Christian higher education in fractured societies: Societal challenges and agapeic wisdom

Not too long ago: A different—converging—world

The theme of “fractured societies” may give the impression that societies may not always be fractured but that there can be periods in which societies may come together. With all the necessary reservations, this seems to be the case indeed. Perhaps there is a pendulum between centrifugal and centripetal times in history. Perhaps the famous story of the building of the tower of Babel in the 11^th chapter of the biblical book of Genesis is already referring to this. There, “coming together” is portrayed in a negative light, but the “fracturing” that follows it is not portrayed positively either. So perhaps there is a wrong, unjust type of integration that is unsustainable. But perhaps there are as well positive types of integration that bring about more justice. In the Biblical sources, we find the image of the (eschatological) meal where people from all nations come together, not in Babel but on the mount Sion, invited by the Lord himself (e.g., Is. 25: 6-12; cf. Is. 2: 2-5). So, if we are discussing movements of integration and fracturing, we should be aware that these may have traces of Babel as well as of Sion. With that in mind, let us turn toward some key developments in the post-WWII period and then contrast this with developments of the last decade.

The last decade indeed gives a strong impression of fracturing. However, not too long ago, we were living in a world with a different mood. Back then—I am talking about the period that started after the Second World War and which really came to culmination some 40 years ago—we seemed to live in a world that was, step by step, coming together, and waves of optimism could be discerned as a result of that. After the terrible tragedy of two world wars in the 20^th century, it seemed that we were finally moving into a different, eventually more peaceful world.

At first, in the decades after the second World War, there were already some very significant developments, but they were still overshadowed by the Cold War. In Central Europe, this implied oppression by the Soviet Union. Although the Nazi regime was taken down, other totalitarian regimes continued (the USSR) and new ones came up, notably in China. But even then, immediately after 1945, there were some amazing developments, which took up breathtaking speed in the 1980s, especially after 1989. I mention just a couple of very significant developments that gave rise to a general sense of optimism, rightly or wrongly. After that I will sketch some of the disillusionments that followed after, just as an indication, 2007, when the credit crisis occurred. But here it is—“late-modernity” in its building up phase.

Today: Cracks and fractures

However, today we seem to live in an entirely different world. The organizers of this conference have captured the mood well by talking about “fractured societies,” and we may add as well, “fractured people” (to be discussed later). Of course, this is over-schematizing, but let me just mention some of the most alarming characteristics and developments in recent years. In quite a few cases, this new mood arose as a response to the negative consequences of what with hindsight turned out to be mistaken assumptions of the “optimistic age.”

A common denominator? Instrumentalism and the loss of meaning

Is there a common denominator, both in the “optimistic” and in the more negative, “pessimistic” mood we find ourselves in?

It is simply impossible to outline here a full sociology and/or philosophy of modern culture, but a few characteristics need to be mentioned. For this, I could refer to the sociologist Max Weber (1958, 1973) or to the social theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1944/1969), or to the Christian philosophers Herman Dooyeweerd (1959/2012) or Charles Taylor (1991/1992). They all saw the modern age, as it started in Europe, spilled over to the USA and in the 20^th century became a truly global phenomenon, as an age in which an increasingly “instrumentalist” attitude toward the world became dominant. We as humans can become free masters of our own fate by dominating the natural, and according to later theories, as well the social world. The world is makeable matter. “Knowledge is power,” as one of the founding fathers of this paradigm, Francis Bacon, said. Freedom by dominance—that is the “foundational motive” of modernity, as Dooyeweerd would call it. But of course, this domination has to include our social world, including ourselves, as humans. They have to be controlled too, and they therefore somehow have to be seen as makeable matter too. But then what about their freedom? Here we have the paradox, the “dialectics” (Adorno–Horkheimer) or the “antinomy” (Dooyeweerd), or the “malaise” (Taylor) of the Enlightenment, of modernity. In the “instrumentalist” attitude, everything becomes a means toward another end. But the end is “control,” then what for, what is the goal of all this controlling? It turns out that control of the world is both the means and the end. Therefore, there is no end to the control. It is an endless dynamic that somehow devours everything that it comes across. The argument becomes fully circular and hence vacuous here: we have to mobilize all means of control in order to control the world. The ultimate question “what for?” or “why” is not answered. And when the means of control are starting to fully control ourselves, we can only raise a powerless protest, for the very structure of our culture and our societies supports the control-mode. We see this epitomized in the recent development of ChatGPT and the bewilderment shown in the responses: is this what “we” have created? It is, and is there still anything we can do about it? Who can control the controller, especially when it consists of lifeless algorithms?

