Christian Witness and Respect for Persons

JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, AND EDUCATION, 6(3), 201–219 Copyright © 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Christian Witness and Respect for Persons Bradley Baurain University of Nebraska-Lincoln Respect for persons has been widely acknowledged and discussed as a key moral dimension in education and teaching English to speakers of other languages. Christians believe in this value, particularly as it is articulated within scripture and tradition. Recent critics, however, seem to perceive a basic incompatibility between a Christian religious imperative to bear witness to one’s faith and a moral imperative to respect other persons. Beginning from an argument that all teaching is teaching for change, this essay makes a case that the two are not only not contradictory, but in fact should be consanguineous. Key issues explored include what it means to believe in absolute truths, why such belief paradoxically requires humility, and the moral/interpersonal conditions for witnessing and conversion. Key words: Christianity, morality, respect, beliefs, religion, conversion Respect for persons has been widely acknowledged and discussed as a key moral dimension in education in general and the field of TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) in particular. In his essay, “Cross-Cultural Paradoxes in a Profession of Values,” Edge (1996) posits respect, especially “respect for difference” and “respect for the right of other people to come to different conclusions and proceed in different ways from our own,” as an essential element of “our TESOL culture,” by which he means “a set of shared values” which also includes diversity, inquiry, and cooperation (pp. 12–13). Johnston (2003) similarly recognizes respect as key to the inevitably moral relationships teachers have with students. In his view, respect for persons is a dynamic element in teacher–student interactions both inside and outside the classroom. Writing from a critical pedagogical standpoint, Pennycook and Coutand-Marin (2003) Correspondence should be sent to Bradley Baurain, Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education, 118 Henzlik Hall, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0355. E-mail: bbaurain@wheatonalumni.org 202 BAURAIN similarly specify: “Any good critical approach to ELT must start from a position of respect and engagement with students’ cultures and ideas” (p. 350). More formally, the TESOL Standards for Teachers of Adult Learners (2002) includes these statements: Standard 2: Teachers create supportive environments that engage all learners in purposeful learning and that promote respectful interactions among learners and between learners and their teachers. (p. 2) Standard 4: Teachers understand the importance of who learners are and how their communities, heritages and goals shape learning and expectations of learning. Teachers recognize the importance of the sociocultural and sociopolitical settings— home, community, workplace, and school—that contribute to identity formation and therefore influence learning. Teachers use this knowledge of identity and settings in planning, instructing, and assessing. (p. 4) CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVES ON PERSONHOOD Christians generally are among those who believe strongly in the value of respect for persons, particularly as it has been articulated within the Bible and traditional church doctrines. The highlighting of several of these here is done to provide background for arguments made in more detail later. One Christian motivation for respect for others is provided by the doctrine of creation. All people are created in the “image of God” (Genesis 1:27, New International Version) and thus are uniquely valuable. God has made us with consciences, souls or spiritual dimensions, the potential for meaningful lives, and the certainty of eternal destinies. “When I am in the presence of an Other,” thus concludes Wolterstorff (2004/1987), “I am in the presence of someone who has legitimate claims on me and others, at least some of these being claims that that Other comes bearing just by virtue of the fact that he or she is human” (p. 142). The doctrine of God’s love is also important in a Christian approach to respecting persons. If “God so loved the world” (John 3:16)—a term which includes not only people but also nature—who are we not to aim for a similarly all-encompassing love? In fact, Christians are told specifically to love strangers and aliens, not to mention enemies (see Luke 6:27–36). In one parable, Jesus referred to himself as a “stranger” as a way of spurring believers to see their moral responsibility to feed the hungry, help the sick, and do other acts of practical service. In the end, as the King in that parable said: “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:31–46). Applying an ethic of Christian love to foreign language learning, Smith and Carvill (2000) reveal an intrinsic respect for persons at the heart of biblical ethics (pp. 10–17). As one practical consequence, they CHRISTIAN WITNESS AND RESPECT FOR PERSONS 203 criticize language learning textbooks for disrespecting persons in their merely materialistic or hedonistic images of the stranger (p. 128). Christians do not have a naively positive view of human nature, however. The doctrine of sin also informs Christian perspectives on personhood. People, individually and collectively, sometimes think, say, and do things that are morally wrong, both intentionally and unintentionally. This doctrine has explanatory power for realities