significant or valuable than another, their respective worth is determined by appropriateness to context. 580 College English
In this sense, the anti-Bible hostility Alex andMona experienced may be better understood as a dispute over appropriateness, rather than as a question of whether as they sufferfrom "false consciousness" or, I'm (unfortunately and often) quick to see it, outright "ignorance." The key issue becomes the ways in which the Bible functions in the communities of practice that reproduce themselves through the familiarity that resonates from that very same book, as well as how these activities (and the value-sets that perpetuate them) might conflict with activities and content reproduced within university communities of practice. In any given community of practice?be it factorywork or fishing, Xerox re or or pair midwifery, evangelism the field of composition studies?some activities will be understood as appropriate and others as largely inappropriate, and most of these activities cannot be understood apart from the activity system inwhich they are carried out. Such systems are social and cultural rather than individual and objec tive.They aremade up of groups who sanction and endorse particular ways of doing some as things and particular results, identifying results and processes innovative as or even unac and valuable and condemning others ineffective, inappropriate, ceptable. Thus Mona's Bible becomes at once an irrelevant "book of myths" in her col source . lege classroom and the "baseline [. .] [for all] reasoning" (Ault 210) among members of her church. There is, of course, nothing terribly insightful about this revelation. However, further exploration of the specific ways the Bible functions in us com Bible-believing communities of practice might help understand better the to plications our Bible-believing students often face when they begin appropriate and value-sets. university discourses
Evangelism as a Community of Practice
no Like any community of practice, evangelism is organic and dynamic. Therefore, can all faith traditions in all single representation capture how it is practiced by contexts. Even themost influential leaders of thismovement are unable to reach a consensus about what itmeans to be an evangelical Christian. As New York Times isnot mono reporterMichael Luo explains, "like any dominating force, evangelism and lithic." As someone completely unaffiliated with any evangelical faith tradition I can at best offer a of this only marginally involved in Catholicism, description of as I understand it from an extensive of and community practice survey public as well as from informal academic discourse on evangelism written by evangelists, as interviews with students and colleagues who identify themselves evangelical.6 Accord There does appear to be a set of largely universal tenets of evangelism. are those that "stress the need for a ing toMark Noll, "evangelical denominations" new a faith in the Bible as a revelation from encour supernatural birth, profess God, Living insidethe Bible (Belt) 581
missions and and age spreading the gospel through personal evangelism, emphasize Cal a the saving character of Jesus's death and resurrection" (9). Thomas, syndicated a columnist and self-identified spokesperson forAmerican evangelicals, offers simi one is the lar definition: "An evangelical Christian is who believes that Jesus Christ as or Son ofGod and who has repented of sin and accepted Jesus his her savior.The to the news' that evangelical believes he has the privilege and obligation share 'good Jesus came to save sinners with others so theymight go to heaven rather than hell." a to the "Great "Spreading the gospel" is commitment what many Christians call Commission." Within this community of practice, it iswidely understood that the Great Commission can be found in theGospel ofMatthew7 inwhat is considered to to be the "last recorded personal instruction given by Jesus His disciples" ("The Great Commission"); those "living inside the Book" and calling themselves to to evangelicals understand the duty of all Christians be "make disciples of all the nations" (Matt. 28.18-20). Some evangelists argue that the Bible itself is the product as of successful evangelism, with the twelve apostles chosen by Jesus functioning asserts sec Christianity's very first evangelists. As Robert Emerson Coleman in the ond edition of his popular instructional text The Master Plan ofEvangelism, "the was to initial objective of Jesus's plan to enlist men who could bear witness his life and carry on his work after he returned to the Father" (27). So what, then, does this "Great Commission" have to do with the disconnect James, Alex, and Mona experienced as they attempted to integrate the Bible into academic contexts? Because we are concerned with practices that replicate the com as munity, as well as with the community a whole, it is useful to examine evangelical a an Christianity as both community and activity system. According to this theoreti on cal framework, the "acts" of relying the Bible forwisdom and guidance (as James has) and using the Bible as evidence for a personal opinion paper (as Alex has) may be understood as unacceptable when evaluated by the communities of practice asso ciated with the academy, but as completely acceptable and even mandatory when evaluated by those associated with their faith. The disconnect is profound when experienced by those forwhom the Bible represents their "primary sense of selfhood" and merely obvious when judged by those for whom the Bible represents at best naivety and atworst "closed-mindedness" or even bigotry. The disconnect between two these communities of practice is not something to be glossed over as a "given" as am and irreconcilable, however, I attempting to prove here. When attempting tomake sense of an activity systemwithin an unfamiliar com munity of practice, I have found ituseful to identify the community's "input," "tools," and "output." Every activity system includes these three categories. Furthermore, as as are a they well the artifacts created mediated by series of "rules" established by themembers of that community, reproduced through related activities and training, and likewise shaped by rules governing economic, political, cultural, and social be 582 College English
haviors in other social spaces of which these members are most assuredly a part. As I understand the "Great Commission" of evangelism, then, the input would be a nonbeliever, the output would be a converted believer,8 and the tools would include, as among other things, the Bible the primary text communicating the teachings of Jesus Christ. In attempting tomake sense of a chaotic world, James turned back to his Bible; thus, for him, the Bible is also the tool a Christian might use to "stay on the Lord's path" or "keep close to Jesus." Via the same analytical framework, then, the input here becomes the secular world and its challenges, the output a renewed seems worldview in keeping with biblical teachings. This also theway inwhich Alex made use of her Bible to support her personal opinion. Alex's professor dismissed her "tool" as irrelevant;Mona's professor went so far as to declare itheretical to the academic communities of practice he claimed to represent. Alex and Mona attempted to use the Bible as a tool to support their own per not as a to sonal positions (where they are coming from), tool change the reader/ writer in terms more in keeping with their Bible-believing identities (input?un an saved academic; output?saved Christian). For Alex, the Bible seemed appropri to ate enough tool integrate into her "personal opinion paper" because her personal was Mona opinion shaped by the traditions perpetuated in Bible-based discourses. as to com attempted to make use of academic inquiry tool better understand?in munity?the disconnects she'd justwitnessed regarding the debate between her pro fessor and two students (input?disconnect; output?understanding). The professor refused to entertain the debate on scholarly terms because, one must assume, he saw the debate itself (between creationism and evolution) as already settled and, there fore, not a product worth reproducing. to Among those forwhom "Truth" is static, constant, and universal, speaking and across our differences becomes a very different activity than what professors with critical consciousness as their goal might advocate. Among those forwhom reason to Bible-based discourses make up their primary sense of selfhood, the only "communicate across difference" may be to change the minds of those who, for or hu whatever reason, just aren't getting it who have untrustworthy liberal and/or host Rush in "How to manist agendas. As conservative talk show Limbaugh explains Deal with a Liberal Teacher," "Evidence refutes liberalism" (emphasis mine). of is A rather common activity reproduced in evangelical communities practice or current students that works from similar organized training for future college Each sum assumptions about the role of evidence in debunking the liberal position. trains recent school mer, for example, Summit Ministries inColorado Springs9 high are to encounter in graduates to "refute" the liberalism they likely college, guided a to to worldview" This by mission "equip them defend the biblical ("Mission"). As one "I summer trainingThomas Barnett calls "Faith Camp."10 "camper" puts it, Living insidethe Bible (Belt) 583
want on armor to put thefull ofGod before I go into battle" (qtd. in Barnett, empha sismine). Though much less organized and formal, rhetorical "battle" strategies like these appear to be no less common among liberal academics working against conservative ideology and evangelical "dogma." "Evidence," we may insist, "refutes conserva tism." Evidence may even refute faith, as Richard Hofstadter argued more than fortyyears ago inhis regularly cited bookAnti-Intellectualism inAmerican Life. "Learn ing and cultivation," he asserts, "appear to be handicaps in the propagation of faith" (48-49). Thirty years later,Washington Post reporter Michael Weisskopf outraged members of the evangelical community by calling them "largely poor, uneducated and easy to command."11 to On the face of it, conservatism and evangelism appear be completely at odds a with academic goals like open-mindedness and high tolerance for ambiguity (see et amore Jost al.). Yet while I accept liberal worldview as ultimately more conducive to values like pluralism and equality, it is important to examine theways inwhich a more conservative, faith-based worldview may, in fact, coexist with the end-stages of as cognitive development articulated viaWilliam Perry's model: relativism and com we must mitment. To do so, examine the ways inwhich the evangelical community sense of practice makes of what many members of that community call the "Chris tian Mind" (see especially Nanez; Guinness; Lewis; Noll; Marsden; Budziszewski; Blamires).
