Postcard from Kampala: Observations on public Christianity

We have now been in Kampala for six Sundays and have been struck by the numbers attending the churches we have visited here. Apparently most churches, at least in the city, are very large - a congregation of as few as 100 in one sitting would be very rare. Hundreds, if not thousands, attending in the one day is quite a normal scenario. As a result, many churches run multiple services back-to-back throughout the day and sometimes also on Saturday night. We experienced for the first time the need to arrive early enough to a Sunday service to get a seat inside, and queuing up outside while the previous service finished! This creates a bit of a 'revolving door' feel - once the service is over, you need to leave as soon as possible so the next lot of people can come in - so it's quite difficult to get opportunities to meet and talk to people before or after the service. The after-church morning tea or supper we are used to in Sydney would be logistically and financially impossible with the numbers here! One church we have been to here might have 20,000 people attending over once weekend (Saturday night and 5 Sunday services)! As with large churches we know of in Sydney, these churches operate on a 'cell-based' structure, where people meet in smaller groups during the week, and this is how you get to know people and become part of a family of fellowship.

The atmosphere here is very different from that of Australia, where Christianity has been marginalised from the public sphere over the last few decades, especially in academia. In contrast, I have heard of lecturers here praying aloud at the beginning and end of each lecture to commit the time to God and ask for his help with the teaching and learning of the content. If I did anything like that in Australia I would likely be thrown out of the university! Here, you hardly have to convince anyone that there is a God - this is a widely acknowledged fact of life, from the city to the smallest village. The difference is in which God, god/s or spirit/s people worship.

Uganda is statistically 84% Christian, about half of which is Protestant and half Catholic. I gather that this total includes a degree of 'nominalism' (as it does in Australia) and also a degree of mixing Christianity with traditional tribal religions and ancestor worship. But, whether sincere or not, the language of faith is everywhere: from the taxi-buses that hurtle around the city with slogans such as 'God's Blessing' or 'Jesus Saves' emblazoned across the windscreen, to the Bible verses on the majority of greeting cards that you find for sale, to the way many people greet each other saying 'Praise the Lord' or 'God bless you'.

Interestingly, although only a small percentage are Muslim, some Muslim festivals are marked as public holidays (such as Idd, which was celebrated last Friday) - apparently this is a legacy of the dictatorship of Idi Amin (in office 1971-1979), who was of the Muslim faith. The majority who are not Muslim are not averse to the extra public holiday, though! It caused me to reflect on what might happen if, as the Muslim population of Australia increases, a suggestion were put forward to make some Muslim festivals public holidays. I imagine there would be considerable resistance.

Students are people, not numbers

Last week the Macquarie University Vice Chancellor’s blog published a post by Arts Faculty Executive Dean Prof John Simons about the current debate about universities being allowed to widen participation through an abolishment of government caps on student numbers.

There are so many variables and issues involved that it is really hard to work out what’s a reasonable position. But there were a few things that he said in his post that I want to respond to as a teacher of first-year students who wants see students properly cared for.

"What this debate is about, of course, is widening access. It’s about giving people from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to benefit from higher education. It’s about being fair. It’s about making sure we use all the talent available not just some of it. This appears to be scary."
The only scary thing here is the suspicion that it’s not actually about universities wanting to give more people the opportunity to receive a higher education. If universities were serious about wanting more people to benefit from higher education, rather than just be entered into the system, I would expect to be able to see them putting infrastructure in place in anticipation of increased student numbers in order to be able to care for them properly. This would include in particular employing adequate numbers of full-time/permanent teaching staff so that class sizes could be kept at reasonable levels (15, rather than 25 or more!) and so that there could be sufficient staff consultation hours to go around to support students who need extra help (particularly in first year).

