Fides Quaerens Intellectum

This past week at IMPACT 360 (www.impact360.net) saw the awakening of students’ critical thinking capacities as those were brought to bear on the subject of ethics. Too broad? For sure. This was an introductory module to ethics–specifically an introduction to the major systems of ethics, including deontology, utilitarianism and virtue ethics. We also covered moral relativism and moral objectivism in depth. In our socratic roundtable discusssion on Thursday we had a lively exchange over how one might best respond to John Q. Citizen who makes the argument that “you cannot impose your values on anyone else, since values themselves are culturally defined, thereby making the language of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ entirely culturally bound.” Most agreed that discussion with someone like John on this question really won’t get very far if [Read more →]

Last evening a tornado ripped through the campus of Union University (www.uu.edu), IMPACT 360’s (www.impact360.net) academic partner. Having talked with one of our alums who is now taking his degree at Union, they are estimating the damage to the campus physical plant to be in the tens of millions. The good news is that no one was killed or seriously injured. This developing story has received national media coverage, and I was reminded of the importance of Christian character and Christian witness in the face of literal disaster and hardship when I read the following comment on the Union University emergency update blogsite (http://uuemergency.blogspot.com/):

“I am not a churchgoer, but I have been so impressed with the attitudes, courtesy and presence of the students interviewed by the news media that I just sent a check to the disaster relief fund. All best of luck to you all.”

Larry, Avon, CT

The kind of character to which Larry from CT took notice isn’t anything those Union U students could fake. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, “Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is….”

C.S. Lewis once wrote “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

An encounter I had recently while staying in Pennsylvania reminded me how true this really is. I had been doing dissertation research in PA earlier this month, as well as a bit of recruitment for IMPACT 360 (www.impact360.net), and on this particular day had scheduled a lunch meeting with a headmaster of a Christian school in the area who sent us one of their graduates this academic year. We enjoyed sharing our life stories, dreams and plans for the future–mostly in terms of our careers. It became clear to me very quickly that he is a respected visionary leader in his school, church and home. When the topic of conversation turned to family towards the end of the meal, he said to me “Well, my wife and I are actually going through a pretty tough time right now.” He went on to explain [Read more →]

For some time I’ve been aware of “Top 10 Party Colleges” lists, but today the Princeton Review threw me for a loop.  They also publish their own Top 20 party schools list, but in the spirit of being fair and balanced, they also publish their own list of “Stone-Cold Sober” schools.  Of course the absence (or relative absence) of hedonism on campus doesn’t guarantee a rich learning environment.  On the other hand, the old “we work hard; we play hard” philosophy of how to succeed in college for years has been the unreflective default assumption [Read more →]

Although I’m not an unqualified George Barna fan (his persuasiveness really tanks when he tries to do theology instead of survey research), I do find much of his research on evangelical faith and its outworkings to be helpful.  A 2006 study done by his group gets at the heart of why IMPACT 360 (www.impact360.net) was started in the first place, namely the problem of young Mosaics (twentysomethings) disengaging from their faith during and after the college years.  The study shows that the “most potent data regarding disengagement is that a majority of twentysomethings – 61% of today’s young adults – had been churched at one point during their teen years but they are now spiritually disengaged (i.e., not actively attending church, reading the Bible, or praying). Only one-fifth of twentysomethings (20%) have maintained a level of spiritual activity consistent with their high school experiences.”

This statistic is consistent with my own experience in college and beyond (including first-hand reports from parents of college students).  I can remember one young lady in my class in college—I’ll call her  “Katie”—whose story is one of [Read more →]

Something new that I’ve been learning ever since I came on board with IMPACT 360 in January ‘06 as a consultant (then in May ’06 full-time) is the notion of a high performance team in the workplace.  Among other characteristics, a high performance team is one whose synergy with all members produces an exponentially greater output than each individual team member could accomplish alone.  Desiring that outcome is one thing; accomplishing it is quite another, I’m finding.  We’re well on our way, thanks to solid leadership within the organization, including leadership mentoring from the Chick-fil-A (CfA) execs at the corporate office.  [Read more →]

 The students and staff of IMPACT 360 (www.impact360.net) had the privilege of hosting Os Guinness for three days.  His topics were numerous–everything from The Call (the book our students read in preparation for his time with us) to globalization to leadership.  He was one of the most gracious guests we’ve had on our campus, and he engaged our students in ways that brought ought even the most withdrawn personalities.  During his time on campus I took the opportunity to interview him for an audio series we’re producing.  One of my questions to the Oxford-educated sociologist was basically this:  “How do we overcome the assumption that there is a bifurcation between the secular and the sacred in public life and what does this mean for inspiring a new generation of leaders in this country?”  His response below comes straight from the interview transcript. 

Today was something of a landmark day for me.  It was the first time I had ever spoken up in a congregational meeting (for shame, I know, I know).  Interesting as I look back on the experience that I had to choose the annual budget meeting to speak up.  What was the issue?  There really wasn’t any “issue” as such…just seeking clarity on something that just about no one ever wants to discuss (at least in most churches)–pastoral staff compensation packages.  To be sure, like the rest of us I come to the issue with some baggage, being raised a preacher’s kid myself and being all too aware of how delicate these matters can be, both for the church as well as for the pastor’s family hanging in the balance.  All that said, I raised a question about the “philosophy of raises” for pastoral staff, [Read more →]

Perhaps the most powerful objection to a thoroughgoing faith/learning academic environment (i.e., in the classroom itself) and its supporting arguments is an argument from academic freedom. More than a few well-meaning professors put it this way: “Faith/learning integration in our classrooms ought not be imposed on us from the powers that be, because while intellectual growth, faith, virtue and citizenship are concepts compatible with the long-standing doctrine of academic freedom within the academy, ‘faith’ of the Christian variety tends to weaken academic freedom by imposing certain restrictions and codes of belief and conduct upon faculty.”[1] [Read more →]

Several weeks ago the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from Union University (www.uu.edu), Dr. Gene Fant, came as an IMPACT 360 (www.impact360.net) guest professor.  Union U is IMPACT 360’s academic partner, and our students are technically Union students by virtue of the articulation agreement.  Like my alma mater, Erskine College (www.erskine.edu), where I now serve on the board, Union U is a full member of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.  As a brief note of trivia, Union and Erskine are the two oldest CCCU institutions, with the former being slightly older (1823) than the latter (1839).  All that said, Dr. Fant’s area of teaching and research competence is English literature, thus it was altogether fitting that he introduced our community to a rather helpful book (featured above) in the quest to help our students understand how the academic disciplines in  the arts and sciences are meaning-full.  More to the point, they are meaningful to the degree that the disciplines themselves reveal the purposes of the universe’s Designer.  Conversely, these disciplines turn out to be altogether meaningless if Darwin’s materialistic theory of natural selection is correct.  [Read more →]