The Fellowship of His Sufferings: Is the Western Church Ready for Her Share?

In a time not so long ago and a place not that very far away, young people are imprisoned to suppress their aspiring faith. Homes used for religious meetings are confiscated to deter growing groups of believers. Churches, though officially registered as places of assembly, are shuttered by local government officials to throttle congregational life. Pastors are confined to solitary cells and tortured. As recently as thirty years ago, these actions represented typical forms of persecutions against Christians by Communist régimes. But some may say that Communism has failed while the Church has thrived, so there is no longer a need to recollect that recent dark age. Although it is true that Communism is not now the threatening menace Ronald Reagan decried as “The Evil Empire”, Christians throughout the Third World are still, to this day, confronted by both totalitarian governments and religious extremists whose forces perpetuate persecutions against the faithful. Indeed, what is occurring in the Sudan and North Korea, to name only two of hundreds of examples, may shortly come very close to home if not directly by political or terrorist means, then quite possibly indirectly in the midst of increasing economic and social upheavals or even through the “inconvenient truth” of climatological and ecological imbalances. Any one or more of these man-made or natural disasters could result in such a state of chaos that the deprivation of religious liberty will seem a small price to pay in an all-out effort to restore order, stability and security to society. Some in positions of governmental authority might even try to ease the transition from protection of liberties to their “limitation” by assuring the public that the more fundamental rights of free speech and press will be preserved despite an opening the door to suppression of what is increasingly being characterized as “intolerant” religious teachings and activities. MERELY POSSIBLE OR TO BE EXPECTED? If indeed the likelihood of persecution against the Western Church is rising, how should Christians react to this potential? Should we, at a minimum, acknowledge that it is indeed possible given both the teachings of Christ and the experiences of his followers through the past two millennia? Or, might we even venture to suggest that persecution and suffering are, in fact, part and parcel of what it means to be an authentic disciple of Christ even in present-day America? After announcing to his first followers that his course was set for Jerusalem where sure death awaited him, Jesus stated the terms of obedience for their future. “If any wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Christ’s cross was not just a heavy burden for him. To the contrary, it clearly meant suffering and death. Could his followers’ cross mean less? The Apostle Paul expounded upon the more demanding meaning when he wrote, “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake.” A life characterized by mere intellectual assent to Jesus’ claims was nowhere to be found in either Paul’s teaching or his practice. For Paul, to follow Christ meant just that – following the path Jesus pursued while here on earth. His path lead through suffering to death for others. Such a concept of the cross was not unique to Paul’s conceptualization of Christ’s call. The Apostle Peter also expressed a comparable view in his First Epistle when he wrote: If when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps. The lives of Paul and Peter testify to their understanding and obedience to Christ’s words. Indeed, the lives of myriads of believers from the first to the twenty-first century have willingly shared in Christ’s sufferings. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of that number known for his faith and concrete obedience, concluded that suffering was not just a possibility for a few but rather a defining characteristic for all believers in this present age, when he wrote: [S]uffering becomes the identifying mark of a follower of Christ. The disciple is not above the teacher. Discipleship is passio passiva , having to suffer. That is why Luther could count suffering among the marks of the true church . . . . [T]he church-community itself knows now that the world’s suffering seeks a bearer. So in following Christ, this suffering falls upon it, and it bears the suffering while being borne by Christ. If both the teachings of Christ and the experiences of his followers in the world, to date, demonstrate that persecution and suffering are not merely possible but are actually a part of the purposed path for believers in every age and in every place, then the Western church, in general, and the American church, in particular, would do well to ponder whether she is ready for her share in the sufferings of the Savior. PERSECUTION’S MANY FORMS Throughout the history of the Church, the stories of her martyrs have depicted the many and varied means used by her enemies to inflict suffering and death upon the faithful. As early as the Book of Hebrews, first-century believers recorded vivid accounts of persecution in its diverse forms: Others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. From imprisonment and torture to confiscation of property and brutal executions, the Church’s persecutors have employed willfully wanton, vile and heinous barbarisms in their efforts to compel personal renunciations of the faith and extinguish the light of Christ’s Gospel. Classic works, such as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, are replete with testimonies of those who were faithful even unto horrible deaths. Lesser known authors, like Shusaku Endo in his historical novel Silence, have also brought to light the enduring accounts of suffering missionaries who carried the Word of God to the remotest and often most dangerous parts of the earth. While the past cruelties of fallen men knew no bounds, the persecutions carried-out against Christians by both authoritarian régimes and extremist groups in the twentieth century became more sophisticated. The methods of abuse continued to parallel those of past centuries, but the means of implementation became more distinct. These means tended to fall within five categories. First, formal government action against Christianity as a religion. Second, formal government action against ‘unauthorized’ churches and denominations. Third, formal government action against churches, religious organizations or individuals holding beliefs or engaging in practices contrary to ‘public policy’. Fourth, opposition from either governmental agencies or private parties against churches or individuals holding beliefs or engaging in practices contrary to ‘public policy’. And finally, opposition from either governmental agencies or private parties against churches or individuals holding beliefs or engaging in practices contrary to the private or collective ideology of those parties in control. A sociologist might utilize these categories as a taxonomy of religious intolerance in an empirical study of human rights abuse. That, however, is not the purpose for which they are offered here. Rather, careful consideration of past acts of persecution against Christians is needed in order to challenge an all too indifferent Church in the West first to recognize the reality of an impending crisis and then to begin preparations for a purposeful response. In addition, understanding the relationship among the various means used to oppose the Church will also aid in discerning encroachments upon religious liberties that are now, for the most part, largely unrecognized by a majority of Christians in America. REMEMBER THOSE WHO SUFFER The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews admonished his readers to “remember the prisoners as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.” That exhortation to mindfulness is as applicable today as it was in the first century. Indeed, many who have undertaken a thorough study of the Church’s suffering throughout history contend that the twentieth century constituted the period of most extensive persecution as yet experienced by Christ’s followers. Over the past forty years, a steady stream of authors have told their own stories as well as reported those of literally thousands of others in a effort to awaken the consciousness of Christians in the West to the sufferings of fellow believers at the hands of their persecutors in what is now the former Soviet-block countries and in Muslim-dominated countries on the African and Asian continents. Lutheran pastor Richard Wurmbrand was one of the first to speak out on behalf of those suffering persecutions. Born in 1909 to a Jewish family in Bucharest, Romania, Wurmbrand converted to Christianity at the age of 29. Within six years, he was ordained into the Lutheran pastorate, and shortly thereafter he was forced into an underground ministry to avoid the oppressive control of churches by the Romanian government. In 1948, communist authorities arrested Wurmbrand and put him into solitary confinement. Following a total of fourteen years of harsh confinement stretching over two imprisonments, he gained his final release by means of a general amnesty in 1964. He then began a prolific writing and speaking campaign