Dr. Kerry Fulcher
President, 国产剧麻豆剧
Recap of Part Two
In Part Two, we turned from the cultural landscape to John Wesley himself, exploring how his way of discernment held together the paired truths that often fracture in Christian thought and practice. We saw how Wesley鈥檚 鈥渕iddle way鈥� was not moderation, but what we have called a Way of Faithful Tension: a Spirit-enabled practice of discernment that refuses to isolate Christian truths from one another. Wesley insisted that grace must lead to obedience, faith must bear fruit in works, reason must remain attentive to the Spirit, and holiness must be lived both personally and socially so that the fullness of the Gospel is received without distortion. We also considered how this same way of discernment shapes the kind of formation we pursue at 国产剧麻豆剧. Academic rigor is not pursued as a neutral ideal, but as a faithful response to truth grounded in God鈥檚 renewing work. Personal devotion is not confined to private piety but expressed in love of neighbor. Intellectual inquiry is pursued with confidence that all truth belongs to God, under the authority of Scripture as it faithfully reveals Jesus Christ, and in attentiveness to the Spirit, who renews our minds and deepens our love for truth. Wesley鈥檚 method was not a theory; it was a way of life. Now, in Part Three, we ask what this Way of Faithful Tension looks like in practice within a Christian university committed to faithfully ordering its life, learning, and witness under Christ in a divided age.
Living the Tension: A Calling for the Christian University
Introduction
In the first two parts of this series, we examined both the cultural pressures that pull things like truth and love apart and the Wesleyan vision of discernment that seeks to hold them together. Faithful Tension isn鈥檛 just a theological idea; it鈥檚 a way of life. At a Christian university, it must also shape the way we learn, teach, pursue truth, and practice scholarship under the lordship of Christ. At 国产剧麻豆剧, we
must always seek to hold together deep faith AND rigorous scholarship, personal formation AND public responsibility, the call to truth AND the command to love. That鈥檚 not always easy and must be intentionally cultivated. The pull of cultural polarization is strong. The temptation to reduce complex ideas to slogans is real.
Part Two also showed that Wesley鈥檚 way was never simply a search for the midpoint between competing positions. His concern was to recover the wholeness of Christian truth when that truth had been fragmented, distorted, or improperly ordered.
Faithful Tension, then, does not require us to hold every disagreement indefinitely or assume that opposing positions are equally true. Some truths belong together and must not be separated. Some claims contain insight mixed with distortion. Still others, after faithful discernment, must be rejected as incompatible with the way of Christ. The work of discernment is learning, through Scripture, the Spirit, the wisdom of the Church, sanctified reason, and the practices of Christian community, to know the difference.
This is what makes Faithful Tension more demanding than simply finding common ground. It asks us to remain open enough to listen, humble enough to examine ourselves, courageous enough to name distortion, and faithful enough to follow Christ even when doing so leaves us outside the categories offered by the culture around us.
Our Wesleyan-Holiness tradition invites us to a different path from the polarizing habits of our age, one that engages hard questions with both courage and humility. In this final section, we explore how Faithful Tension becomes embodied, how it shapes our classrooms, our conversations, our student experience, and our shared calling as a Christ-centered university.
Why It Matters Now
Testing truth claims in a polarized age.
In our polarized age, the temptation is to retreat toward the positions and communities that most readily confirm our existing instincts, or to reduce complex issues to soundbites. The Church is not immune. On one side, some emphasize personal piety while neglecting care for the needy or marginalized. On the other hand, some pursue social action while downplaying the need to repent of personal sin and undergo spiritual transformation. Some elevate human reason and dismiss the Spirit's key role in discerning truth; others overemphasize spiritual impressions and experiences. Across these opposing tendencies, discernment too often fails to remain grounded in and accountable to Scripture.
