Kingdom Harbor

In 2017 I went back to “school” to complete my doctorate. I put “school” in quotations because it wasn’t to school that I went so much as to a particular teacher and scholar. I consider it a privilege of a lifetime to be counted among Scot McKnight’s students. He is a sage worth sitting under, with a character worth emulating. And his mind and scholarly output…well…here’s just some of the books he’s published in the past 4-5 years I was with him!

Oh, and in his spare time he decided to translate the entire New Testament which will soon be released as The Second Testament!

My sense of awe and gratitude toward my teacher is amplified by the fact that I chose to focus my research on exploring the transformative dynamics at work between a sage and their students in the ancient world and today. I was seeking the “secret sauce” that leads to effective learning and formation. I found one of the keys to be in the teacher’s willingness to give students access to themselves, and the way their teaching is (or is not) embodied in their life and character.

Unfortunately, educational models and systems today are more focused on efficient content delivery than the teacher’s pedagogy and relationship with students. This unspeakably foolish blunder is behind our continued move toward more online, distance degrees where a student can complete an entire masters degree from home by just doing some readings, online discussion forums, writing a few papers, and only exchanging a few emails with professors, usually to get clarity about the syllabus.

I fear we’re delivering disembodied ideas and degrees, but less and less embodied wisdom.

This drift toward more disembodied and impersonal modes of education is a drift away from a Wisdom Culture. It is turning would-be teachers into digital facilitators of quasi-degrees. It’s turning professors into moderators of a kind of beefed up online book club. It’s moving toward a betrayal of the teacher’s vocation and the university’s very essence and purpose. It’s largely efficiency-driven and financially driven. And the great classical sages of antiquity are rolling over in their graves, or turning their noses up at our cultural captivity to a shallow, consumeristic vision of education.

(By the way, there is a way to do distance-learning that preserves the relational dynamics between students and teacher, and fellow students. See Northern Seminary’s “Northern Live” approach.)

Friends, gaining more information alone does not lead to formation. Storing up more academic knowledge is not an education, its a head trip. This “gnostic” approach to learning leaves out the time-tested, significant role of mimesis, the power of seeking out wise and mature role models whose lives embody the wisdom we seek and read about. In the words of Catherine Wright, “an ideal philosophical education involved spending time in the company of a genuine sage, rather than merely studying a philosopher’s teachings in an academy.” Wright mentions ancient Greek philosopher Xenophon who notes that “nothing was more useful than the companionship of Socrates, and time spent with him in any place and in any circumstance…the very recollection of him in absence brought no small good to his constant companions and followers.”

Ask anyone at their 20 year high school reunion to share their favorite classroom lesson from 20 years ago, and you’ll get blank stares. Now ask them to talk about their favorite teacher, and they will talk your ear off about the time Mr. X or Mrs. Y took the time to listen, went out of their way to show they cared. They won’t be sharing their nuggets of wisdom as much as the personal impact they had by being “present” in a powerful way when needed. (See my piece on the embodied wisdom of Mister Rogers for a great example of someone who gave us himself, not just his wisdom.)

This fall I am teaching two college courses, and thinking a lot about my dissertation. Am I merely giving my students detached knowledge and information on powerpoint slides? Or am I giving them access to my very being — my story, how I’m trying to embody what I teach, my own wrestlings and discoveries packaged in a compelling narrative?

I am trying to be mindful that most students won’t remember my lecture on Postmodernism and Authority, but they’ll remember my personal story of rediscovering grace on a bus full of fundamentalist Christians at the San Diego street music festival. They’ll forget all about my lecture on the Biblical Inerrancy, but remember how the Bible first came alive to me in a college dining room and my call to ministry in a driver’s ed car. They’ll forget about the books they were assigned to read, but will remember that one conversation we had after class when two hearts mingled around a moment of honest sharing.

Access and presence. These are two of the greatest gifts a teacher gives to their students. Many professors open up their lecture notes, but keep their hearts closed off to their students. They are a brain detached from a heart. Students see the professor’s eyes glued to their lecture notes, but never peering into their souls. They don’t feel seen by them. The professor isn’t present in a meaningful way, in an open way. They are like a Lego piece without any pegs to connect to their students with.

I have a lot of work to do around living into the ideal of my dissertation. I’m an introvert who could easily build a permanent encampment in the wilderness of ideas, warming myself by the fires of new discoveries and ideas, and remaining far from the loud and messy world of my students. But I hope to stretch myself and learn to kindle a little group campfire each day in class, and appreciate all the voices gathered around it. I suspect the flame will only grow brighter and warmer as each person adds their spark and perspective to the day’s topic.

Thank you, Scot McKnight, for giving us access to your life and being present to your students. Your lectures come with laughter, full humanity, and a few too many Chicago Cubs references. You try to cloak your wisdom in Christoform character and humility. While it may seem a small thing, it speaks volumes about your pedagogy when you begin the first day of class by giving your students your cell number, and with it instant and intimate access to our teacher. Your students call you “Scot” instead of Dr. McKnight, not out of disrespect (quite the opposite!), but because you are cultivating a Jesus-shaped Wisdom Culture where we call each other friends (John 15:15). Despite your busy teaching and speaking schedule, and insane writing output, you always respond within minutes to your students’ emails. That availability and personal responsiveness will be remembered long after I forget what you taught me in our Romans intensive. What a gift you are to your students and the Kingdom!

Just a short tribute to my teacher, and a few thoughts on the joys and challenges of growing into this new role of a professor. You can check out my dissertation here. And our doctoral cohort published a book together, Wise Church, inviting pastors to begin cultivating a Wisdom Culture in the local church, to combat the similar captivity to consumerism in the church. Buy it here.

“The living voice and the intimacy of a common life will help you more than the written word. You must go to the scene of the action, first, because men put more faith in their eyes than in their ears.”

Seneca, 1st Century Roman philosopher