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"A Tale of Two Cities"by John Netland"What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" asked the early Church father Tertullian in a statement that was less a question than a declaration of antagonism between the sacred and the secular. One doesn't need to share Tertullian's sharp antithesis between faith and culture, however, to wonder at times how one's Christian faith intersects with what seem like religiously neutral pursuits. Those of us who teach writing at church-related institutions often struggle to articulate the relevance of our Christian faith to the discipline that we teach. Literature, of course, quite frequently invites the reader to reflect on religious themes. But composition? What has Christianity to do with composition? Since Tertullian has framed the question of faith and culture in terms of symbolically opposed cities, let me follow his lead by answering this question with my own set of urban symbols. With apologies to Charles Dickens, St. Augustine, Tertullian, and anyone else who has found it convenient to divide the world into competing cities, what follows is my own tale of two cities, a pedagogical parable of sorts. Let's call the first city London. This London is less the city of history than an imaginative symbol, the cultural broker of classical learning and elegance both to British society and to the cultural backwaters of the New World. It's the London of eighteenth-century literary culture, a world whose rhetorical preferences still dictate standards of literacy in many circles. It represents an age when the proliferation of printing presses and publishing houses not only increased the accessibility of books but also encouraged ambitious scholarly projects: the codification of grammar and rhetoric and the production of dictionaries and encyclopedias, all of them bearing the stamp of authority. The composition pedagogy symbolized by London emphasizes standardization, propriety, and correctness. It contains an appeal to tradition and authority, suggesting that we learn at the feet of the masters. The respect for tradition in London is such that the methods of instruction rely heavily on imitation exercises, drills, memorization, and repetition. As for content, London takes a dim view of pursuing originality for its own sake. Its defining motto might well be the aphorism whereby Alexander Pope defined genius: "True wit consists in what oft' was thought but ne'er so well expressed." At its best, the London school cultivates elegant and learned writers who have absorbed a venerable tradition and who write with clarity and grace, correctness and flair. At its worst, London either transforms students into dull pedants or bores them into willing illiteracy. A continent and centuries removed from neo-classical London lies the city of Berkeley, home of the Free Speech movement and symbol of a libertarian, self-expressive ethic. The Berkeley composition philosophy emphasizes writing as a self-authenticating, self-creating activity. One writes, not just to express one's self, but to discover-even to create-a self. Perhaps this composition pedagogy owes something to the celluloid culture wafting up the coast from Hollywood, where self-re-creation is a seasonal ritual, accomplished with only modest help from plastic surgeons or a fabulous new script. Whatever its source, it insists that one's self is malleable, capable of rhetorical reconstruction. Nor does one need to be content with the constituted world, for it too can be transformed through the power of the written word. Berkeley writing facilitators tend to emphasize process over product. They talk about developing skills of critical thinking rather than the mastery of rhetorical conventions. Grammatical competence, when not ignored entirely, are often dismissed as the lesser concerns of the anal-retentive. Written assignments incline toward the experiential rather than being grounded in a text, and a premium is placed on the authenticity of the writer's voice. William Wordsworth provides the Berkeleyan aphorism of inspiration as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions . . . recollected in tranquillity." Originality bubbles up from within, and genius is less the application of discipline than the hope for inspiration. The Muse of Berkeley, not surprisingly, is in high demand from the hours of 1-4 a.m., when most student writers sit in prayerful obeisance before their computer screens, beseeching divine intervention. As with the school of London, the Berkeley approach has its virtues and vices. At its best, it engages students in their own processes of discovery. It can free their voices and allow them to give expression to unexpected reservoirs of thoughtfulness and creativity. At its worst, it lends dignity to the vacuous pronouncements of those whose selves are created ex nihilo. It can easily degenerate into self-parody, as evidenced by late night poetry readings in smoke-hazed coffee houses or best-sellers like Monica: My Story. Even worse, rhetorical self-creation can become fundamentally dishonest. If autobiography is nothing more than self-creation and is not responsible to standards of evidence and truth, why shouldn't O. J. Simpson re-write himself as the voice of black victimization? So here we have our two cities, London and Berkeley, geographical representatives of a set of pedagogical