DENNY WEAVER, ed., Education with the Grain of the Universe: A Peaceable Vision for the Future of Mennonite Schools, Colleges, and Universities.Foreword by Susan Schultz Huxman. Telford, PA: Cascadia Publishing House, 2017. Pp. 360. $27.95.
This volume of 20 essays is the product of a conference on the past, present, and future of Mennonite education held at Bluffton University in October 2015. Published in the university’s C. Henry Smith book series and edited by J. Denny Weaver, professor emeritus of religion at Bluffton, the volume is understandably filled with Bluffton University voices, professors, former professors, and alumni providing the bulk of the volume’s content. Nonetheless, the essays, many of them excellent, raise questions that are pertinent to the future of all Mennonite colleges and universities (I would suggest all Anabaptist-related colleges and universities) in twenty-first-century North America. As Eastern Mennonite University president Susan Schultz Huxman writes in her foreword, the volume’s essays raise more questions than they answer, but rather than being a weakness, this open-ended strategy is a strength, for it allows the answers to be sorted out in more specific educational contexts.
Edited volumes that emerge from conferences often demonstrate a lack of cohesion, and this one is no exception. That said, Weaver does an excellent job of circumscribing and connecting the disparate essays with a five-page introduction. The assumption that undergirds the entire volume, writes Weaver, is that “living within the story of Jesus, which makes visible the grain of the universe, has the potential to influence thinking in virtually any discipline of the school or university curriculum” (19). Given that claim, it is incumbent on Weaver to outline what he means by the story of Jesus, which he does in chapter one. Three themes emerge from Weaver’s telling of this story: Jesus’ concern for marginalized people—the poor, the outcast, and oppressed; Jesus’ willingness to confront oppressive religious and political powers, a willingness that led directly to Jesus’ death; and Jesus’ commitment to nonviolence, an ethic that he, along with New Testament writers, assumed of his followers. Rather than offering students a “narrow, doctrinally based education,” writes Weaver, Mennonite colleges and universities should “draw implications from the story of Jesus for many issues that confront our church and our world” (42). Because this story reflects “the grain of the universe,” a phrase Weaver borrows from John Howard Yoder, Mennonites should not be surprised when they find others, even those who don’t claim the name of Christ, to be drawn to similar conclusions about the hindrances to, and the possibilities for, human flourishing.
The remainder of the volume is divided into six parts, each with a helpful introduction by Weaver: “Theology and Ethics,” “The Bible,” “Ecclesiology,” “Literature from the Margins,” “Peace and Conflict Studies,” and “Local Applications.” As these subtitles suggest, the volume tilts heavily in the direction of theological studies and, to a lesser extent, to peace and conflict studies. Providing some contrast to that, there are two essays from literary scholars and one from a historian and, in the book’s final section, one from a communications scholar and one from a biologist. Scholarly voices from the social sciences are absent from the volume, as are voices from most of the natural sciences, the professional disciplines (e.g., nursing), and college administration. Weaver admits to the volume’s lack of disciplinary diversity in his conclusion, a shortfall that is likely rooted in the conference papers he had at his disposal.
Weaver’s dismissal of a “narrow, doctrinally based education” (which he unfortunately leaves undefined) would be met with approval in many faith-based liberal arts colleges, none of which want to offer their students a narrow education in the manner of a Bible college. At the same time, Weaver’s turn to the story of Jesus is a particularly Anabaptist move. It is a move partly born of necessity. Many Mennonite schools and colleges on the progressive end of the spectrum have seen their percentage of Mennonite students drop, which means classrooms are increasingly populated with students who have relatively little interest in the Mennonite faith, or even the Christian faith. In these environments, the idea of exposing students to the intricacies of Mennonite history and doctrine, let alone classical Christian doctrine, feels like an antiquated and even inappropriate mission to pursue. Moreover, many Mennonite scholars teach at secular institutions, and they naturally want to cast their teaching and scholarship in terms that speak to diverse audiences. Using the story of Jesus as an organizing concept enables Weaver to say that Mennonite schools and scholars can have their cake and eat it too—that is, they can be authentically Mennonite but not explicitly so.
As one would expect in an edited collection, the contributors demonstrate different levels of agreement with Weaver’s overarching thesis—some contributors are much more interested in explicit Anabaptist-Christian spiritual formation than others—and they take different routes in exploring what it means to be a Mennonite scholar or educator. Some essays, such as Rebecca Janzen’s “Mennonite and Mormon Women’s Writing,” explore issues of sexism, homophobia, and marginalization from the standpoint of their disciplinary expertise. Other essays, such as Zachary Walton’s “Teaching the ‘Pacifist’s Dilemma,’” takes readers into the undergraduate classroom, enabling them to see the challenge of recommending nonviolence to skeptical students. Still other essays, such as Hannah Heinzekehr’s “Making Peace with Ourselves: Mennonite Peace Education and Intrachurch Conflict,” consider the need for more thoughtful analyses of congregational and denominational conflict. Heinzekehr’s essay is one of many in the collection that references ongoing debates regarding the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals in Mennonite congregations, an issue that is currently rending the Mennonite Church USA and, if pollsters are correct, an issue that will occupy many North American churches, including evangelical ones, for years to come.
Two essays may be of particular interest to readers of Brethren in Christ History and Life. Drew G. I. Hart, who teaches theology at Messiah College, offers a penetrating analysis of North American Anabaptists’ tendency to criticize certain elements of the larger culture even as they benefit from their whiteness and the privileges that whiteness has bestowed. And Benjamin Bixler, who grew up in the Grantham (PA) Brethren in Christ Church, urges the practice of dialogue in the search for truth, a practice that seems increasingly rare, and therefore crucial, in our polarized society. Two other essays I highly recommend: Gerald Mast’s essay on “Why the Anabaptist Academy Should Go to Church,” which argues that congregational involvement is an excellent complement to a student’s classroom education; and Angela Horn Montel’s essay on “Bringing Christian Students to Peace with Darwin,” which outlines her efforts to counter the anti-science views that many of her students have imbibed from their churches and/or Ken Ham’s “Answers in Genesis” ministry.
Indeed, what I appreciate most about Mast’s and Montel’s essays are the authors’ clear recognition that students and their learning lie at the heart of the educational task. Scholarship has its place, and colleges and universities are obliged to find ways for teachers to engage in peer-oriented conversations. Still, Mennonite schools, colleges, and universities exist primarily to prepare students for their futures, which means helping them to see the world clearly and, in light of that vision, helping them to consider how their lives might align with God’s purposes. Although I might have wished for a few more pedagogically oriented essays in this collection, Weaver’s framing of the educational task—helping students participate in the story of Jesus—is a welcome addition to conversations about the fundamental purpose of Anabaptist-related schools and colleges.