SOME POSIT TODAY that colleges and universities – small or large, public or private, Christian or secular – educate people for upward mobility, alienate people from their local habitation, and encourage the vandalism of the earth. In short, they argue that education is in many respects education for global homelessness. In this article, we examine these claims, set forth an alternative vision of education, and describe some of the implications of a biblically informed vision. In doing so, we argue that Christian higher education ought explicitly to aim at homecoming and homemaking.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BernsteinRichard, The New Constellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/Postmodernity (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992).
2.
BerryWendell, The Gift of Good Land (New York: North Point Press, 1981).
3.
BerryWendell, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1986).
4.
BerryWendell, Home Economics (New York: Northpoint, 1987).
5.
BerryWendell, What are People For? (New York: North Point Press, 1990).
6.
BerryWendell, Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community (New York and San Francisco: Pantheon, 1992).
7.
BerryWendell, Another Turn of the Crank (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1995).
8.
BerryWendell, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1998).
9.
Bouma-PredigerSteven, “Yearning for Home: The Christian Doctrine of Creation in a Postmodern Age” in WestphalMerold, ed., Postmodern Philosophy and ChristianThought (Bloomington, IN.: University of Indiana Press, 1999.)
10.
Bouma-PredigerSteven, For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision of CreationCare (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001).
11.
BoyleNicholas, Who Are We Now? Christian Humanism and the Global Market fromHegel to Heaney (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998).
12.
CouplandDouglas, Life After God (New York: Pocket Books, 1995).
13.
DalyHermanCobbJohn B.Jr., For the Common Good (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989).
14.
GoudzwaardBob, Capitalism and Progress: A Diagnosis of Western Society, translated by Van Nuis ZylstraJosina (Toronto and Grand Rapids: Wedge and Eerdmans, 1979).
15.
HardinGarrett, Filters Against Folly (New York: Penguin, 1985).
16.
StanleyHauerwasWilliamWillimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989).
17.
HauerwasStanley, “The Christian Difference: Or Surviving Postmodernism” in SusanBiesecker-MastGerald, eds., Anabaptists and Postmodernity (Telford, PA: Pandora Press, 2000).
18.
HaughtJohn F., ‘Religious and Cosmic Homelessness: Some Environmental Implications’ in BirchCharlesEakinWilliamMcDanielJay B., eds., Liberating Life: Contemporary Approaches to Ecological Theology (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1991) pp. 159–181.
19.
IllichIvan, “Dwelling” in Co-evolution Quarterly41 (Spring 1984).
20.
JacksonWes, Becoming Native to this Place (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1996).
21.
KohakErazim, ‘Of Dwelling and Wayfaring: A Quest for Metaphors’ in RounerLeroy S., ed., The Longing for Home, Boston University Studies in Philosophy and Religion, volume 17 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996). Kozol, Jonathan, The Night is Dark and I am Far From Home (New York: Continuum).
22.
KunstlerJames, Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-made Landscape (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993).
23.
KunstlerJames, Home from Nowhere: Remaking our Everyday World for the 21stCentury (New York: Simon Schuster, 1993).
24.
LeachWilliam, Country of Exiles: Destruction of Place in American Life (New York: Pantheon, 1999).
25.
LeopoldAldo, Sand County Almanac (New York: Ballantine, 1970).
26.
LevinasEmmanuel, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, LingisA., trans., (Pittsburgh: Duquense University Press, 1969).
27.
LundinRoger, The Culture of Interpretation: Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994).
28.
RichardMiddleton J.WalshBrian J.Truth is Stranger Than it Used to Be (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995).
29.
MoltmannJürgen, “Homecoming for Abraham and Sarah's Children and Augustine's Lonely Soul” (address at the American Academy of Religion meetings in New Orleans, November, 1996).
30.
MouwRichard, “Assessing Christian Scholarship: Where We've Been and Where We're Going” (address at the Christian Scholarship…For What? conference, Calvin College, Sept. 2001).
OrrDavid, Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment and the Human Prospect (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1994).
33.
PalmerParker J., To Know as We are Known: Education as Spiritual Journey (San Francisco: Harper, 1983).
34.
PohlChristine D., Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).
35.
PostmanNeil, The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School (New York: Vintage, 1996).
36.
RobertsonStephen, The Paradigm of Relationship: Speaking the Scriptural Languageof Covenantal Relationship to a Postmodern World (unpub. mss: Toronto: Wycliffe College, 2001).
37.
RolstonHolmesIII, Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988).
38.
SaidEdward, “Reflections on Exile” in Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures, FergusonR.GeverM.MinhhaTrinh T.WestCornel, eds., (NY: New Museum of Contemporary Art; Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 1990).
39.
SchumacherE. F., Small is Beautiful (New York: Harper and Row, 1973).
40.
SmithDavid I.CarvellBarbara, The Gift of the Stranger: Faith, Hospitality and Foreign Language Learning (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000).
41.
TaylorMark C., Erring: A Postmodern A/Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).
42.
Van AndrussChristopherPlantPlantJudithWrightEleanor, (eds.), Home! ABioregional Reader (Philadelphia, Gabriola Island, BC, Santa Cruz, CA: New Society Publishers, 1990).
43.
WachtelPaul, The Poverty of Affluence: A Psychological Portrait of the American Wayof Life (Philadelphia: New Society, 1989).
44.
WalshBrian J.MiddletonJ. Richard, The Transforming Vision: Shaping a ChristianWo rld View (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1984).
45.
WalshBrian J., ‘One Day I Shall Be Home’ in Christianity and the Arts7:1 (Winter 2000) pp. 28–32.
46.
WalshBrian J., “Homemaking in Exile: Homelessness, Postmodernity and Theological Reflection” in BlombergDougLambertIan, eds., Renewing the Mind inLearning (Sydney: Centre for the Study of Australian Christianity, 1998).
47.
WieselElie, “Longing for Home” in LeroyS.Rouner, Longing for Home.
48.
WrightN. T., The New Testament and the People of God (London and Minneapolis: SPCK and Fortress, 1992).
