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LECNA Conference - Reflections on Our Shared
Commitments
March 01, 2007
LECNA Conference
February 2007
Mark S. Hanson
Presiding Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America*
Reflections on Our Shared Commitments
It is a privilege for Ione and me to be with you and to thank
you for your exceptional leadership. Although it has been four
years since I was with this group last in Sarasota, I have
appreciated the opportunity to be with many of you on your
campuses and in other gatherings.
This academic year, I have been on five of your campuses,
maintaining my commitment to support the twenty-eight colleges
and universities of this church and to be with students. Last
week I was on two campuses—Dana and Luther. I was so impressed
as I listened to the students share their passions and their
faith and reflect their varied experiences in the classroom and
in the world.
I often comment that the current generation of students seems
increasingly clear that they want to be part of a church that
matters: a church in which faith matters, worship matters,
commitment matters, Jesus matters, the Bible matters, and the
experience of God matters. They also want to be part of a church
that makes a difference. They want to be part of a church that
makes a difference in their personal lives of faith, in
families, and in neighborhoods; a church that makes a difference
in confronting the issues of HIV/AIDS, global warming, poverty,
war, and peace. They are impatient with a church that seems
turned inward and preoccupied with what appears to students to
be secondary, even insignificant, issues. I recognize that I am
not describing all students, but significant numbers of them. I
believe your schools, your faculty, your staff, and your boards
are creating the context that nurtures and encourages such
commitments.
When I have the opportunity to talk personally with you who are
presidents, my appreciation for the complexities of your
callings always grows. The incredible expectations that you will
have a major role in raising funds; in balancing budgets; in
increasing enrollments, but reducing or at least maintaining
discount rates; attending to alumni expectations while
increasing their participation in the annual fund; recruiting
and retaining gifted faculty; maintaining staff morale; building
relationships with civic and corporate leaders; tending to
relationships with the church. Should I continue or did you come
to Florida to distance yourselves from those realities?
You have my deep respect and profound gratitude. I want to say a
special word of thanks to the four presidents who will be
completing or have completed their calls this year: Jon Moline,
Texas Lutheran; Steven Titus, Midland; Paul Formo, Bethany; and
Bob Ubbelohde, Finlandia.
I am privileged to address you today, but it is my churchwide
staff colleagues who daily tend to our relationships with you
with great dedication and imagination—Stan Olson, Mark Wilhelm,
Arne Selbyg, Marilyn Olson, and Myrna Sheie. They are advocates
for you, interpreters, and accompaniers.
The last time we met it was not yet clear how we would
restructure the churchwide organization, including personnel and
budgets to undergird our strategic Plan For Mission. You as
presidents and board chairs were very helpful and sometimes
critical in shaping what is now the Vocation and Education
program unit. I believe Vocation and Education reflects this
church's commitment to our colleges and universities within the
broader context of our Lutheran understanding of vocation and
life. Many dimensions of the ELCA Plan for Mission relate to
colleges and universities, but one strategic direction in
particular does: "Assist this church to bring forth and support
faithful, wise, and courageous leaders whose vocations serve
God's mission in a pluralistic world."
In a recent interview, I was asked by a
New York Times reporter
what I understand to be the role of a national church
denomination and its leaders given the changing landscape of
American religious life. I said I believe we in churchwide
leadership are called to steward the ecology of interdependent
ecosystems that make up this church. There was total silence on
the other end. "You're not going to use that quote in your
story, are you?" I asked. "No," was the one word response. I was
not to be deterred, so I continued, "I believe we are to build
capacity and encourage imagination for our shared mission." Not
only did that statement also fail to capture how we interact,
the entire interview did not result in a story.
The image of the ELCA as an ecology of interdependent ecosystems
is one I received from Dr. Craig Dykstra, vice president for
religion at the Lilly Endowment, when he described how he sees
the ELCA. It certainly is reflected in our polity. We say in our
governing documents that we are one church in three
expressions—congregations, synods, and the churchwide
organization. By the way, I am convinced the word "churchwide"
to describe the national expression of the ELCA is not
accomplishing its intent. So, increasingly the churchwide
expression—or more specifically, the churchwide organization—is
referred to as "the ELCA" when, in fact, the whole ecology is
the ELCA. Three expressions, but also eight seminaries,
twenty-eight colleges and universities, outdoor ministries,
campus ministries, schools, the varied vocations of the 4.9
million members of this church as they live out their baptismal
callings in daily life (note that all of those belong to
Vocation and Education program unit), social ministry
organizations, ecumenical partners, and global companions.