to tell his story through vivid accounts to both government agencies and private humanitarian groups in the West. His personal experiences dramatically portrayed the sufferings of the Christian believers in Romania and other Eastern Bloc countries. THE VOICE OF THE UNDERGROUND CHURCH Wurmbrand became known as “the voice of the underground church.” In his 1969 book, Sermons in Solitary Confinement, he succinctly depicted his years of confinement in the following words: Out of fourteen years in jail under the Communists in Rumania [sic], I spent three years alone in a cell thirty feet below ground, never seeing sun, moon or stars, flowers or snow, never seeing another man except for the guards and interrogators who beat and tortured me. I seldom heard a noise in that prison. The guards had felt-soled shoes and I did not her their approach. I had no Bible, nor any other book. I had no paper on which to write my thoughts. The only thing we were expected to write were statements accusing ourselves and others. Wurmbrand and his wife, Sabina, formed in 1967 what would later be known as “The Voice of the Martyrs,” an interdenominational organization working initially on behalf of persecuted Christians in Communist countries. Later, it expanded its activities to help persecuted believers wherever they were found, especially in Muslim countries. IN THE FORESTS OF THE CONGO Following on after Wurmbrand, others began to publish their own accounts of contemporary persecutions. In 1971, David Truby wrote Régime of Gentlemen, his personal account of the experiences of Congolese Christians during the 1964 rebellion in that former Belgium colony. The story of Magundi Paul is representative of the many government-sanctioned attacks against believers who were caught in the middle of this political rebellion. Paul was a teacher at a government-recognized school in Boyulu. He first encountered the rebel Simbas when they arrived at his school one day in the fall of 1964. They demanded to see his political party membership papers. Since Paul had no card showing affiliation with the Simbas’ party, he was arrested and accused of being a member of the rival party. Paul denied being a member of either party and admitted only that he was a teacher and a Christian. Though he was later released after this first confrontation, many other Christians missionaries were killed by the Simbas the following month. Paul was arrested again. This time the Simbas confiscated all of his personal possessions. As he was being transported through the jungle for trial, Paul and several others were able to escape into the forest. There he continued, much like Wurmbrand to Romania’s underground church, to minister to refugees secluded in small villages throughout the province’s jungles. Like Paul, many other Christians in the Congo were torn from their peaceful homesteads without warning, as the Simba rebels descended upon villages and towns in an attempt to establish their utopian “Régime of Gentlemen.” The rebellion, though, quickly turned from idealism to brutality as persecution commenced. The Christian churches in the area where Magundi Paul served as a teacher estimated that over one thousand three hundred of their members never returned from being captured by the Simbas. Although the number of victims in the Congolese persecution was relatively smaller than those who were suffering at the same time in Communist-dominated Eastern Europe, the intensity of their pain and loss was no less severe. UNDER THE HAMMER AND SICKLE In the early 1970’s, Winfred Scheffbuch called the plight of suffering Christians throughout the Soviet Union to the attention of the Western Church by the publication of his book, Christen unter Hammer und Sichel. Within two years, Mark Noll (later to become widely known as the author of The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind) translated Scheffbuch’s work into English for publication in the United States. While readers of Truby’s accounts from the Congo may have considered his stories merely inspiring incidents of a few isolated modern-day martyrs, Scheffbuch’s evidence of wide-spread, systematic and on-going governmental persecution against both individual Christians and entire church denominations could not be so lightly dismissed. Among the most gripping of Scheffbuch’s accounts are those he tells of young, teen-aged believers who were imprisoned for their profession of faith. Their stories showed clearly that even after fifty years of atheistic propaganda and a most massive suppression of Christian faith, Soviet young people were still searching for God. In 1970 the council of Relatives of Imprisoned Evangelical Christians and Baptists compiled a list of reports including the cases of 18-year old Vladimir Sinchenko and 19-year old Yevgeny Rodoslavov. Sinchenko was arrested in October 1968 and later sentenced to three years in a prison camp. He came from the congregation of the ECB’s (Evangelical Christians and Baptists) in the Ukrainian city Kharkov, the sixth largest city in the USSR. In a trial convened in Odessa trial that same year, Rodoslavov, together with others members of his home congregation, was sentenced to a total of ten years in a labor camp and exile. The physical pains of imprisonment and torture were common among believers suffering under the hammer and sickle. But in addition to these inflictions of pain, the Communist authorities also regularly used economic sanctions, such as fines and confiscations of personal and real property, in their efforts to rein in the Church’s growth through the Soviet Union. Scheffbuch details several examples of this type of oppression. The confiscation of houses used for meetings has turned out to be an effective means for the state to restrict active congregations. . . . The cancellation of officially registered places for assembly has an even more damaging effect since Khrushchev’s legal decree of 1963 stated that religious meetings in private dwellings require (in principle) official approval. With this law, the total throttling of congregational life is possible without a trial, solely through administrative channels. Novosibirsk In this Siberian city, the house which belongs to Maria Samsonov . . . was confiscated by the court on 6 July 1970. The complaint was that gatherings of the ECBs were held in this house. At the entrance of the house a notice was posted with this inscription: “Camp No. 5 of the Second Foodstuff Collective.” No one was admitted into the house after this. Persecutors of Christians did not stop with taking pastors and members away from churches into concentration camps and re-education facilities. They also took church buildings and other meeting places away from congregations thus driving believers underground into secretive gatherings. THE CHURCH OF SILENCE Following shortly after the publication of Scheffbuch’s work in America, Sergiu Grossu edited a compilation of essays, stories, letters, poetry and appeals recounting the persecution being suffered by Christians not only behind the Iron Curtain but also behind what had then become known as the “Bamboo Curtain” in East and Southeast Asian countries that had also been subjugated by the Communists. Originally published in France in 1973 as a supplement to the monthly periodical Catacombes, Grossu’s book was subsequently translated into English and published in America in 1975 under the title, The Church in Today’s Catacombs. In its introduction, Grossu sets forth his purpose in presenting the abundance of detailed entries forming his documentary: We hope that this book will convince our friends that the existence of the Church of Silence continues; that this Church, savagely persecuted and tortured for its faithfulness to Christ in the midst of treason and apostasy is forced to live in modern catacombs; that the actual forms of persecution – practiced in thousands of persons, hard-labor camps, and psychiatric asylums across the Soviet empire – exceed all methods of degradation and torture that man has known; and that the long list of Christian martyrs of all faiths honors the children of God who, despite their chains, remained faithful to him “unto death.” Beyond the mounting multitude of eye-witness accounts of pain and suffering that Grossu adds to those of Scheffbuch, Truby and Wurmbrand, his work also includes essays exploring the Communist ideology that compels such comprehensive efforts at the destruction of religious belief and practice. A brief paper by Norbert Tournoux contains particular insights in this regard: In order to secure its ideological dictatorship, Communism crushes without mercy or shame all opposition. It seeks out all dissenting world view, ferreting them out rigorously and persistently, the more so as they declare or present themselves as incompatible with it. . . . For Communism, the natural adversary and fitting obstacle is Christianity. . . . In order to remain true to its nature, the Soviet regime, born antireligious, can really never tolerate the free activity of the Christian communities, and all agreements with this régime are but a trap that results in their undoing. It abhors the Church, its leaders, and its doctrines. Seeking to destroy a world in order to rebuild it according to the standards of its political utopia, the régime leaves