We had the first of (hopefully) many discussions at our house last night with a few other folks from our church. The idea is to find interesting/challenging articles and papers about “faith in the public square” and how we should interact with culture as Christians. First, a quick rundown of who was there:

* A CMU professor
* A doctoral candidate from Pitt (studying the philosophy of science)
* A part-time college instructor (holding a PhD in theology)
* A employee of the chemistry department at Duquesne
* Jen
* me

Not exactly a bunch of intellectual slackers. In fact, I’m the only one not involved in higher education at all. We got together to talk about Reformational Christian Philosophy and Christian College Education by Calvin Seerveld. Seerveld is an leader in the neo-calvinism movement within Reformed theology (see some of my sidebar links for more neo-calvinism). The article, a lecture delivered by Seerveld at Dordt College (a bastion of neo-calvinist thought), outlined his vision for a Reformed perspective on higher education. I won’t rehash the article here, but I would like to talk about my reactions to it, and the discussion that followed.

First, I find myself to be in a bit of conflict with many neo-calvinistas (Gideon Strauss’ term) because of their perspective on eduction, as outlined by Seerveld. Though they put an emphasis on “reforming creation” by letting their faith and knowledge of God define their task/vocation, often that “reformational” act never leaves the safe confines of the Reformed university setting. We can become far too comfortable debating theological/philosophical issues with our Christian peers (who will never disagree on an atomic level — they obviously share our basic religious beliefs). But how does that reformed education help us debate with the larger world (in neo-calvinist parlance — how do we reform that sphere in which we operate?)?

One thing I learned from the discussion was that I couldn’t let myself become too insular in what I read. Sure, the neo-calvinists are interesting, and I share a lot of common ground with them, but that’s no reason to ignore other voices. I think important sources of information/thought could be First Things and The New Pantagruel, which are heavily influenced by both reformed and Catholic thought. And guess what? We all share many of the same ideas about “faith in the public square.” And I think the folks in this group will help to keep me in the right direction, since not everyone shares my interest in neo-calvinist thought.

Posted on 8 October 2004