Therefore, when I speak today about our shared commitments, it
is within the context of our tending to and stewarding this
living, changing ecology of interdependent, deep, and abiding
relationships.
That is a significant change from the not-too-distant past, when
discussions of this relationship often focused on whether the
colleges would remain church-related, whether in fact the
relationship was deep and abiding; or whether there was an
inevitable trajectory in American life that would lead colleges
to abandon their church-relatedness. Was the relationship
between culture and the church a reality that most colleges
would discover with time? Implicit in these conversations was
the sense that the mission of a higher education and the mission
of a church body, while not congruent, were not easily
compatible. As if God is opposed to free inquiry.
We still debate the nature of the relationship between the
church and the colleges, but I sense the question is shifting
from whether colleges will and should be church-related
(although that question remains with us somewhat) to the
question of the content of this deep and abiding relationship or
what should it be.
I don't want to minimize these various indicators of our shared
relationship that reflect our shared commitments, including:
- The make-up of your boards
and how many members are Lutherans
- Whether the president is or
must be Lutheran
- The number of Lutheran
students
- The level of financial
support from the church—be it churchwide grants, synodical
grants, congregational gifts, or individual gifts
- Your religion requirements
- Your understanding of your
ownership both legal and to use Carver language about how
you perceive the church as "moral owners"
- Your branding and whether it
includes your Lutheran identity
- How the churchwide
organization reflects in structure, budget, staffing, and
communication this church's commitment to its twenty-eight
colleges and universities
- The presence of ELCA clergy
in your campus ministries
- How you structure church
relations
All of those are important
indicators of our shared commitments, yet it is a shared mission
in higher education that is truly central—core—to our deep and
abiding relationship. I believe shared mission is increasingly
and rightfully becoming our focus.
I am sure that each of you can share examples from your own
context about how attention is being given to our shared
mission, identity, and vocation, and about how these shape the
life of the colleges and universities and the life of this
church.
Let me share just a few recent examples that I have found very
helpful as I reflect upon stewarding this relationship.
- The report of the Wittenburg
Lutheran Identity Study Commission is a rich, thoughtful,
historical analysis of Wittenberg's Lutheran identity with
concrete proposals for strengthening that identity because
it is core to Wittenberg's mission.
- Five faith commitments of
Augustana College, Rock Island. Each of the five commitments
is made with specific descriptions of how the commitment is
carried out in the life of the college. The appendix sets
the commitments in historical context and includes President
Bahls' insightful reflections about the Lutheran expression
of higher education at Augustana. Again, it is clear one is
reading commitments core to the identity, microcosm, and
vocation of this college and this church.
- Pamela Jolicoeur's inaugural
address as the 10th president of Concordia College was
titled, "Re-imagining Concordia's Mission Moment." Building
upon Concordia's history and citing Gustavus Adolphus
professor Darryl Jodock's interlocking set of five
characteristics that define the Lutheran approach to higher
education, President Jolicoeur called Concordia into a
process of re-imagining liberal arts education that
cultivates compassionate education and connects students to
the world.
- A favorite example is the
collected papers and presentations of Bill Frame under the
title "Faith and Reason." The papers reflect Dr. Frame's
immense contributions to our rethinking, reclaiming, and
re-imagining the mission of Lutheran higher education as it
continues to be informed by Luther and Melancthon, and
especially by the Lutheran understanding of vocation and the
two kingdoms.
These are just a few examples of
the many that indicate our shared commitment in the context of a
deep and abiding relationship that belongs to our shared
mission, shared identity, and shared vocation as Lutherans.
What does this shared mission look like? I recently had the
privilege of giving convocation addresses at Dana and Luther. I
titled one of the addresses, "A College of the Church Reaching
Out in Mission for the Sake of the World" and the other, "Unquenchable Curiosity and Evangelical Persistence." In both, I
sought to address what this shared mission might mean. No, I
will not repeat the lectures—at least in their entirety.
(President Phillip and Torgerson will do that during the
break!). I do, however, want to share at least four
characteristics of our shared mission in higher education to
which I hope we are committed.
