Purpose and Vision

Westmont was founded "for the systematic and comprehensive study of the Holy Bible, and any and all other courses which are academic in nature, … and for practical and efficient training in Christian work; to create, maintain, and operate a center for the diffusion of Christian and secular knowledge ... for the dissemination of missionary information and the quickening of the missionary spirit ... for the publication and distribution of the Holy Scriptures and other evangelistic and academic literature" (Westmont Articles of Incorporation, 1940).

This course, then, serves those original purposes: study centering in the Bible but not restricted to it, training in Christian work, diffusion and publication of especially Christian knowledge, and enlivening the missionary spirit. Like Westmont itself, it stands or falls on how it succeeds or fails to do so.

The God of Israel plays a long game. What am I hoping you'll have gained from this class ten years out? Here's the intended fruit of a semester's engagement with course materials and concepts, from most important to least:

1. A manifest life change in the direction of new creation, bearing fruit of divine love (which of course means far more than mere feeling, as God is love).
2. A life-trajectory-altering facility with key resources: the Bible, church practices such as prayer, witness, worship, and so on.
3. Lasting skill acquisition and fruitfulness in thinking and acting "theologically."
4. Affection towards the discipline, with a resulting enthusiasm for pursuing its learning further (by obedience, sharing, leading, mentoring, and further equipping with helpful resources).
5. A persisting (if foggy) knowledge base in the historic Christian tradition, with more precise memory of a few key centers that will have been reinforced by your study, worship, and service as a graduate.

How can this little course do that? Simply by staying true to its subject, and by a medium that suits its message. A formidable challenge here is the present structure of college, its coursework, grades, costs, intellectual culture, social pressures, and taboos. Then there's popular culture, the anemic state of many of our churches, a decidedly mixed theological inheritance that has failed to fulfill both the Great Commission ("go and make disciples") and Great Commandment ("love one another"), rival authorities claiming and demanding our loyalty, confusions of the gospel with human traditions and ideologies and of the Triune God with other gods and lords, and on and on. These forces are much stronger than when I started teaching here, so the challenge is growing. But the power of the gospel continues to outdo all that and more—even in us, if we receive it with our whole hearts.

I believe God sees this course as a 'way' that we all will travel, together but not in lockstep, as a team gathered for a season of transformation, growth, and multiplication through mutual training, challenge, equipping, and discipline in thought and action. God intends to give every participant a new, lasting, and fruitful exposure to the core guidance of the living Church of Jesus Christ and to their divine source and focus, and to give every participating follower of Jesus new, lasting, and fruitful skill and fruitfulness in knowing God and serving God's mission and movement.

Our course is structured so that its form aligns with its academic topic, which is the knowledge of God we perceive through lives of learning from, knowing, remaining in, obeying, and sharing the Father in the Son through the Holy Spirit within their inclusive and expanding fellowship of saints. This is not a straightforward task, because of ways academic life and even academic theology have accommodated to other priorities and deficient visions.

Your physical education courses would be ridiculous if they didn't involve practicing the sport. Doctrine is 'spiritual education,' which involves practicing the life that Christian doctrine describes. Otherwise it's ridiculous too, even if our culture asserts otherwise.

'Doctrine' means 'teaching': not just information, but (as the military uses the term) guidance. And "you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers [and sisters]. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ" (Matthew 23:8–10 ESV). How well have we helped one another receive this word from our Lord? My role is not to be a conventional prof or expert teacher. It's to be a catalytic learner: a coach or a mentor within a chain of them that originates in Jesus Christ and his apostles and includes you and those whose lives you are shaping; a duckling following the line in front of me and with others behind; a mentor of mentors. And if you students are to learn theology that apprehends the Triune God in spirit and truth, then you must be apprentices, above all apprentices of Jesus, for "as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you" (John 20:21 ESV), and "everyone when fully trained will be like his teacher" (Luke 6:40). So honoring Christian doctrine/guidance calls us to learn how to learn and share all along the Lord's chain of duckling disciplemakers.

The challenge really is daunting. A Westmont education is a costly, demanding jar of clay in which you could find priceless treasure. You need to pay attention to the jar, but stay focused on the treasure. Help others do so, and don't become a distraction for them. And don't forget that the real treasure is available in other jars too, not just (in fact, not even primarily) this one.

The Course

This 4-unit course is a "thematic examination of biblical doctrines, including God, Christ, Holy Spirit, man [i.e., humanity], redemption, the Church; consideration of their historical development and contemporary meaning" (Undergraduate Catalog). Of the General Education requirements, it meets the Introduction to Christian Doctrine component.

The course's chief learning outcomes are that students will (1) demonstrate theological literacy by identifying central doctrines of Christian faith and forces shaping the history of global Christianity, and (2) demonstrate skills of careful reading and analysis in theological texts. These will be demonstrated in class exercises and outside activities, some written assignments, and written and oral examinations.