Speaker Prompts
Closer Look at
Globalization
World Christians
YEARS AGO, Joel Carpenter, keynote speaker
for Seattle Pacific University’s 2006 Day of
Common Learning on October 18, met some
international graduate students who changed
the course of his career. The students were
“very smart, with very different perspectives
on faith and life,” he remembers. “I was deeply
impressed with them.” Struck by this example
of how the world was “shrinking,” the professor
of history turned his scholarly attention to
the need for American Christians to become
“world” Christians.
Now the director of the Nagel Institute for
the Study of World Christianity at Calvin
College, Carpenter addressed an audience of
SPU students, faculty, and staff, as well as
visitors from the region. In his address, “Give
We Sense: Seeking to Be Wise in a Shrinking
World,” he told listeners that most Christians
today live in Africa, Asia, and Latin America
— not North America or Europe.
“The best thing for U.S. Christians to be
thinking about is anything outside their selfreferential
zones of familiarity,” he advises.
“Look out ahead, scan the horizons, keep your
nose to the wind, and ask the Lord for discernment
about what you should be doing.”
In its fifth year, the Day of Common Learning
embodies the best of interdisciplinary
learning, explains SPU Vice President for
Academic Affairs Les Steele, who initiated
the annual event: “It holds up the vision
that we are going to engage the culture with
important issues. The
Seattle Pacific community
comes together to learn,
and that is something we
value highly.”
Previous topics for the
Day of Common Learning
have included integrity,
how the brain learns, reconciliation,
and the faith of the next generation.
“This year, the event coincided with an intentional
effort to think globally,” says Steele.
Beginning with a keynote address and followed
by 18 afternoon session options, the day
focused on becoming globally educated citizens.
“It’s such a pressing issue in the world today,”
says Susan VanZanten Gallagher, director of
SPU’s Center for Scholarship
and Faculty Development.
“A university that is
responding to the world
around it has to take globalization
into account.”
More than 1,000 people
attended the afternoon
sessions, which were led
by faculty members, students,
and panels. Before
that, Brougham Pavilion
was filled with more than
2,000 people to hear
Carpenter’s address.
While talk of globalization
generally focuses
on outsourced jobs,
NAFTA, and the Internet’s
worldwide reach,
Gallagher says that globalization
at a university
also means bringing
international students
to campus, creating offcampus
study programs,
and including global
issues in the curriculum.
“Different disciplines
have different insights
and approaches to the
topic,” she says. “Globalization, for instance, is
obviously important to the School of Business
and Economics, but it’s also an important
phenomenon as we see the increasing globalization
of the church and the development of
world Christianity.”
And more and more people are experiencing
globalization firsthand. Before joining the
Seattle Pacific faculty in 2006, Lynette Bikos,
associate professor of graduate psychology,
was in Turkey with her husband, who was on
assignment for the Boeing Co. Living in
Ankara for more than
three years, she found that
her experiences — as had
been the case with Carpenter
— impacted the
scope of her scholarship.
Meeting other “trailing
spouses,” as well as missionaries
and aid workers,
Bikos began a research project about Westerners’
adjustment to new lands. When Gallagher
called for faculty members to facilitate
afternoon sessions on the Day of Common
Learning, Bikos didn’t hesitate. With research
she gathered in Turkey, she and four doctoral
students led a session titled, “Sojourn Abroad:
The Adjustment of International Missionary
and Humanitarian Aid Workers.” Other afternoon
sessions included “Untrivial Pursuit,” a
game of global knowledge about unusual
worldwide facts; “Shalom Tourist,” about the
ethics behind tourism; and “China: The Four
Modernizations,” which focused on China’s
rapid movement toward modernization.
Although only one day in the academic year,
the University’s Day of Common Learning has
far-reaching results, notes Gallagher. Last year
in an American literature class, students
pointed out that Benjamin Franklin’s definition
of deism mirrored what 2005 Day of
Common Learning speaker Christian Smith
had said about 21st-century American teenagers’
idea of God.
“Christian Smith’s account about what is
happening to American teenagers and their
faith also had a huge impact on our faculty,”
Gallagher adds. “The School of Theology, especially,
continued the discussions to inform how
best they can teach Foundations courses.”
This year’s discussion is already starting to
do the same thing. “Our world is more intensely
interactive than ever before, something that
should be flat-out obvious in a Pacific Coast
city like Seattle,” says Carpenter. “So SPU
should be well-suited to prepare students
to be world citizens, God’s ambassadors,
and servants, ready to go anywhere and
engage anyone.”
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