To prepare students to work as agents of renewal affecting the restoration of local to global socio-cultural systems within the context of a Reformed-Christian, liberal arts education and guided by a sociological and anthropological conceptual framework that is grounded in an empirical research base.

Program Goals

1. To develop within students a critical understanding of sociological and anthropological perspectives, theories and concepts, as well as skills, all of which are grounded in an empirical research base and evaluated within the context of a Reformed-Christian, liberal arts perspective.

2. To prepare students to work in a variety of local to global entry-level positions, as agents of renewal effecting the restoration of socio-cultural systems using appropriate sociological and anthropological knowledge and skills.

3. To prepare students in sociological and anthropological undergraduate training for successful work in graduate-level educational programs.

Program Themes

The statement of mission and program goals for sociology include four inter-related themes that will be infused into all courses in the major. These themes are:

1. a Reformed Christian outlook,

2. a sensitivity to human diversity,

3. a cross-cultural perspective, and

4. an awareness of issues of social justice and reconciliation.

While certain themes will be more prominent in some courses than others, they will be the sociology program's overarching themes, giving the program its distinctiveness, and will therefore be addressed to some degree in all courses.

The statement of mission and related program goals and themes are grounded in the mission of Calvin College. The broadest statement of the college's mission is contained in its statement of vision:

Calvin College is a comprehensive liberal arts college in the Reformed tradition of historic Christianity. Through our learning, we seek to be agents of renewal in the academy, church, and society. We pledge fidelity to Jesus Christ, offering our hearts and lives to God's work in God's world. (Calvin College Catalog 2004/2005, p.7)

The department recognizes and affirms that being agents of renewal is a Reformed way of saying that Reformed Christians seek to live a life of service informed by key insights of Reformed theology (Plantinga, 2002; Wolterstorff, 1983). Reformed theology views God's special revelation as teaching that there are three turning points in God's relationship to His creation: First, God made everything perfect - physical, biological, psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual reality (The Creation). Second, sin entered the world and distorted the creation (The Fall). Third, God, in His infinite love, sent His Son to sacrifice Himself for the disobedience of human beings and thus offers the hope of ongoing renewal of the creation (Redemption). Reformed theology also focuses on the relationships among the parts of creation and their relationship to God rather than the parts in and of themselves. Thus, in explicating the impact of the Fall on human beings, Reformed thinkers point to the distortions in relationships that occurred between people and their environments, between people and God, and among one another. For example, with regard to human beings, Plantinga (2002) writes:

. God isn't content to save human beings in their individual activities. God wants to save social systems and economic structures too. If the management/labor structure contains built-in antagonisms, then it needs to be redeemed. If the health care delivery system reaches only the well-to-do, then it needs to be reformed. The same goes for hostile relationships of race, gender, or class. The same goes for proud and scornful attitudes among heterosexuals toward homosexuals. (p. 97)

Similarly, in reflecting on the implications of redemption, these thinkers emphasize that, because God has not abandoned His world but rather sent His Son to redeem it, healing and justice can occur in the broken relationships in different areas of life and a measure of shalom or the Kingdom of God can be reestablished. The emphasis on relationships in redemption is evident in Plantinga's writing when he describes shalom as the ". webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight . . . " (2002, p. 14).

The department believes the study of sociology is critical to the ongoing success of the larger Reformed project at Calvin. Sociology is the study of how people organize their social relationships and how that organization changes over time. For nearly two hundred years, the discipline has developed theories and tested its propositions regarding current and past features of social organization. The resulting body of knowledge offers Christians insight and documentation about the nature and extent to which the Fall has distorted social life. The sometimes blatant, sometimes subtle injustices associated with age, class, ethnicity, gender, race, and religion can be persuasively exposed with the tools of sociological analysis. In addition, when sociological knowledge is carefully integrated with scripture, especially the New Testament's vision for human relationships in the Kingdom of God, it becomes an indispensable resource to a community of persons seeking to be agents of social renewal.

Sociologists at Calvin College have shared this notion of the mission of their field for their teaching and scholarship for many years. In 1979 and 1980 the department prepared a set of essays for use in several of the department's courses at the time (Smit, 1980). These essays are attempts to integrate Christian and sociological learning with respect to the discipline of sociology, the value of the discipline for Christians, cultural relativism, deviance and crime, group organization, socialization, social inequality, institutional racism, sport, family, religion, and demography. Some of the books published by department members explicitly reflect this sense of mission (Annis, Loyd-Paige, & Rice, 2001; De Jong & Smit, 1987; De Jong & Wilson, 1979). Closely related, too, are the recent books edited by Professor Hugen on spirituality and social work practice (Van Hook, Hugen, & Aguilar, 2001), and Christianity and social work practice (Hugen, 1998).

These works further flesh out the skeletonal statement of mission and goals given above. There are two points made in these writings that the department believes are especially important to its current understanding of mission. The first is that effectively acting as agents of renewal requires Reformed Christians to possess the capacity to engage diverse persons and social organizations through processes of compassion and love as well as speaking out against patterns of evil and injustice. While it is important to speak out and act against social distortions as Jesus did when, for example, he threw the money changers from the temple (Matthew 21: 12-13), the process of social renewal also requires compassionate and respectful engagement across lines of diversity as Jesus enacted toward publicans, sinners, the poor, the Samaritan woman, and the adulterous woman brought to him by the Pharisees. The department, therefore, views interpersonal and social renewal as more than discerning, labeling, and speaking out against what is evil in the world. Renewal also means having the capacity to love those engaged in evil or injustice, viewing them as more than the evil or injustice they perpetrate, and engaging them in a process of mutual growth in which the distinction between renewer and renewed often blurs as both become agents of healing to one another.

The second point, shared by others writing about the integration of Christianity and sociology (Fraser & Compolo, 1992), is that the department believes the process of renewal must be equally directed inward toward ourselves in the Christian community as well as to the outside world. It is the nature of human communities to find it easier to discern brokenness in other communities than to perceive it and confess it within their own ranks. The department believes an important part of its mission in teaching and scholarship is to turn the lens of sociological analysis on Christian communities, their social patterns, and their institutions, considering these against the truths of scripture and its claims on all people to be loving and just interpersonally and in the social structures and institutions they create. While such analysis may be ignored by the Christian communities concerned or viewed as unfriendly or disrespectful, the department intends it as a service inspired by a biblical sense of shalom and a commitment to being agents of renewal in our roles as Christian sociologists.

The department also wishes to emphasize that the statement of mission for sociology is one aimed primarily at fostering a vocational orientation in students and only secondarily as preparation for specific occupations. This emphasis is consistent with the mission of the college that states, as an institution of Christian higher education, Calvin College attempts to equip the body of Christ with ". the careful reflection it needs to be a thoughtful and effective agent of renewal" (Calvin College, 1996, p. 33). The same is true, incidentally, for the other major program in the department, the social work major. Although a professional program, the mission of the social work program is first of all to prepare students for the vocation of Christian service and secondarily to teach the knowledge, skills, and values useful in entry-level, social work positions. (For a statement and explication of the mission of the social work program and its congruence with that of sociology, see the most recent self-study document for the B.S.W. program [Social Work Program Committee, 1996]).