little room for moral scruples . . . . In addition to providing thoughtful reflections upon the ideas driving the Communist persecution of the Church, Grossu also extends the scope of his work to include accounts of believers’ sufferings and death the Bamboo Curtain in China, North Korea and what was then, North Vietnam. A French teacher, Jacques Marsouin, wrote about his experiences of being “struck by the widespread traumatism that seems to have seized the Church in China” in the early 1960’s. Chinese Christians lived “as though after a violent shock: bewildered, fearful, reduced to silence in order not to risk being beaten again.” Later in his account, Marsouin pondered the significance of the silence he observed among the Chinese believers: It is said here and there that its silence does not mean death; on the contrary, like the primitive church of the catacombs, there is preparing in China a magnificent spiritual renewal, forged in silence and suffering. Despite all my faith, I am more pessimistic. The Chinese Communist persecution is nothing like that of ancient Rome. As one young Frenchman put it, Communist ideology “robs us of our souls.” In contrast to the shockwave effect accomplished in China, the Communists of North Korea charted a slower, more deliberate offensive against the faithful. “In schools they began to teach a base materialism and to revile religion.” In the workplace, supervisors would target Christians applying pressure so that professing their faith would become increasingly difficult. “The Communist system had its fixed, immutable program. Agrarian reform was the first objective; religion was the sixth . . . The difference was only in that the first fives had been put into effect overnight, while the fight against religion was developing slowly, though persistently . . .” Though in many ways subdued by Communist’s onslaughts in China and North Korea, the Church’s resistance in North Vietnam, as recounted by Grossu’s contributors, was considerably more determined. The resisters’ faith in Christ “emboldened those struggling against the ideological subversion and violent atrocities of Communism.” Despite persecutions and executions of their fellow believers, many of the Christians who fled the North were the first to fight against the Tet Offensive in 1968. Churches, their leaders and members were attacked. The North tortured or executed as many as possible, but the Christians still resisted. A French general who witnessed this struggle recounted, “The blood of martyrs has made Christianity the greatest force against Communism in Vietnam. It has also been the greatest hope of the Church of Silence in the North, of the struggling church in the South, and of the whole church of Vietnam.” THE SIBERIAN SEVEN Stories of resistance and faithfulness in the face of ever-increasing persecutions gained a even larger audience in the West in the late 1970’s as additional authors took up the cause first heralded by Wurmbrand in the previous decade. Christian biographer, John Pollock joined this effort to raise the awareness of the persecuted Church among many still complacent in the West with his book, The Siberian Seven, published in 1979. Pollock’s lesser known first work, Faith and Freedom in Russia, addressing the persecution of Christians in Russia throughout the twentieth century, had actually predated the publication of Wurmbrand’s first book, Tortured for Christ. Yet, Pollock did not gain the recognition as merely a reporter that Wurmbrand did as the one who had personally survived the torments of persecutors and became the “Voice of the Underground Church.” Pollock’s account of the Siberian Seven, though, was quite compelling. Written while the seven members of two Siberian Christian families were within the protective custody of the American Embassy in Moscow, Pollock drew upon hundreds of hand-written manuscript pages produced by Peter Vashchenko and Maria Chmykhalvos during their days within the embassy’s walls. He considered their personal recollections contain with those pages to be “the fullest single account” of persecutions against Russian Christians “ever to be received in the West.” The seven had traveled thousands of miles to seek permission from the Soviet authorities to emigrate so that they might freely practice their faith. When they request was rejected they fled to the American Embassy. One of the families’ sons was caught by Soviet militiamen as they were fleeing. Thugs later beat and tortured him. Even though he was given “the full treatment, almost the electric chair,” this young man managed to convey a message to his family urging them to stay within the protection of diplomatic territory rather than risk returning to their home so that he might be granted his release. Their son would rather suffer continued cruelties as long as hope of his family’s eventual freedom remained. His faith and character, though tested by fire, emerged as pure gold. His story, along with those of the Siberian Seven, joined with those of others suffering under intense persecution in issuing yet another call for help to the West. In a deeper way, though, their testimonies raised the question of the Western Church’s readiness to face persecution at the hands of those driven by an atheistic ideology. Soon that threat would emerge increasingly no longer from atheism but from religious extremism. BY THEIR BLOOD James and Marti Hefley first chronicled the rising force of persecution against Christians by radical Islamic groups in their thoroughly researched work on Christian martyrdom in the twentieth century entitled By Their Blood. Their book was first published in the same year as Pollock’s Siberian Seven, 1979. Fifteen years later, the Hefley’s produced a second, more comprehensive, edition. In it they admit the overwhelming challenge of the task they had undertaken. They endeavored to report on a representative number of the more than 119 million cases of Christians martyred during the twentieth century as documented by the Southern Baptist Convention’s World Mission Digest. The Hefley’s tome begins with the Boxer Rebellion in China and solemnly progresses century-long through the Church’s sufferings and losses in East, Central and South Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and South America. Some of the historical accounts had previously come to light through the testimonies and reports of earlier authors, noted above. But many of the stories recounted by the Hefleys’ focused new attention upon the persecution of Christian in Muslim-dominated countries given only passing notice in prior works describing the suffering Church. Pakistan’s institution of Islamic Law in 1991 presents a pre-eminent example in this regard. The change in governance resulted in “a reversal of long-standing legal and constitutional guarantees of religious freedom for Pakistan’s non-Muslim minorities.” In one particular case, a Christian in Lahore was merely accused by a Muslim of “insulting the Prophet Mohammed,” and hanged – the punishment demanded by Islamic Law for this crime. Scores of similar cases were perpetrated under the Islamic régimes in Afghanistan and Iran. DESOLATION OF DESOLATIONS Radical Muslims controlled not only governments throughout Central Asia. Their reach and accompanying intolerance toward Christianity also extended into other Third-World continents. The Sudan’s territory, described by one British civil servant during the colonial era as “a desolation of desolations,” comprises the largest country in modern Africa. Early in the twentieth century, a Muslim fanatic named Mohammed Ahmad, led a revolt in which Christians were faced with the choice of death or converting to Islam. Ahmad had proclaimed himself the al-Mahdi – “The Divinely Guided One.” His forces beheaded many of captured Christians who refused to renounce their faith. Others were tortured or taken as slaves in the service of the Mahdi. Similar persecutions continued in the Sudan throughout the 1900’s. Additional waves of sufferings at the hands of radical Muslims ensued as well as a period of Communist-supported persecution in the 1960’s. In 1989, an extremist Muslim military took control of the government with the intent of turning the country into a full-fledged Islamic state. Literally millions of southern Sudanese Christians were displaced or subjected to terrible repression. The new government declared Christianity a “foreign organization” and hence subject to rigorous restrictions. Community worship services were forbidden without the special permission of the state authorities. As a result, pastors who disobeyed these Islamic restrictions were executed and church buildings burned. IN THE LION’S DEN With the startling increase in reports of Christian persecutions in the 1990’s, a special conference convened in January 1996 under the sponsorship of The Puebla Program on Religious Freedom. The program’s purpose was to advocate for the rights of persecuted Christians and other religious minorities through the presentation of reports from on-site investigations that had been conducted by Puebla over the previous ten years. The definitive product of that consultation was the publication of In the Lion’s Den documenting the most egregious examples of persecution investigated. The work was written by the Puebla