Our shared mission means the twenty-eight colleges and
universities of this church will be communities of free inquiry
that nurture unquenchable curiosity in a cultural context that
often seems preoccupied with satisfying our insatiable appetites
for possessions, power, consuming.
Recently, a young woman wrote to Dear Abby,
"I'm 19 and dropped out of college in December 2005. After years of going
through honors classes, I felt like I had nothing left. My brain was on cruise
control. I think I want to go back to school in August, but I also feel I'm
doing it to please everyone else. Honestly, I no longer know what I want to be
in life. I have no idea what I want to major in. I'm just lost. I've never
dated, done drugs, drunk, partied or anything else besides go to school. And I
was good at it. I have dreams of what I want out of life—a mansion, a nice car,
money in the bank, but I don't necessarily have to go to college to achieve
that. I know it sounds like a cliché, but I feel like I don't know who I am."
Dear Abby said something like this,
"Your first step should be to return to college. The next step should be a visit
to the college career counseling department. It is important that you learn what
it is you enjoy as well as have an aptitude for."
The vocation of a Lutheran college that is so vital to the
mission of this church is to plant deep within students a
lifelong unquenchable curiosity about God, about the meaning of
life and being human, and the centrality of faith; an
unquenchable curiosity about the vastness of the cosmos, the
intricacies of DNA, and the beauty of the earth; the
complexities of science, math, and economics; the richness of
history; an unquenchable curiosity about life's big questions.
But colleges do not unquenchable curiosity only about life's big
questions. It is also vital that ELCA colleges and universities
value and provide for religious study as an important tool for
the intellectual exploration of the big questions of life such
as: What makes life meaningful? What does it mean to be human?
How do we live together on this planet?
I commend to you an article by W. Robert Connor, president of
the Teagle Foundation, in the June 9, 2006, issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education titled,
"The Right Time and Place
for Big Questions." He asks, "Can students' interest in and
engagement with religion and spiritual matters, and the
questions associated with them, invigorate their liberal
education? Based on my conversations with faculty members in a
wide range of fields, meetings with students, and class visits,
the answer clearly is "Yes." As a result, the Teagle Foundation
invited colleges to apply for support for projects that deal with big questions
in undergraduate education"1
Connor writes, "Despite the number and quality of those applications,
however, we can see that there is still reluctance among faculty members to
engage with the big questions—many professors clearly feel that they are not
adequately trained to deal with them. Faculty members have also expressed
concerns that tenure and salary increases will be put in jeopardy if they break
out of existing disciplinary paradigms—or that a few students who find that
class discussions run counter to their beliefs or preferences could damage
professors' careers by filling out negative course evaluations. Teachers
sometimes need to be assured that they do not have to answer the questions for
their students; rather, their role is just to help students think about them."
Connors continues that, a friend recently wrote,
"It is less a question of expertise than of feeling comfortable enough to
articulate an issue in a way that is cogent and civil, and encourages and
doesn't close off discussion."2
Isn't he describing Lutheran higher education? We who were
formed catechetically by asking the question, "What does this
mean?" will be a church drawn to—rather than fearful of—big
questions.
We are committed to being a church that nurtures unquenchable
curiosity. Therefore, as an ELCA church-related college, our
schools shall ensure that all students, especially
undergraduates, are confronted with the role of religion in
civilization and its importance in asking (and for believers, in
answering) the critical "big questions" of life. To be educated
is to understand this and to grasp its significance.
Joseph Sittler wrote,
"What I am appealing for is and understanding of grace that has the magnitude of
the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The grace of God is not simply a holy
hypodermic whereby my sins are forgiven. It is the whole giftedness of life, the
wonder of life which causes me to ask questions that transcend the moment."3
Two weeks ago my 95-year old aunt and godmother died. Betty
Burtness was a vibrant, wise woman of faith who taught English
in high school and at Waldorf College. She never lost her Hauge
piety or her unquenchable search for wisdom. Betty's passion for
sharing the Word led her to call me after she turned age 88 and
ask me what I thought of her leading worship at Commonwealth
Nursing Home. I said, "That's great," figuring she wasn't really
seeking permission anyway. The Saturday before the first Sunday
she called and asked, "Are you preaching tomorrow, Mark?" I
answered, "Yes," and she replied, "So am I. I'm going to use the
lectionary text from Luke 13 where Jesus is being asked if he thinks the
eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them were worse
offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem."
"What are you going to say?" I asked.