Evangelism and the "Christian Mind"
matters seem Though of faith diametrically opposed to matters of the intellect, a growing number of evangelical academics and public intellectuals provide models for this conflating apparently artificial binary. Paul Anderson's collection Professors Who Believe: The Spiritual Journeys ofChristian Faculty includes essays from "mem bers of the at faculty major secular research universities" who have "found meaning essence and purpose and value, the of life, in theirChristian faith" ("Introduction"12). Likewise, in Two Different Worlds Charles E. Garrison argues that the Christian worldview can coexist with a more "academic" one as "biblical statements are not at odds view with the of knowledge expounded by cultural relativists." In fact, accord to ing Garrison, "[t]he bible corresponds more to cultural relativism than absolut ism in its presentation of knowing" (154). far themost By compelling argument for the overlapping epistemological frame works of and Christianity academic ways of knowing is, inmy opinion, William G. Pollard's Physicist and Christian: A Dialogue between Communities (1961). In it, this and builds on the rather assertion physicist priest12 progressive that "all knowledge is really imparted through community, and cannot be had in isolation or alienation 584 College English
a from the community within which particular segment of knowledge is known" (viii). The idea that knowledge is "imparted through community" differs, of course, from a more social and critical view that knowledge is, in fact, createdwithin that community. For Pollard, a universal "Truth" does, in fact, exist outside of commu not nity but is only accessible through community; in other words, knowledge does exist entirely within the minds of individuals but rather is imparted and sustained a within community of knowledge seekers.While accepting that his articulation of a more ar community is largely irreconcilable with critical worldview,13 however, I as gue that Pollard's arguments are useful to teachers shaped bymore social theories we may find in them a common ground between these conflicting worldviews. Pollard's perspective is, in fact, a view supported by even themost literal readings of the Bible (see Newbigin). As he insists, the Bible itself "is an integral part of the actual historic process by which a whole people came to know God in community" (Pollard 161). According to Pollard, "God spoke to Israel through the covenant relationship, and Israel, in turn, has spoken to us through the Bible" (162). Given thatmuch of Pollard's treatment of knowledge as "community-based" is very much more in keeping with social and cultural theories that claim that knowledge, lan are next to guage, and learning socially situated, I devote the several pages his key us arguments and what theymight offer in teaching students like James who derive their "primary sense of selfhood" from the Bible. a term Physics as Community ofPractice. The "physics," Pollard argues, often at with a content with brings tomind (or least did in 1961) "a subject certain dealing as as matter and energy, space and time, force and motion" well "the instruments as and apparatus which make up physics and are an integral part of it, such things and How calorimeters, spectroscopes, galvanometers, Geiger counters, cyclotrons." as no a matter as ever, as he explains, physics must be understood less subject than a "the product and the achievement of human communal enterprise." Likewise, a Christianity is "the product and the achievement of human communal enterprise." is in an sense to In both physics and Christianity, "the community important prior the subject matter content" (4). on treatment of "science as Building Harold K. Schilling's community" (1958) to would be used scholars like and using terms surprisingly similar those that by more James Paul Gee, Brian V. Street, and other New Literacy Studies scholars of both a than twenty-five years later, Pollard describes the processes becoming a as into a priest and physicist "processes of incorporation community" (3) and, contact Faith isno less from these descriptions, two interesting points of emerge: (1) and in as in an integral part of physics than it is of Christianity, (2) physics, religion, or a "her one may be considered "orthodox" and thus embraced by the community etic" and subsequently banished from that community. Living insidethe Bible (Belt) 585
to an Faith. According Pollard, faith is essential part of the physics community. All must in current participants have faith the discipline itself, the scholarship and infrastructure that supports it, the history of the discipline, and "the scientificmethod" that sustains it.As he explains,
The faithwhich is essential to the fruitfulpursuit of scientific inquiryendows those who share itwith the to uncover and make manifest an power underlying order and the surface events events are seen to regularity beneath turbulence of by which these to be subject the rule of universal laws. (16)
In Imust on as a similar ways, rely my "faith" both teacher and a scholar in carrying out activities associated with my membership in the academy and relevant commu nities of I in tenets practice. That is, have faith the principal and values of activity and on theory New Literacy Studies. Relying these tenets and values in organizing a me socially just classroom enables to take risks and develop innovative course de signs that others may find?at first glance?largely unworkable. When I lose faith in those theoretical to I am most am frameworks which drawn?as I beginning to with critical find in literacy?I myself struggling ways I find quite unsettling, but I have faith in the communities of writing studies and literacy studies (among others) I am to and, therefore, able learn from such experiences?perhaps locating a more appropriate theoretical framework, perhaps finding evidence that returns my faith to the I original critical framework after have temporarily lostmy way. to Religious faith, according Pollard, manifests itself inways quite similar to more this "academic" version of faith. As he explains,