This megalomaniac program has all kinds of unintended consequences. Max Weber pointed already to the circularity of the process and therefore spoke of “Sinnverlust,” a loss of meaning: what are we all doing this for? And he spoke of “Freiheitsverlust,” loss of freedom. In the large political and economic structures that we are building in modernity, we as humans tend to lose our freedom: politically we become cogs in a machine/number in a bureaucratic reality (as in Kafka’s novels), economically we become exploitable consumers, and we may add, in the media we become a package of exploitable data. Inspired by Weber, Charles Taylor lists the following as “malaises of modernity”: becoming individuals without community, the instrumentalization of everything without further meaning, and the rise of large controlling, “disciplinary” social structures. This self-sustaining machinery hampers all questions of meaning and becomes spiritually and morally empty.

As a response to this “malaise,” we have witnessed a movement called “post-modernism” that in a way gave up on all claims of meaning, progress, and truth altogether and celebrated diversity, relativism, and—the fun part of it—playfulness. However, one can characterize this movement as well as an escape movement, a form of estheticized and privatized irresponsibility. Another attitude has been outlined by Ulrich Beck and his team, which they call “reflexive modernity”: without just giving up on true progress, the significance of science and of healthy institutions, we should honestly analyze and remedy the unintended, harmful consequences of the modernization process—rethinking modernity (Beck, 2003). Charles Taylor and Herman Dooyeweerd advocate something similar: the direction of modernity can be renewed by a new orientation on intrinsic meaning of divine origin (Dooyeweerd, 2012) or a “remembering” renewal of the original purposes of modern institutions, in which spiritual inspiration, especially from the Christian tradition can be discerned as well (Taylor, 1991/1992).

What should education in a fractured world be about? Reality!

What can (Christian) education in this fractured world ever be and do? One could say that education is about the transmission of knowledge about (or we could say: insight into) reality—just a very simple statement to start with. Let me first make some remarks on these highly complicated words, “knowledge” and “reality,” and alongside this I am going to make some remarks on “transmission.”

There are many types of knowledge. Knowledge about how to make a good cup of coffee is very different from knowledge about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. And this is very different from the skills that a social worker or a nurse must learn in order to be a good professional. So, we should never focus on just one type of knowledge and assume that that is it. There are different types of knowledge: practical, professional, scientific, tacit knowledge, knowing that, knowing how—etc.

I cannot go into great depth here, but this is already highly relevant to state right at the beginning. For, as I just indicated above, one type of knowledge has become very dominant in our educational institutions in Western, modern societies. It is “instrumentalist” knowledge, which can be described as mathematical—molecular—measurable—model-type knowledge, what we do in the natural sciences. Let us call this the MMMM-1 type of knowledge (later I will also give an MMMM-2 type). This type of knowledge is very important indeed, and we can in principle describe our entire world in these terms. And yet, it is exactly only this: just one type of knowledge.

To give an example (with an eye to the Hungarian setting of this conference): one can describe a string quartet by Béla Bartók entirely in physical terms, even in codes of 0-s and 1-s, which is the basis for a digital recording. It may take quite some time to put this all on paper, but it can be done. However, how much paper one would ever use for this, the paper will never produce Bartók’s String Quartet. There is an unbridgeable gap between the work on paper—even if the paper has the musical scores—and the actual Quartet. It is only in the performance (or for that matter the recordings that one listens to) that the actual Quartet can acquire its own reality. The MMMM-description can only give an abstract approach of it, but it will always be a skeleton-like description of actual reality, never reality itself. The formulas miss the point of the quartet entirely.