"Well, I've been reading the commentaries," she said, "maybe I'll talk about
the difference between moral and natural evil."
I said, "Well, you go, Betty! I think I'm going to stick
with talking about the righteousness of God."
She called me back that evening and said,
"I gave up on evil. I'm just going to preach grace. It's what the people most
need to hear."
Betty increasingly believed that it is the questions with which
one lives and not necessarily the answers one gives that give
evidence of faith.
In our commitments to our shared mission, I believe it is vital
that ELCA colleges and universities value and provide for
religious study and reflection as an important tool for the
intellectual exploration of the "big questions" of life—in other
words, to be communities of free inquiry that nurture
unquenchable curiosity.
Our shared mission means the twenty-eight colleges and
universities of this church will be communities that encourage
religious expression, exploration, and conversations in our
increasingly diverse society.
I know of none of the twenty-eight ELCA colleges and
universities that greet incoming students with a sign that says,
"Welcome. Drop your faith at the door and pick it up again in
four years (or in the case of the Hanson children, 5-6 years) in
case you still need it." Yet, though not explicitly stated, it
could become a not-too-subtle implicit message conveyed. When
visiting Bethany College last fall I preached in chapel led by
and ELCA campus pastor. The room was full. That evening I was
invited to the first fall meeting of the Fellowship of Christian
Athletes. Some of your campuses have a strong presence of Campus
Crusade for Christ in addition to Lutheran Campus Ministries. I
know at least from our youngest daughter in her first year at
Augsburg, that it is important for her that there is worship in
which her faith is nourished through music, Word and Sacrament,
and prayer. It is also important that there are religious
classes in which faith is stretched and even challenged and that
there are experiences—such as she had in January to travel to El
Salvador—to see first-hand the resiliency and challenge people
of faith experience in daily life and the church's solidarity
with those who live in poverty and struggle for justice.
The article by Connor references research with which I imagine
you are all familiar. The UCLA Spirituality in Higher Education
Project revealed, according to Helen Astin, "Students become
less religious while in college with respect to attending church, but their goal
to integrate spirituality into their lives increases in importance."4
A University of Indiana study of 150,000 students at 461
four-year colleges found that what they termed "spiritually
enhancing activities" such as worship, meditation, and prayer
had no negative affect on "educationally purposeful activities"
(i.e. deep learning reflected in the students ability to
analyze, integrate, and synthesize information from various
sources and apply it to new experiences).
The National Longitudinal Survey of 4000 freshmen from 28 highly
selective colleges found that students who participated in
religious rituals at least once a week studied longer and
reported higher grade point averages and greater institutional
satisfaction than their peers.
But you don't need convincing—just encouragement—to remain
strong in your school's commitments.
9/11 is no doubt a—if not the—formative event in the lives of
college students. On that day, we were awakened to the reality
of our vulnerability in a world of violence. Since then, it
seems we increasingly are living in—dare I say—socialized and
politicized into a culture of fear. Yet we know what happens
when fear drives our lives. We become preoccupied with
fortifying borders, erecting barriers, and defining rigid
boundaries. We become distrustful of others, especially those
who do not look, act, or speak like us—particularly if they
appear Middle Eastern. Fear, says Walter Brueggemann, makes us
possessive of what we have and finally downright
anti-neighborly. The core of the Gospel is the good news that we
have been saved by God's grace in Christ, which frees us to live
in faith not fear; faith that frees us to be Christ to the
neighbor next door and Christ to the world.
Think of the incredibly important role your college or
university plays in providing experiences in which students not
only can express and explore their own faith, but also begin to
understand and appreciate the religious beliefs and practices of
others.
The rabbi serving as one of the campus chaplains at Muhlenberg
College says that religious Jewish students have found a home at
Muhlenberg because it is related to the ELCA, a tradition that
values religion in life and affords opportunity for religious
practice in an environment of free inquiry.
There are two other characteristics or marks of our shared
mission to which I believe we share commitment.
Vitally important to our shared mission is our commitment to
the education of learners who can contribute to the common good
in part because they have learned to address the "big questions"
of life.
For Christians, exploring meaningful purpose in life is related
to God's call that we serve the common good—freedom in Christ to
love and serve the neighbor. The genius of the vocations program
sponsored by the Lilly Endowment lies in this truth. Students of
other religious beliefs and practices and even non-religious
students can share in the exploration of "big questions" and how
they might serve the common good, even if the motivation is not
believed to be a call from God.