"Aptitude for success in higher education is not necessarily the same as aptitude for success at school."
I completely agree with this, having seen a number of my school friends who had not been brilliant at school absolutely flourishing when they got to university. They had increased motivation from being able to choose their own study paths and be accountable to themselves for what they did or didn’t do. However, lowering entrance scores is not necessarily the best way to give increase participation from lower socio-economic backgrounds. There are many other underlying variables that are involved, such as the quality of high schools in such areas, students’  and parents' attitudes to and support for education, and the simple fact of the need to survive financially through university.

Many students who come into university on a lower entrance score are simply not ready for university. It can be a very difficult transition culturally (although recent efforts to implement ’transition programs’ at various universities have helped alleviate this somewhat), let alone intellectually. The problem of maturity can certainly also be true of students who gain entry with higher scores, but would perhaps not mean the difference between passing and failing - just passing instead of getting a credit or higher.

It may be too much to expect students who have not so far achieved well academically to be able to keep up with a full-time student load AND maintain a part-time job (or multiple) AND carry out other life responsibilities, and be able to pass. And so I wonder if granting entry to students who have not so far shown the aptitude at school is giving them a false notion that they will be able to pass their university subjects and gain a degree. So if such students continue to be enrolled, there need to be greater support mechanisms - including financial support - to allow them to spend the required time and intellectual effort to keep on top of the new ideas they are learning and be able to flourish at uni so that they gain the social and intellectual capital to effect positive social change. Otherwise we will just see increased enrolments followed by large numbers of withdrawals, and I don’t think that’s the desired outcome.

Lots of ex-CITE-ment

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Cite Jesus conference for the third time (see posts about the previous Cite conferences). Cite is the annual national conference for Christians working in academia (the Simeon Network), whether as lecturers/professors, researchers or postgraduate students. Around 35 academics, researchers and postgraduate students met alongside the 1500 undergraduate students at the AFES National Training Event in Canberra. The Cite delegates came from universities in Sydney, Bathurst, Wollongong, Newcastle, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Canberra. Hopefully next year we'll have people from all the other states and territories, too.

The 5-day Cite conference was focused around 3 strands: Doctrine, Public Christianity and Overseas Mission. In the 'overseas mission' strand, we heard from a number of academics working (or preparing to work) as missionaries in universities around the world. In particular, we heard from three Australian academics - Dr Neville Carr and his wife Elspeth, and Dr Judy Lund - who have been working at St Johns University in Tanzania - a new Christian university, only 4 years old, which was set up by the Anglican church in Tanzania. The Carrs and Dr Lund helped us think through what a 'Christian' university might look like in practice and what our disciplines might look like through a gospel lens.

 They also impressed on us the great needs at the university, operating as it does in a developing country where material resources are scarce (think Internet cable, library books, classrooms, money for field trips), locals with PhDs are extremely rare, and the immediate material needs of the students often mean that attending classes (which is beneficial in the longer term) has to be sacrificed in order to work or harvest or care for family members in rural villages (which is absolutely necessary in the short term). But the need for higher education is great, particularly in teacher education, agriculture and other fields that will help provide for and improve the lives of the Tanzanian people in the longer term. The Carrs and Dr Lund estimate that it could be another 10 years before the university can achieve some stability in terms of staffing, resources and student attendance.

So what can be done? There are some Tanzanian students currently completing doctoral studies overseas with a view to returning to St Johns as academic staff, but this obviously takes time. So there is a great need for foreigners with PhDs to go to Tanzania to teach and help build up the curriculum (see e.g. Malcolm Buchanan and his family who went there with CMS last year). If you don't have a PhD, you could help out by purchasing a length of broadband cable (1m or 5m)! The Tanzanian government is apparently setting up a fibre optic internet backbone for universities around the country, which is great, but the university needs to purchase fibre optic cable to establish a network on campus which can link up to the backbone outside the campus boundaries. Maybe it would make a thoughtful gift for someone you know who is an internet addict!

Real Dialogue

This evening there’s a public debate on the question of ‘Can God become a man?’ between a Christian professor, Dr James White, and a Muslim scholar, Abdullah Kunde. I was asked to moderate the debate, and this is a new experience for me – a new kind of register to negotiate.

