An Open Letter

To parents, pastors, and friends of my students:

Welcome to my website, and thanks for coming.

This website is for everyone: Students, fellow professors, alumni, parents, and pastors. I want to overturn a few possible stereotypes about collegiate education, and if you have a relationship with a student in my classes, I want to invite you to assist in the educational process.

Stereotype: College is a place where students leave their parents, churches, and friends to embark on a spiritual quest in which the environment is controlled by the school.

Reality: That can happen, and it is a powerful 'myth' shaping many imaginations. But I resist it. College ought to be a place where students bring the heritage of their parents, churches, and friends into conversation with the wonderful heirs of other families, churches, and friendships. I seek to strengthen those legacies, not undermine them, and extend those prior relationships, not cut them off. Stretching students' faith can compound the stress of college. It can intensify students' loneliness. It can create a sense of dislocation from the past and uncertainty about the future. Adolescents need space to find their adult voices, but the last thing I want to do is alienate them from their families and church homes. I not only welcome you but encourage you to check out the course syllabi, podcasted lectures, readings, assignments, lecture outlines, and other resources on this site. Watch some online lectures and read some assigned books, and discuss them freely and critically. Please ask the student to help you start a discovery group with other family or friends! While I do not want you to isolate students from the challenges of my courses, I want even less for my courses to isolate students from you.

You know these students better than I probably ever will. You have helped make them the tremendous people they are. Though they may be far from home – because they may be far from home – your continued fellowship, discipline, encouragement, and careful trust are critical.

That said, resist 'helicoptering' them or being too involved in 'getting them through' college. Let them learn and make mistakes. As the father of four, I've learned to do that, and while it's scary, it's truly gratifying to see them grow as adults, even if sometimes the hard way.

Stereotype: Professors have the hidden agenda of turning students into theological liberals who have lost their faith just like the professors themselves did in graduate school.

Reality: Like all my colleagues in religious studies, I found my own theological education to be stimulating, deepening, and affirming of my earlier faith, even when it challenged and questioned it. And as I look back, a number of my teachers did have visions that took me away somewhat from the vision and even calling that brought me there, in various directions. Retrieving that original vision has involved some disillusionment, some effort, and a lot of prayer; yet I am still grateful for the gifts of knowledge these mentors gave me even as I've also been frustrated and wished my course could have been a little straighter. So thanks for entrusting these beloved lives to us, and thanks for not trusting us too much with them! That said, my students tell me that they leave my classes with the same faith they had coming in, only deepened and enriched. That is just what we want. My former colleague Jonathan Wilson tells students: "We want to give you a faith that you will continually grow into, not a faith that you will grow out of." Amen.

The challenges we pose for students aren't automatically "liberal" or "conservative." The challenge to radical discipleship transcends that divide. Other things that don't fall into just one or another category are stress on the critical role of Christian community to faithful discipleship; respect for the character, work, and history of the Bible; God's call to make disciples in every place who make disciples in turn; focus on God's work on behalf of the poor and excluded, who are unusually open to casting off their old lives and walking in Jesus' new one; insistance that we take seriously the checquered history of the church; prayerful scrutiny of the ways we have learned to see the world and ourselves; demands for hard thinking and clear writing and speaking; fidelity to our evangelical heritage but especially to the living gospel it grew to promote; exposure to Christ's witnesses who are not evangelicals, and critical appreciation of them; and discernment of the nature, flaws, and potential of our wider cultures. Students will hear me make claims that some people call conservative and even fundamentalist, and other claims that some will call liberal. My goal and charge is to teach the faith of Jesus Christ, which happily accords with our school's mission and statement of faith.

Some of what we teach will expose students to ways of thinking that are unfamiliar or even unwelcome in their home churches. Please don't interpret this as a swipe at those communities. I have tremendous respect for any community that produces students with the robust, open, confident faith I see in so many incoming students. And much of what we teach reinforces and affirms exactly what made them that way, even if other Christians sometimes use different terms. Yet our students' churches and families disagree about some things too, and as Christians we still live under the constant challenge of our living Lord. We are always being taught, rebuked, corrected, and trained in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16). So differences come with the territory. I myself am becoming more radically committed to the Great Commission (Matt 28:16-20) and Great Commandment (John 13:34-35), which go together seamlessly, or ought to, and especially enthusiastic of disciple-making movement (DMM) strategies that are compatible with traditional church life but can bump up against traditional approaches and assumptions. As I seek to lead students through God's challenges in their lives, I too am being led through God's challenges in mine. Please take my challenges to students as the exercises of a coach who is also a player.

Stereotype: Professors are aloof and condescending.

Reality: Well, being sinners and all, we may try to be condescending. However, God finds ways to humble the exalted. When I was accepted to Duke for my doctorate, a dear church friend put me in my place better than anyone else. He probably didn't even realize it. All he said was, "Well, you always were good at school."

It's true. I always was good at school. And, having spent a few extra years in college, now I can make people call me "Doctor." But there is a whole lot more to life than school. My friend, who dropped out of college, was one of the wisest and most faithful men I know. He had musical and artistic talents I can only wish I appreciated. He raised faithful children and grew a successful business. He was a leader in more than one church. Because of our social traditions, his name doesn't get a special title; but because of the gifting of the Holy Spirit, his crown is covered with jewels. I have come to know people in disciple-making movements whose lives have yielded far more fruit than mine in far more humble circumstances. How can I get away with being condescending when all around me are churchgoers, friends, students, and colleagues like these? Moreover, we all follow the true Teacher who alone is to hold that title (Matt 23:8). ('Doctor' just means teacher, by the way.) So I tell my students that I'm just a TA for the actual Teacher, whose tests will matter a whole lot more than mine. And as just one TA or 'coach' in the undergraduate interim of my students' lives, I have the utmost respect for the other coaches, parental and pastoral, from whom these students will never graduate.

This website is here to help keep you in the loop. Feel free to reciprocate. I am eager to receive calls and e-mails when you have concerns and suggestions about my students or classes.