oppositions-tradition vs. innovation, craft vs. art, mastery of rhetorical skills vs. experimental personal expression, authoritative rules vs. self-creative freedom. Each city has much to recommend it, yet both are reduced to caricature when its local ordinances are prescribed as universal laws. Where then is the writing teacher to situate herself? Which city can the composition instructor call home? Such questions take on added complexity for the Christian writing instructor, who finds the oppositional choices of London and Berkeley complicated by the presence of faith. Here it is important to notice that this parable of two cities does not echo St. Augustine's distinction between the city of God and city of man. Neither city should be confused with the new Jerusalem nor should either one be dismissed as the pedagogical equivalent of Sodom and Gomorrah. To take the Christian implications of our teaching seriously precludes us from opting for the simplistic (read "lazy") resolution of baptizing a particular professional norm as "The Christian approach to teaching writing." The easy resolution to this metaphor of antithetical cities is to adopt the penchant I often see in Christian circles, i.e., to steer a middle course between opposing extremes. Sometimes, the Reformed task of engaging with culture looks like little more than Aristotle's golden mean: between two extremes lies the optimal virtue. One might be tempted to split the difference between London and Berkeley and land, with some license for the geographically-challenged, in the environs of Grand Rapids as the mediating site of a Christian rhetoric. As a symbol of Reformed moderation, it offers the eclectic ideal: some tradition, some innovation, the cultivation of creativity tempered by a respect for rules. Indeed, the Calvin College English Department's "Guide to the Teaching of English 101" seems to appropriate the virtues of London and Berkeley while avoiding their seamier neighborhoods. In the common aims of English 101, we find 15 principles enunciated, some striking the Londonesque tone of respect for conventions of language, propriety, effectiveness, and ethical integrity and others echoing Berkeleyan themes of writing as a process of discovery and of the writer's choices in the composing process. Even the thoroughly Berkeleyan verb participle "empowering" asserts its way into those goals. Aristotle's Golden Mean notwithstanding, the middle way is often less principial than prudent. It allows ideas to settle into an incoherent mush as easily as it encourages principled moderation. Perhaps there are better ways to draw our faith into conversation with professional responsibilities than to resort to the language of moderation. The particular strategy that I shall employ will itself result in some eclecticism, but it is an eclecticism based less on moderation than on sifting through professional models to select those principles which best comport with Christian faith and practice. The place to begin, I think, is with the doctrine of creation. Beyond from the permission that common grace gives us to look appreciatively both to classical rhetoric and to radical pedagogy, a creational theology affirms the value of language and the creative power of words. God's creativity is directly linked to His utterances, and the two are fused in the magnificent opening verses of John's Gospel, which describes the pre-existent Word made flesh. God's word creates the world; the Word redeems it. The power of God's word both creates and transforms that reality. God is the original social constructivist, the only One whose discourse genuinely creates the world it signifies. What implications does a creational theology have for the composition classroom? It reminds us that language is intimately related to the power and being of God: language originates in God; language is powerful; language is creative. I need to convey to my students the passionate respect for words and meaning that this realization prompts in me. Words matter; writing matters. Moreover, since Scripture teaches us that we are image-bearers of God, we should recognize that our ability to use words reflects a creative power, a derivative power to be sure, but an echo of God's creativity nonetheless. Words create, not reality as the social constructivists would have it, but perceptions of reality, frameworks for understanding the world in which we live. Human creativity cannot be the primal act of creating out of nothing, but rather a secondary ability to bring order and coherence to the jumbled sensations and experiences of life. Hence, I need to respect the creativity of my student writers. I cannot treat them purely as empty vessels needing only to be filled with a knowledge of rhetorical principles. I must see them as image-bearing creators, whose use of language gives shape and expression to their visions of life. But there are some important theological caveats that make me qualify this Berkeleyan emphasis. In Christian terms, the doctrine of creation does not stand alone in pronouncing a blessing on anything and everything that the human self asserts. As humans, we are scarred by our fallen condition, and we share in the brokenness of a world tainted by willful disobedience against divine authority. The human self is thus not the sole warrant or source of creativity. Genius is not its own justification. There is undeniably some degree