These opposing tendencies can elevate one dimension of truth at the expense of another, and in doing so distort the whole. But the truths are not always equal, nor are the distortions equally weighty. Discernment is not about splitting the difference between two poles, as if the midpoint were automatically closer to Christ. The measure of success in identifying the truth is not found in some middle ground or balance for its own sake, but in how closely the belief reflects Jesus himself, his actions, life, and teachings as faithfully revealed in Scripture. In the language of the early Church, we are called to 鈥渟peak the truth in love, [so that] we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is, Christ鈥� (Ephesians 4:15). Truth pursued without love can harden into ideology or self-righteousness; love detached from truth can dissolve into sentimentality or affirmation without transformation. Both distortions fall short of the Gospel.
That same Christ-centered measure guided Wesley鈥檚 return to 鈥渢he old religion鈥� of Scripture and the early Church. Christian discernment does not give us permission to remake the Gospel according to our preferences. Rather, the Spirit leads us more deeply into the truth revealed in Christ while teaching us to recognize and receive truth wherever we encounter it in God鈥檚 world. (13)
In the classroom, this tension often arises when a person voices a strong or controversial opinion. A response concerned only with correction can shut down conversation in the name of truth. A response concerned only with affirmation can avoid the critical reflection genuine love sometimes requires. But when guided by Christ, who is both Truth and Love, the classroom can become a space of shared discernment, where both student and teacher listen, question, and learn together. The goal is not to win arguments or enforce ideology, but to form wisdom, humility, and character. That is how truth and love, held together, mature the soul.
We see this dynamic in the ways the Gospel can be distorted on opposing sides of the Christian landscape. We can be tempted to emphasize doctrinal precision, moral rigor, or cultural boundary-keeping in ways that shrink the Gospel to correctness rather than Christlikeness. Jesus warned the Pharisees against this very posture, tithing even their spices while neglecting the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23鈥�24). To be clear, holiness and doctrine matter, yet when detached from humility and love, even impressive gifts become 鈥渘othing鈥� (1 Corinthians 13:1鈥�3).
We can also be tempted to stress compassion, inclusion, or justice in ways that minimize sin, repentance, and the transforming call of Christ. Jude cautioned against those who 鈥減ervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality鈥� (Jude 1:4), and Paul warned Timothy that some will seek teachers who tell them only what their 鈥渋tching ears鈥� want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3). These instincts reach for real truths鈥攄ignity matters,
mercy matters鈥攜et when pursued apart from the cross and obedience to Christ, the Gospel can dissolve into sentiment, affirmation without transformation, or activism detached from discipleship.
Both distortions lose the fullness of the One who came 鈥渇ull of grace and truth鈥� (John 1:14). Discernment does not mean splitting the difference; it means holding truth and love together as Paul prayed, abounding 鈥渋n knowledge and all discernment鈥� (Philippians 1:9). This is the narrow road Jesus described, the road that resists distortion and leads to life (Matthew 7:13鈥�14).
This kind of faithful discernment is increasingly difficult in a culture where shared trust and even agreement about basic facts are strained. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that eight in ten Americans believe Republican and Democratic voters cannot agree on basic facts. Among those who see this divide, two-thirds say a major reason is that people are interpreting the same information differently. (24) In such an environment, suspicion can replace shared identity, and disagreement can quickly become distrust. This reveals how urgently we need communities of Faithful Tension, places where we learn to examine not only the claims before us, but also the assumptions and loyalties within us, and where conviction and compassion can coexist with humility and hope.
