Professor Brent D. Slife
I. Trepidations
I must tell you that I approach this presentation and our discussion with no small amount of trepidation. A large part of this trepidation stems from my not being a member of the LDS church. Who am I to be speaking on the integration of the sacred and the secular at BYU?
Moreover, as a relatively new member of the faculty, I do not know the positions of the faculty of this issue. I have been told that there are various factions, but I am essentially ignorant of these factions. I told a friend that I feel a little like I am on a path to my dad's old barn, and it is dark out. I may have an important reason for going to the barn, but I am certain to step in something nasty. Someone already asked me if my presentation today was meant to be "distinctly different" from an LDS perspective. (I looked down at my shoes to see if I had already stepped in something.) Nothing could be further from my intention. I consider myself to be a part of a community of believers, a part of God's faithful people here at BYU. I do not view myself today as delivering some "minority" report.
Another reason for my trepidation is my ignorance of the contexts in which my audience is operating. I fear that my parochial focus on psychology has prevented a wider understanding of the university as a whole. Although I will present some lessons I have learned through my teaching experiences, I cannot know whether these lessons are applicable to you. I look forward to your correcting me and telling me whether they do or do not make sense of your own experiences.
My willingness to do this presentation--in spite of this trepidation--stems from a twofold trust: I trust the people of this faculty. I trust that you will be patient with me as I bumble and stumble my way to the "barn." I frankly trust you more than any faculty I have encountered; I think you are genuinely concerned about this topic and are willing to help me in my bumbling and stumbling. Related, however, is my trust in Heavenly Father. I cannot think of a more worthwhile project than that of integrating the sacred and the secular in our teaching. Surely, He will bless such a project. Surely, He will give me strength and you forbearance.
Before presenting my experiences and lessons, let me say a quick word about the notion of integration. I must admit that I have some problems with this notion. I fear it sends us down the wrong path. I hope that we can talk about this notion and perhaps even generate alternative ways of discussing and conceptualizing the whole issue. Rather than beginning with this issue, however, I want to defer this discussion until later. For now, I will stick with the way I hear the issue referred to most frequently: the "problem of integration."
II. University Experiences
As the flyer mentions, my own academic journey includes four distinctly different religious universities: two very different kinds of Baptist university, a Jesuit university, and, of course, BYU. My training, however, stems primarily from a fifth university--Purdue--where another type of "religion" dominated, secularism. I would like to begin with my undergraduate work, because this is where many impressions were first formed.
A. William Jewell College--a Southern Baptist institution
I did my undergraduate work at a small Baptist college, called William Jewell College (WJC), outside Kansas City, Missouri. I cannot say how WJC is now regarded (or how WJC actually was at the time I was there), but my impressions were that many of the most religious students were intellectually unsophisticated (and did not care to be "sophisticated"). They held vespers each evening and I would often attend. Much helpful discussion and sharing occurred in these meetings, but when intellectual questions (perhaps even secular questions) were raised, there was an obvious defensiveness.
For example, I was part of a philosophy seminar that met regularly. Other members of this group and I would occasionally raise issues that seemed important to our own faith. We were told either that the questions were irrelevant or that we were going to hell for asking such questions.
I resolved then and there to have a faith that could tolerate sincere questions--a faith that could engage the believer and nonbeliever in a dialogue in which they could feel heard, even if the questions were misguided. I resolved also to have a faith that was sophisticated in the ways of the world--a faith that could address the issues of the world, perhaps even the issues of philosophy. This is, in part, why I have so enjoyed my position here at BYU. There seems to be a patience with sincere questions--no matter how outlandish--and a recognition of the importance of the secular world in relation to our faith
B. Purdue University--a secular institution
From William Jewell College, I traveled to Purdue University to do my graduate training. Purdue's psychology department was highly regarded and representative of the forefront of psychology at the time. Here I learned two types of secularism, often mixed together. Both accounted for the world as if God were unnecessary or omitted altogether--a godless world of psychology. This is the secular root of most theories and models of psychology.
I can only talk about this now, because I did not know, then, how godless this world was. I guess I assumed that at least part of this secular psychology was neutral--that I could just overlay my own Christian framework onto it. This raises an interesting question (which I hope we discuss): Can we just overlay our Christian framework on top of the secular ones of our disciplines? Is a world that does not require a god--a secular world--fundamentally altered when a Christian God enters the picture?
