Eaton, Philip W.

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Seattle Pacific UniversityDigital Commons @ SPUSpeeches Philip W. Eaton, 1995 - 2012September 26th, 2000Opening Convocation: 2000-2001, "Bear Witnessto Hope"Philip W. EatonSeattle Pacific UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.spu.edu/president_pweaton_speechesThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Philip W. Eaton, 1995 - 2012 at Digital Commons @ SPU. It has been accepted forinclusion in Speeches by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ SPU.Recommended CitationEaton, Philip W., "Opening Convocation: 2000-2001, "Bear Witness to Hope"" (2000). Speeches. 9.https://digitalcommons.spu.edu/president_pweaton_speeches/9Bear Witness To Hope  The President's Address, Opening Convocation September 26, 2000Even though I grew up in Arizona, or maybe because of that, I love the seasons.Isn't it great to feel a nip of fall in the air? Somehow there is a sense of newbeginnings here with this gorgeous fall weather. We can start fresh, set newgoals, begin again.I did some of that kind of thinking over the summer. Who am I, and just what aremy gifts, and what are my weaknesses, and where am I going in the days andyears ahead? How can I be most effective, and how will I know when I havestopped being effective?Those are the questions of calling. What does it mean to be called instead of justsimply making choices about life? What is a calling?We live with the notion most often, in this highly individualistic world of ours, thatlife is like a cafeteria: there are lots of choices, and all we have to do is listen toour hunger, and make a choice. Pizza today, burgers tomorrow, tacos the nextday. Gwinn is like that. What am I hungry for today?But discovering and rediscovering our sense of calling is not best described as acafeteria. Listening to our hunger is only a part of the story. Reflecting on callingis to connect our hunger, our gifts, our desires, and our dreams to somethingmuch bigger.I discovered this summer in the 6th chapter of John a very fresh way to thinkabout what it means to be called. This is the story where Jesus fed the fivethousand. Five thousand people, with hungry bellies and restless hearts,gathered at the feet of Jesus. And the disciples began fussing and murmuring:what are we going to do? We don't have enough food to feed these people. Ourresources are quite meager. All we have is these puny little loaves of bread and acouple of fish. My word, five thousand people.And Jesus steps into this moment of hunger and restlessness and doessomething absolutely mind-boggling. He says bring me the five loaves and thetwo fish. And as he begins to break the bread he opens up to his disciples and tothe hungry crowd and to a hungry world a marvelous banquet of plenty. Hungeris satisfied. Hearts are changed. Minds are transformed. And in that moment offeeding, the world is no longer the same.Jesus took those pitiful resources and transformed them, exploded them, into afeast. And John says, over and over again, in wonder and amazement, welcometo a feast. Bring your small gifts to Jesus and he will make something really big ofthem. Now there's an angle on what it means to be called.In the ensuing conversation, the disciples asked Jesus this important question:so Jesus, "how can we be sure that our work will be the work of God"? That's theimportant question. That's the question of calling, isn't it? Not just, what is mydesire, what am I hungry for at life's cafeteria line, but what does it mean to alignmy gifts, small as they are, with God's work, with God's extraordinary grace andlove, with God's flourishing?In light of these reflections on calling here are the questions I have been askingmyself: how can I bear witness to the hope that is found in Jesus Christ?Now listen to this-here is the other thing I discovered about my calling thissummer. In order to contribute, in whatever small way, to making the world aplace where all of God's children can flourish, I believe it is my calling, and it isour calling as a Christian university, to model, support, cultivate, and nourish thelife of the mind. I think, as I seek to bring hope in the world, it is my calling to liftup and support the Christian intellectuals and artists in this room and beyond.I have come to believe more deeply than ever before, that in order to be world-changers, we must be culture-shapers, and in order to be culture-shapers wemust cultivate the life of the mind and the life of the imagination. We must bethoughtful Christians, thinking Christians. That's the premise of my address thismorning.I just put together an amazing list of scholarly and intellectual and artistic activitythat is going on all across our campus. It is amazing. Talk about engaging theculture-our people are getting it done. The next time an Alan Wolfe writes anarticle in Atlantic on the evangelical mind, I want to see SPU in the mix.And let me add this note. It is not just our faculty I am talking about. Whateveryou end up doing in your life, whatever your specific calling turns out to be, andwhatever your role is at SPU, be a thinker, open yourself to the great literature ofall time, be conversant with philosophy and theology and poetry and art, learn tobe a person