Two commencements
First, I want to congratulate my Uncle Tim (my father’s brother). During the recent commencement ceremony at Bethel College, he was honored as the Professor of the Year.
Although he’s a philosophy professor, he has taught many other subjects, including biblical literature, Latin American cultural geography, and the history of sport, and he has served as Bethel’s archivist.
He moved to Bethel in 1993, having previously worked as a missionary at the Jamaica Theological Seminary and the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology in Kingston. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, the University of Chicago, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. As an undergraduate, he studied at Fort Wayne Bible College, which later became Summit Christian College and then Taylor University Fort Wayne. (That campus is now defunct.) Relishing the overkill, he likes to decorate the back of his van with stickers from all these schools.
He wears a beard, a poncho, and a fishing hat. He says “Shalom” a lot. People call him Brother Tim. On a conformist campus, he’s something of a countercultural icon. People who don’t know him mistake him for a 1970s-style Christian hippie. He likes to talk about the persons and practices of our denomination (especially those of the early twentieth century), Christians in the developing world, missionaries, athletes, and ecclesiastical and collegiate politics. Secular politics hold little attraction for him. The same is true of logic, science, and anything that smacks of positivism. His vision of Christianity is both ecumenical and rooted in tradition.
He impresses those who listen to him. My sense is that the people at Bethel are less receptive to him than they used to be, and so this award may have come a bit late. But maybe I’m too pessimistic.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I didn’t attend Bethel’s commencement. I usually avoid those ceremonies. Yesterday, however, Karin & I attended IUSB’s graduation ceremony, which was held at Notre Dame.
The keynote speech, given by the President of Indiana University, was a defense of truth. (You can read the version delivered in Bloomington.) The speech was rather bland even though it took a side in a perennial dispute.
You relativists and subjectivists! – the speech insinuated but didn’t say – Look where your way of thinking has led us! To Donald Trump! To “alternative facts!”
I wondered how many listeners understood.
I marveled at how utterly boring these mass graduations are. Hundreds of people must be recognized (they’ve paid tuition, after all). This leaves little time for anything significant. And yet … this is the last opportunity to teach these students. Why settle for a recital of platitudes? Even if these are platitudes that, embarrassingly, many academics now reject?
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
We attended the commencement because I’d been invited to watch one of my tutees collect his master’s degree in social work.
I believe he’ll do a lot of good for the youth that he intends to serve. As a tutee, however, he often was difficult to work with.
During tutorials, he’d complain about the unspoken racism at IUSB.
If my own classmates can’t be genuine with me – he’d say – how are they going to be genuine with the population they’re going to work with?
Then he’d thank me for listening to him.
It’s like free therapy, he’d quip.
Well, I wasn’t prepared to be his therapist. Listening to him wore me out – especially on those occasions when he was irate with me.
But he liked me well enough, and I think I helped him to write better. And so, when he invited me to the commencement ceremony, Karin & I went. He was the very last person to receive his degree. He lagged a little behind everyone else in the ceremony – he walks with a cane – and so he had the whole stage to himself, and the audience cheered and cheered for him. It was very moving.
Afterward, Karin & I went to his graduation party at a restaurant in downtown South Bend. He greeted us warmly and went around introducing me to everyone. Karin & I were pleased for him, and we ate as many chicken wings as we could.
Although he’s a philosophy professor, he has taught many other subjects, including biblical literature, Latin American cultural geography, and the history of sport, and he has served as Bethel’s archivist.
He moved to Bethel in 1993, having previously worked as a missionary at the Jamaica Theological Seminary and the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology in Kingston. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, the University of Chicago, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. As an undergraduate, he studied at Fort Wayne Bible College, which later became Summit Christian College and then Taylor University Fort Wayne. (That campus is now defunct.) Relishing the overkill, he likes to decorate the back of his van with stickers from all these schools.
He wears a beard, a poncho, and a fishing hat. He says “Shalom” a lot. People call him Brother Tim. On a conformist campus, he’s something of a countercultural icon. People who don’t know him mistake him for a 1970s-style Christian hippie. He likes to talk about the persons and practices of our denomination (especially those of the early twentieth century), Christians in the developing world, missionaries, athletes, and ecclesiastical and collegiate politics. Secular politics hold little attraction for him. The same is true of logic, science, and anything that smacks of positivism. His vision of Christianity is both ecumenical and rooted in tradition.
He impresses those who listen to him. My sense is that the people at Bethel are less receptive to him than they used to be, and so this award may have come a bit late. But maybe I’m too pessimistic.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
I didn’t attend Bethel’s commencement. I usually avoid those ceremonies. Yesterday, however, Karin & I attended IUSB’s graduation ceremony, which was held at Notre Dame.
The keynote speech, given by the President of Indiana University, was a defense of truth. (You can read the version delivered in Bloomington.) The speech was rather bland even though it took a side in a perennial dispute.
You relativists and subjectivists! – the speech insinuated but didn’t say – Look where your way of thinking has led us! To Donald Trump! To “alternative facts!”
I wondered how many listeners understood.
I marveled at how utterly boring these mass graduations are. Hundreds of people must be recognized (they’ve paid tuition, after all). This leaves little time for anything significant. And yet … this is the last opportunity to teach these students. Why settle for a recital of platitudes? Even if these are platitudes that, embarrassingly, many academics now reject?
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
We attended the commencement because I’d been invited to watch one of my tutees collect his master’s degree in social work.
I believe he’ll do a lot of good for the youth that he intends to serve. As a tutee, however, he often was difficult to work with.
During tutorials, he’d complain about the unspoken racism at IUSB.
If my own classmates can’t be genuine with me – he’d say – how are they going to be genuine with the population they’re going to work with?
Then he’d thank me for listening to him.
It’s like free therapy, he’d quip.
Well, I wasn’t prepared to be his therapist. Listening to him wore me out – especially on those occasions when he was irate with me.
But he liked me well enough, and I think I helped him to write better. And so, when he invited me to the commencement ceremony, Karin & I went. He was the very last person to receive his degree. He lagged a little behind everyone else in the ceremony – he walks with a cane – and so he had the whole stage to himself, and the audience cheered and cheered for him. It was very moving.
Afterward, Karin & I went to his graduation party at a restaurant in downtown South Bend. He greeted us warmly and went around introducing me to everyone. Karin & I were pleased for him, and we ate as many chicken wings as we could.