One type of secularism (as many of you know) is naturalism. Most psychological theories and their applications can be traced to this secular framework. Essentially, it implies that nature governs itself through "natural laws;" no divine intervention is needed. One of the most important principles of naturalism is hedonism--that all things, including humans, seek pleasure and avoid pain. Humans, for example, cannot act in purely altruistic or charitable ways, because they are ultimately seeking some happiness or pleasure in doing so. Another important naturalistic principle is the lawfulness of natural laws. When applied to humans in psychology, such a lawfulness implies that humans have no agency--no ability to make choices or decisions. Humans are completely determined by natural laws.
The other type of secularism is relativism, which holds that all moral systems are fundamentally equivalent. This is because no one person--certainly no one God--could decide good and bad, right and wrong for others. This relativism was particularly pertinent to me as a therapist, because it seemed to me that I was called upon repeatedly to help my clients understand what was good or bad (e.g., the "good life"). How was I to do this?
The first answer I received was that science would make this decision. Science would ferret out the good from the bad. No superimposed morality was necessary. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I knew from my philosophy training that science was not a neutral tool for distinguishing the good from the bad. Indeed, implicit in science itself were assumptions that I was not sure were especially good. I learned quickly that science would not be able to make my moral decisions for me.
Instead, I learned from this relativistic secularism to encourage my clients to make their own decisions. The only trouble was that this encouragement was itself considered a universal good--something impossible to know from a relativistic framework. Moreover, the techniques I was supposed to use in facilitating this encouragement were themselves based on certain assumptions about what was good and bad in doing this encouraging.
I found I simply could not escape the differentiation of the good from the bad, yet I had no firm grounding for doing so. Secularism, in this sense, never seemed to make sense to me. My lesson, then, was that secularism needed a god. The problem was that I was not at all clear how to give it one. My profession was divorced from my religious convictions.
C. University of Santa Clara--a Jesuit (Catholic) institution
When I took a position at a Jesuit University--the University of Santa Clara--I thought I might gain some answers. Surely the Jesuits would have grappled with such issues, and this grappling would be implicit in the very organization of the university. To my surprise, my psychological colleagues taught psychology as I had been taught: the secular and the sacred were divorced and the twain never met. Indeed, the twain were assiduously prevented from meeting. After all, religious discourse was "God talk" and psychology was science.
When I pursued the assumptions implied by this divorce, I felt rejected. In fact, this was the first time that I remember feeling a truly Christian suffering, suffering for the sake of my Christian beliefs and actions. Because I apparently took these beliefs seriously, because I wondered how they influenced my work and my studies, my own work was suspect. My colleagues assumed that I must somehow be allowing my belief system to intrude into my science. My science must be biased and not objective. ("You just can't trust those Christians to do objective science.")
Moreover, I learned that the two types of secularism I had received at Purdue were themselves sacrosanct (a type of secular sacredness). To raise questions about naturalism was apparently to doubt the whole body of science--from evolutionary theory onward. (I wasn't intending this at the time, but this was the way in which I was taken.) To raise questions about relativism was to raise the specter of someone telling my colleagues or me what to do or how to act. No one--it was made clear to me--would ever want that.
As a consequence, there was never any active integration of the sacred and the secular in my department at the time. I remember the issue being discussed on campus, but I do not remember our department ever doing anything about it. What I remember most is being punished for even raising such questions. Perhaps this would have been different if there were a Jesuit in our department.
What was my lesson here? I learned how difficult it is even to raise the question of integration. To do so is to raise suspicions not only about one's work but also about one's psychological health. After all, those who are seriously religious are viewed as needing religion as a defense mechanism--a crutch--because they cannot face the real and objective world. In addition, a Christian approach to these issues supposedly means a biased, subjective approach that could not be respected by the outside world.
D. Baylor University--a Texas General Baptist institution
My last position--before accepting a position at BYU three years ago--was at Baylor University. Baylor had an interesting approach to the integration issue. Their approach was to avoid mucking around with the content of the various disciplines. Psychology is psychology, biology is biology, etc. Baylor's Christian commitment came from the process in which the content was delivered. That is, Baylor prided itself on having caring, devoted Christians to teach and convey the information of the various disciplines. This all seemed to make sense to me--at least at first.
I began to run into trouble when I taught theories and techniques in psychology that were based on the world assumed by the secularists. From my days at Purdue, I knew that these naturalistic and relativistic theories assumed a world that worked without a god--a godless world. This meant that I was being asked to embody the love of god in my teaching technique, but teach my students teaching and therapy techniques that were themselves based upon a godless world.