So, if the MMMM-1 type of knowledge is the only thing we teach—and I have seen universities and colleges, even those calling themselves “Christian,” doing this—then we are in poor shape. We are missing out on Reality! For this MMMM-world is not the actual world we live in as human beings. If we would take seriously the claim that this type of knowledge really gives us the exclusively true view on reality, there would be no difference between the Quartet and the paper, or for that matter, between a stone and a human being. Both are just atoms and molecules, interacting in physical and chemical processes.

But this does not at all conform to our experience as humans. We actually live in what I would call the Real Human World (RHW, my second “formula”), which is entirely different from this MMMM-world. The RHW is a world of meaning and responsibility. It is a world of joy and sorrow, of wonder and bewilderment, of hope and despair, of love and hate, of intimacy and distance, of right and wrong, of recognition and denial, of virtue and vice, of truth and deceit, of authenticity and hypocrisy, of fear and trust, of mourning and welcoming, of sense and futility, of revenge and forgiveness, of appreciation and contempt, of rejoicing and lamentation, of conscientiousness and pride, of jealousy and generosity, of longing and disappointment, of happiness and unhappiness, of freedom and lack of freedom, of self-control and addiction, of repression and clarification, of decisiveness and lethargy, of temptations and joy of discovery, of despair and certainty, of feeling lost and being found, of trustworthiness and betrayal, of trepidation and security, of numbness and sensitivity, of indifference and indignation, of toughness and vulnerability, of hardness and empathy, of delicacy and rudeness, of loneliness and community, of laughter and crying (two activities that we do not find in any non-human species, by the way), of drabness and color, of pride and denial—and I can go on and on. The Real Human World is full of meaning, and we have found an incredible amount of words to describe what is happening here.

We humans have a special “organ” to attune ourselves to this world of meaning: I would like to preserve the term “soul” for this, or “heart,” as Blaise Pascal’s famous quote from his Pensées (“Thoughts,” nr. 277) “the heart has reasons which reason knows nothing of.” The soul, I would propose, is the “organ” that humans have to detect meaning. The soul, however, has to be fed, to be nurtured, and to be trained as well. Otherwise, she might be suffocated and even “die,” and we become soulless human beings, which is no longer truly human.

My claim is therefore that the central focus of education is at least two-fold, elliptical: it is about technical knowledge and skills (the MMMM-1-knowledge), but it is always also about knowledge of the RHW, the Real Human World, that we participate in through our souls. Education is introducing children to Reality, and reality is at least two-fold: it is matter, and it is meaning. Thus, a very important part of what we are trying to do in good education has to do with this world of meaning and hence with the souls of students—and also that of teachers.

But then, what are we doing with the soul in this world of meaning? Is it about indoctrination about what our students should find meaningful and what not? It is about manipulating them into becoming or remaining a Christian, for example? No, I don’t think that that can ever be the goal, or the method, of education, and certainly not of Christian education. And therefore, as Christian educators, we always have to allow our students to go different ways, no matter how much it will cost us, and how much we will suffer.

Instead of indoctrination and manipulation, I believe what good education should do is to “awaken” and “enrich” the soul, to make children and teenagers aware of the meaning structures in the RHW, to nurture their sense of meaning.

This can never be a purely intellectual affair. One has to use movies, stories, poems, art in general, novels, documentaries, music, real life experiences, and community service (learning) to awaken and enrich their souls, and give them a sense of the heights and depths of our common world. That there is joy and sorrow, guilt and forgiveness, hope and despair, etc. In Christian educational institutions, one can make use of biblical texts, of songs and of meditative literature. Textbooks are not nearly enough and may even close off the souls of students. There is a real risk that our education is dumbing down students, instead of awakening and enriching their souls.

