Composition Teaching and Christian Tradition: Annotated Bibliography
Subgroup organizer: Priscilla Perkins, Roosevelt University
Contributors: David Brauer, Palm Beach Atlantic University
Lindsay Ellis, University of Michigan
Janene Lewis, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
Chandra Lewis-Qualls, Abilene Christian University
Philosophical underpinnings
Allen, Paul, Jamieson, Christine and Monette, Peter. “The Kenneth Melchin
Interview for The Lonergan Web Site.” 19 April 1997. <
http://www.lonergan.on.ca/melchin.htm >.
“You cannot teach by starting at the beginning, because there is no beginning. There is
only a middle. The only way to teach is to jump into the middle. If something is truly
worth learning, it will wreak havoc with your current ways of thinking; your
understanding, judging, and valuing your world.”
Ashworth, Peter. “Understanding as the Transformation of What is Already
Known.” Teaching in Higher Education 9.2 (2004): 147-158.
Ashworth works with Heidegger’s Being and Time (1962) to argue that learners “dwell[]
in an already-interpreted world with which they have to come to terms” (147).
Bakhtin, Mikhail. “Discourse in the Novel.” The Dialogic Imagination. Ed. Michael
Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981. 259-422.
Though this text is well known by many in Rhetoric and Composition, we should not
underestimate its importance for analyzing marginalized discourses in the composition
classroom, especially those related to issues of faith and religion. Bakhtin’s terms
heteroglossia and dialogism help to reveal the relationship between, for instance,
academic discourse and religious discourse and thus may offer an effective theoretical
point-of-entry into discussions of religious discourse in the classroom.
Burke, Kenneth. On Symbols and Society. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1989.
“A doctrine of consubstantiality, either explicit or implicit, may be necessary to any way
of life. For substance, in the old philosophies, was an act; and a way of life is an actingtogether; and in acting together, men have common sensations, concepts, images, ideas,
attitudes that make them consubstantial” (181). Burke's concept of consubstantiality
usefully relates to the ideas of “living together” developed by Lonerganian theologian
Kenneth Melchin.
Butler, Judith. The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford:
Stanford U P, 1997.
Butler calls attention to the relationship between writers’ subjectivities and the
(social and religious) laws that interpellate them. Her work prompts interesting
questions, for instance: Are our students’ identities as writers generated in relationships
of submission or resistance to the laws of the religious communities within which they
have developed their voices?
“The doctrine of interpellation appears to presuppose a prior and unelaborated
doctrine of conscience…. This readiness to accept guilt to gain a purchase on identity is
linked to a highly religious scenario of a nominating call that comes from God and that
constitutes the subject by appealing to a need for the law, and original guilt that the law
promises to assuage through the conferral of identity.” (109)
“Is there a possibility of being elsewhere or otherwise, without denying our
complicity in the law that we oppose? Such possibility would require a different kind of
turn, one that, enabled by the law, turns away from the law; resisting its lure of identity,
an agency that outruns and counters the conditions of its emergence.” (130)
Crusius, Timothy W. A Teacher’s Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics.
Urbana: NCTE, 1991.
Crusius differentiates between “normative” hermeneutics, which emphasizes “correct”
interpretation, usually of religious or political dogma, and “philosophical” hermeneutics
(developed by Gadamer and others), which aims for ever-widening interpretations of both
everyday experience and culturally-central texts.
Crysdale, Cynthia S. W. “Lonergan and Feminism.” Theological Studies 53 (1992):
234-256.
Crysdale argues that, in Lonergan’s thought, many misperceptions and
miscommunications (in Lonergan’s terms, “biases”) “come[] from a ‘flight from
understanding,’ a refusal to ask the relevant questions when one suspects that the answers
to these questions might challenge one’s own interests.” Lonergan’s relevance for
hermeneutical composition pedagogies–especially for students from evangelical
backgrounds–needs to be explored in much greater detail.
Gadamer, Hans Georg. “Rhetoric and Hermeneutics.” Trans. Joel Weinsheimer.
Jost and Hyde 45-59.
Gadamer discusses Flacius’s claim that sacred interpretation is difficult because people
are naturally stubborn: “Here a central motif of all hermeneutics, namely, the task of
overcoming and assimilating the strange, receives a special, indeed unique formulation,
one to which all other kinds of textual strangeness–whether of language, historical
outlook, or form of expression–are subordinate. For here what is at issue is the ur-motif
of Protestantism: the opposition of law to the promise of grace. We make it too easy for
ourselves when we call the hermeneutics grounded thereon dogmatic because of this
dogmatic interest” (53). Gadamer’s argue sheds light on the challenges (and potential) of
using hermeneutics with evangelical students, whose interpretive and argumentative
strategies may appear “dogmatic” to writing teachers.
Gay, Craig. The Way of the Modern World. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.
