Helping Students at Harding University Identify with Jesus
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Please HONOR the copyright of these documents by not retransmitting or making any additional copies in any form (Except for private personal use). We appreciate your respectful cooperation. ___________________________ Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN) P.O. Box 30183 Portland, Oregon 97294 USA Website: www.tren.com E-mail: [email protected] Phone# 1-800-334-8736 ___________________________ ATTENTION CATALOGING LIBRARIANS TREN ID# Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) MARC Record # LIKE US IN EVERY WAY: HELPING STUDENTS AT HARDING UNIVERSITY IDENTIFY WITH JESUS A MINISTRY FOCUS PAPER SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE DOCTOR OF MINISTRY BY SCOTT ADAIR DECEMBER 2010 ABSTRACT Like Us in Every Way: Helping Students at Harding University Identify with Jesus Scott E. Adair Doctor of Ministry School of Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary 2010 This final project facilitates a doctrinal intervention to help emerging adults at Harding University understand and appropriate the biblical teaching of Christ’s humanity in order to bring about holistic spiritual formation. The intervention takes place during five or six class periods in two college courses at a private, liberal arts college in Searcy, Arkansas affiliated with the Churches of Christ. The students in these classes are in a liminal stage of life marked by a quest for identity. Their tattoos tangibly bear witness to this quest and to their postmodern leanings. The majority of these students share a background in the Churches of Christ of the American Restoration Movement. This project seeks to ground these students’ identities in Christ while addressing a potential deficiency in their inherited views of Christ, namely, a superficial understanding of his human nature. The doctrine of the utter humanity of Christ not only provides the content for this intervention, it provides the methodology. Thus, each main component of this project begins “from below” with concrete observations. Most significantly, the intervention anchors its Christological conclusions to the tangible rite of baptism, which has a prominent place in Restoration theology. First, the intervention shows how Jesus’ own baptism densely expresses a robust Christology. Second, the approach presents Christian baptism as an identity-shaping capsule of the believer’s participatory faith in Christ. Quantitative and qualitative analysis suggests that the doctrinal intervention contributed to positive changes in the ways students thought about Jesus and the ways they related to Jesus. Moreover, some students reported specific behavioral changes brought about by their new understanding of Jesus. Thus, the project did contribute to the holistic spiritual formation of Harding students. Content Reader: Kurt Fredrickson, PhD Words: 279 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 PART ONE: CONTEXT FROM BELOW Chapter 1. EMERGING ADULTS AT HARDING UNIVERSITY 8 Chapter 2. CHRISTOLOGY IN THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST 34 PART TWO: CHRISTOLOGY FROM BELOW Chapter 3. BIBLICAL DOCTRINE OF HUMANITY OF CHRIST 55 Chapter 4. IMPLICATIONS OF DOCTRINE OF HUMANITY OF CHRIST 77 PART THREE: INTERVENTION FROM BELOW Chapter 5. STRATEGIC PLAN FOR INDUCTIVE INTERVENTION 108 Chapter 6. STUDENT RESPONSES 128 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 153 BIBLIOGRAPHY 162 iii INTRODUCTION Andrew was a sophomore at Harding University.1 He had grown up in a Christian home but was in the process of converting to Buddhism. In a private conversation with Andrew, I asked him, “Do you believe Jesus is Lord?” “Sure, I believe Jesus is Lord, about like I believe George Bush is President. I believe it,” Andrew said, “but it does nothing for me.” Since Harding is a conservative Christian school, explicit statements of disdain or indifference toward Jesus such as Andrew’s are rare. Nevertheless, a few minutes of observation on Harding’s campus might leave one with the impression that many students implicitly share Andrew’s attitude toward Jesus, though perhaps unconsciously. A snapshot of daily chapel might expose hundreds of students text-messaging instead of praying, doing homework instead of praising, or talking to one another instead of listening to the devotional speaker. As a teacher of “Life of Christ,”2 and “Christ and Culture,”3 I sense this disinterest. Founded in 1924, Harding University is a private, liberal arts university in Searcy, Arkansas affiliated with the Churches of Christ. Harding’s current enrollment is 4,167 undergraduate students and 2,446 graduate students from 48 states and 52 nations.4 1 Andrew (pseud.), personal communication with author, Searcy, AR, September 10, 2003. 2 Scott Adair, “BNEW 211: Life of Christ,” (2002-2010). 3 Scott Adair, “BDOC 356: Christ and Culture,” (2006-2010). 4 Enrollment Statistics, Harding University Fall 2009 (Searcy, Arkansas: Harding University, Office of Academic Affairs, April 2010), 1. 