I did some research about the speakers and their past debates to find out how similar events have been run (see e.g. this debate two years ago with the same speakers) and in one of the videos I saw online, the MC/moderator noted that, while public debates used to be a permanent and regular feature of university life, these days they only occur every so often. Academics themselves tend to have more opportunities to engage in debate and dialogue through their disciplinary conferences (although this is becoming increasingly more difficult because of lack of funding and time to attend them), but students in most disciplines would probably miss out. In the opinion of that MC, the lack of real public dialogue and debate about the big ideas meant that, instead of being taught how to think, students these days are being taught what to think. I think I can actually see this attitude in many of my students, who are often not interested in engaging with ideas themselves and coming to their own view, but want to be given the 'right' answer. When asked for their opinion in class they are often reluctant to say anything in case it's not 'right' (this is also partly a result of cultural differences in pedagogical values and practices).

Why would more public debating contribute to a general pedagogy of how to think rather than what to think? I suppose it's because participating in a debate involves fairly high-level skills of reasoning and rhetoric, and even watching a debate usually means that you are exposed to two opposing ideological positions on the issue so it’s up to the individual listener to sort through the ideas, weigh up the validity of the arguments, and make up his or her own mind.

It reminds me of an article I came across a little while ago about a father who, in the interests of family harmony, taught his children how to argue from a very young age. I don’t like argument for argument’s sake, but inevitably life involves negotiation – of ideas, positions, propositions, decisions – so being able to argue well and constructively must surely be a good thing.

Workaholic culture

There is an ad campaign on the buses I catch and the moment (probably elsewhere too) for Bank of Queensland which promotes their service based on the dedication of their staff to solving customers' financial issues quickly. One such, over two posters, quotes a bank manager saying 'Finance for their first home FELL THROUGH' followed by another adjacent poster saying 'I worked overnight to get approval in 24 hours'. Another tells of a bank staff member staying back over a half-day public holiday to get the approval sorted out for some guy to put a deposit on a ute.

Does anyone else see something wrong with this? I am all for working conscientiously and helping people, but at what point do work hours stop and rest hours begin? Why has it become necessary for people to demand 24 hour approval for something they will spend most of the rest of their life paying off?

Because of the nature of competition, now that this bank has made this commitment to working in their own time, it's likely that the others will follow suit. And then what is to stop consumers demanding businesses in all the other industries from doing the same?

The academy is not immune from this mentality of 24-hour availability. Many students who send emails to teachers out of office hours are disappointed and sometimes openly critical if they do not receive an immediate response - especially if it's a weekend and the assignment is due on Monday! Apparently it is no longer the responsibility of the student to ensure they ask their questions well in advance of the due date. You can almost feel the frustration in online discussion board posts where a question is posed out of hours and is met with silence (at least from faculty).

To a certain extent, many of these teaching and learning technologies have been developed precisely to enable students greater access to learning resources, including the community of scholarship, and especially where students would otherwise be isolated from such contact by geography or life circumstances. But people's need for rest each week needs to be acknowledged, respected, and, even better, reintroduced as a valid idea.

Reason and Faith

During the Easter break I had the opportunity to read some thought-provoking online newspaper articles and their associated comments, on topics connected with religion. It's interesting that around Easter it becomes more acceptable for newspapers (including The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, and some overseas papers) to allow Jesus to be discussed publicly. I'm thankful for the persistence of the folk at the Centre for Public Christianity (this time it was Simon Smart, John Dickson and Justine Toh getting a piece of the action) to make sure Jesus is not left out of public discussion, especially at these times.

If the truth be told, sometimes the comments are more thought provoking than the articles (not necessarily in this case). Two things particularly interested me about the comments, neither of them new phenomena. Firstly, I was appalled by the lack of respect for others shown by individuals on both sides of the divide. It must be the relative anonymity of the online comment platform that makes people feel they are free to treat others with such disdain. Would they do the same face to face?