Program’s Director Nina Shea. Once again a clear case was made detailing sufferings of Christians “targeted by ruthless dictators who demanded total power and control, intolerant of those who believe in the Supreme Being – the transcendent God – or in the inherent dignity of all person created in God’s image.” As in the previous work done by the Hefleys, Shea focused particular attention upon the many instances where believers were “demonized by militant and xenophobic Islamist movements seeking to capture the soul of a historically tolerant Islamic faith.” In addition to mounting evidences of increasing persecutions perpetuated by radical religionists, Shea provides insights into the largely non-responsive attitude that has persisted in the Western Church even in the face of advocates’ repeated calls for the West to rise up in defense of their suffering brothers and sisters over more than thirty years. Quoting Richard Land, president of the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, in his 1996 testimony before a committee of the United States Congress, Shea notes: The persecution of Christians in various parts of the world has not been a high profile item on America’s agenda . . . First, too often people in the West, peering through the selective prism of Christian history in the West, reflexively think of Christians as persecutors rather than the persecuted. [Further], an increasingly secularized West and its leadership elite tend to be indifferent and often uncomprehending of a spiritual worldview which endures persecution and death for the sake of belief. A WORLDWIDE PLAGUE Within months of Shea’s publication of the findings from the Puebla Program’s investigative work, Canadian scholar Paul Marshall’s book, Their Blood Cries Out, appeared. Marshall’s work was an even more comprehensive compilation of accounts that was touted by his publisher as “the untold story of persecution against Christians in the modern world.” Instead of concentrating on persecutions of throughout the century or even of the past few decades, Marshall addresses the persecutions currently transpiring in the Sudan, China, Iran and Cuba, as well as numerous other Third World countries. Marshall, however, goes much further than even Shea in his indictment of the Western Church for its self-centered indifference to the plight of suffering Christians he characterizes as “a worldwide plague.” Marshall’s hue and cry against the West is joined by none other than Michael Horowitz, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, who challenged American Jews like himself in his 1995 Wall Street Journal editorial “to not be silent in the face of ‘persecutions eerily parallel to those committed by Adolf Hitler.’” The root of Western apathy toward the on-going sufferings of Christians around the world is further exposed by Marshall’s citation of a response to Horowitz from David Stravers, vice president of the Bible League: American Christians for the most part are not interested in anything that happens outside the boundaries of the United States, and in many cases outside the boundaries of their own little community . . . [and they] have no experience of persecution or suffering for their faith which remotely resembles the experiences of many of our overseas brothers and sisters. It is difficult to empathize . . . many, many, many American Christians refuse to believe what is reported because it is so far outside their experience. Marshal and Shea both sound clarion calls intended to rouse the lethargic Western Church to the cause of the suffering. Others continued to join their effort. Even as Lutheran pastor Richard Wurmbrand had begun the endeavor upon his release from Communist-imposed confinement, another leading Lutheran theologian, who had himself escaped the clutches of Communist oppression in North Korea, contributed yet another verse with the publication of his autobiography, By the Grace of God I Am What I Am in 2004. In this work, Dr. Won Yong Ji recounts his harrowing escape from a band of Russian soldiers. He also adds further testimony to the thousands of cases of Christian martyrdom in the twentieth century by his telling of the abduction and subsequent execution of his mentor and dear friend, Dr. Chang-Kun Song. Thus, from Wurmbrand through Ji, the stories of suffering believers have been vividly told in the hearing of the Western Church for the past forty years. WHAT WILL THE WEST’S RESPONSE BE? But, what is the Church in America to learn from these accounts of the twentieth-century persecuted Church? First, we must acknowledge our blatant need to confess the malignant sin of indifference that all-to-often met the repeated calls from our suffering brothers and sisters. This confession, though, must lead to concrete actions to take-up the burdens of these fellow believers who continue to suffer persecutions at the hands of totalitarians régimes and religious extremists. Characteristic American indifference to the world-at-large was, however, disturbed on September 11th. Although five years hence many in the United States have again lapsed into a slumber induced by personal peace and affluence, yet an increasing number of conscientious Christians are beginning to engage the cause of their suffering fellow-believers. More organizations like the Wurmbrand’s “Voice of the Martyrs” have been formed. These include “The Jubilee Campaign” operating in both the United Kingdom and the United States, “Release International” and the “International Justice Mission.” These private organizations not only seek to raise awareness about persecution of Christians and other minority groups, they also actively undertake the advocate individual cases of those who are being tried or have been imprisoned for the practice of their religious beliefs. Richard Wurmbrand’s appeal to Christians in the West to ready themselves for engaging the battle before them is as applicable today as when he first wrote these words: Dear brothers and sisters, I want you to fight for the triumph of righteousness and love, that is for the triumph of Christ on earth; but remember that it is always easier to fight for a principle than to live up to it. Don't choose the easy way, but the way of the Cross. Don't remain yourselves unrighteous and lacking in sweetness while you are fighting for righteousness. Clothe yourselves with Christ and with all his virtues, and so fight. It is not only I who sit in prison. You are all in the prisons of your sinful selves, and of your wrong and limited ideas. Let Jesus free you of these! Then you will be able to fight and to attain your aim. PREPARED TO SHARE IN THE SUFFERINGS? While advocacy groups like those mentioned above are a very appropriate and needed response to the persecuted Church’s plight, there is an even greater need for the Western Church and more particularly its leaders. It is the need to confront the growing potential for the West’s own experience in these sufferings. Not if, but when persecution comes, how will the Western Church respond? In order to engage in a thoughtful reflection upon such a response, the Western Church would do well to consider how our brothers and sisters who have faced persecutions in the past century responded. Their responses broadly fell into four categories of actions: flight, civil disobedience, resistance and, in a few extreme cases, use of force. For the first response, we have not only the example of Dr. Ji’s escape from North Korea, but also the biblical record of the Apostle Paul who chose to flee impending threats on more than one occasion. Flight, when and where possible, should be considered a viable as well as prudent option. Second, the experiences of Wurmbrand and many others, especially those recorded by Scheffbuch, demonstrate that Christians will often be called upon to follow the example of Peter and John in obedience to God and disobedience of human authorities. Christian conscience demands civil disobedience when governmental sanctions would seek to prohibit adherence to faith and the practice it commands. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, another of the twentieth-century Church’s martyrs, articulated the ethical basis for this response in light of the general Scriptural exhortations to obey governing authorities, when he wrote: The Christian is neither obliged nor able to examine the rightfulness of the demand of government in each particular case. His duty of obedience is binging on him until government directly compels him to offend against the divine commandment, that is to say, until government openly denies its divine commission and thereby forfeits its claim. In cases of doubt obedience is required; for the Christian does not bear the responsibility of government. But if government violates or exceeds its commission at any point, for example by making itself master over the belief of the congregation, then at this point, indeed, obedience is to be refused, for conscience’ sake, for the Lord’s sake. Although Bonhoeffer did not follow Luther’s views expressed in his doctrine of the two kingdoms, on the question of obedience when injustice would result, both essentially agree in principle. Instructing the Christian on his conduct in the “left-hand kingdom” Luther states: “There you govern yourself according to love and tolerate no injustice toward your neighbor.” With respect to their personal lives with the “right-hand kingdom,” Luther taught that the Christian should “do injustice to on one, love everyone, and suffer injustice . . . willingly and cheerfully at the hands of anyone.” Third, in cases where authoritarian régimes targeted other minority or religious groups, Christians like Bonhoeffer as well as even youths such as Sophie and Han Scholl, joined in active resistance efforts aimed at restoring a just order when the established government had become corrupt. Although circumstances such as these are outside the scope of the twentieth-century examples of the persecuted Christians chronicled in the works noted above, the Western Church must give serious thought to the appropriateness of similar acts of resistance against intolerance. Any acts of resistance, though, must have as their purpose not only the thwarting of evil and injustice but also the restoration of order founded upon justice. Luther also provides clear instruction on this point when he addresses the question of the Christian’s duty of obedience to governing authorities. “What if the prince is in the wrong? Are his people bound to follow him then too? Answer: No, for it is no one’s duty to do wrong; we must obey God (who desires the right) rather than men [Acts 5:29].” Finally, it is imperative for the Western Church to ponder whether the use of force should ever be considered as a permissible means to combat its own persecution. If the suffering is indeed participation in the sufferings of Christ, then the Church’s response would appear to be limited to those of her Master’s who “while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.” In contrast to the path of passive resistance, Bonhoeffer presents one of the most striking examples from the past century of participation in the use of force by a Christian. While his thought processes cannot be simplistically summarized, it is noteworthy that he accepted the moral responsibility for his actions understanding that: When the deed is performed with a responsible weighing up of all the personal and objective circumstances and in the awareness that God has become man and that it is God who has become man, then this deed is delivered up solely to God at the moment of its performance. Ultimate ignorance of one’s own good and evil, and with it a complete reliance upon grace, is an essential property of responsible historical action. The man who acts ideologically sees himself justified in his idea; the responsible man commits his action into the hands of God and lives by God’s grace and favor. Another twentieth-century theologian and apologist, Francis Schaeffer, argued in his 1982 book, A Christian Manifesto, that a time may indeed come when a Christian is not only obliged to disobey an unjust law, but also to use force against a corrupt government. Whether one would consider following Bonhoeffer or Schaeffer, the use of force must be viewed as the least desirable and the rarest form of response to persecution. To choose this final course, all other responses must first be exhausted and deemed futile before force is undertaken, and even then, Bonhoeffer at least, would have us accept its moral responsibility as necessary in an effort to stop the evil against which it acts. PASTORAL CARE FOR THE PERSECUTED CHURCH After giving careful thought to the range of appropriate responses to the perpetrators of its persecution, the Western Church and its leaders, in particular, must also begin now to contemplate the means of providing needed pastoral care for the suffering congregation. The experiences of believers under persecution throughout the twentieth century once again prove instructive. What will the Church do when her sanctuaries are shuttered and place permitted to conduct worship services? What will she do when pastors are taken from their congregations? What will she do when land-lines, DSL and mobile phones are inoperable? What will she do when the lights go out? In order for the Church to maintain some semblance of congregational life in the midst of persecution, it will be necessary for her members to explore all manner of alternative means of for communication. This could very well take the form of circular letters much like those that sustained the growth of the primitive church in the first century. These communiqués may even have to be hand-written since the full availability of functioning technology can not be assumed. Persecuted believers in the Soviet Union “published privately a newspaper, The Fraternal Leaflet. [It was] simply a straightforward little sheet for edification.” Scheffbuch noted that although this newspaper was duplicated by the simplest means, it constituted an important link among individual suffering congregations. He concluded that this type of written communication proved indispensable for equipping ministers for their work. In addition to making provision for adequate means of communication, it will also likely be necessary for the suffering church in the West to return to small meetings in private homes rather than the typical gathering of congregations in church buildings or chapels. The phenomenal growth of congregations throughout China as a result of the “House Church” movement provides ample evidence for considering this option as one of the most viable in the face of religious oppression. Small group worship services in private homes may be held at any time Christians are able to gather together. Moreover, there may often be a need for moving the location of worship services in order to avoid detection by those authorities who would seek to eliminate all communal practices of targeted religious groups. Along with the possibility of numerous small gatherings in private homes or other secluded locales, pastors will also have to confront the need to administer the Word and Sacraments under the most difficulty of circumstances. The sermon may very well need to be written and circulated among several small groups who would each designate one of their number to read the sermon aloud for the benefit of all. Lay members of each small congregation will need to be commissioned to administer communion in the absence of an ordained pastor. Ordination itself may need to be reconsidered as a function of these small house congregations since activity on a denominational scale through district or synodical functions may be entirely impracticable. The most important of all pastoral care functions, though, will undoubtedly involve regular prayer, encouragement and even visitation, if possible, of those experiencing the most direct effects of persecution – those imprisoned or those from whom their homes and possessions have been confiscated. Its is nearly impossible to imagine the demands that will be placed upon those rendering pastoral care in such dark times. The following prayer uttered by Pastor Wurmbrand in his solitary cell over fifty years ago for deliverance from the evils of Communist persecution should likewise resound in the ears of the Western Church today as she is on the brink of her own potential sufferings. Though this persecution may not arise out of the same ideology as drove Wurmbrand’s oppressors, totalitarian and religious extremist of our own day could just as easily perpetrate even worse atrocities, so we would do well to listen: “You, brothers and sisters in the West, are free. Don’t you know about the evils of Communism? Some of you may be indifferent. But there is something worse than indifference. It is indifference to indifference. Some of you may not even care that the church has become indifferent to the cries of millions of men martyred by the Communists. When I say the prayer “Deliver us from evil”, I don’t’ address it to a God somewhere far away in heaven. I address it to you, those in whom God Abides. All our prayers in these underground dungeons are an appeal to you, too. . . . I cannot tell you what to do for us. The pastors among us have been smitten, and the sheep are scattered. Care for these sheep, gather them in. Our Bibles have been confiscated. Our families eat garbage. I don’t know how you can reach them. But you are the abode of the almighty and omniscient God. . . . . “Deliver us from evil.” Communism is evil. Brothers and sisters in the West, deliver us. Amen. HARD TIMES ARE COMING The Apostle Paul delivered to his son in the faith, Timothy, a message that the affluent and personal-peace obsessed Church in the West need to hear loud and clear: “In the last days difficult times will come.” Although popular evangelical novels suggest that “great tribulation” is not in store for Christians but rather a “glorious rapture” away from the impending perils of this earth, the truth of matter is Christ’s cross has always meant suffering in the here and now. The blood of the Church’s martyrs from the first century to the twentieth bears telling testimony to Christ’s own words to his disciples: “In this world you will have tribulation.” Thus, the Western Church must take heed to her calling and prepare herself by confessing her selfish indifference and beginning even now to take up the burdens of her persecuted brothers and sisters throughout the Third World so that she may even begin to make ready for her share in the sufferings of Christ.