[T]he faithwhich is essential to a fruitfulpursuit of theChristian life endows those who share itwith the to to power know and respond the hand of God operative behind the same events surface turbulence of by which these events are seen to be to the rule of subject providence and judgment. (17)
As was transformed from "a went to a James child that Church" to "churchly child," we assume he may gained the "faith" he needed not only to understand the "mes that at the front of his to to sage" day church but also apply it his daily life.To put it to use. "A child thatwent to on the not someone church," other hand, is who is fully into the He's someone as integrated community. who is, James puts it, "just going the through motions." As Imoved through graduate school into the field, I, too, was transformed from someone who could make use of the information in the field at (though times, perhaps, just "going through themotions") to someone who could it I even to to apply and, hope, begin add it.We both gained some level of faith in our communities of and the sets target practice value and expertise they represent. Orthodoxy. In every community of practice, some activities and utterances will be understood members as as by "acceptable" ("orthodox") and others absolutely unacceptable ("unorthodox" or even "heretical"). This is no less true in faith-based 586 College English
communities than it is in academic ones. Consider the following definition of evan gelism, this one offered byMona:
A myriad of beliefs and, subsequently, subgroups abound within the vaguely defined are borders of Evangelical Christianity, however the expected beliefs those espoused in views are by the largest protestant denomination America. These touted by Chris tian programs, held asmainstays by thepolitical activistChristian groups, and echoed by grassrootsChristians in theworkplace. It is theseviews towhich you must hold or at least not contradict if you are to be considered a "literate" member of the main stream movement. Evangelical
see We can, I hope, many similarities between this articulation of "Evangelical Chris tian literacy" and the various disciplines in the academic community. For example, if I'm to be accepted as a "literate member" of the communities of practice thatmake up composition studies, I must "hold or at least not contradict" the views dominat a reason ing current composition scholarship (unless I have darn convincing for com doing otherwise, which can be risky).Within the "vaguely defined borders" of center position studies, the subgroups to which I "belong" (writing studies, basic own inwrit writing studies) have their standards, by which they identifymembers; are ing center studies, for example, such standards usually based on, among other one-on-one counter to things, a core belief in the importance of teaching. Anything in such writing center "orthodoxy" may be considered "heretical"?not, Lorraine or Code's words, "heard, understood, taken seriously" (xi), at least not very easily. According to Pollard, "[e]very community must have [orthodoxy and heresy] in to a Sometimes the even the are order be community" (21). unorthodox, heretical, completely aware of the "crucial loyalties, values, beliefs, and standards" maintained a to violate and reproduced in particular community of practice. Yet they choose them anyway.More often, however, the heretical behavior is not chosen but acci was dental. Alex included biblical evidence in her personal opinion paper and pun ished for it. She removed the biblical materials and turned it in again and was rewarded a for it. In many academic environments, she learned, the Bible is considered hereti cal text.Orthodox behavior is determined by the communities of practice that vali date, model, reproduce, and sustain it. some over this But how are we to give students like James control environment, acts of that con so that they don't commit heretical within this community practice as siders the Bible heretical yet aren't required to give up that Bible entirely their sense I now return. "primary of selfhood"? To this question,
Rhetorical Dexterity
was the basic curriculum asked During the semester inwhich James enrolled, writing more It did how students to think of literacy in terms social than alphabetic.14 not, Living insidethe Bible (Belt) 587
ever, ask students to examine the very specific ways inwhich literacymanifests itself to in different communities of practice. By reading and responding things like J. Elspeth Stuckey's The Violence ofLiteracy and Deborah Brandt's "Sponsors of Lit eracy," I asked students that semester to consider theways inwhich literacy is often unfair; sanctioned and endorsed by those more powerful than us; and even at times "violent." I did not, however, ask them to articulate the shape and function of lit eracy in a community of practice with which theywere familiar (e.g., James's Chris nor tian literacy), did I ask them to compare and contrast this literacy with a less familiar one (like those sanctioned and endorsed by various facets of the academy). a In other words, I did not employ pedagogy of rhetorical dexterity. If I had, perhaps a use James would have developed better understanding of how he might make of com the tensions between his religious faith and the ways of knowing, being, and municating perpetuated inmuch of the academic discourse he's expected to value and imitate.
