Covenant College Reflection

From what I recall after working through the pre-campus essay, my expectations upon starting the semester were that studies would incorporate Christ; fellowship between students would be strong; and the faculty is eager to help students succeed as long as they are putting forth their best effort. During my first semester at Covenant, I have found these expectations to be accurate. Covenant College offers a plethora of opportunities for students to faithfully pursue a college education. However, it is each student’s responsibility to guarantee his or her success in doing so. The Christian Mind course taught me that in order to ensure that I am faithfully pursuing my college education, I must adhere to my callings, incorporate the Bible into

the understanding of my studies, and recognize and respect diversity between cultures.
In the very first Christian Mind lecture, President Halvorson emphasized that each student is called by God. The idea of calling is understood from a Christian perspective of obeying and serving God by pursuing the plan He has laid out for us. President Halvorson instructed that while in school, our calling is to be a student. During this stage of life, God truly wants us to put our focus on gaining knowledge through the resources He has blessed us with. Pursuing our calling of being a student should not dismay us, for we are fulfilling God’s plan for our lives. In an interview with Sara Bristol, a junior at Covenant College, I asked her what she would do differently if she could repeat her first semester at Covenant. She described the stress she was under as a student and how she wished she would have “given her worries about classes to the Lord.” She reflected on how once she did this, she was able to see her schoolwork and role as a student more positively. Sara explained, “I would have taken more time to reflect on how my classes were stretching me and making me more aware of the world, and [schoolwork was] more of a learning process rather than something I had to do.” To faithfully pursue a college education, students must acknowledge that this pursuit is part of God’s plan, that our calling is here and now, and we are in accordance with something so much greater than ourselves.
Faithfully pursuing a college education also means incorporating faith into our college education.

As a Christian student, it is important to embrace this intellectual opportunity as a spiritual opportunity as well. Professor MacDougall emphasized the “necessity of scripture for educational task.” In order to clearly understand subjects being taught (particularly at Covenant), we must use the Bible as our foundation for learning. Although the Bible does not explain school subjects, we can still use the Bible to give an interpretation of the information. MacDougall expressed, “The Bible is a foundational document—not all the details of life. We must use our minds to apply scripture to life.” This means that although the Bible does not elucidate the stages of development of a fetus or that every living thing is comprised of cells, it does provide answers to the creation of these things. The Bible teaches that God created everything in the world and through the fields of science and even history, we can understand His creation more precisely than if we study from a secular viewpoint. Faithfully pursuing an education entails letting our framework for the knowledge we gain in school to be grounded with Scripture. By adhering to this method, we will see God’s glory in everything and will gain a deeper understanding of what God can reveal to us through our

schoolwork.
The Christian Mind course has additionally instructed me how to faithfully pursue my education through appreciating the diversity among cultures, even here at Covenant College. Dr. Stephens and Professor Corbett both expressed not only the existence, but also the importance diversity and culture have in our world, country, and school. In order to truly receive an education at Covenant, differences between people and their cultures must be understood and can even be learned from. Often times, these differences may not be so black and white, and we must be sensitive to these dissimilarities. Duane Elmer expounds on this idea in “The Amazing Contours of Conflict,” “Each culture has an intricate network of values that support the rules people use to handle conflict, so that the understanding of these differences is far more complex than one first supposes.” I have certainly become aware of differences even within my own culture and Covenant College since the beginning of the semester. The most useful part of the Christian Mind lectures and readings to me have been gaining a clearer understanding of Covenant’s view on Christianity. Before this class, I was completely unaware of major distinctions between Presbyterianism and my Baptist faith. In this course I first heard the word “catechism” and was exposed to the idea of pre-destination. Although I am from LaFayette, a mere 45 minutes from Covenant, these concepts were completely foreign to me. If such an incredible difference can exist within the same religion of the same area of the world, what an enormous variety of cultures and beliefs there must be elsewhere! The Christian Mind lectures from Professor Corbett and Dr. Stephens has generated extensive awareness to me on this subject. Sara highlighted more cultural differences when she reflected on what she remembered most about Christian Mind her first semester at Covenant and what has proven to most useful in her studies thereafter. Sara deemed most useful from Christian Mind that “it was good for me to have a good perspective of Calvinism for other classes.” I related to Sara when she recounted, “I remember talking about the five points of TULIP and the Westminster Catechism. It [Christian Mind] helped me be prepared for other doctrinal classes because I grew up Baptist.” Like Sara, I too grew up Baptist and was not familiar with many of Covenant’s religious traditions. Part of Christian Mind that still confuses me is the emphasis placed on John Calvin. I was not raised to revere John Calvin because he was not a central figure to my culture’s understanding of Christianity. I was intimidated by the bombardment of quotes and references to this man I had only heard of once in a history class. However, I have come to accept that John Calvin is an important figure in the Presbyterian denomination, and I respect Covenant’s veneration for him. All too often we can view differences as wrong or inferior, but to faithfully pursue an education, we must be aware of diversity within cultures and understand that there is much to be learned about God and His world through these diversities.
Christian Mind has been an informative course on what an education at Covenant College will entail. Through this course I was enlightened on the belief system of the Presbyterian faith and the foundational ideas of the college, such as the importance of callings. From what I learned in Christian Mind, I can ensure that I will faithfully pursue my college education by recognizing my calling, using the Bible as a foundation for my studies, and accepting diversity as well as learning about different cultures.