This did not make much sense to me. Why would I assume that God was important to the process of my teaching, but not important to the content of my teaching? If God was vital to my own teaching strategies, wouldn't He be vital to the therapy strategies I was teaching my students? Maybe I am obtuse. Where is God vital to the various schools of psychology--psychoanalysis, behaviorism, humanism, and cognitivism? If He is not vital, then what types of therapy techniques are spawned by these schools?
I had always known that these techniques were nontheistic--i.e., secular--but I had always comforted myself that these theories were not atheistic (with the possible exception of Freud). I assumed that nontheistic theories were essentially neutral and I could simply add my faith to them. At Baylor, it dawned on me that theories and philosophies do not have to be atheistic to be godless; even nontheistic theories and philosophies are godless. This means that a world in which God is vital or necessary--a Christian world--cannot be simply added in. This meant to me that I was teaching, as content, theories and philosophies that were incompatible with my own Christian understanding of the world.
Baylor's process/content distinction--with a God-filled world as a process and a godless world as a content--seemed ultimately unworkable to me.
E. Brigham Young University--a Latter-Day Saint institution
When I arrived at BYU, I found the academic freedom I needed to explore the full integration--both process and content--of the sacred and the secular. At this point, however, the "integration" of a god-filled and a godless world appeared to be impossible. Although I could certainly compare the two "worlds"--bring the two into relation with one another--I could not synthesize or integrate them. It made more sense for me to start with the Christian world and Christian assumptions--whatever they might be. This had to be my grounding, both for my process of teaching and for my content of teaching.
As helpful as this starting point is, however, I am still trying to work all this out. Fortunately, I feel that I have several lessons--based on my experiences with other Christian Universities--to help guide me. You can judge for yourself whether they are helpful to you.
III. Lessons learned
The first is that my teaching--how ever Christian it may be--must make profound contact with the secular world. At the very least, this Christian teaching must be compared and contrasted with the secular world of my discipline. From my days as an undergraduate at William Jewell College, I learned how problematic it is when a Christian is unable to address the questions of our secular world. Often, this means knowing the secular world better than it knows itself.
My training at Purdue University helped me to know the secular world of my discipline. However, it never gave me the depth of knowledge--the knowledge of its own assumptions--that I needed to compare the secular with the sacred. It never provided me with tools to distinguish good from bad information, good from bad actions. Indeed, this training prided itself on being neutral and objective--simply add in your own theology. I believe now that this pride is a false pride. As I have said, a conception that assumes that a god is unnecessary is a different bias from a conception that assumes that a god is necessary.
My experiences at the University of Santa Clara taught me that challenging secularism's neutrality sometimes comes at a high price. People are rightly, I believe, scared about the possibility of dogmatism among religious people. They fear that a Christian foundation for knowledge will prevent unbiased and objective inquiry. So they fight such challenges and such foundations, as even my well-meaning questions were fought at Santa Clara.
The only problem is that these people overlook the biases inherent in secular and so-called objective inquiry. Secularism has it own assumptions and its own values--they are just "hidden." This is the reason that Rich Williams and I wrote our recent book on this issue1--to expose the hidden assumptions of the behavioral sciences for critical analysis. If secularism does have its own biases, and no one can escape being biased, then the only thing we can do is select the "right" biases. Unfortunately, secularism has no way to accomplish this selection.
From Baylor University, I learned that process/content distinctions--at least when it pertains to a Christian university--are problematic, at best. Surely, we want to be Christian in the process of our teaching, but wouldn't we also want to teach knowledge that is compatible with Christian precepts? I cannot make the judgment about whether the content of your particular discipline is compatible with Christian precepts. Still, I would assert that you cannot presume that this content is innocent until it is proven guilty. You must plumb the depths of the content--discerning its historical and intellectual roots and assumptions--until you know with some certainty that it is compatible. In any case, be wary of the process/content distinction; it is, at best, uncertain about how separable process and content really are.
Allow me to close my presentation by saying how glad I am to be here at BYU. I know that this will seem uncritical, but I did not have to take a faculty position here. I took a position here, because I believe in what BYU is attempting to do. I do not think that we should underestimate the difficulty of this task. However, I also feel that we have a unique opportunity--a unique freedom--to find ways of accomplishing it. I congratulate the Faculty Center for their very significant role in this effort. Thank you for permitting me to be a part of it.
1Slife, B.D., & Williams, R.N. (1995). What's behind the research? Discovering hidden assumptions in the behavioral sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.