Gay analyzes numerous kinds of discourses in contemporary society and their effects on
the ways we think about God and faith. Ranging from politics to sociology to
technology, Gay contends that the variety of influences and discourses in modern culture
problematize our ability to think about God clearly or effectively. This text may provide
insight into the various issues that students and teachers alike face when thinking about
issues of faith and religion.
Ginev, Dimitri. “Rhetoric and Double Hermeneutics in the Human Sciences.”
Human Studies 21 (1998): 259-271.
Ginev sees the role of the interpreter as much more active in the research process than
Gadamer does: “He/she is able to decide how personal experience can be effective in the
present research situation, and which relevant conceptual framework and methodological
pattern is more appropriate to be followed, and so on. Because of this self-reflective
involvement in the trans-subjectivity of dialogical research, the interpreter is able to
elaborate on a hermeneutic methodology of the human-scientific research process” (264).
Haughey, John C. “Responsibility for Human Rights: Contributions from Bernard
Lonergan.” Theological Studies 63.4 : 764-786. (HTML download–not the
pagination of the paper version).
This article offers a concrete application of Lonergan’s ideas about “insight,” one which
suggests the strong interpretive thrust (and distrust of rhetoric) in Lonergan’s methods:
“We do not do justice to our intentionality if we are led around by ideas and concepts
arrived at by others and not personally internalized. So, for example, Lonergan would
have been very wary of someone who was a strong advocate of human rights but whose
promotion of them disregarded the distinctiveness of subjectivity, one’s own or the
other’s. He disdained a formulaic morality and trusted responses that emerged through
the subject seeking to understand the specifics of a given situation” (4).
Jost, Walter, and Michael J. Hyde. “Prologue.” Rhetoric and Hermeneutics in Our
Time: A Reader. New Haven: Yale UP, 1997. Xi-xxiii.
Jost and Hyde set out the inextricability of rhetoric and hermeneutics: “rhetorical
reverberations of the hermeneutic of time as kairos suggest what otherwise specialist
attention to hermeneutics alone, or to rhetoric alone, conceals: namely, that our very
being-in-the-world is inseparably hermeneutical and rhetorical in complex ways and that
a multifaceted speaking as well as listening constitutes our situation” (xvi)
Levinas, Emmanuel. Collected Philosophical Papers. Trans Alphonso Lingis.
Pittsburgh, Duquesne UP, 1987.
Discusses and defines ethical, moral, and violent forms of communication.
“Faith is not the knowledge of a truth open to doubt or capable of being certain; it is
something outside of these modalities, it is the face to face encounter with a hard and
substantial interlocutor, who is the origin of himself, already dominating the forces which
constitute him and sway him, a you, arising inevitably, solid and noumenal, behind the
man known in that bit of absolutely decent skin which is the face, which closes over the
nocturnal chaos and open upon what it can take up and for which it can answer.
Language in its expressive function is addressed to, and invokes the other” (41)
Lonergan, Bernard. The Lonergan Reader. Ed. Mark Morelli and Elizabeth
Morelli. Toronto: U Toronto P, 1997.
“The present work.....advances not by deducing conclusions from the truths of a religious
faith or from the principles of a philosophy but by issuing to readers an invitation, ever
more precise and more detailed, to apprehend, to appropriate, to envisage in all its
consequences, the inner focus of their own intelligence and reasonableness.” Lonergan's
approach to critical thinking and “self-appropriation,” based in traditional and
contemporary Catholic theologies, gives teachers and students heuristic strategies for
identifying values, evaluating choices, and interpreting results.
Lundin, Roger. The Culture of Interpretation: Christian Faith and the Postmodern
World. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993.
Critiques the “therapeutic self” and “therapeutic culture” that he argues are central
to postmodernity: “In a therapeutic culture, there is no room for a Christian conception of
truth and the ethical life. If personal well-being and psychological effectiveness are the
defining criteria of the spiritual life, then there is no place for the claims of the true and
the good” (6). “For the proclamation of Christian truth to have power in the postmodern
era, in short, that truth must come to contemporary persons as a promise of redemption
for a troubled world, not as a therapeutic message of happiness denying the pain and
promise of suffering and death” (264).
MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1984.
MacIntyre discusses the loss of moral discourse in modern culture and its consequences
for philosophy and civic life. He covers a lot of philosophical history, and some of the
details may not correspond directly to issues in composition, but his attention to the
importance of recovering moral discourse and combating emotivism can help instructors
to direct students about how to engage moral and religious questions with some
detachment. “A central thesis of this book is that the breakdown of this [Enlightenment]
project provided the background against which the predicaments of our own culture can
become intelligible” (39). Asks what a commitment to an Aristotelian conception of
human nature and the virtues would require of us in postmodernity.
The Lonergan Website. “The Sean McEvenue Interview for The Lonergan Web
Site.” <http://www.lonergan.on.ca/interviews/mcevenue.htm>.