A pedagogy of rhetorical dexterity would have encouraged James to investigate the "rhetorical spaces" of the communities of practice that shape his biblical worldview. According to Code, "rhetorical spaces" are "fictive but not fanciful loca tions whose (tacit, rarely spoken) territorial imperatives structure [...] and limit the kinds of utterances that can be voiced within them with a reasonable expectation of an uptake and 'choral support'; expectation of being heard, understood, taken seri ously" (ix). A pedagogy of rhetorical dexterity would have guided James in articulat ing the "(tacit, rarely spoken) territorial imperatives" that separate those who "feel" it (a "churchly child'Vthe Christian-literate) from those who do not, likely by asking him questions like these:What does itmeant to be a "churchly child" and how did come to you understand the valued status of the "churchly child" within the context are under investigation? What the "territorial imperatives" within this community of practice? That is,what are the "rules" that govern what one should or should not say, think, or feel in this context, as well as how one must behave, dress, and carry in order to a oneself be considered "churchly child" rather thanmerely "a child that to church"? context goes How ismembership in this expressed? What strategies must one use to be "heard, understood, taken seriously" within this community of In or practice? other words, what strategies ways of being mark some children as as "churchly" and others children who just "go to church"? What can we learn from the fact that your faith tradition?according to you?calls members of the church "God's children"? What kinds of things did you have to do before you could con sider yourself Christian-literate? What should the long-term goals of literatemem bers as determined be, bywhat this community of practice finds valuable and possible? How does an member or incoming know when he she has reached these goals? What have to might you learn, recognize, and embody in the academy before you may be able to feel literate as a writer and reader in various school-based contexts, too? 588 College English
a By treating academic literacies as dynamic sign system and academic discourse as an experience in overlapping communities of practice, Imight have taught James com to develop the flexibility and awareness he needed to negotiate the increasingly plex literacy contexts he might encounter throughout his college career, without sense I sacrificing that "primary of selfhood" he derived from his Bible. Instead, merely (though unknowingly) perpetuated the singular, "autonomous" model of lit eracy (Street) that I thought we had been resisting all along.
Keeping Close to Home
James was a student in our basic writing program more than two years ago. The a on a following term, I began developing curricular model based then-quite-vaguely as course inwhich defined pedagogy of rhetorical dexterity?first the graduate-level Mona and Alex were enrolled,15 then as the curricular model for our basic writing program (and now as the theoretical framework for our new textbook Literacies in was Context [Carter], designed for the second semester of first-year composition). It to more use not until the current term, however, that Iwas able to begin make direct to of rhetorical dexterity in theways I wished I had been able with James. our I had By the time Keneshia entered basic writing program (August 2006), a so of our basic begun to develop much better understanding of why many writing our an on as a social students?despite best efforts and extensive focus literacy prac more tice (the course theme)?continued to define literacy in termsmuch in keep with the autonomous model we were to resist. It is this autonomous ing attempting to the diffi model?literacy as universal, portable skill-set and/or content?that led to culties Alex, Mona, and James experienced in their attempts integrate the Bible into academic communities. It was the autonomous model thatmay have led James on less often. to begin relying his Bible less and The Pentecostal church in which Keneshia grew up is a close-knit one that ac functions as her "home" church in every sense of the word. Pastor Osborne is, because she's been there. feel cording toKeneshia, "like my grandmother always [I] real died." In like I can really talk to her, [especially since] my grandmother fact, of before Pastor Osborne and her familywere key fixtures in theTemple God long Keneshia was even born. Keneshia's mother grew up with the pastor's three daugh all of whom with ters, the youngest of whom isKeneshia's godmother and (now isn't their own children) remain members of the church. For Keneshia, her church and just "like a family"; it is her family?literally practically. They pray together, their and eat worship together, and play together; they spend holidays together many in Keneshia her a meal together. "Every body the church," explains (quoting Pastor) . We at our church. 'loose knit "is the body of the church. [. .] have unity [We are] Living insidethe Bible (Belt) 589