At 国产剧麻豆剧, this calling echoes in our mission to provide higher education that shapes students鈥� academic excellence, personal development, and spiritual formation in a Christ-centered community. Living into that mission means teaching and learning as an act of Faithful Tension, bringing faith and reason, knowledge and character, heart and mind into conversation under the lordship of Christ and fidelity to Scripture within the historic, creedal tradition of Christian faith. Out of that mission flows our One国产剧麻豆剧 commitment to being a community of belonging, cultivating shalom: a right relationship with God, with one another, and with the world. That means seeking unity not through vague agreement, but through shared allegiance to Christ, who is Truth incarnate (John 14:6). It means engaging the difficult questions of our time鈥攊ntellectual, cultural, and moral鈥攏ot with fear or defensiveness, but with confidence that every field of inquiry ultimately belongs to God. President Jim Bond illustrated this when he said,鈥淭rafficking in ideas is part and parcel of the liberal arts; trafficking in ideas with Jesus at the center is unique to Christian liberal arts.鈥� He later notes that Christian liberal learning 鈥減ursues truth wherever it may be found, yet imposes the given divine revelation of God in Jesus Christ as the final touchstone of all truth.鈥� (25) To name Christ as the final touchstone of truth is not to approach other forms of knowledge with suspicion or fear. Rather, it gives us confidence to pursue truth wherever it may be found, humility to recognize the limits of our own understanding, and a faithful center from which to discern what contributes to God鈥檚 purposes for creation and human flourishing.
Our task is to model this posture honestly and courageously, holding fast to what leads us toward Christ while releasing what draws us away. In doing so, we learn to live faithfully in the tension, not by compromise, but by conviction.
A Call to Faithful Living
Faithful Tension as healing practice.
For 国产剧麻豆剧, our mission to shape students who think critically, act ethically, and serve others in a Christ-centered community is itself an act of Faithful Tension: engaging ideas and difficult questions without fear, holding truth and grace together, and forming people who can serve a fractured world. This is education as ministry, bringing together intellect and virtue, scholarship and discipleship, truth and grace, wisdom and love.
Former 国产剧麻豆剧 President H. Orton Wiley reminds us that this pursuit of truth is itself deeply connected to the work of the Holy Spirit: 鈥淭he Holy Spirit by whom the work of holiness is begun and continued in the hearts of God鈥檚 people, is also the 鈥楽pirit of truth.鈥� Hence dwelling in the purified hearts of His people, He inspires a love for the truth鈥攍overs of truth in nature, in social relationships and in divine things.鈥� (26) Far from hindering intellectual growth, Wiley continues, 鈥渁n intense and enthusiastic devotion to Jesus Christ is not a hindrance (as sometimes held) but rather a help to intellectual development.鈥� (27)
This offers a distinctly Wesleyan-Holiness posture toward learning. We pursue truth confidently because all truth belongs to God. We also pursue it humbly because every academic discipline is a human endeavor, capable of remarkable insight while also susceptible to partial vision and distortion. The same is true of us. Faithful scholarship therefore requires neither uncritical acceptance nor defensive rejection, but faithful discernment: receiving what is true and good with gratitude, recognizing what is incomplete or distorted with humility, rejecting what cannot be reconciled with faithful Christian conviction, and allowing our life in Christ continually to reshape both our scholarship and ourselves.
This posture matters especially in a culture that trains us to approach ideas as weapons and disagreement as combat. The Way of Faithful Tension calls us to something different. We need not fear an idea in order to test it, caricature a position in order to challenge it, or diminish a person in order to disagree with them. Because our confidence rests in Christ rather than in winning an argument, we are free to listen carefully, inquire honestly, receive truth gratefully, name distortion courageously, and remain open to the possibility that our own understanding may also need correction.
Together, as a university community, we are called to practice this way of Faithful Tension:
- Refusing to let the logic of the age, whether partisan, ideological, disciplinary, or tribal, set our agenda, determine our methods, or teach us whom to regard as enemies.
- Welcoming rigorous inquiry in every discipline, confident that genuine discovery can deepen our understanding of God鈥檚 world. At the same time, we allow Scripture鈥檚 normative witness to Christ to orient our deepest commitments, test the theological and moral assumptions we bring to our work, shape our understanding of human flourishing, and direct the purposes toward which knowledge is used.
- Engaging the broader academic world with intellectual humility and confidence, contributing thoughtfully to scholarly conversations while remaining rooted in Scripture and attentive to the voice of Christ. We seek to demonstrate intellectual seriousness, disciplinary credibility, and a visible integration of faith, offering scholarship that is both academically rigorous and theologically faithful and asking not only what we can know, but what our knowledge is for and how it might serve the flourishing of others.