of self-assertion in teaching students to cultivate their own voices, but for the Christian writer discovering one's voice goes beyond self-assertion alone. We confess that we are selves in need of redemptive transformation, that we paradoxically find our selfhood by relinquishing it in submission to Jesus Christ. What I, as a Christian writing teacher, am looking for is a rhetoric that encourages one to assert a self and a voice which live by dying, which receive by giving, which exalt by serving. There are also other reasons why I'm not ready to settle down in Berkeley just yet. It's just too easy to get lost in its solipsistic neighborhoods, and I often need to return to London to re-discover a larger world of meaning. Anyone who has taught writing for very long must surely have noticed a curious irony about creativity. A purely self-absorbed rhetoric seldom cultivates originality but may, in fact, ensure cultural conformity. We've all seen examples of such conformity parading under the banner of self-assertion, much like the student who once wrote that he expressed his individuality and uniqueness by wearing old, baggy clothes and listening to alternative music. The difference between radical uniqueness and a cultural cliché is sometimes negligible. The problem, I suspect, is an impoverished imagination, the remedy for which emerges paradoxically by pushing one beyond the confines of the self to a discovery of cultural plenitude in this world. It takes a larger cultural context to be able to understand oneself and to be able to imagine the possibilities for life. The antidote for cultural conformity, as the Apostle Paul writes, is not simply to assert one's individuality, but is, rather, to be transformed by the renewing of our minds and that we may discover the will of God in that which is "good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom. 12:2). There is a place even in the composition classroom for renewing our minds through exposure to that which is good, beautiful, and true, whether that excellence manifests itself as rhetorical models to follow or ideas to stimulate our hearts and minds. Hence, in my composition classroom, we spend quite a bit of time reading and responding to various texts, using those readings both to model good prose and to challenge us to think more deeply about the world in which we live. Our students need to reflect on a world beyond their particular concerns and to learn from the great writers of the past and present. The denizens of London have a point: sometimes we do need to sit at the feet of the masters. This process of moving beyond the self also implies the need to master certain conventions of language. To be sure, the wardens of London need to lighten up a little. Grammatical propriety follows at quite some distance to cleanliness in its proximity to godliness. Still, grammatical competence is important. Most students need help with grammar and usage, just as they need to master varieties of sentence construction and rhetorical strategies. Perhaps a Christian ethic can offer a better rationale for such instruction than merely the claim to "the best that has been thought and said in the world." Conventions of discourse change, over time and by context. They are not universal, but are, rather, communally defined. I think Christians are prepared to understand two implications of this principle: 1) Christians should know that communities define their own rituals, conventions, and assumed meanings. We confess our faith in communities, and a Wesleyan community confesses its faith in somewhat different ways than does a Presbyterian community. Often we have trouble understanding the conventions of worship when we move outside of our own communities, but within the community itself those conventions are deeply meaningful. It is only through conventions of language and symbol that private utterances can become transformed into public discourse and meaning can be shared. 2) Once we understand how conventions are shaped by different communities and we recognize that we must observe communal conventions in order to be understood by our audience, we are ready to understand that a writer has an obligation to serve the reader. Drawing on the ethics of Jesus can transform the way that we think about the writer's service. We do not write merely for self-aggrandizement. We write to communicate, to be understood. Hence, we should write for others as we would have others write for us. The sober-minded realist in me isn't convinced that this rationale will magically transform grammatical and rhetorical instruction for my students, but I hope to convince them that conventions of writing are important. More importantly, I want them to understand that mastery of such conventions represents one way in which they can serve others. In this case, it's rather convenient that a rhetorical goal (clarity of expression) provides a venue for practicing a Christian virtue (serving the reader). So where then do I pitch my tent as a Christian teacher of writing? London and Berkeley are great places to visit, but neither one is home. But as long as I don't confuse either of these cultural spaces as my pedagogical destination, I find that my visits to both cities offer me tantalizing, if incomplete, echoes of a discourse that empowers one to serve others. Other faculty statements |
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