Like Cynthia Crysdale, Sean McEvenue is a leading commentator on Bernard Lonergan’s
huge body of philosophical writing. In this interview with Christine Jamieson,
McEvenue says, “Education is mostly about competition, success. It's mostly about
convincing other people, winning arguments, things like that. Which isn't worth anything
at all. And what I learned from Lonergan was to identify the very powerful appetite, well
it's more than an appetite, the very basic drive toward truth, and then toward the good,
and then toward decisions about the good.”
Newbigin, Lesslie. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1989.
Newbigin discusses the challenges for communicating the unique claims of Christianity
to a culture that often denies the validity of religious truth claims. Specifically, he
explains that people of faith must be willing to explain the claims of religious discourse
in language that nonbelievers may understand. He is particularly helpful in addressing
the interaction between faith, multiculturalism, and postmodernism, and he incorporates a
number of philosophical sources in constructing his argument.
Niebuhr, H. Richard. Christ and Culture. San Francisco: Harper SanFrancisco,
2001.
Niebuhr explains a number of historical models by which the Christian church has
engaged and communicated with culture. He examines the often disparate ways in which
different denominations and theological assumptions inform the kinds of religious
discourse employed by people of faith. Both a strong overview and a resource for those
interested in the variety of Christian discourses.
Polanyi, Michael. Personal Knowledge. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1962.
Polanyi challenges the objective nature of scientific discourse and positivism more
generally, but he also foregrounds the centrality of beliefs and presuppositions in any
claims about the nature of reality. Put simply, he articulates a pre-modern epistemology
as a rejoinder to modern and postmodern epistemologies. Polanyi enjoyed coverage in
rhetoric and composition scholarship in the 1980s but has been somewhat ignored since
that time.
Simola, Hannu, Sakari Heikkinen, and Jussi Silvonen. “A Catalog of Possibilities:
Foucaultian History of Truth and Education Research.” In Popkewitz, Thomas S.,
and Marie Brennan, eds. Foucault’s Challenge: Discourse, Knowledge, and Power
in Education. New York: Teachers College P, 1998. 64-90.
“The question Foucault asks is not “What is true?’ but “How is truth created?” (65). For
composition teachers, the trick is working with students for whom the first question
“counts” and the second is practically blasphemy. The authors' work with Foucauldian
definitions of “discourse” is helpful for understanding relationships between text,
interpretive authority, and the reading/writing student.
Weinsheimer, Joel. “Teaching and/or Research: Gadamerian Reflections on a
Pseudo-Dilemma.” Renascence 56.4 (2004): 275-285.
“Understanding always involves interpretation; it is as universal as the universal state of
misunderstanding that necessitates it....it might be argued that the universalization of
interpretation that would seem to obviate the pedagogical occasion in fact universalizes
it. Now everyone has become a beginner in the work of understanding in that
interpretation is always required” (279).
Welton, Michael. “Listening, Conflict and Citizenship: Towards a Pedagogy of
Civil Society.” International Journal of Lifelong Education 21.3 (2002): 197-208.
“Too many anti-listening forces are ranged against us to be complacent. Our western
scientific knowledge-culture and popular, mass media cultures are not particularly
hospitable to attending-to and heeding the other” (207).
Theological contexts
The Lonergan Website. “The Cynthia Crysdale Interview for The Lonergan Web
Site.” 22 Oct. 1999. < http://www.lonergan.on.ca/interviews/crysdale.htm>.
Crysdale, one of Bernard Lonergan’s most perceptive commentators, has written
extensively on Lonergan’s relevance for feminist and other progressive thinkers. In this
interview, Crysdale (a Protestant) explains how she became interested in Lonergan (a
Catholic) during graduate school: “I found it interesting that a lot of the questions that I
had about the authority of the Bible were questions that my Catholic friends were just not
very interested in, until we got to the section on the mediation of revelation via the
magisterium. Then all hell broke loose, because the Catholics wanted to know what the
nature of this authority was. My Roman Catholic friends were asking the exact same
questions about the Magisterium as I and my Protestant friends were asking about the
Bible.”
Melchin, Kenneth R. “Moral Knowledge and the Structure of Cooperative Living.”
Theological Studies 52 (1991): 495-523.
“There is a recurrent pattern or structure to meaningful human exchange in which people
initiate gestures or acts of meaning, others interpret the meaning of these gestures and
respond to them, and the two parties enter into reciprocal role-taking actions in which
they discern the interpreted meaning of their gestures through the eyes of their
respondents” (510). Melchin’s vocabulary of ethics, informed by his reading of Bernard
Lonergan, offers a helpful counterpart or counterbalance to rhetorical discussions of
communication among moral actors.
Newbigin, Lesslie. Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian
Discipleship. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1995.
In clear and theologically committed prose, Newbigin addresses challenges to Christian
belief that are (or may be) raised by postmodern and poststructuralist thinking.
Newbigin, Lesslie. Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth. Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1991.