- Creating communities of learning in classrooms, residence halls, offices, and meeting rooms where shared inquiry and even disagreement become opportunities for the Holy Spirit to form in us humility, courage, truthfulness, empathy, grace, and holy love.
- Forming graduates who can dwell faithfully in complexity without surrendering conviction, compassion, or courage, discerning their vocation and using their knowledge and gifts in love of God and neighbor.
In higher education, competing truth claims abound. Every academic discipline brings its own vocabulary, methods, traditions, and assumptions about what counts as knowledge, what questions matter, and sometimes what constitutes human flourishing. These disciplines offer important gifts that help us understand God鈥檚 world more fully. Yet, like all human enterprises, they can also reflect the limitations and distortions of human brokenness. Their assumptions may illuminate some dimensions of reality while obscuring others. Christian scholars are no exception. Our own interpretations can be shaped by fear, self-interest, cultural assumptions, political loyalties, or the desire to protect what feels familiar. Faithful discernment therefore requires us to examine not only the claims before us, but also the assumptions and loyalties within us and the lenses through which we see and interpret the world.
Faithful Tension calls us neither to surrender our deepest Christian commitments to the prevailing assumptions of our disciplines nor to dismiss too quickly the insights those disciplines offer. Instead, we welcome every insight that sheds light on God鈥檚 world while allowing the witness of Scripture, through which the Spirit reveals Christ, to orient our understanding of truth, challenge our assumptions, and shape our vision of human flourishing. Christian faith allows us to affirm what is true and good, challenge what is distorted, and ask how our disciplines might more fully contribute to healing, restoration, and the flourishing of our neighbors.
This means holding together truth and grace in the classroom, on the discussion board, in the lab, in the residence halls, during chapel, on the athletic field, and throughout campus life. It means modeling for our students and our city what it looks like to be a community rooted in Scripture and transformed by Christ, where right relationships matter alongside right answers because both express our love for God and neighbor. Community itself becomes formative as we learn to listen, disagree, forgive, receive correction, speak courageously, and recognize the limits of our own understanding. Through these practices, we trust that the Holy Spirit continues the work of forming us in Christlikeness for the sake of others.
In that spirit, we live out our mission not only to educate minds but to form character and serve a hurting world. Thoughtful faith and faithful scholarship are not opposites but companions on the path of godly wisdom and intellectual excellence. We seek to become people who love God with our minds and who use those minds in love of our neighbors.
Together, as individuals and as a university community, we are called to walk this narrow road. The Way of Faithful Tension is not about standing safely between two extremes, nor is it simply about avoiding error on either side. It is about walking with Christ on the path that leads to life. Jesus himself described it: 鈥淓nter through the narrow gate鈥攕mall is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it鈥� (Matthew 7:13鈥�14).
The narrow road is not the safe middle between competing camps. It is the life-giving way of Christ, and sometimes following it will place us between cultural camps, while at other times it will place us clearly at odds with both. As we follow, Christ continually forms our loves, corrects our distortions, deepens our wisdom, and draws us toward lives of holiness, reconciliation, and service. May we, like Wesley, be found faithful on that path, becoming a people whose life together bears witness to Christ in the world. As N. T. Wright reminds us, 鈥淭he church exists not to reflect the world back to itself, but to reflect God into the world.鈥� (28)
Questions for Self-Examination: Practicing Discernment
Faithful Tension is ultimately practiced in everyday conversations, classrooms, and communities. These questions invite us to consider not only the claims before us, but also the assumptions, loyalties, and habits we bring to them, asking how the Spirit might form us more fully into the likeness of Christ.