Some Limitations on Faith & Learning Integration

 

Introduction

Much has been written over the past several decades on the subject of integration of faith and learning.1  I hesitate, then, to offer up another and more feeble attempt to address this profound idea.  A survey of the current corpus of the faith-learning integration literature will yield a plethora of definitions, explanations, descriptions, applications and, above all, exhortations to both the theory and practice of integration.  What I fear is lacking, however, in our ongoing consideration of this subject is the acknowledgement and understanding of the existence of some limitations on faith and learning integration.  An awareness of these very real and intended limitations will, I believe, prompt us to engage in the endeavor with humility born of human finitude and fallenness, and in so doing, persevere in our continuing efforts to attain the goal of faith and learning integration.

That goal, in its most essential expression, is to achieve human completeness – the ανθρωπος τελιος.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer aptly described this goal when he wrote from his Nazi prison cell:  “the Christian and the man of liberal education . . . cannot split up his life or dismember it, and the common denominator must be sought in a personal and integrated attitude to life.  The man who allows himself to be torn into fragments by events and by questions has not passed the test for the present and the future.” Bonhoeffer Letters 200).  Indeed, Bonhoeffer was echoing in his words the wisdom of Solomon who admonished his children to the integrated life.  “The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.” (Proverbs 11:3 NIV).  Integration is thus the road to the future as well as the praxis for fully engaging the present experience of what it means to be human.

While this noble goal is a certain part of our divinely purposed future, there currently exists impairments that impose limitations on our attainment of human completeness in the here and now.  The purpose of this essay is to provoke a consideration of the origin, extent and implications of these limitations on faith and learning integration.  As to their origin, I will suggest that the limitations are both inherent in human nature – matters of creation – and acquired in human experience – matters of the fall.  As to their extent, I will contend that the limitations broadly impair perception, understanding and implementation of knowledge.  And finally, I will argue that the implications of these limitations should lead all who seek to integrate faith and learning to acknowledge that, though the goal of human completeness cannot be fully attained in present experience, we must continue our journey along this road understanding that integration is a mutually interdependent, dynamic process within the human community.  In short, we need one another to progress along the path.  A solitary traveler is doomed to destruction.

Origin of the Limitations

To be human is to be limited.  Though throughout the history of humankind, men and women have exerted great energies to overcome the limitations that naturally adhere to our species, and though some of those attempts have met with measures of success, as in the arenas of medicine, communication and transportation, to name only some of the obvious ones – humans are still confronted with the undeniable reality that we are limited not only in time and space, but also in knowledge and understanding.  These limitations came into existence at our origin and then have been exacerbated by human experience. 

At the point of origin, the human is limited by the delineation of the space occupied by the person and the duration of time one will survive.  In addition to these externally apparent limitations, the human, i.e. the creature, is limited internally.  The human is capable of acquiring only a finite measure of knowledge.  Although Aristotle asserted that in knowing “the soul is in a certain manner all existing things” (emphasis added),2 humanity can not escape its limitations by an individualistic knowing as Aristotle’s point itself admits.

Professor Richard Hughes emphasizes the importance of the learner’s recognition of the existence of such limitations upon the individual.  “My first objective in every class I teach is to help my students develop an appreciation for human finitude, for limits, for the ambiguity of the human situation – even for the inevitability of death . . . . We begin with the one conviction that Christian faith and serious academic exploration share in common:  an affirmation of our limitations as human beings.” (Hughes 107). These human limitations are thus limitations are all human endeavors, and as such they impose limitations upon the process of integration of faith and learning.  But simply acknowledging the limitedness of the human due to nature as a created being is an insufficient explanation of the origin of the limitations. One cannot more completely understand their origin without a consideration what effect man’s fall from his original state of creation had on human capabilities to know.

Just whether and to what extent the fall had an affect upon our human ability to know and understand truth has been an issue of debate through the ages.   Aquinas taught that the fall did not affect man as a whole but only in part; specifically, the will was fallen or corrupted but the intellect was not affected.  (Schaeffer 52).  In his article, “The Splendor of Knowledge,” John Young expounds the Thomist perspective.

St. Thomas Aquinas points out that the perfection of each created thing is incomplete and that knowing things have a remedy for this incompleteness because “there is found another mode of perfection in created things, according as the perfection which is proper to one thing is found in another thing; and this is the perfection of a knower inasmuch as it is a knower.” (De Veritate, q. 2, a. 2).  This explains man’s deep urge to know, especially to know the noblest things.  He is one individual, limited by space and time.  However, through knowledge he transcends the confines of his human nature and becomes many things.  And he burst the limits of space and time by knowing things existing outside the small area in which his body subsists, and in times other than the present.  We know only imperfectly.  But to the extent that we know, we have become the known.  The potentiality to know has become actual knowledge, and this knowledge is the reality, so far as it is known.6 (Young 18-19)

Though Aquinas recognized a measure of limitation upon the ability to know, some have contended that he failed to appreciate fully the depth of the effect the fall had upon man’s reason, perception and understanding of truth.  For example, Francis Schaeffer argues that Aquinas’ teaching that the fall corrupted only man’s will and not his mind was the seed bed of the humanism that arose later in the Renaissance because it “opened the way for people to think of themselves as autonomous and the center of all things.”  (Schaeffer 55-56).