Like the Catholic philosopher Bernard Lonergan, the Christian Reformed thinker
Newbigin believes that the most important tenets of Christian orthodoxy can survive
rigorous academic scrutiny. He introduces the notion of “committed pluralism” (adapted
from Michael Polanyi) as a strategy for responsibly analyzing and describing the social
and scientific data that create tension among differently-positioned (i.e., Christian and
non-Christian, or “conservative” and “liberal” Christian) interpreters.
O’Leary, Stephen D. Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric.
New York: Oxford UP, 1994.
O’Leary establishes the epistemological grounds for authority among
apocalyptic/premillenarian fundamentalists: “Examining the discourse of most modern
apocalyptic evangelists, one finds that their claims are founded not on the charismatic
authority of the prophet granted a divine vision, but on the (ostensibly) rational authority
of one who interprets canonical scripture. Analyses that fail to recognize the distinction
between prophetic and interpretive discourse therefore miss the principal strategy at work
in modern apocalyptic; a focus on interpretation is necessary for an understanding of how
the discourse operates rhetorically by linking the ‘rational’ with the ‘oracular’ voice.
Such an analysis has the potential of casting new light on the age-old debate over the
relationship of logical to mythic thought” (13).
Richter, Kent, et al. Understanding Religion in a Global Society. California:
Thomson/Wadsworth, 2005.
This collection of essays addresses the academic study of Christianity as well as other
mainstream religions. Chapters are arranged topically on issues such as art, origins,
suffering, morality, and salvation. Each chapter contains discussion questions to prompt
student thinking, and the topics are so broad that student writers from a variety of
backgrounds will be able to engage with these ideas. The writers use a
phenomenological approach to the study of religion that encourages students to take the
language, art, and ritual of religion seriously.
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Until Justice and Peace Embrace. Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1983.
Wolterstorff seeks to recover a radical philosophical critique of social injustice from
within his Reformed/Presbyterian tradition. A good resource for those wishing to ground
a progressive pedagogy in theological terms.
Christian beliefs in college classrooms
Anderson, Chris. “The Description of an Embarrassment: When Students Write
about Religion.” Balancing Acts: Essays on the Teaching of Writing in Honor of
William F. Irmscher. Ed. Virginia A. Chappell, et al. Carbondale: Southern
Illinois UP, 1991: 19-27.
Anderson begins by asserting from his experience as a writing teacher that students
typically write about issues of faith and religion in unsophisticated ways, often disclosing
their ignorance about other issues. Though some have interpreted his essay as hostile to
students of faith, Anderson offers insight into the very real conflicts that writing teachers
face when attempting to help students articulate personal commitments in academic
settings, and he explains that the mystical character of religious discourse often accounts
for the difficulties that students have in explaining their faith commitments to others.
Anderson, Paul, ed. Professors Who Believe: The Spiritual Journeys of Christian
Faculty. Illinois: Intervarsity P, 1998.
While some of the essays in this collection describe personal conversion experiences,
other essays address explicit and implicit ways to integrate Christianity into the
classroom. The authors represent a wide range of religious backgrounds and academic
disciplines.
Bingaman, Kirk A. “Teach Your Students Well: The Seminary and a Hermeneutics
of Suspicion.” Pastoral Psychology 48.2 (1999): 91-105.
Bingaman addresses the challenges and benefits of emphasizing critical thinking in the
seminary environment: “If members of the seminary faculty...decide to keep raising more
and more questions, to keep applying a hermeneutics of suspicion, and to offer courses
that have a built-in hermeneutics of suspicion component, they will inevitably discover
one day that some of their students are experiencing a crisis of faith and meaning. This is
not, necessarily, a bad thing” (97).
Carroll, Colleen. The New Faithful: Why Young Adults are Embracing Christian
Orthodoxy. Chicago: Loyola P, 2002.
Carroll explores the many reasons that a majority of young adults are turning toward
mainstream Christianity. She reports that a number of young people are realizing that
fulfillment doesn’t come from a materialistic lifestyle; therefore, many are seeking the
stability found in traditional religion. College students are spiritually hungry and are
opposing moral relativism. Carroll believes Christian students, in particular, feel called
to challenge the general culture of secular universities. Recent graduates are looking for
ways to integrate religious faith with careers.
Claerbaut, David. Faith and Learning on the Edge: A Bold New Look at Religion
in Higher Education. Michigan: Zondervan, 2004.
Claerbaut suggests ways to integrate faith and learning across a broad spectrum of
disciplines such as the physical sciences, arts and humanities, and the behavioral
sciences. He looks at postmodernism’s impact on higher education and encourages the
Christian educator to pursue truth through scholarship.
Colson, Charles. “Worldview Boot Camp: Evangelical Young People Need
Training in the Truth About Truth.” Christianity Today Dec. 2004: 80.
This short article warns parents and other concerned evangelicals about the spiritual
“dangers” of college education for young Christians.
Downs, Douglas. “True Believers, Real Scholars, and Real True Believing Scholars:
Discourses of Inquiry and Affirmation in the Composition Classroom.” Negotiating
Religious Faith in the Composition Classroom. Ed. Vander Lei, Elizabeth and
Bonnie Lenore Kyburz. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2005: 39-55.