The ELCA mission statement is,
"Marked with the cross of Christ
forever, we are claimed, gathered, and sent for the sake of the
world." The college students with whom I meet understand that
our baptismal identity and calling leads to our being sent for
the sake of the world. Last night our son at St. Olaf called,
"Dad, I need two deposit checks, one to go to New Orleans for
spring break to work on Katrina cleanup and the other to go to
India in the fall to work and study at a biological research
center." Your students get it: education is for the neighbor,
for the common good.
Our colleague Jonathan Strandjord says wisdom usually comes in
one of two flavors: wisdom that seeks to satisfy our desires or
wisdom to reduce our cravings. Both are essential to human life.
Yet, he cautions, one can lead to a life preoccupied with our
own needs and the other to cool detachment, even isolation. He
calls us to another form of wisdom: wisdom that makes us
"other-wise." Not the mastery of a specialized subject, but a
basic posture, an over arching purpose, intellect in search of
an extraordinary project. Being other-wise is not driven by the
need for power or possessions or by the quest to be above the
fray. It is instead, born of wonder or ecstasy, which takes us
out of ourselves, but not out of the world; it places us before
the neighbor.
A part of the calling to form students who are other-wise, whose
gifts and passions serve the common good—the neighbor next door
in Namibia—is for the Lutheran college or university to be a
community of moral deliberation and discernment.
In our contentious, fractious, and polarized society, your
school can help students, help the church, and help communities
learn the art of public moral deliberation: respectful,
thoughtful, civil engagement, and even disagreement for sake of
the common good. Cynthia Moe Lobeda in Public Church for the
Life of the World writes, "The heart of discernment is to hold
'what is' and 'what could be' in light of the life-giving,
life-saving, life-sustaining mystery of God's ongoing work
toward the redemption and flourishing of creation. Where vision
of life's realities is obscured by illusions, a task of
Christian discernment is to see differently, so that we
might live differently. Were dominant forces distort historical realities by
describing them falsely, Christian discernment must re-see and then 're-describe
the world.'"5
Is she not describing the vocation and mission of Lutheran
higher education? To such a task we are called in our shared
mission—to a shared commitment.
Finally, and briefly—but not at all insignificant—is our
shared mission to provide leaders for this church and for
religious communities throughout the world.
I am not only speaking of future pastors or other church
workers—though I must say how delighted I was to learn Luther
College has about 70 students in a group considering church
vocations—I am referring also to future leaders of Lutheran
educational and social ministry organizations. Lutheran
scientists who will help this church's reflections on the
revolution in genetics, science, and religion and its impact on
human life and Lutheran economists who will be part of the
growing conversation about the strengths and weaknesses of
economic globalization. Lutherans who are committed participants
in the sustaining and the changing of rural and small town
communities.
Your faculty members are important contributors to the
development of ELCA social statements. It is vital that our
twenty-eight colleges and universities continue to develop
collaborative programs with the eight ELCA seminaries such as
the creative ventures involving Carthage College and Lutheran
School of Theology at Chicago; Wagner College and Philadelphia
Seminary; Augsburg College and Luther Seminary in the Faith in
the City program; and Wartburg College and seminary.
This church remains deeply committed to our shared mission in
higher education. It is a shared commitment that calls for
constant exploration, imagination, and mutual accountability. It
is a shared commitment to which I pledge my leadership and for
which your continued leadership is vitally important. As
competitive as higher education is today, I am convinced that a
commitment to our deep and abiding relationship and our shared
mission will strengthen each of the twenty-eight colleges and
universities and the contribution we as the ELCA are making to
the common good and the life of the world.
*Copyright ? 2007 Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). All rights reserved. This
copyright notice must appear on all copies and reproductions.
Copies may be produced for distribution within the ELCA by
affiliated ELCA organizations.
1] W. Robert Connor, "The Right Time and Place for Big
Questions," The Chronicle of Higher Education 9 June 2006:
B8+.
2] Ibid
3] Joseph Sittler, Gravity and Grace: Reflections and
Provocations, (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1986)
14.
4] Helen Astin, quoted in W. Robert Connor, "The Right Time
and Place for Big Questions," The Chronicle of Higher
Education 9 June 2006: B8+.
5] Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Public Church for the Life of the
World (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2004) 65-66.
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