The context of education: A world full of “soulcatchers,” the MMMM-2 world

However, Reality in the human world has still yet an entirely different layer that we should give ample attention to in education. It is a world of human making, yet no longer a world that any individual human being can control or influence. Homo sapiens always creates a lasting “world,” with a history, which consists of various types of activities, institutions, and practices. There are political structures—to organize and defend societies. There are economic structures—to create and distribute wealth, secure the physical existence of societies, and overcome poverty. We can see structures of communication—to tell stories and to exchange information. And there are structures to maintain health, care for our bodies, and medicine (earlier there were gifted persons, now there are entire institutions, both for care but also for body practices, like sports). Perhaps, more types of institutions and practices can be distinguished, but I choose these for their contemporary relevance.

And here comes my third formula: we are talking here about the MMMM-2 world: the world of might, of markets, of media, and of the medical/vitality. Now all these activities are just human, they are part of our societies since times immemorial. However, and here comes the trick, they may also develop themselves into producers of meaning, and in that way they may start to influence, or even dominate, yes, even manipulate souls. Therefore, it is tempting to add a fifth M: that of “manipulative.” It may be that this is the world that the apostle Paul is describing as “principalities and powers” (e.g., Eph. 6:12; Col. 2:15), one could also say “idols.”

Take for example, the world of the mighty, the political: we know from biblical times that often political rulers, like kings or emperors, might present themselves as “gods” and demand ultimate loyalty. In early Christianity, the Roman Emperors claimed to be “augustus” and even “divus” and “dominus,” asking for our unconditional loyalty.

But all four M’s have a tendency to become “soul-catchers.” They may start to make a claim on the human soul with the promise “look here, I can give you meaning, I can give you a sense of who you want to be.” Stop searching for meaning, here is a ready-made identity. They may develop themselves into temptation-powers that try to give an answer to the human quest for meaning by providing a clear-cut “identity.” “Identity” may well be the term that describes a soul that does not want to be enriched anymore, that settles for something and lays itself to rest, with one or more of the M’s as anchor of the soul. Let me discuss them in a bit more detail.

Integral Christian education in a fractured world: The meaning of agape

This brings us to the role of Christian education. Until now, although I sometimes used the term “Christian” between inverted commas, I have been speaking of education in general. In my opinion, all education should deal with making students “World-savvy,” it should provide them with “Instrumental knowledge,” and it should be “Soul-cultivating.”

However, this leaves open the ultimate question of “Why?”, of “What for?”, an urgent lacuna of modernity, as identified among others by Max Weber and Charles Taylor (see above).

This brings us to yet another level, or dimension of reality: that of ultimate meaning. What is the deepest nature of reality that we can call its ‘existential meaning’? Here the soul is put to work at its deepest level. Here one finds oneself in a certain ultimate position for which various kinds of arguments and experiences can be appealed to, but yet, ultimately, it is a matter of a “leap” (to use Kierkegaard’s well known metaphor), rather than a matter of proof, let alone an MMMM-1 type of proof. One can “jump” into the bandwagon of modern thinkers who talk about an ultimately meaningless, “absurd” world, without structure or meaning.

Christians find themselves in a different position: they experience the world as a gift from God, as “Creation,” as a personal work of art by a magnificent Artist. This invites in us a different picture of reality and another attitude, in which the world has intrinsic meaning and we as humans have to respect boundaries, at least some boundaries.

This work of art is not timeless, eternal, it is historical, it is more like an evolving project in which we as humans participate, a “drama” perhaps (Bartholomew and Goheen, 2004). In this drama, there is a deep foundation of goodness, of gracefulness, of joy. And yet, there is also resistance and obstruction, which the Bible calls “sin,” which is connected to brokenness. Ultimately, it is a drama of love, of original love, of rejected love, and of recommitted and creative love, which looks for redemption and renewal.

