On October 20, 2007, in Langley BC, Colonel Glen Shepherd was an honoured guest at Trinity Western University’s School of Graduate Studies Graduation Convocation. In a celebration that conferred Master of Arts degrees on 59 graduates, Glen Shepherd was conferred the degree of Doctor of Humanities (Honoris Causa).
The honorary doctorate was given Shepherd in recognition of his life-long commitment to Jesus Christ, his relentless pursuit of the Great Commission, and his faithful response to God's grace and the Great Commandment through his leadership to The Salvation Army's evangelical and humanitarian work - both nationally and internationally.
The following is Col Shepherd's commencement address:
BEAT OF A DIFFERENT DRUMMER
Mr. President, Members of faculty, Graduates, Students, Friends
I wish to thank you for this honour - an honour which exceeds all my dreams. In accepting it I realize that I stand here because of the opportunities for service which The Salvation Army has granted to me. In truth, it is The Salvation Army which deserves the honour today and not I. Thanks so much.
On the campus of Harvard University, not far from the statue of the founder - John Harvard - stands Emerson Hall, the building housing the Department of Philosophy. Over the entrance is the inscription, from Psalm 8 What is man that thou art mindful of him? My wife Eleanor and I stood outside the building in September, 1991 as our son, John, who was entering his second year of undergraduate studies at Harvard told us how the members of the philosophy department had decided that the inscription should record the philosopher Protagoras' statement, Man is the measure of all things. During the summer of 1900 as the building was being completed the university president, C. W. Eliot, himself a Christian, had the inscription changed to the citation from the Psalms, much to the chagrin of many of his colleagues.
The anecdote illustrates the drift of Harvard since its founding in 1636. Its first motto Veritas (Truth) draws from the words of John 8:32 - you shall know the truth and it shall set you free. The motto was changed in 1650 to In Christo Gloriam - in Christ I glory, and then, in 1692 to Christo et ecclesia -for Christ and the church. In fact, an old map of Harvard on the wall of the office in our son's apartment bears the university crest with the motto - Veritas - Christo et Ecclesaia (Truth - for Christ and the Church).
In the subsequent three centuries Harvard has moved far from that reference point. In saying that I must make it clear that I do not wish in any way to denigrate that university or the people who are part of it. In 2003, when John, was paralyzed in a car accident during his second year in the Harvard Business School MBA program, we saw up close the kindness of HBS's Dean - a Mormon- and the Director of Student Services - a Jew - to John and our entire family. Their kindness at the time of the accident, and three years later when John returned to complete his MBA touched us deeply. The love of God will erupt when and where we may not expect it. .
But the point stands that time has Harvard move from its original reference points and I believe that Harvard's experience is instructive to Trinity Western. This Christian university is a symbol of the uneasy alliance between faith and reason in Canadian society. As a proportion of the population, the enrolment in Christian higher education in Canada is only seven percent of what it is in the United States. In other words, Christian higher education in Canada has less than one-tenth the relative weight that it has in the United States. The true north strong and free is hard ground for Christian higher education.
I would like to structure my comments today around the words of Paul in II Timothy 1:8-10, a text suggested by the university. We'll let the text drive our reflection.
Conviction
In verse 8 Paul tells us, in words reminiscent of Romans 1:16 that he is not ashamed of the gospel and neither should we be ashamed. Chinese Christian writer Watchman Nee labelled Paul as the intellectual architect of New Testament doctrine and it is significant that he was convinced that the world of the intellect and the world of faith could be bridged.
Two thousand years later Francis Collins, the American scientist who headed up the human genome project has made the same assertion in his book The Language of God. Collins is viewed as a sell-out by some of the scientific community. And some evangelicals are wary about him because of his embrace of the scientific interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2. But the essence of Collins' book is that faith and science are entirely reconcilable. And, he contends, only faith can answer the basic existential questions of life that lie behind scientific enquiry. Those are the questions to which the teacher refers in Ecclesiastes 3:11 when he writes God has placed eternity in the hearts of man.
TWU, with its commitment to faith and excellence, with its willingness to challenge the idiocy of some Canadian thinking with its fight to the Supreme Court of Canada concerning the professional competence of teachers educated here is a beacon in what can be a dark landscape. You have shown that Christian faith can be married to professional excellence, that our faith is not monastic but, rather, it is a salt and light through which God blesses the larger community through well-educated Christian professionals. You have made a choice not to be ashamed.