Downs argues that religious discourse serves to affirm beliefs and thus often shuts out
meaningful dialogue with other ideas, but writing instructors should practice a
commitment to inquiry, to valuing questioning and curiosity as a habit of mind. Thus,
they should model and coach students with religious commitments in these
epistemological practices so as to achieve the goals of composition without attempting to
disabuse students of their beliefs.
Farnsworth, Kirk E. “Furthering the Kingdom in Psychology.” The Making of a
Christian Mind, 81-103.
Like other essays in Holmes' collection, Farnsworth's explores how a liberal arts
education can be consistent with conservative Christian belief.
Goodburn, Amy. “It’s a Question of Faith: Discourses of Fundamentalism and
Critical Pedagogy in the Writing Classroom.” Journal of Advanced Composition
1998 (No.?): 333-353.
Goodburn treats fundamentalist belief as one discourse among others that students can
begin to encounter critically in the writing classroom.
Hansen, Kristine. “Religious Freedom in the Public Square and the Composition
Classroom.” Negotiating Religious Faith in the Composition Classroom. Ed.
Vander Lei, Elizabeth and Bonnie Lenore Kyburz. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann,
2005: 24-38.
Hansen looks to American political history as a means of arguing that writing instructors
actually encourage civility when they allow students with religious commitments to
speak and write openly about those commitments. Her essay provides a broad, civicbased perspective for dealing with religious faith in the writing classroom.
Haughey, John C. “Church-ianity and Christ-ianity.” America May 24-31, 2004: 89.
A Jesuit professor of theology, Haughey compares Catholic and evangelical ways of
talking about Christ: “there can be an immediacy between the soul and the Word of God
as evident in evangelical churches–not always or everywhere, of course, but enough to
ask ourselves as Catholics whether the mediated Word, rather than the personally
appropriated Word, has become central to our praxis and the reason for our Churchianity” (9). His article pays special attention to differences between evangelical and
Catholic college students' ways of talking about their beliefs.
Holmes, Arthur F. The Idea of a Christian College. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans,
1975.
A foundational text that establishes the positive roles liberal education can play in the
spiritual and intellectual development of evangelical Christians.
Holmes, Arthur F. “Toward a Christian View of Things.” The Making of a
Christian Mind: A Christian World View and the Academic Enterprise. Ed. Arthur
F. Holmes. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity P, 1985.
As Holmes writes, “one and the same theory might prove acceptable to both Christian
and non-Christian control beliefs, so that areas of agreement between Christian and nonChristian world views appear.” Holmes’s essay gives scholars a way of talking about the
overlap that necessarily occurs between the views of progressively-oriented instructors
and biblically-oriented students: if students can agree, for example, that Jesus was
concerned with justice for the poor and oppressed, then they and their instructors have a
control belief in common, even if the thinking that underlies it may be different.
Holmes, Arthur F. Shaping Character: Moral Education in the Christian College.
Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991.
“The role of Scripture in moral education is then both necessary and various, relevant to
each objective we have proposed. Yet it still does not substitute for hard thinking–indeed it requires it” (78).
Jonas, Glenn. “The Intersection of Athens and Jerusalem: The Aims of Higher
Education in a Baptist Christian University.” The Southern Baptist Educator
70.2 (2006): 8-12.
Jonas attempts to define what it means to be a Christian, specifically Baptist, university.
He defines a Christ-centered university as one that is hospitable in the manner that Jesus
was hospitable to people from all walks of life. He also mentions servanthood and
compassion as Christ-like qualities that are important parts of a Christian university’s
identity. A specifically Baptist university, however, will focus on freedom of inquiry in
the best sense of “what the treasured Baptist doctrine of soul competency implies”(10).
Lawler, Peter Augustine. “Liberal Education? It Can Happen Here.” The
American Spectator. April 2005: 46-47.
The evangelical students Lawler (who is not evangelical) teaches at Berry College “do
need to come to college to think things through, become morally and religiously
challenged and invigorated, and in some intellectual ways just loosen up. They also need
to learn how to read, and how to like reading hard books: ‘Evangelical book’ is far too
close to an oxymoron.”
L’Engle, Madeleine. Walking on Water. Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1980.
L’Engle draws connections between all forms of art and Christianity. She says the artist
(or writer) who is a Christian views everything through a Christian lens, which L’Engle
perceives as a strength.
Litfin, Duane. Conceiving the Christian College. Michigan: Eerdmans, 2004.
Conceiving the Christian College presents the reader with an updated version of Arthur
Holmes’s The Idea of a Christian College. Litfin is the president of Wheaton College,
and he is writing to challenge Christian academics to keep Christ in the center of the
curriculum and to encourage more Christian scholarship across the disciplines. He calls
for academics to be fully committed to scholarship that is Christ-centered, as this is an
approach that will lead to truth in all disciplines.