1. When You Face a Difficult or Polarizing Issue
When a cultural, political, or theological issue provokes a strong reaction in you, whether anger, fear, defensiveness, or an immediate sense of certainty, pause and ask:
Am I responding in a way that reflects both Christ鈥檚 truth and Christ鈥檚 love? What fears, loyalties, assumptions, or experiences may be shaping my response before I have fully listened? Am I allowing Scripture and the way of Christ to shape my instincts, or am I letting the loudest voices of the age train my reflexes? What would faithfulness look like here, rather than victory?
2. When You Speak Into a Classroom or Conversation
Before you speak, whether in a classroom, meeting, residence hall, church, or online, ask:
Am I seeking understanding and wisdom, or simply trying to win an argument? Have I listened carefully enough to represent another person or position fairly, especially when I disagree? Will my words contribute to a community where truth can be spoken courageously, received humbly, and expressed in love? Can I challenge an idea without caricaturing a position or diminishing the person who holds it? How might my words and my posture reflect Jesus, who came full of grace and truth (John 1:14)?
3. When You Encounter a New Idea, Theory, or Claim of Truth
When encountering new scholarship, a cultural perspective, a competing truth claim, or a compelling personal story, ask:
What might I receive here as true, good, or illuminating? What assumptions, limitations, or distortions require faithful discernment? What assumptions or distortions of my own might this encounter expose or challenge? How do Scripture, the life and teaching of Christ, the wisdom of the Church, reason formed by faith, and the guidance of the Spirit help me discern what to affirm, what to challenge, and what I may ultimately need to reject? Am I willing both to receive truth wherever it is found and to remain faithful to Christ wherever that faithfulness leads?
Questions for Vocational Discernment
1. How is Faithful Tension expressed in our shared work?
In the ways we teach, lead, hire, collaborate, and make decisions, are we embodying a commitment to hold truth and love together鈥攐r drifting toward patterns of avoidance, polarization, or unexamined alignment with cultural norms?
2. What are we forming together?
As a university community, are we intentionally forming students鈥攁nd one another鈥攖o live with conviction and compassion, clarity and humility鈥攐r are we unintentionally reinforcing the very divisions we are called to resist?
Final Closing and Challenge
In a world fractured by suspicion, exhausted by division, and hungry for hope, we are called to walk the narrow road, not the path of compromise, but the path of conviction rooted in Christ: seeking truth with humility, holding conviction with love, and discerning together the path of faithful obedience.
Faithful Tension is not the easy way. It is a holy way to seek truth, practice love, and follow Christ amid complexity. For those of us in Christian higher education, it calls us to bring intellect and discipleship, reason and revelation, conviction and humility into a shared life formed by the Spirit.
This series is not intended to end a conversation, but to offer a framework for an ongoing journey. In an age when conviction so often hardens into contempt, our Wesleyan-Holiness tradition offers another way: rooted in truth and love, marked by humility and courage, and centered in Christ.
In the coming months, I look forward to the collaborations across our community as we continue to learn what it means to live this vision together. May our shared life as a university bear witness, not to the loudest voices of our age, but to the quiet, faithful work of Christ at the heart of all we are and all we do.
For Further Reflection
The Way of Faithful Tension is not learned merely through theory, but through ongoing formation, faithful conversation, spiritual discernment, and thoughtful engagement with Scripture, the Church, and the world around us. The following works are offered as companions for readers who wish to continue reflecting on themes explored throughout these essays. Drawn from different Christian traditions, perspectives, and approaches, they wrestle in different ways with questions central to Christian higher education and faithful discipleship in a divided age: how to hold together truth and grace, conviction and humility, intellectual rigor and spiritual formation, holiness and compassion.
Their inclusion here does not suggest agreement with every argument they advance. Rather, in the spirit of Faithful Tension, these works invite us to listen and learn, discern what is true and helpful, and continue to test our own thinking under the lordship of Christ.
Responsible Grace 鈥� Randy L. Maddox
For readers interested in the Wesleyan foundations underlying this essay, Maddox offers one of the clearest explorations of John Wesley鈥檚 vision of grace, holiness, discipleship, and transformation. His work helps illuminate why faithful discernment is not about compromise or moderation, but about holding together truths that belong together under the lordship of Christ.
