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Phelan Addresses Faculty of North Park Institutions
Chicago, IL (August 30, 2005) - Last week, Dr. John E. Phelan Jr. addressed
faculty members at North Park University and North Park Theological
Seminary as both institutions began classes for the new academic year.
Pelan is president and dean of the seminary and is one of three
individuals serving an interim presidency role at the university during
the search for a new president. Phelan also is a regular contributor to
The Covenant Companion with his "Markings" column. Following is
the text of his remarks for the interest of our readers.
By Dr. John E. Phelan Jr.
Nearly every day when I am on campus, I now walk across the great seal
at the center of the campus. Inscribed on that seal are the words of the
North Park University motto: "In Thy Light Shall We See Light." The
phrase is from Psalm 36:9. The Psalm speaks of God's enduring love for
his creation and for all people. "You Lord," sings the psalmist,
"preserve both people and animals. How priceless is your unfailing love,
O God!" God is praised as the abundant source of all that is needed for
earthly life. "With you," the psalmist concludes, "is the fountain of
life; in your light we see light." How did this motto come to be chosen?
What did it mean then and what does it mean now more than 100 years
after it was selected?
According to Erland Carlsson's History of North Park College
about a month after the fledgling school started classes, there was "a
festivity of welcome for the public." There were "devotions" by Prof. M.
E. Peterson of Chicago Theological Seminary and no less than two sermons
- one by President Nyvall and one by Rev. Swen Anderson. A brand new
choir delighted the congregation with music. And then there was an
address by Prof. Risberg, a pioneer Swedish American theological
educator who had sought, unsuccessfully, to draw the immigrant Swedes
who would form the Evangelical Covenant Church into the congregational
fold.
Carlsson Risberg's address was entitled "God's Light in the School." He
told the audience that he had seen in Hernosand, Sweden, "a new school
building on the fa�ade of which were written the words, 'In Thy Light
Shall We See Light.' Applying the illustration to the audience,"
Carlsson continues, " Professor Risberg urged his listeners to accept in
heart and mind this motto so that everything they studied would be
considered in the light of God's light." So impressed were school
officials with Risberg's address that they selected the text as the
school's motto.
Light, of course, is one of the most obvious and common metaphors for
spiritual, moral, and intellectual learning and growth. It is typical to
speak of ignorance, immorality and incompetence as darkness and
learning, spiritual flowering, and intellectual awakening as
enlightenment. In the Bible, God is frequently seen as the source
of light. His word will lead from darkness and death to light and life.
"Your word," reads Psalm 119, "is a lamp to my feet and a light to my
path." That both God and God's message shed light and life on a world of
darkness and death is a consistent message of the Christian community.
The Gospels, especially the Gospel of John, take a further step.
According to John 1, God's light is now personified. The "Word" who was
with God and was God according to John 1:1 is now "the true light that
gives light to everyone." This light has come into the world. Jesus
himself declares in John 8:12, "I am the light of the world. Whoever
follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life."
According to John's Gospel, the light of God is not simply found in
intellectual or spiritual information, as important as these are, but in
a person. For Christians, Jesus of Nazareth is a window into the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He sheds light on God as he sheds light on
the world.
So what does this mean at the beginning of a new year of teaching and
learning, of administrating and supporting? From the beginning, North
Park has been about more than relaying information to students and
enhancing their skills - as important as those things are. For North
Park, our students are not here simply to improve their job prospects or
even become enlightened intellectuals. Our students, we believe, whether
they know it or not, are on a spiritual and intellectual quest. We
believe the decisions students make matter. We believe this spiritual
and intellectual quest can lead to light and life or darkness and death.
This is, in part, what we mean by calling our students to a life of
"significance and service." We want their lives to be more than
self-indulgent searches for pleasure, position and power. We rather
believe that God has provided the creational superstructure. We either
build on this or destroy it. We either shine the light of love and hope
on it or keep it in gloom and misery. Our students will either be
involved in God's work of restoration, renewal, and reconciliation or in
the continuing dissolution of the world into violence, hate, and
destruction.
In Psalm 36 the psalmist speaks of God's "love, faithfulness,
righteousness, and justice." These are not indefinable abstractions but
are given content and meaning by God and seen clearly in Jesus Christ.
These are virtues that produce personal and communal transformation -
they are light and life-giving virtues. Rowan Greer argues that the real
sources of truth are "truthful lives." A life of virtue, a life of moral
integrity, a life that recognizes and accepts powerful communal
responsibilities is a prerequisite to spiritual and intellectual
illumination. We call our students to lives of significance and service,
to lives of virtue and wholeness as a means to spiritual and
intellectual illumination. We insist that how they live and, indeed, how
we live is important.
For we are called to the same set of divine virtues: love, faithfulness,
righteousness and justice. We are also called to "truthful lives." As a
Christian school, we agree with Greer that truth is located in "the
revelation of the triune God in the story of Christ's incarnate life,
death and resurrection and in that of Scripture." Whether we teach
biology or Bible, calculus or church history, we are all about
spiritual formation, we are all committed to a life formed by
the virtues. We are as concerned about who are students are and
who they are becoming as what they know. We certainly honor the variety
of traditions and commitments of all of our students, whether they are
Christians or Muslim or of no particular religious commitment. But we
want to challenge them with the light by which we see light. We want
them to wrestle with spiritual and intellectual illumination. We want
them to live lives of significance and service - lives of virtue.
We want them to see something they have never seen in the life of Jesus,
even if at the end they go their own way.
There are plenty of places students can go if they are interested in
nothing more than an individualistic and self-indulgent quest. There are
plenty of schools that would smirk at the notion of college education as
a spiritual and intellectual quest. There are very few schools that can
do and be what we can do and be. We are a place deeply rooted in the
evangelical tradition that permits students and faculty from a wide
variety of traditions to gather and share their quests, their love of
God and learning, and to bask in that light that gives light. We do this
together by wrestling together with the great texts, traditions and
questions and by living truthful lives.
In a school as diverse as ours, this is not easy. We are sometimes
hesitant to discuss these issues, even among ourselves. We can easily
grow angry or silent in the face of our differences as faculty and
staff, let alone our differences as faculty, staff and students. But if
we cannot discuss such important matters without sneering at and
silencing the other, whoever they may be, how will we expect out
students to do so? I have been impressed in recent years by the work of
Rene Girard. To grossly oversimplify Girard's thought, he argues that
the source of human culture was a process of "scapegoating." When a
community is about to be overwhelmed by violence and hatred, Girard
argues, over and over again a "scapegoat" is selected - perhaps an
individual or group of individuals. The blame for the violence is laid
on them and they are persecuted, driven from the community or killed. A
temporary peace ensues before the cycle is repeated.
Our society is nearly overwhelmed by scapegoating. It is very
attractive. It keeps us from having to think too much. If the liberals
are to blame or the fundamentalists or the Christians or the Muslims or
the Jews or the Democrats or Republicans or - fill in the blank - I
don't have to think too much. I can sneer at and despise the other and
avoid conversation with them. They can be seen as irredeemably evil and
easily ignored.
How can we avoid this? If in our diversity we can remain committed to
seeing light in the light of God, if we can manifest the virtues of
love, faithfulness, righteousness and justice, if can respect and hear
one another, we can become something special. We can be a place where
the most important questions are engaged without our descending into
sneering and scapegoating. We can live "truthful lives" and call our
students to do so.
This is my challenge for myself and for you this year: to stand in the
light of God; to live truthful lives - lives of love, faithfulness,
righteousness and justice; to lay aside the scapegoating and listen and
learn - and teach. I trust this will be a wonderful year for all of you.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
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