April 2, 2009

When Kelly Monroe Kullberg arrived at Harvard Divinity School in 1992, she saw that many of her fellow students felt isolated in their search for meaning and truth. She found that, despite a great hunger, the university had jettisoned such deep and essential topics. There was a yawning chasm facing the sincere seekers yearning to know more about ultimate truth and goodness. Ironically, at Harvard, whose motto is Veritas, there was a longing for truth. So Kullberg founded the Veritas Forum. The inaugural event in Cambridge drew 700 participants for a weekend of lectures and discussions about how the pursuit of knowledge in the university relates to the truth claims of Jesus Christ. The momentum has only grown since then.

Today, Veritas Forums involve a quarter-million faculty and student participants at more than eighty campuses across the country. At the 2009 Trinity Forum Academy Winter Conference, tothesource reporter Julia Thompson sat down with Kullberg to get some inside scoop from one of our country's leading "meaning activists."

tothesource: The Veritas Forum began as a response to "emptiness on campus." How can students get an education that is not "empty" when classes study trends in human development, yet cannot seriously discuss what it means to be human? Is it any good to study moral theories if ultimate Truth and Goodness are considered merely extracurricular pursuits?

Kelly Monroe Kullberg: We need to learn to graciously question authority, state silent presuppositions, and be proactive learners. This is hard because most Christians I know are used to being so "nice", and often silent. It helps to have a forerunner who is full of grace and truth. Students who question secular naturalism encourage professors to greater excellence. They help to reshape the culture of their universities by insisting on the freedom to explore all questions and all possible answers. This can happen in classrooms and academic departments.

It helps to befriend those who detract from faith, such as Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer, and to engage them publicly in grace and truth. It helps to raise essential questions such as, From where does knowledge come? How would we know what is real and true? Are we properly humble and paying attention? A robust way of knowing includes the possibility of revelation as well as experience and reason. I know nothing apart from a God who speaks and shows up, self-revealing through three "Words": the fact of a magnificent universe, and a Book and a Person unlike any other. These utterly unique singularities cohere as one symphonic source of Truth.

Veritas Forums are beautiful and effective when believers become the message, welcoming the world together. The results are magnetic. Veritas encourages students to wonder why the artist, physicist, archaeologist, janitor, molecular biologist, and pastor all see the same Truth. We ask what are students discussing at night in their dorms, in bars or over coffee? How are they hurting? For what are they hoping? And what are they not bringing to light because they're not talking to one another any more in any kind of civilized manner? We help to raise questions that connect to the world's needs and the relevance of the Gospel for all of life. All kinds of questions arise. What is needed for healing of the heart, soul, mind and body? What does it mean to be human? Does beauty mean something? Where is intimacy found? How does love last? How does a good God work in the midst of suffering and evil?

tothesource: In your book Finding God Beyond Harvard you describe how the Veritas Forum spread across the country's universities, providing students with opportunities to engage the hardest questions. They turn out in droves to discuss faith, meaning, and purpose, topics largely off-limits in the classroom. Why does the university refuse to address these issues that matter most?

Kullberg: That book is a wild ride, from Cambridge to California to the jungles of Peru. Only in the last draft did it become so personal, with my own failings and questions emerging from beneath the surface. To answer your question, many who define the curriculum are trying to advance their careers and seem smarter than others. I guess all of us focus on the 1% we think we know rather than the 99% we don't know. It seems that humility and a sense of wonder must set the proper conditions for real scholarship.

There are some truly humble scholars who love learning and "thinking God's thoughts after Him. " Inter Varsity, Campus Crusade, and Veritas are just three among many ministries that encourage students to think about these issues. It is important to remember that secularism and cynicism are faith-held commitments that simply assume God's non-existence or irrelevance. Ironically, their advocates blame the God who "does not exist" for the evil that he allows.

I'm not a scientist but it seems rare for secular universities to encourage in-depth exploration of the intriguing accuracies of Biblical insights into science such as the Big Bang, initial conditions, universal constants, darkness, light, and an expanding universe, not to mention the Biblical insights about human flourishing, evil, justice, mercy, prophecy, and history including the resurrection accounts. Academicians tend to reduce "knowing" to data analysis and lab results. They often feel the need to do this because most grants require quantified results. So we see a growing surplus of information but a scarcity of wisdom. But there are also some wonderful mysteries being discovered, such as the human genome. And perhaps for most of the deeper questions, the best lab is living. Taste and see that the Lord is good. At the end of his career, Albert Einstein placed these words on his desk at Princeton: Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted. At a faculty club lunch a professor asked USC philosopher Dallas Willard, "You, Dr. Willard, eminent professor of philosophy, believe in Jesus as the hope of the world?" Dr. Willard gently and earnestly responded, "Who else did you have in mind?" The inquiring professor was silent.

Harvard was founded in 1636 For Christ's Glory (In Christi Gloriam) and later Veritas (Truth) in Christ and the Church, and yet today we see a rise in depression, disease and even suicide. Ironically, the earth-shattering life and brilliant mind of Jesus Christ are rarely explored in the classrooms. So we attempt to move the universities toward intellectual pluralism, integrity, and excellence by reintroducing into conversations, classes, art museums and concert halls the One for Whom many colleges were founded.

tothesource: Your latest book, A Faith and Culture Devotional: Daily Readings in Art, Science, and Life, looks at the intersection of faith and culture for God's fingerprints. In this culture that largely ignores God's fingerprints and life's hardest questions, how can we best keep the Veritas-quality conversations active in post-university life?

Kullberg: That's a great and urgent question about adding life to our communities and cultures. The book explores the glory of God in DNA, Rembrandt, ancient empires, F. Handel, the Big Bang, and more to help us to keep learning. There are many easy ways to wonder aloud. I think it is important to invite others into our journeys that are, if we are honest, full of questions, failings, fears, discoveries, and hopes.

Much begins with the gift of hospitality – warmth, welcome, kindness, curiosity – that helps others regain a sense of wonder and connection so often deadened by the self-referential and mediated nature of popular culture. Exit "The Matrix" and replace it with immediacy and God's love. Replace the media with God's creation. Pay attention to the beauty and goodness of seasons, of voices and color, of touch and flavor. Creative generosity is life-giving in a time of financial anxiety. The sound of laughter and pauses for grace are noticed in a time of emotional scarcity. Joy in scarcity evokes questions: From what Source does such life come? Could I really feel again? How is innocence and wonder regained? Might life be a treasure hunt that actually does yield the Treasure of the Kingdom within us?

Practical ideas are easy to imagine, such as a couple gathering neighbors once a month for dinner and perhaps a reading of short passages or stories like The Trinity Forum's short Great Book readings, or whatever you are enjoying now. Short film clips can also frame great conversations. Veritas welcomes seekers on about a hundred universities and recordings are free to all on www.veritas.org. Our presenters include Dallas Willard, William Lane Craig, John Stott, Tim Keller and many humble scholars who explore questions and connect them to the person and story of Jesus Christ. The world's story is too small to live in. We want to help one another consider the reality of a larger and more wonderful story, the Gospel, which provides an ample place to live.

What a surprise to me that the Veritas Forum caught on at Harvard, and then in many schools. The Church is the anvil that will wear down every hammer and Jesus is the True Vine who will dull every axe. May seekers and believers everywhere be reminded of reasons for the hope within us, and trust that the ancient Truth will shine forth as timeless Truth and be the golden key for the world's future.

tothesource: I encourage tothesource readers to visit your website at www.veritas.org. Thank you so much for your encouraging words to our readers.