are to to individual believers that equipped, ready, and trained yield God (L.I.B.E.R.T.Y.).' We even have a banner that says that!" to to a According Keneshia, her choice describe her church (as familiar "com munity of practice"16) in her second formal essay written for our class stemmed from "the way you described how you feltwhen you went to that church last summer." two About weeks before the fall semester began, I had visited an evangelical church same within the part of Dallas where Keneshia's home church is located (a high crime and poorer area of the city). This one (True Love Baptist Church) was the one home church of of the inmates involved with a prison literacy program I'm a researching, and while I knew little bit about the way this church might function (mainly from my reading of Beverly Moss's work), my functional illiteracies in this were community of practice apparent from theminute I walked through the door. I was once at illiterate and completely in awe. Itwas a beautiful service?quite differ ent ever or from anything I'd experienced before since. Overwhelming and power ful. Still, I felt uncomfortable throughout much of it as I was utterly aware of my was mem lack of belonging (despite thewarmth with which I welcomed by church I was was bers). didn't know what I doing. My clothing too neutral (the colors worn were by themembers of this church vibrant and alive), my knowledge of theGospel lyrics sung was absolutely nonexistent (the songs were, almost without fail, sung to without any reference the hymnals tucked into the back of each church pew), and the seemingly spontaneous fainting, random screams, and crying exhibited by a few members of both the choir and the congregation (what Iwould later learnwas called me. "being filled with the Spirit") confused As I've already noted, most ofmy expe riences in church-based communities of practice have been Catholic. For me, ser vices have been True to scripted (whereas Love Baptist appears be largely spontaneous the to though guided by church bulletin read congregants at the beginning of the For service). me, parishioners sit quietly and very still unless called upon by the as in to or priest, scripted theMissalette, kneel stand (whereas True Love Baptist wave members their hands about, close their eyes, cry out with "Thank you, Jesus" and "Tell Preacher! Amen!" even at move it, and times into the aisle, becoming even more as animated they become "filled with theHoly Spirit"). In that second writing assignment (entitled "What Makes Christianity Signifi cant?"), Keneshia introduces her readers to her own very familiar, church-based community of practice by showing those of us unfamiliar with itwhat we would see were we to enter her church. In order to do this, she takes on the persona of an outsider entering the "Temple of God" for the first time: When we arrived at church I finally walked into the building looking around noticing all these colorful hats that the had on. Some were amazing lady's big, small, round, and even tall. I was one thought it of the amazing things I had seen inmy life,then I 590 College English
looked atmy grandmother as she begin to put her hands in the air so did I[.] [While] doing that, I looked up into the air as ifI felt theirwere angels looking down up on me. As I looked out I seen people everywhere throwing therehair all over the place, as some were even out running well, and yelling Lord I thank you.
Perhaps even more interesting and important, however, were the moves Keneshia makes or fails to make to help her uninformed readers begin to understand "the rules and commandments of being in church." As she explains, "We all need beliefs [.. .] because theymake some of us the people we have grown to be today." In this early draft of her second writing assignment, Keneshia offers an extensive quotation (labeled "Exodus 20: 1-17") as evidence ("[f]or instances") in support of her beliefs. one The problem here, of course, is of conflicting communities of practice. Keneshia offers this extensive quotation, yet she fails to unpack it for readers who do not, like her and her church family, "live inside the Bible." For me, the familiarity that resonates from Exodus 20 as quoted in her paper ("I am the Lord your God am a [...]. Ye shall have no other gods before me. [...] [F]or I, the Lord your God, . jealous God [...].[.. .]Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. [. .] [T]he Seventh Day [...] you shall not work [...]") are stories of intolerance and the Blue Laws I witnessed when I first arrived inTexas back in the late 1970s. For this reader, means the long quotation Keneshia includes something very different from what it means to her and other members of this faith tradition.
