English-majoring Christianity

In his essay "Cultural Studies and its Theoretical Legacies," Stuart Hall wrote,

"On the one hand, we had to be at the very forefront of intellectual theoretical work because, as Gramsci says, it is the job of the organic intellectual to know more than the traditional intellectuals do: really know, not just pretend to know, not just to have the facility of knowledge, but to know deeply and profoundly."

Can I apply this to Christianity? I think I should. Tonight at Worship Jam (man, God touched my heart SO much!), Eric said that followers of Christ should not pretend to have it all figured out, but we must be real, be genuine.

Now, I've heard that pretty often, but sometimes it takes a quote from homework to really open my eyes. In this quote, Hall is talking about people who study cultural studies, but let's pretend he was talking about Christians. "On the one hand, we have to be at the very forefront of Christianity because it is the job of Christians to know more than the unsaved people do: really know, not just pretend to know, not just to have the facility of knowledge, but to know deeply and profoundly."

In applying this quote to Christians, I totally agree with the second half: we who follow Christ shouldn't pretend to know Him or know the answer to the hard questions of life; we shouldn't assume our ability to know Him absolves us of work; we need to know Him deeply and profoundly. What we also need to know and acknowledge, though, is that the first half of this statement is not true. We do not have to be at the very forefront of Christianity; we don't have to know more than everyone else. We can learn from the widows and orphans, from the least of these. All we need to know deeply and profoundly is Christ.

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Can I take a quick tangent and then make a slight complaint now? First, I think being an English major deepens my knowledge of Christ. The skills I've learned in the past three years have deepened my quiet times, challenged my ways of thinking, opened my eyes to new sides of God. That may sound totally intellectual, but God has used intellectual discussions in my spiritual walk. I really like it when my English homework makes me think of Jesus. I really like being challenged spiritually when I do my homework. I really like how God truly permeates everything I do. That's the tangent. Here's the complaint: though Jewell calls itself a Christian college, I wouldn't feel comfortable bringing up this kind of thing in a class. Class is not the place for such discussions, or applying this Stuart Hall quote to the Bible isn't appropriate or useful here. Jewell tries to be open to all religions, faiths, opinions, but that doesn't really extend to the classroom. I don't expect my classes to be Bible studies or Sunday Schools, but I do with the college was open to the different kinds of and uses for academia.

Regardless, God is in my classrooms and I hope I allow Him to be in my discussions. It's like Dr. Pratt said in chapel last week: "Just as we can go nowhere and not find God, we can go to no intellectual place and not find God already there, waiting for us."