Academies of Life

by Stephen Rankin

The philosopher and spiritual writer, Dallas Willard, of blessed memory, wrote the following exhortation in the introduction to his book, The Spirit of the Disciplines: “Our local assemblies must become academies of life as it was meant to be.” That phrase, “academies of life,” stimulates some thought.

What comes to mind when you think of an academy? Probably books and classrooms. The word “academic” conjures up images of tree-lined campuses and ivy-covered buildings, with erudite lectures and knots of students bent over books in the library, feverishly keying notes into their laptops, prepping for tests.

Willard joins “academies” with “life.” This is a crucial connection. Academies of life. Not book learning in isolation, but learning that is essential, existential, in our hearts, our guts, our bodies. Learning that matters in daily circumstances with all the joys and sorrows that, learning that makes us wise, gives us perspective, that holds us steady and makes us helpful to other people in their struggles. Learning that is not simplistic, not “dumbed down,” but adequate and continually refreshing as we negotiate life.

It’s one of the reasons I find Willard’s admonition intriguing. He served as a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California for four decades and embodied so many of the qualities that we imagine college faculty embody, sometimes in stereotypical ways. He was an expert on Edmund Husserl, a German mathematician and philosopher well-known in modern intellectual circles as the father of modern phenomenology. You don’t get more “philosophical” than that.

At the same time, according to Willard’s biographer, he was an exacting and compassionate teacher who gave countless hours one-on-one to his students. About any time of the day, if you came to his hopelessly cluttered office, you’d find him engaged in probing conversation with a student. And they were not simply talking “philosophy.” They were discussing life. All of us have been in such conversations, but perhaps didn’t realize how truly philosophical they are, or how much they depend on substantive ideas.

Given the stereotypes about college professors, it may be a surprise that this demanding philosophy professor is best known in Christian circles for his work on the spiritual disciplines. I mentioned one such title already. There are others, like The Renovation of the Heart or The Divine Conspiracy. And if you haven’t heard of Willard, I’ll bet you have heard of Richard Foster and Celebration of Discipline. Foster was the John Mark Comer of his generation and he and Willard were extremely close. Iron definitely sharpened iron in their relationship.

In several pieces that I’ve written recently for Good News, I’ve been Johnny One Note, harping on the need to recognize that our intellectual lives live organically in our spiritual lives. The two domains cannot be separated. Ideas that you have gained through some form of study (reading, listening, discussing) directly contribute not only to how you think about a given topic, but also how you feel and respond. To think is to experience.

So much of what late-modern Christian culture says about the Christ life is easy to manage – the five-minute devotionals and the “Let’s have a quick prayer” moments and the six-week Bible studies with fill-in-the-blank answers. In truth, they demand next to nothing from us and they leave us unchanged. Jesus said that if we want life, we’ll go through the narrow gate, and take the hard way, not the wide, easy way (Matthew 7:13-14). Of course, he wasn’t’ talking about taking a theology class, but it is nonetheless true that, to follow Jesus requires serious intellectual engagement with him. Who is it that we’re following? What did he come to do? Is he mainly a teacher, sage, and prophet, or is he God Incarnate, who takes away the sins of the world? The answer matters. What we think about him shapes how we follow him. And you can’t answer such questions reliably without getting into some deep theological waters.

We need, therefore, exactly what Willard advocates. We need our assemblies (our local churches) to become academies of life.

For a long time, I have been meditating on how, in the early generation of the church, converts to the Christian faith were catechized into the faith. What sort of learning did they undertake? One example is the catechetical school in Alexandria, Egypt, led by the great scholar of the ancient church, Origen. A catechetical school was where converts studied, fasted, and prayed, in preparation to receive Christian baptism and enter fully into the life of the Body of Christ. I’ve read that the curriculum in this catechetical school could be thought of as akin to a solid university education for that day.

In those days, when outsiders were trying to figure out what this new religion was, one of the points of comparison was with the philosophical schools that existed. They were schools of wisdom for life. No division between “the academic” and “the practical” existed. To study with a philosopher was to deepen one’s understanding of life’s meaning, to think about and practice what makes a good life. To study in a philosophical school meant to undertake the disciplines that led to true happiness.

In that catechetical school in Alexandria, new believers in Christ experienced the same sort of process. They knew that they were entering into a radically new way of living. They learned the scriptures. They faced the intellectual challenges of the day. They understood that, all around them were people who found their faith alternatively ridiculous and terrifying. To live well in such a world required both intellectual substance and the disciplines or means of grace of Christian piety.

The catechetical school was an academy for life, just as Willard exhorted us to try. We need the serious, systematic, careful, detailed experience of intellectual engagement with the rich resources of the church. We need to drink deeply from the well of our Christian theological tradition to develop a faith adequate for the times, that enables us to live with joy and confidence so that we can be a true blessing to others.

What if local churches were to take up this call to become academies for life? What if our church libraries became lively gathering places for people to read and think and ponder and discuss and try? What if our middle school and high school kids could go to any number of the grown-ups in their church (not just the pastor or youth leader) and ask the hard questions that they’re thinking about but afraid to ask? What would it do for their faith? What would it do for ours?

May God grant us the grace to take up Willard’s challenge. May our local assemblies become true academies for life.