My feedback on this early draft included the following:
Ambitious and so very interesting,Keneshia! I'm particularly intriguedby theways in set as into this of which you your grandmother up your guide community practice. we Powerful moment as step into church with you and notice all those "amazing, colorful hats." Then you move into the "Rules and Commandments" for Christianity in a from the while I'm sure takes general and long quote Bible, which, quite relevant, us out inwhich in this commu of the game of articulating the ways literacy particular out. In I'd like show us how nity of practice might play itself revision, [...] [for you to] as themselves out in church. For these "rules" oudined in Exodus might play your sets a literate instance, what value and literacies might churchgoer display by wearing theirhair all a big, round, "colorful hat"? "put[ting]her hands in the air"? "throwing over out"? In other reread this scene for us so the place"? "running"? "yelling words, we can learnhow literatebehavior manifests itselfin this communityof practice (and why). be because it This was certainly difficult forKeneshia, and I expected itwould to us forced upon her levels of critical consciousness only available after "reading notes on our world" in theways Paulo Freire tells us we must. I see inKeneshia's this written above "Exodus 20: draft in preparation for her revision the word "change" to to the 1-17," which may have been a suggestion herself either "change" (revise) to describe the way she deals with the quotation and/or "change" the scripture used to church behavior she illustrates.Ultimately, she chose change the scripture itself, Living insidethe Bible (Belt) 591
first to something from the Book ofMatthew (as indicated by her bracketing of the long quotation from Exodus followed by the word "Matt."). In her next and subse near quent drafts of this essay (completed midterm and again near the end of the a term), Keneshia decided to go with Psalms 100.1-4: "Make joyful noise unto the Lord [...]. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing [...]." we as As she explains, "[A]ll of these things portray Christians inmy church.When we entering the house of the Lord inmy church, do actually what it is said 'making a unto us see joyful noise the Lord,' just thanking him forwaking up to another day. we we After enter in, have morning worship serving the Lord with gladness letting [Him] know thatwe give Him the entire honor and praise. Then we stand up and tell how the Lord has blessed us in our life." we can Here begin to understand how the shape and function of the church might be informed by, among other things, this passage from the Book thatmakes core see up the guidance in this community of practice.We that the "joyful noise"? as instructed?begins with "morning worship" and that the key activity reproduced in that "morning worship" is "praise," "honor," and "gladness." However, it is still to unclear outsiders how this giving of "praise," "honor", and "gladness" might func tion?in other words, what does this literate behavior actually look like? From my single experience in a church that appears to function inways somewhat similar to Keneshia's church (though True Love is Baptist and Keneshia's church is Pentecos can to tal), I begin imagine that the behavior takes the form of high energy, laughter, loud music, and what members of the church call "praise dancing." These are ex same to actly the thingsKeneshia began describe in her later draft, drawing parallels between the to "freestyling" she did prepare for her writing assignments (freewriting in her and her to journal notes) and the "freestyling" she did develop the "praise dances" she performed at her church. As she explains, these "praise dances" had to "come from the heart"; she had to "feel" the dance rather than think toomuch about it, for otherwise itwouldn't be "honest" (what's "honest" "honors Jesus"). Likewise, she to to had "feel" what she wanted say in her essays and in her journals rather than "think too much about it"; otherwise she'd be saying what she thought other people to wanted read rather than what she wanted to say.As Keneshia explains, "I like to it real." keep all these Through drafts and face-to-face exchanges regarding her own faith based of and the ones community practice academic she is attempting to enter, Keneshia to developed ways communicate across very different communities of prac tice (church-based and academic ones), attempting tomake sense of her own Chris tian literacies in terms and accessible to legible thosemuch less literate inChristianity as itmanifests itself in churches own. evangelical like her But she also developed the "Christian mind" that evangelical scholars likeMark Noll, Rick Nanez, and J. Budziszewski tell us is the (among others) "good Christian's" responsibility. Perhaps 592 College English
by developing a deeper awareness of the various ways inwhich the Bible itself in forms Christian literacy and the terms by which these faith-based activities are vali dated and reproduced, Keneshia is now in a better position to support her own faith- and Bible-based ways of knowing in communities of practice thatmay remain hostile to them. Perhaps these principles and the "Christian mind" she developed from them helped her better understand and begin to make use of an ideological model of literacy?treating secular and Bible-based literacies as situated, contextualized, place-based, people-oriented events. The ubiquitous autonomous model, on the other hand, would treat literacy as singular and, perhaps at some point, make her Bible-based ways of knowing seem as irrelevant to her as they ap pear to many of us representing university-based communities of practice (some we a thing absolutely want to avoid). In any case, developing deeper understanding a of the way literacy lives in particular context?among the people who reproduce a themselves through particular set of literate practices (time-based, situation-based, to to agent-based)?might enable Keneshia develop the flexibility she'll need nego tiate the multiple, rapidly changing literacies she's likely to encounter beyond the overlapping communities of practice thatmade up her basic writing experience.