Mejía, José Ramón Alcántara. “Latin American Higher Education at the
Crossroads: The Christian Challenge of Being Transformed through the Renewal of
Understanding.” Christian Higher Education 1, 2-3:235-250 (2002).
Mejía’s wonderful article seems to come out of a usefully parallel universe in which a
Christian worldview and rigorously theorized academic thinking coexist comfortably. In
Mejía’s argument, Christian higher education needs to “propose[] a model of true
personal transformation and that of one’s political social, economic, and cultural
environment based on a revision of Biblical principles in the light of the challenge of our
reality in this new century. That is to say, we need a change in our understanding of
reality (in the hermeneutical sense of the word, which necessarily implies a
transformation in the way we see and act in the world), but also in the way we read the
Scriptures, to be informed by our historical reality. Then we will be on our way to a true
renewal of our minds” (246).
Melchin, Kevin. Living With Other People: An Introduction to Christian Ethics
Based on Bernard Lonergan. Ottawa: Novalis, 1998.
“Frequently, attitudes and ideas change not because we are convinced by others, but
because we come to respect them as persons. Then, gradually, we begin to reconsider the
ideas that they hold. If there is a primary vehicle of persuasion, it is not our words, but
the persons we have become” (125).
Moore, Rebecca, ed. Voices of Christianity: A Global Introduction. St. Louis:
McGraw Hill, 2006.
Moore’s collection of essays is organized chronologically, beginning with references to
the Hebrew bible and then continuing to Julian of Norwich, Thomas Aquinas, Francis of
Assisi, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Teresa of Avila, Bartolome de las Casas, Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, and Martin Luther King, Jr. among others. The writers represent a variety of
countries and address such topics as feminism, missions, existentialism, and
globalization.
Noll, Mark A. “Christian World Views and Some Lessons of History.” The Making
of a Christian Mind, 29-54.
This historian of U.S. evangelical Christianity argues for the centrality of evangelization
to any thoroughgoing Christian education. His discussion of intellectual weaknesses in
19th Century American evangelical theology–especially its failure to confront Biblical
criticism and developments in biological and earth science--offer a useful frame for
understanding some of the current-day resistance to academic learning in evangelical
communities: “The difficulty in all this was not so much that Christians lacked immediate
solutions to these problems. The difficulty came rather in the fact that there was very
scant encouragement to find thorough solutions to these issues. Little need was felt to
exercise the mind for Christ in these areas since evangelism and fervent moral activism
seemed to be so successful in meeting the church’s immediate needs” (50).
Penti, Marsha Elizabeth. Religious Identities in the Composition Class: Learning
from Students of Difference. Diss. Michigan Technological U, 1998.
Though difficult to access, this dissertation has been referenced by various writers on the
subject of religious faith in the composition classroom. Penti seems to have been one of
the first scholars to identify students with religious commitments as “students of
difference,” students who do not easily fit into academic models of personal identity.
Perkins, Priscilla. “’A Radical Conversion of the Mind’: Fundamentalism,
Hermeneutics, and the Metanoic Classroom” College English 63:5 (May 2001): 585611.
Perkins explores the collision between critical theory and the fundamentalist discourse of
some student writers, and she offers practical means of encouraging students to adapt
their interpretive practices to engage “dangerous texts” with sophistication and openness
rather than closed-minded resistance.
Poe, Harry Lee. Christianity in the Academy: Teaching at the Intersection of Faith
and Learning. New York: Renewedminds, 2004.
Poe covers a variety of topics including conversations between disciplines and ways to
negotiate the variety of religious beliefs found on most campuses.
Rand, Lizabeth. “Enacting Faith: Evangelical Discourse and the Discipline of
Composition Studies.” CCC 52:3 (Feb. 2001): 349-367.
Nothing less than a watershed essay in the field of composition and rhetoric, this essay
argues that students often take issues related to faith and religion far more seriously than
their writing teachers. Rand asserts that scholarship has often devalued religious
discourse as it relates to student writing and that the field would do well to identify
religious discourse as a viable Other alongside the marginalized discourses to which we
offer more theoretical deference.
Schmalzbauer, John A., and C. Gray Wheeler. “Between Fundamentalism and
Secularization: Secularizing and Sacralizing Currents in the Evangelical Debate on
Campus Lifestyle Codes.” Sociology of Religion 57.3 (1996): 241-257.
Schmalzbauer and Wheeler discuss the tangible results of an increased comfort with
critical thinking on evangelical college campuses, where they see “a growing tendency to
see [campus rules] as historically relative products of a human religious tradition and as
‘demystified’ social constructions” (242).
Sloan, Douglas. Faith and Knowledge: Mainline Protestantism and American
Higher Education. Kentucky: John Knox P, 1994.