Secondly, there is a very persistent argument from atheists that the natural consequence of education and intelligence is a break away from religion. As someone who has had the opportunity to receive many years of solid education and earn a doctoral degree, I find that a baffling claim. There are many intelligent, highly educated people who are also followers of Jesus. I meet with a group of them every week at one of the universities I work at, to read the Bible, pray, and participate in seminars about the intersection of faith and academic disciplines or academic work. There is a growing nationwide network of us who meet each year in Canberra for a national conference.

Education/reason and true faith are not mutually exclusive. The Christians I know have not been brainwashed but have spent considerable time and effort inquiring into Christianity, the evidence for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and questions of the origins of life. Some have turned from atheism to Christianity after lengthy periods of enquiry. Some have grown up in Christian families but have still had to make their own decision to continue following Jesus, and for many this involved a lot of soul searching. I did not make the decision to follow Jesus lightly, and neither did the other Christians I know. Why would we blindly choose to follow such a costly faith?

Those of us in the academy (and those in other sectors) who are followers of Jesus need to take a bold stand for Christ, making ourselves known as rational, intelligent people who put our faith in Jesus. We must be prepared to explain our reasons for the hope that we have, in order to dispel the myth that belief in God is a result of brainwashing and ignorance.

Speaking with confidence

I'm currently teaching a course in spoken English for academic purposes. It has been really interesting and rewarding to watch how the students (who are all from non-English speaking backgrounds) develop in confidence, even just in the last 5 weeks since semester began. Every 2 weeks they have to record themselves reflecting on some feature of spoken discourse they've heard around them (or sometimes it might be on a set topic) and then upload it to the online class discussion forum.

In one of the tutorials recently, after getting a bit frustrated with their lack of verbal participation in class, I asked them if they felt more comfortable uploading their recording to the class forum than speaking in class, and they all said yes! It seems that speaking to a faceless, anonymous audience (from within the comfort of their own home) is less confronting for them than speaking in front of classmates in class.

As well as the recorded 'discourse diary', on the in-between weeks they also have to comment on two of their classmates' recordings from the previous week. This is also interesting, as they seem to be very happy to both encourage and critique their classmates in this mode, which I never see them doing in class.

I have been greatly encouraged to see the way they interact with each other online, and actually there is quite a good friendly atmosphere in class when I give them interaction activities to do in groups. It's only when I ask a general question of the whole class that most of the students feel uncomfortable being the one to speak. I hope they will be less reticent as the semester progresses. I realise it is a cultural difference as many of them are from China, where the teacher talks and the students listen, and if the teacher wants you to say something they will ask you directly. Hopefully we can come to an understanding by the end of semester.

Learning from the source

This week I have been lecturing on using evidence in academic writing – using sources, referencing, quoting, paraphrasing, etc – and how it's not good enough just to quote someone second hand. You actually need to go back to the original source and see that the middle man has conveyed the meaning of the source text accurately. Otherwise it's like Chinese whispers and you never know what convoluted rubbish you could end up with!

I was reminded of Paul's exhortation to Timothy (2 Tim 2:2) to entrust the gospel of Christ to reliable men who would be able to continue to faithfully teach others – passing the baton on, but ensuring it's always the same baton and doesn't get switched for something else in the middle of the race. We need to keep going back to the source – the Word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ – so that we never just assume we know what it's about and then pass on a twisted or faulty message.

Around the same time I heard that message from 2 Timothy (preached by the faithful Richard Chin at St Michaels Wollongong), I read Amos 2:4-5, where God pronounces judgement on Judah because they have forgotten God's law and have been led astray by their lies, which presumably have resulted from just that same problem – the Word of God was no longer being taught faithfully, people weren't going back to the source but were hearing distortions and allowing them to continue.

So Paul exhorted Timothy to 'preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching (2 Tim 4:2). And we need to always go back to the source to test what we hear or read against the original source.