Without attempting to resolve this debate, we may assert that, at least, the limitations inherent in humanness were accentuated and exacerbated by man’s willful assertion in disobedience to the divine design.  “Man’s wisdom is limited both because he is finite and because he is fallen.”  (Curtis 221).   Humans were created as meaning-seeking and meaning-producing creatures, but these capacities are limited and warped by both man’s finite and fallen condition.  (Clark & Gaede 75).  While God’s absolute truth is available to us, through his revelation and our reason, our finitude limits, contextualizes and diversifies our understandings of it; our fallenness leads us to resist, distort and misuse the truth in self-serving ways.  (Clark & Gaede 79).

Extent of the Limitations

Having acknowledged that limitations are part and parcel of being human, the one who seeks to integrate faith and learning must also consider the extent to which these limitations impair the pursuit toward the attainment of integration’s goal.  An effort to set forth an analysis of this scope could range from the overly simplistic to the extremely complex.  While the former would likely fail to confront the varied dimensions of the limits, the latter most certainly would lead to theoretical speculations of diminished practical value in providing guidance along the integration journey.  Yet, a careful consideration of just how far these limitations extend must, at a minimum, address the essential aspects of perception, understanding and implementation of knowledge.

First, there is the limitation of perception.  To be human means, in part, to have the ability to perceive what exists outside of one’s self.  Such abilities ordinarily include “seeing” and “hearing,” as well as the other senses, but perception is not exercised solely by the senses.  The physical senses, though, serve to illustrate the limitation of perception.  Humans, even those without extraordinary disabilities, still have limited ranges of both sight and hearing, and thus the ability to perceive fully is always impaired. With respect to the spiritual dimension of sight, the Apostle Paul wrote, “For now we see in a mirror dimly . . .” (I Corinthians 13:12).  Both physically and spiritually the human’s ability to see is faulty. “Our vision is flawed, imperfect, limited, imprecise, skewed.”  (Reichenbach 23).  These deficiencies have analogies to all the means of perception, whether sensual or intuitive.  Humans are possessed of dim eyes restricted by blinders, dense ears stopped-up with wax, callous fingers seared by heat, dull tongues coated with phlegm and blocked noses clogged with congestion.  Applying the reality of limited perception to the task of integration within the academic context, Reichenbach concludes, “Professing must be done from humility brought on by the recognition of our extreme finitude . . . . Socrates was correct:  to recognize one’s limits is the beginning of wisdom.” (Reichenbach 23)

Second, there is the limitation of human understanding.  This aspect of limitation both flows from limited perception and accentuates the restraints upon the achievement of human completeness in the present experience.  The writer of Ecclesiastes describes the effect of an impaired ability to understand that is characteristic of all humans regardless of intellectual capabilities.  “I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun.  However much man may toil in seeking [to understand], he will not find it out.  Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out.  (Ecclesiastes 8:17 ESV).  Individual man is limited in his ability to process the information that his limited perception has acquired from outside himself.  Levels of cognitive ability vary from one individual to another as a result of both inherent aptitude and acquired skills that depend upon opportunities for their development.  Yet, in every case human understanding of any particular field of knowledge remains incomplete.  No one individual can perceive it all.  No one individual can understand it all, even when the object of that individual’s perception and subsequent efforts at understanding is very narrowly defined.  Moreover, while God is the source of all truth, and this truth is absolute, our understanding of that truth is relative, incomplete, selective and distorted by our human condition.  (Clark & Gaede 76).

Thus far in the explanation of the extent of human limitations, one might be left with a feeling of near hopelessness arising from the recognition that human perception of knowledge is obscured and human understanding of knowledge is incomplete and often distorted.  Yet, the one who endeavors to integrate faith and learning “must agree with Socrates that it is essential that we [continue to] search for the things we do not know with the expectation that there is something to know.” (Reichenbach 18) (emphasis in the original).  To the expectation that there is something to know, however, must be added an expectation that knowledge can be perceived and understood, albeit in an admittedly limited measure in the here and now.  So, one engaging in the process of integration must, by necessity, continue to ask and think as he interacts with others along the journey toward the goal of human completeness.

In this integration endeavor, we must recognize at least one more aspect of the extent of the limitations on the achievement of its objective. That is the limitation of implementation.  Limited perception yields some information, and limited understanding gives rise to some insight.  Left at this stage, knowledge so acquired has a strong tendency within the human to produce personal pride.  As the Apostle Paul said, “Knowledge puffs up.” (I Corinthians 8:1).  In order to avoid this pitfall, the one who seeks to integrate faith and learning should give attention to Bonventure in his work On the Reduction of the Arts to Theology.7   Knowledge perceived and understood should lead one to love God and others, and thus to act.  Zachary Hayes articulates this point.

For Bonaventure, the important issue, is, above all, knowledge integrated into the spiritual journey toward love; love of God and love of one’s fellow human beings.  It is clear that Bonaventure has a high regard for the intellectual life, but he never envisioned knowledge independently of the only goal that the human person finally has:  loving union with God. (Hayes 9).

Bonaventure, as well as the one engaged in the process of integration, follows upon Paul’s prior point that, though knowledge in and of itself puffs up, knowledge that leads to love “builds up” (I Corinthians 8:1b).  Edification of others, though, is impaired by an inability to act completely.  Man is confronted with limits in the implementation of knowledge by again both his finitude and fallenness.

The vital connection between the implementation of knowledge and our experience of love for God and others is further expressed by Gorman in her recent article on transformational learning.  “Since God is truth the experiencing of truth (all truth) should lead us to God and knowing God.  Truth, therefore is to be transformational.  For the believer, the goal of all things is to recognize and live in the reality of that truth as God designed and declared it.  The “telos” (purpose/maturity) is to fully carry out that for which we are designed.  We teach to enable others to believe God.”  (Gorman 26).  But, the limitation on implementation impairs the full transformative impact of knowledge in present human experience.  Faith and learning integration is an essential aspect of education, and true education is at its soul a transformative experience, as Gorman expounds.  Indeed, transformation of the learner indicates the progress of the educational process.  While a measure of progress along this path can be made, humans are limited in their ability to act fully upon what they have perceived and come to understand through education.

While the extent of these limitations must be admitted as present impairments to integration, the one who seeks still to integrate faith and learning can yet continue this endeavor with expectation of progress toward the goal as he acknowledges and depends upon the aid of others. Truth does indeed exist in an absolute form.  Though a limited, individual human cannot come to know – that is perceive, understand and act upon – that truth absolutely, a single human can know certain aspects of truth with certitude.  Individual man, however, cannot know the whole of truth with certainty.  Each individual possesses past experiences, perceives from present perspectives and projects future expectations.  All of these dimensions of individuality contribute to the shaping of that person’s presuppositions and biases.  As such, each individual is uniquely situated for and particularly limited in the process of integration.  Consequently, there is, of necessity, a need for others with their varying experiences, perspectives, expectations and interests to assist along the journey toward a more holistic integration of faith and learning and thus, toward more complete humanness.