And the biblical teaching is as clear as it is radical and unexpected in human history: God is love, and hence, love is a sign of God. Agape is the deepest motive, motor, driving force in the drama of reality, as it is portrayed in the Bible, and is confirmed in and by our deepest experience. Love, agape, is the ultimate meaning of creation, and restoring the agapeic communion between God and humanity, between humans, and between humans and the fullness of creation, is at the heart of the drama. Talking about meaning and purpose: Christians will locate these here.

This should as well be the deepest level where Christian education can position itself. As receivers of love first, Christian educators and their educational institutions can be and ever more become distributors of love, of redemption, of renewal in fractured humans, in a fractured world, in a fractured nature.

Using a phrase of the French theologian/philosopher Jean Luc Marion (Marion, 2002), we can call the biblical word “ahava” or “agape” a “phénomène saturé,” a saturated phenomenon, which is full of meaning and can never be exhausted; it produces constantly new shades of meaning. You never know beforehand what it is going to mean in this concrete context. It denotes a history of surprise, of surprises—until the present day. But if we have to give something like a “definition,” it would be something like this:

Agape is someone’s concrete commitment to the flourishing of someone else or others on the way to shared joy (especially when this flourishing and hence the shared joy is threatened).

The biblical structure behind this is that God commits himself to human flourishing working toward the joy of the Kingdom of God. Humans are at first recipients of this love, but then as a response can start to spread it, and give love to others. The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur called this structure “do quia mihi datum est”: “I give because first things have been given to me.” God’s giving, God’s grace, creates the space in which we can give. If we unpack some of the characteristics of this biblical key word, we can point to some distinct characteristics.

Agape: Fourteen shades of meaning

First of all: concreteness, Agape shows itself in concrete deeds and acts. It is bodily, “fleshy” (if that is a word), it is about incarnation, getting right into this situation. It is about very earthly things such as water and bread and shelter. Next: particularity: it is about this unique person, this unique situation. Agape doesn’t jump into generalizing abstractions, it doesn’t fly into a general “love of mankind” or compassion with the suffering of the world. No, it doesn’t shun away from the scandal of the particular, the small act or this person. It has the courage to go after one sheep and leave the 99 others for the moment. Thirdly (in a curious tension with the second characteristic): universality. Agape has the courage to start just here, just in this particular instance, but it never ends there. It is not limited. Agape always starts an ever-widening movement. This fourth characteristic may culminate in a vision of justice and shalom, of the restoration of broken or unjust relations. Fifthly: freedom. In love, there is no force and no fear. It is the freedom of partners freely coming and working together. Love never forces nor manipulates. And therefore, it tries to “speak,” to direct and connect via our ears, less than the eyes or the body, as they tend to provide less space for reflection (being caught in a “spectacle”). In speech, we encounter each other as equals, in freedom. Therefore, the sixth characteristic is: the partnership of equals, breaking through hierarchical boundaries, as Mary’s song has it: rulers are brought down from their thrones, the humble are lifted up. The seventh characteristic is the transformative direction. Agape is always the starting point of a transforming road for people. The love you receive starts a process of renewal and change. And yet, this may take time, and hence requires patience, which is the eighth element. The agapeic change cannot be forced; it is not an instrumentalist “project” but a way, a journey on which partners embark together. This may even involve suffering (the ninth characteristic). Agape is always risky. There is no agape without deep vulnerability. The source of agape, God himself, had to give his Son on the cross. And yet, agape is even then a source of hope—the tenth characteristic. A further element is honesty, to the level of bluntness: agape is not soft. It presupposes honesty, with oneself, with the other, it presupposes that one, if necessary, speaks the truth about the other, about oneself; it involves confession. This calls for another characteristic of agape: forgiveness, redemption the twelfth characteristic. But how can this be achieved? It turns out that agape is creative: what agape concretely requires in each particular context can never be predicted, but is a matter of creativity, of looking for new ways, ways of justice, ways of redemption, and ways of hope. A final, fourteenth, characteristic is that agape always hopes to be contagious, that others may join, and hence form a community.