Holiness
In verse 9 Paul refers to holiness with his call to holy living. You would not be surprised if a Salvation Army officer, rooted in the Wesleyan tradition stopped here. Holiness may be part of the lingua franca of the Wesleyans, but holiness - or serious Christianity, or Christ-likeness, an openness to the presence and work of the Holy Spirit - is intended to be the hallmark of the entire church of Jesus Christ.
Richard Foster, in his book Streams of Living Water points out why the inherent weaknesses of the holiness tradition can harm its reputation - a proclivity towards legalism, moralism and pietism which can create a negative witness. This negativism is the weaknesses which can be the fatal flaw of the religious right when a negative commentary on society obscures the witness to a God who is love.
Holiness is not moralism. Holiness is not about behaviour. To be holy - hagios - refers to an inclination of the heart to be set apart for God. We are holy because we are set apart to God. We are, as Philippians 3:20 puts it, citizens of another country, with another loyalty, another set of values and another view of life. And we have the right to carry that other passport only because of the work of the Holy Spirit of God living in us.
When we are set apart for God we want to think as Christ thinks. As we have the mind of Christ we begin to see the world the way God sees it and our hearts are broken by the things that break the heart of God. That leads us to a desire to work for the transformation of all society - the redemption of all of God's creation. I once heard a friend and colleague with whom I worked in higher education in Winnipeg refer to it as "social holiness."
In 1985 my wife Eleanor and I traveled to Macomb, Illinois, to attend a gathering of 5,000 young members of The Salvation Army from around the world. One of the speakers at the congress was Tony Campolo. I will never forget his call to the gathered crowd for them to invade the arts, invade the theatre, to invade medicine and the law, to invade the world of business with their faith and their skills. That is how TWU makes its holiness operative in Canadian society. When we bring our faith and our separation to God - our holiness- to bear upon every sphere of society we march to a different drummer and the Spirit of God uses our involved separateness to transform society.
Certainty
The final stop in our reflection is on the notion of certainty. In verse 10 Paul refers to the resurrection - the destruction of death. The resurrection is more than doctrine and it's more than history. It is the root of our confidence
The reality of the resurrection and God's triumph over evil give us a reason to be confident as we engage with the world. There is a marvellous hymn in the liturgy of The Salvation Army, one couplet of which goes
Jesus shall conquer, lift up the strain
Evil shall perish and righteousness shall reign.
As the graduates of this university take their skills into the marketplace, the Kingdom of God advances, leading to that day when righteousness shall reign.
Around the world I see evidence of that assault against the forces of evil and darkness - God's people living holy lives in the communities of the world.
I could take you to Zimbabwe, where Dr. Paul Thistle, a Salvation Army captain operates our Howard Hospital. Paul was featured on W-5 on CTV two years ago for his work with Toronto Children's Hospital in separating two conjoined twins. Or I could introduce you to Major Dawn Howse, a graduate of Memorial University who runs our hospital at Tshelanyemba in Zimbabwe. As I deal with them I marvel at their serenity as they try to provide medical care in the midst poverty, and the economic and political chaos they face. And then they remind me that their serenity is based on their absolute certainty in the presence of the risen Lord.
In another time zone, in another climate Diana Bussey, a graduate of The Salvation Army's Booth College, works out of the Booth Centre in Winnipeg as the head of our national anti-trafficking initiative. Around the world The Salvation Army has targeted the trafficking of women and children as our primary social initiative. This horrible evil causes the enslavement of more people than were enslaved during the years of the African slave trade - and its victims end up in this country in this century. Although it is not her primary professional training Diana has embraced this crusade with creativity and passion. She works tirelessly because she believes that Christ's death and resurrection dealt a final blow to the powers of evil. Recently Diana told Eleanor, how she held a young girl in her arms as she sobbed her sense of shame to this servant of Christ. Two weeks later the girl was murdered - but not before she had sensed the redeeming love of Jesus in the person of Diana Bussey.
This work is physically and emotionally exhausting. But if we believe that the power of the resurrection has conquered the power of sin, if we believe that one day evil shall perish and righteousness shall reign we continue in the struggle to bring about the Kingdom of God.
The crusade, this march to the beat of a different drummer makes sense. It makes sense because holiness is not just a personal blessing. It makes sense because education is more than a personal privilege. It makes sense because salvation, and holiness and education are gifts from God, gifts to be used to transform the world and to prepare the Kingdom of our Lord.
May all you who are involved in the life of Trinity Western University sense the blessing and peace of God as you equip saints to invade our fallen world.
Langley, BC
October 20, 2007