Formation into Christlikeness: Reflections from Data and Dialogue
admiring the fall view of campus and the city atop UChicago’s landmark Rockefeller Chapel.
As this year’s Leadership Associate, I enjoyed representing Theological Horizons at a recent conference on character, moral, and virtue formation amongst college students. This conference presented the findings from a study that surveyed students from Theological Horizons, other Christian Study Centers, Institutes for Catholic Thought, and Christian colleges/universities on their religious beliefs and practices alongside their development and display of virtues. I participated in the study at Wheaton College, my alma mater, and treasured the opportunity to discover what its robust data yielded about how these institutions form students in their faith, thought, and life.
The presenters skillfully balanced theoretical foundations with practical applications. On the theoretical side, they opened my eyes and mind to the rich world of virtue ethics. Overall, this term refers to the concept that ethics-how we rightly act-flow from the formation of virtues-positive traits that guide our spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and physical lives. On the practical side, this conference centered around how to practice and promote virtue formation for students. The presenters emphasized the critical influence of habits in our formation, which illuminated how these high-level intellectual ideas often distill down into simple, everyday realities. This realization energizes me in relation to the accessibility of intellectual concepts like virtue ethics for people of all backgrounds and experiences.
As the data attested to the value of simple practices in forming profound virtues, I immediately thought of its relevance for Theological Horizons. At Vintage Lunch and with our Fellows, we promote rigorous intellectual discussion while inviting students into simple practices that provide a break from the intellectual rigor of UVA student life. Similarly, for our broader community in various life stages and roles, some of which rigorously challenge them intellectually and others that consist of more mundane, earthy tasks like caregiving, seemingly simple practices like silent prayer or taking a walk carry the potential to build a vibrant life of virtue.
Beyond the general patterns of formation, the presenters celebrated that none of the virtues decreased and a number significantly increased over the study’s 2 years. Students displayed growth in patience, courage, expressed teachability, and intellectual humility. On the other hand, analysis of students’ religious practices revealed a more complex picture. While students’ practices of individual devotion decreased, their practices of communal devotion increased. More granular analysis bore out the vital role of community in developing virtue, as students involved in spiritually formative spaces with others, such as Fellows programs, demonstrated higher virtue development than those involved primarily in individual activities.
As I consider how this data on the essential role of community possibly informs Theological Horizons, it affirms the significance of inviting students at Vintage Lunch to share in spiritual practices and spurs me to gratitude for the gift of returning week after week to embrace these longstanding disciplines with them. As I heard statistics highlighting how experiences like learning theological frameworks for applying faith in all of life and participating in Fellows programs positively shape students, I grew in appreciation for Theological Horizons as a ministry that offers these exact kind of experiences, with Christy’s excellent leadership of Horizons and Perkins Fellows top of mind. As someone in this space only for a year, serving students who spend at most 4 years embedded in our regular rhythms, it encourages me deeply to discover concrete evidence that formative spaces like this community guide people even after they leave.
Amidst many prominent stories of devastating moral failure in religious institutions, this study’s findings and my vibrant conversations at the conference with others serving students and communities across the country instills hope for a more faithful future witness in our world. For example, Dr. Jonathan Brant shared about how he started a virtues-based leadership development program, inspired by the Christian tradition but not explicitly faith-based, at Oxford University. He reported overwhelming interest in the program and explained that meaningful conversations about his faith often ensued because of the program’s hospitable approach. By offering some of the rich resources of our tradition without pressuring people to convert, many people actually ended up seeking to delve deeper into the Christian faith. This testimony profoundly resonates with me, as it brings to mind Theological Horizons’ motto “All are welcome. Always.” People desire to learn more about Christ when we who know Him model the character to which He calls us, through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Whether students, parents, professionals, and/or friends in any vocation, let us join together in the ordinary, everyday habits that form us into people who reflect and embody the way of Christ in word and deed!