Implications of the Limitations

Having now suggested both the origin and extent of the present limitations on the process of faith and learning integration, there follows implications that should persuade all who profess to engage in this noble enterprise of at least three conclusions.  First, the goal of attaining human completeness cannot be fully experienced either individually or even communally in the here and now.  Human finitude will remain.  Time and space restrictions will persist in spite of increases in the speed of both transportation of people and transfer of information.  Humans will remain capable of only being in one place at any given time.  Human fallenness will continue at least until the ultimate restoration of the redeemed creation. While this present earth remains, the fallenness of creation will continue to impair man’s progress toward maturity, toward completeness.  Ultimate human completeness awaits a future eschatological event – “when he appears, we (note John’s use of the plural) shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  (I John 3:2b).  This is the telos to which human creatures are designed.  So those who engage in integration must look ahead, but this does not mean that we are then to sit idly by and merely await a fate.  

Rather, the second conclusion implied by the limitations on integration is that the present process is dynamic and developing.  Integration understood within the context of these limitations is, as alluded to above, analogous to efforts of Socrates posing queries to his students in Athens.  Reichenbach observes:  “Socrates’ method never yields certainty, for every belief advanced is subject to scrutiny, the outcome of which remains tentative even should it survive Socratic questioning.  The tentativeness comes form the recognition that knowledge is not indubitable certainty.  At the same them, however, neither are we left with agnosticism, which places all claims on equal footing.” (Reichenbach 19).  So it is with the developing process of integration and the engagement of the mind.  “The Christian mind must be dynamic, flexible and able to expand and develop as we clarify and correct our knowledge of truth.” (Gangel 105, quoting Carlson).  Truth remains constant and absolute, yet our human perception and understanding of and action upon aspects of truth will continue to develop.

A serious consideration of how this development most effectively occurs brings us to the final and most formidable implication arising from the existence of these limitations upon faith and learning integration. For in order to experience ongoing development toward the goal of human completeness, the one seeking to integrate needs to engage in an interactive process within the human community.  It cannot be done alone solely with the thoughts arising within an individual mind.  Rather, thoughts and ideas, perceptions and understandings, words and actions must be subjected to the examination of others through listening to and questioning of other fellow travelers on the path.  For the teacher who “professes” this will mean a recognition that “though in my profession I believe that I am correct and indeed am willing to make the relevant commitments based on that belief – and in the case of religious beliefs, the risk of faith – yet I am willing to have others explore the truth-claim for themselves.”  (Reichenbach 20).  For students – and in a real way we are all students – this will mean the acknowledgement of the continuing need for “a teacher as a catalyst and a guide, one who has struggled and is struggling with similar questions and knows some of the pertinent materials and procedures.” (Holmes).

This implication calls for those who seek to integrate to participate in what has been called a “faith and learning community.” (Williams 82).  According to Clifford Williams, such a community is characterized by a lively interest in learning where “teachers express their enthusiasm for thinking and learning, partly to engender student interest but mainly because it is one of their life passions.”  (Williams 83).  This community fosters an ethos that seeks to avoid a split (against which Bonhoeffer had warned) between faith, on the one hand, and learning, on the other. All of its community intellectual exploration is part of a larger commitment to seek and gain meaning by contemplating varying responses to the persistent questions of life. Finally, Williams envisions this community of learners being lead by teachers who consider themselves learners devoted to a life-long process and who promote a cooperative rather than competitive spirit among all within the community. (Williams 83).  The “faith and learning” community, however, must not be limited to only those of “like minds”, but instead should and must remain an un-walled, un-gated campus always inviting others to join in the journey.

Understanding these implications of the limitations on integration opens us beyond the realm of the “like-minded” to a broader community of learning informed by a variety of perspectives.  For example, as Williams further suggests, we may learn from the post-modernist view an appropriate distrust in human abilities to discover truth about reality.  (Williams 79).  This should lead the one seeking to integrate faith and learning to be cautious about what is declared to be absolute truth.  Furthermore, we may gain insight from the post-modernist’s valuing of diversity.  (Williams 80).   In our efforts toward integration, we need to appreciate and listen to varying perspectives arising out of the diversity of cultural traditions and contexts.  (Williams 80).  Thus, not only can integration never be an individualistic endeavor, neither should it be a parochial one.  

In short, we need one another. We need to listen and pose questions to each other.  Faith and learning integration calls for enrichment from “‘other fields’ to both provide insight and to gain insight from the academic disciplines as mutual searches for God’s revealed truth.” (Estep 60).  This conclusion is likewise supported by the notion of the “sociology of knowledge” as articulated by Clark & Gaede in their essay, “Knowing Together: Reflections on a Holistic Sociology of Knowledge” where they state:

[T]he recognition of our limited perspectives and understanding points to the need for a more communal, multi-perspectival effort to apprehend truth.  By listening to and testing the views of those with different experiences and interests (including the oppressed and marginal), we are more likely to discover errors and omissions in our viewpoint.  Thus by reaching beyond our contextual perspectives and their limits, we may better approach the truth which transcends relativism.   (Clark & Gaede 83)

Thus the limitations on faith and learning integration, i.e. our human limitations, when recognized and acted upon, will draw us together into a community of believing learners striving with the aid of one another toward our common goal.  Together we will pose to one another the questions and listen to the responses that will enable integration to develop as we ask, think and act together seeking knowledge of truth. 

Conclusion

The fundamental integration inquiry is:  how does a particular academic discipline – what one is seeking to study and learn about – present responses to the persistent questions of life?  What is the nature of reality? What is good?  What does it mean to live a good life?  How does one become a really good person?  What is truth?  What is beauty?  What is justice?  In seeking to integrate faith and learning as we listen to and reflect upon the responses to these questions from our fellow travelers, we are thereby informed by a broadening spectrum of disciplines, experiences, insights and interests.  Bonhoeffer once again provides instructive insight on the interdependence of all those who seek truth.

The death and the life of the Christian is not determined by his own resources; rather he finds both only in the Word that comes to him from the outside, in God’s Word to him . . . . God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him.  He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth.  (Bonhoeffer, Life Together 22)

As we thus listen to and strive to understand the ideas of others in response to integration’s inquiry we will begin and continue to make progress along the path of integration of faith and learning.  Arthur Holmes described this experience as “an opportunity to become whole and to see life whole rather than provincially fragmented I one way or another.” (Holmes 36).  In our efforts toward achieving the goal of integration – the ανθρωπος τελιος − we must acknowledge that though we are limited in our ability to attain this goal, it is a worthy object of our efforts toward which we may labor as we seek together to think and live wholly and completely in the here and now.