Artes Liberales

One of my central classes this semester is a study of the "artes liberales" ideal of education. ("The history and literature of a liberal arts education," according to the syllabus). We read selections from Plato to Cicero to John Henry Newman (and everyone inbetween), get a good bit of historical context and secondary sources thrown at us, and discuss any questions, big or little, that arise from the readings and lectures. It's quite a bit of work -- technically a 3-credit class, but people to say to consider it 4-6 credit hours of work. The profs inform us that it's basically a course with graduate-level reading requirements, but with (thankfully) undergraduate-level writing requirement.

I'm pretty much hooked, though -- mostly because the class raises and attempts to deal with some pretty important questions. Aka...

• What should an "education" look like? Vocational? Learning how to learn? For it's own sake? Proper proportion of "book learning" to "practical learning"?
  
• What makes a "wise" and/or "well rounded" individual?
  
• What is the relationship between education and life in the "real world"?
  
• What's the proper relationship between reason, experience, and revelation?
  
• Not everyone gets a liberal arts education...or wants to. Most people go the vocational training route. How does one avoid "elitism" -- or CAN we or SHOULD we?

Some main themes that keep showing up in the course:

• "Wisdom must be married to eloquence." Or "the true philosopher must be an orator, the true orator a philosopher." It is important both to know what is true, and to communicate what it true. Well-ordered speech shows a ready and well-ordered mind.
  
  
• A "liberal education" develops man's capacities for speech and reason -- both distinctly human characteristics, separating men from animals (and thus important). A "liberal education" also satisfies the distinctly human "desire to know." (Especially the desire to know the "ends" of things, and the "why" of things).
  
  
• A "liberal education" is both useful for many things -- and also good for it's own sake (in that it develops the uniquely human parts of man).

Women in the Church

Some additional thoughts concerning this point from my last post:

We need the strengths of women just as much as we need the strengths of men. When women's strengths -- such as dialog, communication, bridge-building, hospitality -- aren't seen as necessary and valuable to the life of the church, and given freedom to be exercised -- the church suffers.

If men and women really are different, then the tendencies of women have an important "fleshing out" role to play in the life of the church. Our proclivities for dialog, communication, bridge-building, hospitality aren't things to be afraid of and corralled into narrow limits, but important balancing factors to men's proclivities for confrontation, wall-building, aggression. I don't mind at all calls for the "masculinization": of the church - but people seem to forget in the mix that, just because the church needs a strong masculine element, this doesn't mean it doesn't need a strong feminine element as well. That the absence of "feminization" is just as much a problem as the absence of "masculinization." I have problems when "masculine" elements are associated with "good", and "feminine" with "bad." I have problems with it being fine and good for the life of the church when men are men -- but bad and damaging to the life of the church when women are women.

When our tendencies aren't valued, we have to become like men to get heard. And that's just not good for anyone.

It's much like John Henry Newman's view of education and reality. If we only get the ethicist's + chemist's perspectives on reality, we get a skewed and incomplete picture of the world. We need all disciplines and "ways of knowing" to contribute to the image. Likewise...if there really is a root difference between men and women, and if we only get the perspective of men on things, we've got a skewed and incomplete picture of reality. If men and women ARE truly different in how they approach and understand and value things in life -- and if those "ways of knowing" are indeed both necessary and important (equal, even?) -- if it is "not good that man should be alone" -- then kicking out (or treating as second-rate) what the women have to say on things gives us only a partial picture that will be eventually disastrous.

I just want my work to be seen as valuable and important, not dangerous. I want my proclivities for dialog, communication, bridge-building, and hospitality to be respected and valued as necessary aspects of the life of the church, in a necessary tension with more "masculine" proclivities. I damn well WANT to be a woman - but it's rather difficult when everything feminine and womanly is looked upon with suspicion as "unchristian" and "syncretic" and "weakening to the doctrine and life of the church." It's very difficult when, in one's life and theology, one has to act like a man to be seen as a true Christian, a defender of the faith, and "like Christ."

Of course we need aggression and defense and firm-standing and who knows what else. But give those free reign unchecked and unbalanced, an you'll have problems.

Women

So. I've been thinking a lot about the "role of women in the church." Partly because my friend Alisa is writing her honors thesis in defense of evangelical feminism and egalitarianism. Partly because I've heard about 50 gazillion sermons on Tutus 2, I Timothy 3, and Ephesians 5, all of them from a complementarian persepctive. Partly because I wonder from time to time whether God is angry at me for going to college. Partly because I have no freaking CLUE what it looks like to be an academically inclined Christian woman.

And mostly because I think there must be a resolution to all this that is true and good and beautiful, and doesn't do violence to revelation. Or experience or reason. :P

There's several ways I've come to resolve the matter in my own mind. Probably not entirely right or complete, in any way -- but I do believe they ring a bit truer than most of the flack flying around in these debates.

Important point #1: Men are women image the relationship between Christ and the church. The relationship between husband and wife was put in place by God in large part to provide a visible image of this deeper reality. Maybe I'm just crazy, but this rationale for gender roles strikes me as deeply beautiful, and though I may chafe sometimes at some of the implications, I can live quite happily with it.

Important point #2: We need the strengths of women just as much as we need the strengths of men. When women's strengths -- such as dialog, communication, bridge-building, hospitality -- aren't seen as necessary and valuable to the life of the church, and given freedom to be exercised -- the church suffers.

Important point #3: God is on the side of the weak and the oppressed and the helpless. Which is where a lot of women throughout a lot of history have found themselves.

Important point #4: The current era really is a "new day" for women. We have areas of life and work and study open to us that we never had before. We have the opportunity to do things unthinkable before. And we also have few guides or role models for what it looks like to do these things qua "women."

I DO think a woman will -- or ought to be -- an academic, a manager, a scientist, even, in a different way than a man. I don't know what it looks like. I'm hoping that in 500 years, maybe we'll get some idea. Especially of which parts of how those things are studied and pursued are fundamentally necessary to do the discipline well...and which parts are distinctly suited to more "male" tendencies and "ways of knowing." Which parts are up for debate, and which parts have to stay fundamentally the same.

These four points aren't fully developed by any stretch of the imagination. But, needing some guideposts to steer by in this mess, they're what I've currently ended up with. More on them later, I suppose, as I keep working with them in the back of my mind.