Notes
course an not a 1. Of evangelical Christian is necessarily political conservative. Liberal, very pro are common as gressive movements actually surprisingly among the communities of practice identified movements is "evangelical." For me, the most intriguing of these progressive evangelical Sojourners/Call a to to Renewal, a Christian ministry with stated mission "to articulate the biblical call social justice, a movement to and the inspiring hope and building transform individuals, communities, the church, world" ("Mission"). am a from a somewhat 2. It may also be significant that I fallen-away Catholic suffering unhealthy own I was relationship with my religious past and, perhaps, my deeply religious extended family (while was not growing up, my nuclear family very religious). The 3. Please see the description of this pedagogy of rhetorical dexterity inmy forthcoming book Writer article as a Social Way Literacy Lives: Rhetorical Dexterity and the "Basic" and "Redefining Literacy Practice." a current student in our ex 4. As Maryann Whitaker, devout Christian and graduate program, me a of this God can "convert" the "not plained to after reviewing previous version article, only listener, the evangelical." a As she reminds "all 5. Jacqueline Jones Royster calls discourse "people-centered enterprise." us, use an a social not a natural In other language [...] is invention of particular milieu, phenomenon" (21). a instruments or forces of words, "discourses operate at the hands and the will of people, rather than nature" (25, emphasis in original). am individuals who have been to share their insider 6.1 grateful for the many willing perspectives a from within the community of practice that is evangelical Christianity, especially Maryann Whitaker, master's student at A&M-Commerce, Chandra Lewis-Quails, an instructor at Abilene Christian Univer a at A&M-Commerce. sity, and Keneshia Coleman, basic writing student them into the name of the 7. "Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing Living insidethe Bible (Belt) 593
to com Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them observe all things whatsoever I am even unto manded you: and lo, I with you always, the end of the world" (Matt. 28.19-20). not 8.Maryann Whitaker argues that it is the evangelical who "converts" the "nonbeliever." Thus, rather than a "converted believer," "the output would be the communicated Word." In that "communi as cation" of "theWord," however, other evangelicals have suggested, God converts the believer. Ac success cording to this line of argument, that very conversion iswhat confirms that "theWord" has been com fully communicated. The disconnect here brings to the surface the nuanced ways Bible-believing munities understand the rhetorical effects of "testimonial" in enacting "the Great Commission." a sorts 9. Colorado Springs is quickly becoming "headquarters" of for conservative evangelical on organizations, including James Dobson's Focus the Family, among others. a movement to 10. Leif Utne describes similar in left-wing circles whereby "[i]n their fight catch up are with the right, progressives sending their young to boot camp." 11. A flurry of calls and letters protesting this characterization forced the Post to issue a correction, no noting simply, "There is factual basis for that statement." a 12. Though itmay seem counterintuitive to use Catholic priest's words to represent ways our evangelical students might locate points of contact between their faith and the tacit expectations of the so two reasons. academy, I do here for at least The first is that the dissonance Pollard experiences be tween seems to in a the academy and his faith quite comparable the ways which number of evangelicals are to are describing this disconnect. The second is that, according Mark Noll, Catholic leaders begin to ning join forces with evangelical leaders?a partnership he applauds. 13. is also to note as It important that Pollard views the community of Christians "unique" and chosen by God; thus communities of practice that conflict with this Christian worldview are to be toler as ated but understood wrong and ultimately in need of saving. as 14.1 describe this curriculum and the assignments I've designed them inChapter 3 of the forth coming book The Way Literacy Lives: Rhetorical Dexterity and the "Basic" Writer. 15. In the we to graduate-level course, read several ethnographic studies designed expand this of rhetorical basic writers teachers to at concept dexterity beyond and their include society large. was a 16.Their second writing assignment "formal essay about the 'rules' and expectations govern a ing 'literate' practices in community of practice beyond those directly associated with school" (see http://faculty.tamu-commerce.edu/scarter/teaching.htm for additional information about this sequence, including copies of the writing assignments).
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What experiences have you had with the kinds of issues this article analyzes? What do you think of the teaching strategies that the article proposes? Post your responses at our new interactive website, College English Dialogues (www.indiana.edu/-cedialog).