of ideas, a person of wisdom. Read Image. Go hear Randy Maddoxand others lectures on our campus. Think on the issues of the day. Rediscoveryour own gifts as a thinking Christian. Stretch yourself to read, study, and reflect.I am convinced that the Christian intellectual and artist have been shoved to thesidelines in the evangelical church for at least this last century. This is not a prettystory. There is plenty of blame to spread around for why this has happened. Theintellectual community must share some of the blame, indulging at times inarrogance, intimidation, and snobbery, honing such refined skills to preach to thechoir of their own disciplines alone, sometimes accommodating to secular cultureand losing a distinctive voice. And then of course some of the blame lies with thefear in the broader church community, a fear of ideas, a fear of fresh thinking forour times, a fear of pushing some of the boundaries that seem so sacred, a fearreally of engaging the culture. Separatism has seemed so comfortable.But now is the time, folks, as we stand at a crossroads where one culture is dyingand another groaning to be born, now is the time to lift up once again the clearthinking, the sure wisdom, the fresh imagination of our Christian intellectuals,writers, and artists as perhaps the critical change-agents, the fundamentalculture-shapers, for our world to come. And now is the time for the Christianintellectual and artist to seek a new posture of relevance and helpfulness, tomove in from the margins, to stop preaching to the choir alone, to becomeculture-shapers for the goodness and wholeness of God's flourishing grace.I pledge to you that I will do everything I can to support in new kinds of ways theChristian intellectual and artist at SPU and beyond. Help me know the ways.Let me tell you about a hero I discovered this summer. I have been deeplyimpacted by the life and teaching of a real world-changer, a real culture-shaper,one of the great figures of the 20th Century, Pope John Paul II. What a powerfulexample of engaging the culture/changing the world for the gospel of JesusChrist.I know I take some risks here. How can I lift up John Paul II when I haven't comeclose to mastering John Wesley, Karl Barth, even Dallas Willard, or so manyothers in the Protestant evangelical world? Trust me, I am fiercely Protestant, butall I can say is that I have been touched by the witness of this Christian leader.I have been touched in part because the Pope understands so profoundly that inorder to change the world, in order to bring the light of Jesus Christ into theworld, we must know how to engage the culture. The Pope has thought deeplyabout the crisis of modernity, that in fact in all of the horrors of the twentiethcentury a profoundly biblical notion of what it means to be human has beendiminished.And the Pope has come to the conclusion that the desperate need for change willnot come through politics, nor will change come through economics, as both theMarxist and the Capitalist have tried to convince us in the 20th Century, nor willchange come, God help us, through tanks and missiles. No, real change willcome through culture and culture is most profoundly shaped by religious truthand in order to engage the culture with truth we better be thinking people. That'swhat the life and work of this pope says to me.In October of 1978 the College of Cardinals met in Rome to select a new Popefor the Catholic Church. We don't know a lot about their deliberations as theygathered in strict seclusion to select a leader for this one billion membercongregation. But Bishop Karol Wojtyla from Poland was emerging as acandidate this time around. In the course of the deliberations, when one ofWojtyla's Polish colleagues was asked whether he would make a good pope, thatcolleague responded, "Oh, no, I don't think so. He's just a poet."I love it. I thought about using that line as the title for this address. I love the ironyhere. Indeed, Karol Wojtyla is a poet and an intellectual. He is a philosopher bytraining and scholarly accomplishment. He is a theologian. He has written a play,of all things, and lots of poetry.And here is the wonderful point: it is a poet who has become a man of thecentury, in my opinion, a man who perhaps more than any other human beingstemmed the tide of communism, a man who has brought the hope of Christ tomillions around the world. It is a poet who understands modernism, that culture ofthe self, ultimately a culture of death, and speaks boldly and courageously of themystery of Jesus Christ as the transforming power for a new culture of life. Thinkof it-a poet, an intellectual, a philosopher, a world-changer!Let me tell you a little about Karol Wojtyla. He is Polish to the core, the first Poleto have ever become Pope. The culture of his country has been shaped byChristian and Catholic faith and teaching for over a thousand years. As a veryyoung man he lived through Nazi occupation in Poland. He had to bear witnessto unspeakable horror as some of his young Jewish classmates, some of hischerished friends, were taken off to the gas chambers of the Nazi holocaust.Some have criticized the Pope that perhaps, as a young man, he did not resistenough during this period. As I read the life of this deeply thoughtful