1 Nearly 80 percent of Harding’s student population is affiliated with the Churches of Christ.5 Since Churches of Christ strongly emphasize Sunday school, it is safe to conclude that many of these students have heard stories about Jesus since infancy.6 By the time they enroll in sophomore “Life of Christ,” they would also have had academic exposure to the Gospels because they were required to take “New Testament Survey” as first-year students.7 Such a biblical foundation should be advantageous to the learning environment, but it often seems to contribute to a contemptuous familiarity. The folded arms and smug faces of some seem to be saying, “What are you going to teach me about Jesus that I do not already know?” They may not necessarily be bored with Jesus, but they sometimes give the impression that they are tired of taking classes about him. They are bored with the Gospels. Bible professors should be loath to contribute to the students’ boredom. Given the apparent indifference, it is imperative that the instructor offers a fresh approach to the Gospels. This is unlikely to occur, however, if the teacher’s own perspective on the Gospels is stale. As I prepared to teach “Life of Christ” in the 2003 fall semester, I needed to reinvigorate my own way of looking at the Gospels. I decided to start with the Gospel of Mark since it is the shortest, most vividly narrated, and presumably earliest account. I 5 Enrollment Statistics, 2. 6 Richard T. Hughes, Reviving the Ancient Faith: The Story of Churches of Christ in America (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1996), 219. The Churches of Christ have fully embraced the Sunday school phenomenon since the early 1900s. There exists, however, a wing of the movement that believes Sunday school is unwarranted by Scripture. 7 “BNEW 112: Survey of the New Testament.” 2 wanted to approach Mark’s Gospel with new eyes, as if to experience the good news about Jesus for the first time. I made a conscious effort to let the story speak for itself. I resisted the temptation to nuance or harmonize Mark’s earthy account with creedal formulas, Pauline theology, or even the other Gospel accounts. This way of initially approaching Jesus “from below,” as a man from Nazareth, rather than “from above,” as eternal Divine Son, honors the way people of his day first encountered him. 8 This inductive approach to the Gospel of Mark challenged my Christological assumptions. The first chapter alone raised difficult questions9 that pointed me down a path of inquiry that ultimately overhauled my understanding of Jesus. In short, I became convinced that Jesus was truly human. He was not some sort of alien or hybrid. Rather he was, as Hebrews 2:17 confirms, “like his brothers in every way.”10 As I grappled with this passage and other biblical texts on which the teaching is based, I had to admit my own Christological superficiality up to this point. I had always affirmed the doctrine that Jesus was fully human, but only as a hollow proposition, and not a transforming reality. I had finally met the person beyond the creed. The discovery of his thoroughgoing 8 Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man, trans., Lewis L. Wilkins and Duane A. Priebe, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968), 33-37. This should not be taken as a presumption of philosophical or theological neutrality. Pannenberg’s “from below” method, itself, rests upon the theological approach called “history as revelation,” which rests philosophically upon rationalism. Nevertheless, acknowledgement of one’s own presuppositions makes a fresh reading of the Gospel accounts more likely. Pannenberg’s usage of the phrase, “from below,” is distinctly Christological. Practical theologians currently use “from below” in reference to the present situation as the proper starting point for theological inquiry leading to orthopraxis. 9 Michael Cosby, Portraits of Jesus: An Inductive Approach to the Gospels (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999). Morna D. Hooker, Beginnings: Keys That Open the Gospels (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997). In time, these two sources also helped raise some of the difficult questions. 10 Unless otherwise indicated all Bible references in this paper are to the New International Version (Colorado Springs, CO: International Bible Society, 1978). 3 identification with humanity has re-ordered my worldview, continues to bring about transformation, and will ultimately leave no part of life untouched. At the very least, it has changed the way I teach “Life of Christ” and “Christ and Culture.” The goal now was to try to duplicate this discovery in a college classroom setting. Most of these students probably already subscribed to the doctrine of the full humanity of Christ before they enrolled in the class. They would likely be able to state a proposition that affirmed his full humanity and divinity11 but had not yet pursued the implications of the creed. They merely paid lip service to the doctrine.12 Apparently, the churches of their upbringing emphasized the deity of Christ but seemed to have neglected to present a robust view of his humanity.