Societal impact: A (partial) agapeic revolution

It is not possible to sketch here in full the immense historical consequences that the spread of this concept, or rather, this existential reality, had, especially in Europe. We can see historically a transformation of culture, which has resulted in Europe as a continent with two “souls” (if one may say so), which are struggling with each other. The old heroic, tribal “Germanic” and “Slavic” soul has been touched by Christianity, which has resulted in a partial embodiment of agape, but also in a strong opposition against agape. Augustine analyzed this already at an even larger historical scale as a struggle between the amor Dei et proximi and the amor sui: the love for God and neighbor is in constant opposition to the love of self, and vice versa. One could write a history of Europe through this lens.⁴

To mention just a few phenomena in which one can discern agapeic inspiration: a long tradition, going back to the early church, is that of shelter houses, hospitals, orphanages, senior homes, and institutions to care for the weak and vulnerable. New forms of community have emerged, for example, guilds, that can be seen as communities of mutual care and mutual insurance. And of course, there is a very widespread tradition of monasteries, where people live together in order to lead a holy life of prayer and work (ora et labora). We find a new emphasis on the inherent value of all human beings, leading up even to revolutions against feudal structures, first local and regional, later even at a “national” level. We see early formulations of human rights and freedom rights. And then there is in Europe a strong emphasis on education, on reading, on thinking, leading up to the foundation of universities in the 13^th century (but the forerunners go back much earlier). We see throughout Europe the abandonment of slavery, starting already in the 11^th century and a great, curious interest in nature as God’s creation.

But the anti-agapeic practices abound as well: feudal violence, tribal violence, crusades, religious wars, colonial oppression, the reintroduction of slavery in faraway colonies, exploitation of lower classes, and the contempt for the integrity of nature.

The psycho-analyst Karen Horney in an interesting book (Horney 1937) spoke about the “neurotic personality of our time,” stating that in Western civilization two conceptions of a grown-up human person are struggling with each other: you have to be strong, selfish, and capable of dominating others, but at the same time, we appreciate it when people are serving others, are loving and kind, empathic, caring, turning the other cheek, etc. Horney claims that this may foster neuroses: children don’t know what to be, who to be. The Sermon on the Mount is struggling with a Machiavellian/Nietzschean self-assertion.

Although in all historical times this bewildering mix can be discerned, Augustine already noticed that some periods in history are closer to the amor Dei and the civitas Dei than other ones that are closer to the amor sui and hence to the civitas terrena.

If we speak about “fractured societies” today, it may be clear that a lot of amor sui, of selfishness and self-aggrandizement can be discerned. The agapeic strand in Western culture is going through hard times.

The inspiration and aspiration of Christian higher education: Agapeic presence

This brings up the question as to what Christians should do and what the role of Christian education can be? Richard Niebuhr (not to be mistaken for his brother Reinhold) has famously provided a kind of taxonomy of relations between as he called it “Christ and Culture” (in his Niebuhr, 1951 book with that name). Christ against culture: the strategy of withdrawal in a monastic or ecclesial subculture (the “sectarian” option). Christ of culture: minimalizing the differences, basically conforming to the present culture, claiming it is already Christian (the “liberal” option). Christ above culture: leaving the world as it is, not affirming it, neither judging it, but claim its neutrality, and see the Christian faith as belonging to another dimension of reality (associated with Catholicism). Christ and culture in paradox: as a Christian, you become active participant in the world, be a statesman, a police person, a judge, whatever, but do not let your faith interfere with it, for the morality of the Bible, especially the New Testament, can never be embodied in this world, so do not even try. Christian faith is a personal, private matter (associated with Lutheranism). The fifth option is associated with Reformational Christianity (Calvin, later Kuyper in the Netherlands): Christ as transformer of culture: be involved in society and see to what extent practices and insight from the Christian faith can help to heal a fractured world. This option is in line with the title of an influential book of the late British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (2005): To Heal a Fractured World. This is a variation on the Hebrew Tikun Olam, repairing the world.