Learning to Disagree 鈥� John Inazu
Drawing from his experience as a Christian scholar and teacher, Inazu explores how we can engage deep disagreement without surrendering conviction or reducing those with whom we disagree to positions or problems. His reflections on empathy, fairness, difficult conversations, forgiveness, and friendship offer a practical companion to Faithful Tension, particularly its call to listen without fear, challenge ideas without caricature, and remain rooted in our deepest commitments while living faithfully with difference.
Don鈥檛 Let Nobody Turn You Around 鈥� Justin Giboney, Michael Wear, and Chris Butler
This work explores how Christians can engage public life faithfully without allowing partisan loyalties or ideological polarization to eclipse their primary identity in Christ. It extends this essay鈥檚 concern that Christians resist both tribalism and disengagement while pursuing truth, justice, humility, and grace together.
The Politics of the Cross 鈥� Daniel K. Williams
Williams examines the ways partisan loyalties can distort Christian political witness and challenges believers to evaluate political commitments through the Gospel rather than allowing political parties to define the terms of Christian faithfulness. Drawing on history, public policy, Scripture, and Christian theology, he demonstrates how Christians can affirm what is true and good across political traditions while also recognizing and rejecting their distortions. His cross-centered approach resonates strongly with Faithful Tension鈥檚 call to resist false binaries, refuse the politics of fear and tribalism, and pursue public faithfulness rooted first in allegiance to Christ.
The Ballot and the Bible 鈥� Kaitlyn Schiess
Schiess explores how Christians have used, and at times misused, Scripture in American political life. Combining biblical interpretation, history, and contemporary application, she challenges readers to consider how our political assumptions can shape the way we read Scripture and how Scripture, faithfully interpreted, can instead reshape our political imagination. Her work complements this essay's call to examine not only the claims before us, but also the assumptions and loyalties within us. (See also her book The Liturgy of Politics)
Reading While Black 鈥� Esau McCaulley
McCaulley models how Scripture, tradition, lived experience, and faithful Christian scholarship can work together within historic Christian orthodoxy. His work reflects the kind of thoughtful discernment and charitable engagement this essay encourages鈥攐ne that listens carefully, remains rooted in biblical authority, and seeks wisdom from the broader body of Christ.
Truly the Community 鈥� Marva Dawn
Dawn explores what it means for Christian communities to be shaped not by the assumptions of the surrounding culture, but by worship, discipleship, humility, and faithful devotion to Christ. Her work resonates strongly with this essay鈥檚 vision of a university community committed to holding together truth and grace, intellectual seriousness and spiritual formation, conviction and compassion, while bearing witness to a distinctly Christian way of life in a divided world.
Unoffendable 鈥� Brant Hansen
In an age often marked by outrage, suspicion, and reactive hostility, Hansen challenges Christians to embody humility, forgiveness, steadiness, and grace. His reflections complement this essay鈥檚 emphasis on cultivating communities where truth is expressed through love, conversations are shaped by charity, and disagreement does not eclipse Christian witness.
This is not intended to be an exhaustive list, but simply a few thoughtful companions for those who wish to continue reflecting on the themes explored throughout this essay. Each, in its own way, invites deeper consideration of what it means to pursue faithful discernment, Christian community, intellectual formation, and Christ-centered living in a divided age.
Endnotes and References
13Wesley, Works, Sermon 132, 鈥淥n Laying the Foundation of the New Chapel.鈥�
24Pew Research Center, 鈥淢ost Americans Say Republican and Democratic Voters Cannot Agree on Basic Facts,鈥� July 30, 2025.
25James Bond, Inaugural Address, Point Loma Nazarene College, 1983, 国产剧麻豆剧 Archives.
26H. Orton Wiley, Christian Theology, vol. 3 (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1952), 111.
27H. Orton Wiley, Christian Theology, vol. 1 (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1940), 25.
28N. T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (New York: HarperOne, 2006), 226.