The premise of Sloan’s book is that Protestant religions can and should play a dominant
role in higher education. He begins with a historical overview of the church’s role in US
higher education, and concludes with predictions for the future. Sloan’s main point,
however, is that, in the 1950s, university faculty began to concern themselves with the
“intellectual task of being a Christian in the university” (44). During this time, faculty
members began to explore the implications of their religious faith for the content and
method of their academic disciplines, a trend that continues today, at least in some
universities. Sloan addresses such issues as the responsibility of the Christian professor,
the intellectual tasks of the Christian professor, and the relationship between faith and
knowledge.
Spradley, Joseph. “A Christian View of the Physical World.” The Making of a
Christian Mind, 55-79.
Spradley discusses the grounds for a faithful and intellectually responsible scientific
pedagogy: “Christianity emphasizes the freedom and dignity of persons as valuing and
responsible agents, which are necessary conditions for the conduct of science itself” (75).
Strong, Tom. “Getting Curious About Meaning-Making in Counselling.” British
Journal of Guidance and Counselling 31.3 (2003): 259-273.
Strong’s discussion of one-on-one counseling is also relevant to relationships between
teachers and students in the writing classroom: “If we can’t transmit our thoughts to our
clients, then we face verbal challenges not unlike those of salespeople or politicians. We
want our words to win the hearts and minds of those we help without feeling like
salespeople or politicians facing a stiff audience....Hermeneutics, as I am describing it
here, is not concerned with any objective correctness as to how people understand, but
with the fit and effectiveness their understandings have for them in their social and other
interactions ” (261-262).
Sullivan, Dale. “Beyond Discourse Communities: Orthodoxies and the Rhetoric of
Sectarianism.” Rhetoric Review 18:1 (Autumn 1999): 148-164.
Sullivan gives careful attention to the presuppositions and rhetorical aspects of sectarian
discourse, analyzing how various religious orthodoxies constitute “meaning systems,”
rhetorical and epistemological means of making sense of the world. She contends that
even though sectarian discourse is often hostile to others, writing teachers should create
avenues by which students with such “meaning systems” may communicate effectively
and learn from others.
Williams, Bronwyn T. “The Book and the Truth: Faith, Rhetoric, and CrossCultural Communication.” Negotiating Religious Faith in the Composition
Classroom.
Ed. Vander Lei, Elizabeth and Bonnie Lenore Kyburz. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, 2005: 105-20.
Williams looks specifically at the potential and real discursive conflicts between Islam
and Western religions and values, offering rare insight into a kind of religious discourse
with which many writing instructors must come to terms in our changing culture.
Relevant composition theory
Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University.” Cross-Talk in Comp Theory. Ed.
Victor Villaneuva. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1997. 589-620.
Perhaps one of the most recognized essays in our field, this discussion of the relationship
between academic discourse and students’ private discourse has helped to create an
environment in the classroom that may place the former in a domineering position over
the latter. Bartholomae’s claims have been challenged and re-imagined over the years,
but here is where the debate began.
Bizzell, Patricia and Bruce Herzberg, eds. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings
from Classical Times to the Present. 2nd edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s,
2001.
As the title implies, these two well-known rhetoricians have put together a survey of
rhetorical theory beginning with Isocrates, Plato, and Cicero and ending with Virginia
Woolf, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Gloria Anzaldua. Several of the classical theorists
they address were rhetoricians before embracing Christian rhetoric; for example, St.
Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine is covered as well as writings by Tertullian. The
editors also include Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a 17th century Mexican nun who uses
Christian rhetoric and her knowledge of scripture to argue for the intellectual capabilities
of women.
Crowley, Sharon. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 3rd edition.
Boston: Pearson, 2004.
Crowley’s analysis of ethos demonstrates that the rhetor’s construction of persona is
important because through this persona, he or she can establish good character, good will,
and credibility. However, pathos also plays a role because the rhetor can appeal to human
emotion: fear, joy, sorrow, etc. If the rhetor knows the character of his/her audience,
then an appeal on religious grounds might be useful. By relating rhetorical theories to
religious texts, the speaker or writer indicates that a greater reality exists which is
difficult to express.
Gere, Anne Ruggles. Intimate Practices: Literacy and Cultural Work in U.S.
Women’s Clubs, 1880-1920. Urbana: U Illinois P, 1997.
Suggests that women’s clubs functioned as extra-curricular sites of writing instruction for
groups of women. These groups were often formed around shared religious (and
cultural) identifications: Mormon, Jewish, Protestant, Catholic. “One force animating this
intimacy derived from clubwomen’s common religious heritages, since a majority of
clubs were organized around denominational affiliations. Many clubs grew out of
church/synagogue groups and sought, especially in their early days, approval from
religious leaders or those who set a high moral tone…. Except in working women’s
groups, common denominational ties constituted an important source of identity for many
clubwomen” (40-41).
Gere, Ann Ruggles. “Revealing Silence: Rethinking Personal Writing.” CCC 53:2
(Dec. 2001): 203-223.