For myself, this final option is a very inspiring one, and I believe it is in line with a long tradition that I identified above as the “agapeic revolution.” However, I would suggest two conditions: first, healing a broken world can never be and should never become an “instrumentalist project.” It is much more a matter of solidarity, of sometimes suffering solidarity, with the world, than of raising flags and throwing around “answers” or “solutions.” And second, it should always be “ameliorating,” not “perfecting,” making things a bit better, but not striving for utopia. Agapeic presence in the world is always, by nature, weak presence, vulnerable presence, and yet, meaningful presence.

Christian education in a fragmented world: WISE

Where does this leave us in terms of Christian education? We are always living in fractured societies, that is part of living in the “In between time” of creation, sin, and restoration.

To deal with the consequences of these fractures and make life better, homo sapiens creates the MMMM-2 world, which throughout history takes on very different forms but yet is a recognizable constant. These MMMM-2 structures however, often turn against humanity itself. The initial improvements that they bring, come at severe costs and losses. Often they are hijacked by amor sui-driven actors, both personal and institutional.

In modern times, and it is a great achievement, we as humans have discovered that the entire world can be described, analyzed, and even manipulated in MMMM-1 terms, in mathematically measurable, molecular models. It is a startling discovery that we still haven’t fully recovered from. To a large extent, we see now as well an ever-closer union, a marriage, between this MMMM-1 world and the MMMM-2 powers, which have started to make use of scientific insights and discoveries, for example in how the brain works (companies in the Market find this very interesting and cash in on this knowledge!).

As human beings however, we actually live in the Real Human World (RHW), which is a world of meaning and responsibility, in which the “soul” is the pivotal organ. It is the world in which we are addressed and address each other fully as humans. However, we can see a tendency to misplace meaning and escape responsibility, transferring it to the MMMM-2 structures or to reduce it all to MMMM-1 (“we are our brains”).

Many (most? all?) humans discover at some point that the world of MMMM-2 powers, whether in conjunction with the MMMM-1 world or not, leaves us spiritually empty, void of meaning, personally. And we constantly see that at a societal level, we are left with fractured societies, torn apart by the amor sui, the self-interest of the powerful. The world often lacks agape (although there are always traces of it that can be seen by a discerning eye).

But the specific shape of the fractures is different from time to time, and therefore a close analysis is always needed: where is the suffering now? What does it look like now? How do the selfish, amor sui-types of practices manifest themselves now? In medieval times, there was no capitalism, it is here now. In earlier times, there was no social media, it is here now. So, we have to make in-depth analyses, diagnoses of the present, which is difficult, but absolutely necessary. What is going on in politics, in economics, in science, in the media, in art, and in religion? Where do we see traces of agape? Where are the consequences of amor sui? How can we contribute to justice and shalom?

Summarizing: in my opinion, all education should deal partly with making students “World-savvy” regarding the mode of operation in the MMMM-2 world. It should provide them with “Instrumental knowledge,” that great, but inherently limited discovery of modernity, in order to be able to assess the significance and tempting power of both the MMMM-2 and the MMMM-1 world. All education, and Christian education par excellence, should be “Soul-cultivating,” opening up students for the RHW, the Real Human World of meaning and responsibility. That should enable them to learn how to deal with instrumental knowledge and how to gain strength to handle the temptations of the MMMM-2 world. Ultimately, and here Christian education can have a specific role, it should invite them to consider the issues of Existential Meaning, over against meaninglessness. Eventually, seeing the world as a process or drama of agape, in which you are invited to play your own role, to participate in justice and shalom, is an enduring ground for meaning: you are loved, and are invited to pass on that love.

If we put this in formula terms, World-savvy (W), Instrumental knowledge (I), Soul-cultivation (S), and Existential orientation (E, perhaps the original Greek work for Gospel, “Euangelion,” good news, can be kept in mind here as well), we get WISE. In this sense wisdom, helping students to become WISE, may well be the goal of Christian Higher Education in fractured societies. If they are becoming WISE, they may be well prepared to become agapeic actors in today’s world—as, I may hope, we as educators ourselves are as well.