man, thisexperience has haunted his imagination and shaped his vision for a new world.Never again, the Pope says through his life and his teachings, never againshould we allow the dehumanizing forces of totalitarian brutality to tear downhuman dignity in this way. Never again, quite precisely because each person iscreated in the image of God. More than any other Christian leader the Pope hasaccomplished so much to breach the gap between Jews and Christians that hasexisted for 2000 years.As soon as Nazi power unraveled in Poland and all over Europe, the Stalinistforces from Russia moved in from the East, and Karol Wojtyla and the people ofPoland had to endure this new regime of lies, new brutality, and mind-numbinginefficiency. It is as if these regimes of death, grounded on the philosophy ofmodernity, could airbrush from history the shaping of culture by the Church forover a thousand years. And so Wojtyla and his friends went underground, atleast for all appearances. What they really did underground was to build a strongphilosophy of cultural resistance in the name of Christ. This is not the resistanceof force or political maneuvering or head-on confrontation in the streets, but theresistance of teaching, the resistance of writing plays and poems, the resistanceof worshiping and praying, the resistance of lifting up the great mystery of JesusChrist and in so doing empowering people with their own sense of dignity ascreatures made in the image of God. This is called engaging the culture.And it is not just Nazi horror or communist brutality against which the battlelooms on. It is devastating poverty and the hunger all over the world. It is thenumbing, seemingly intractable, racial, ethnic, national, and religious violenceflaring out all over the world. It is now the secular, materialist, relativist,individualist culture which is the enemy of human dignity.We too are in such a battle, the Pope continues to teach, but a battle for the soul,a battle for the heart and for the mind. If we are to thrive, if God's children are toflourish, then we must believe, as Karol Wojtyla believes, that resistance iscultural resistance, not only in times of vulgar totalitarian brutality, but in our owncoarse time of self-centeredness.And so finally let me return to the answer Jesus gave to the disciples question ofcalling. When they asked him, how is it that our work can be aligned to God'swork, here is the surprising answer that Jesus gives: believe in the one, Jesussays, whom God has sent. Believe in the bread of life, and you will want to feedthe hungry. Believe in Jesus, and then your work will be aligned to God's purposein the world. Believe in transformed plenty, and you will bring hope through yourwork. Believe that Jesus serves a feast. Believe that Jesus can take my meagergifts and do something with them far beyond what I could ever dream or imagine.Well these are the things I invite you to consider in this coming year. Thesethings are very important to me, and I want you to listen carefully.As you consider your calling, as you renew your calling, think hard howthe life of the mind, the renewing your mind, figures into that calling. Be athinker. Support our intellectuals, as I intend to do, in this community andbeyond. Be thoughtful. Study, read, and reflect no matter what you end updoing with your life, no matter what contribution you make in your role atSeattle Pacific.And then, secondly, consider this: meditate with me, in this coming year,on the profound mystery of Jesus Christ. Consider the mystery that hastransformed the lives of some two billion people all over the world.Consider that in believing you align yourself to God's work.  Let me add this: I want to respect those of you who are not Christians inour SPU community, those of no faith, and those of other faiths. I want torespect where each one of you is in the pilgrimage of faith. One of thethings I must discover much better is how to bear witness to the hope ofChrist in a pluralist world. I am working hard on that.   Rest assured, we will impose nothing on you. But rest assured as well thatwe will invite each one of you to consider the transforming gift of JesusChrist. As we all think about our calling, just think what Jesus might dowith our meager gifts.   And then finally, consider how you may bear witness to hope. Hope is theway things are, you know. We cannot bear witness to hopelessness. Wecannot, for example, sow seeds of dissension in this place. That bringshopelessness. We cannot be dishonest with each other. That bringshopelessness. Don't bear witness to despair, or dissension, or to me-centeredness, or hurtfulness, but bear witness to the hope. Let's be aplace where hope abounds.These three go together. Consider the life of the mind as a part of your calling.Meditate with me on the profound mystery of Jesus Christ. And then bear witnessto hope, here in our SPU community and to the far reaches of the earth. If wecan do these things, God will take our meager offerings, our little gifts, andtransform them into a life-giving feast of plenty.Thank you very much.   Copyright © 2000 Seattle Pacific University. General Information: (206) 281-2000

Opening Convocation: 2000-2001,  Bear Witness to Hope

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