Gere contends that some students may choose to deal with personal issues in writing
courses by opting not to talk about issues that are sensitive, private, or even difficult, and
that instructors should not attempt to force students to communicate in ways that violate
their sense of personal safety. Her essay is also helpful for encouraging writing teachers
to address and acknowledge the tacit character of religious commitments.
Jost, Walter and Wendy Olmsted, eds. Rhetorical Invention and Religious Inquiry.
New Haven: Yale UP, 2000.
The writers of this collection of essays believe that, since the 1980s, researchers in the
fields of rhetoric and religion have had much in common because there are rhetorical
warrants that help support religious belief. When studying religion, scholars who take a
rhetorical approach focus on the practical problems of conversion, or they might focus on
the nature of the appeal being made: emotional rather than rational. On the other hand,
few rhetoricians with religious interests seem to exist in postmodern America, at least
until recently. The contributors to this collection seek to apply rhetorical approaches to
religion because they understand this can revitalize language and experience.
Meadows, Susannah. “Cut, Thrust, and Christ.” Newsweek 6 Feb. 2006: 56.
Meadows discusses the skill of the nation’s number one debate team, housed at Liberty
University, Jerry Falwell’s fundamentalist Baptist college. She quotes Falwell as saying,
“We are training debaters who can perform assault ministry” (56). A large percentage of
these debaters go on to become conservative lawyers and then conservative law makers.
Falwell and other conservative religious leaders want to “raise a generation that knows
how to argue” because that will be the most effective way to influence the culture.
Pratt, Mary Louise. “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Profession 91 (1991): 33-40.
This essay describes the contact zone as a social space defined by the collision of various
identities, values, and assumptions. Though Pratt pays attention to issues of ethnicity and
class, her conception is helpful for identifying the ways in which the writing classroom is
a contact zone for students of different religious and ethical convictions. She also proves
realistic in acknowledging the struggle and tension that arise in such contact zones and
thus proves instructive for teachers hoping to engage conflicts in the classroom more
effectively.
Qualley, Donna. Turns of Thought: Teaching Composition as Reflexive Inquiry.
Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1997.
Though some of her examples of the development students can experience in a single
semester (or a single writing assignment) seem too pat, Qualley’s book remains ones of
the best discussions of academic reading as a conversational process: “when I claim that
reading texts openly, tentatively, dialogically, and reflexively can deepen students’
understanding, I mean it to be understood that this assumption holds true only if students
are shown how to read this way” [Qualley's emphasis].
Roberts-Miller, Trish. “Discursive Conflict in Communities and Classrooms.”
CCC 54:4 (June 2003): 536-557.
Roberts-Miller identifies the challenges of encouraging community discourse while
simultaneously valuing disagreement. She worries that sustained disagreement may lead
to conflict but acknowledges that any attempts to conform personal identities to a public
standard are even more harmful. Her essay exhibits the balancing act in which writing
instructors must engage when they allow religious discourse into the writing classroom.
Schiller, Susan. “Writing: A Natural Site for Spirituality.” The Spiritual Side of
Writing. Eds. Regina Foehr and Susan Schiller. New Hampshire: Boynton/Cook,
1997. 34-43.
Schiller defines spirituality and then explains its implications for pedagogy and
composition theory. She asserts that “writing is a journey into self or into community—a
joyful community, but not one that is risk free.” Schiller also references Alice Walker
and Isabel Allende, writers who both use the word “witness in the Christian sense: to
witness is to proclaim the lessons they have learned” (39). Thus, students who are in
touch with their spirituality come to composition classes with more advanced set of skills
than those who are not.
Spigelman, Candace. “Argument and Evidence in the Case of the Personal.”
College English 64:1 (Sep. 2001): 63-87.
Spigelman argues that instead of placing personal testimony, narratives, and
presuppositions in a position inferior to academic discourse, writing instructors should
see personal discourse as no less sophisticated in terms of argumentative structure She
gives special attention to narrative as having a logic and set of assumptions that are often
far more nuanced than writing teachers may realize. As such, she provides solid
scholarly ground on which to build a case for religious discourse in the writing
classroom.
Timmerman, John and Donald Hettinga, eds. In the World: Reading and Writing
as a Christian. 2nd ed. Michigan: Baker Academic, 2004.
Designed to be used as a reader in a composition class, this work contains a section on
rhetoric and the writing process in which the editors attempt to define a Christian view of
rhetoric. The book also contains seven topically-organized chapters that address different
aspects of religion such as ethics, suffering, literature, liberal arts, and the environment.
The essays represent the views of a broad range of eras as well as cultural groups; for
example, the editors include works by John Donne, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, St.
Augustine, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Rita Dove.
Trimbur, John. “Consensus and Difference in Collaborative Learning.” CrossTalk in Comp Theory. Ed. Victor Villaneuva. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1997. 439-457.
Trimbur challenges the assumption that consensus should be the goal of classroom
discussion about issues of potential disagreement or conflict. He warns against the desire
to make our students conform to a particular ideological pattern and calls on writing
instructors to help students learn to communicate in spite of disagreement and difference.