such as those observed by Pennycook (1998). When the colonial Self constructs the colonized Other in terms, sometimes even opposing or inconsistent terms, that elevate the self and degrade the stranger, Christians see pride and selfishness adhering (Pennycook’s term) not only to forms of discourse, the English language, or social structures, but also to human nature in general. Sin brings about disrespectful attitudes and behavior toward others. Christian believers are not exempt from such tendencies and often need to seek forgiveness in this area as part of the life of faith. These three doctrines are common to most Christian traditions, including Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox. Although I am willing to locate myself as coming from an evangelical Protestant position on the spectrum, I have attempted to formulate the ideas of creation, love, and sin in nonsectarian terms. That is, because a basic version of these doctrines is sufficient for my purposes, I have avoided specific or controversial aspects of them as expressed, understood, or emphasized differently within different Christian traditions. I do not, of course, imply that my subsequent main argument expressed in this essay will thus be acceptable to all Christians, but I daresay these introductory considerations would be acceptable to most. ARE CHRISTIAN WITNESS AND RESPECT FOR PERSONS INCOMPATIBLE? My main purpose in this essay is to provide an alternative, necessarily partial, account of Christian English as a second language (ESL) teachers, to open up argumentative space for considering the validity of Christian believers living out their religious faith in the classroom and in relationships with students. The problem, as articulated by recent critics, is the perception that there is an incompatibility between bearing witness to one’s faith and the moral imperative of respect for persons. Christian English teachers have to some degree been caricatured as pompous fundamentalists who will do whatever it takes to trick, shove, or drag people into “faith.” More subtle is the implication that a desire to convert someone is by definition disrespectful. Edge (1996) hints at this when he speaks of a “terrible alternative vision” being “implemented and enforced: the vision of people who always know the correct answers because the answers have already been fixed unalterably” (p. 24). 204 BAURAIN He is reacting to the radical Muslim killers of Salman Rushdie’s Japanese translator, but his argument at the point of quotation is broad enough to encompass religious believers in general. In a dialogue with Christian applied linguist Earl Stevick around the same time, he criticizes teachers who have a “covert purpose of exporting their moral and/or religious certainties to the rest of the world” (1996, cited in Pennycook & Coutand-Marin, 2003, p. 338). Edge (2003) also disparages “using my work in order to manipulate the fundamental life-beliefs of my students” (p. 707), a clear slap at the ideas of witness and conversion. In examining the relationship between TESOL and Christian missions, which they see as inextricably linked to Anglo-American imperialism, Pennycook and CoutandMarin (2003) similarly express “not only real concerns about covert agendas, trust, and disclosure, but also real worries about the ways in which an absolute belief in one’s own righteousness must surely override the possibility of meaningful pedagogical engagement” (p. 341; see also Pennycook & Makoni, 2005). Such rhetoric paints a desire to convert in strongly coercive or covert terms. Proselytize is made to carry connotations of a forced change of mind, outright deception or questionable persuasive techniques, or an indirect or unethical use of position or power to effect “changes of heart.” The related assumption is that people who believe in absolute truths, namely religious believers, must be arrogant, unreflective, intolerant, and unable or unwilling to dialogue with others. In a TESOL Quarterly Forum response to two Christian teachers (with careful avoidance of specifying them in his generalization), Edge (2004) observes that “those equipped with complete certainty are frequently handicapped” in nonjudgmental discourse (p. 720). He closes the piece with an aphorism from Voltaire, “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd” (p. 720), apparently unaware of the statement’s self-refuting nature—that is, if the statement is treated as a certainty, it becomes itself absurd. It is true that Edge (2003, 2004) and Pennycook and Coutand-Marin (2003) focus their anger on the issue of deceit, not the contradiction identified here. Although I certainly join them in urging all Christian teachers and organizations to a high standard of honesty and integrity, the critics’ rhetoric is rife with subtexts demonstrating that their actual quarrel with Christianity runs much deeper. First, these articles are sprinkled with overly pejorative terminology, as, for example, pointed out by Purgason (2004, p. 711) about Edge (2003). Second, a number of sweeping generalizations are made that resemble not so much academic argumentation as sermonic discourse. Several such statements have already been quoted, but another example is Pennycook and CoutandMarin’s (2003) classification of ESL teachers into the five categories of Christian evangelical, Christian service, liberal agnostic, secular humanist, and critical pedagogical (pp. 338–339). These are clearly arranged in order of desirability. Third and finally, there is almost no evidence presented that Christian teachers pursue their purposes dishonestly, a rather glaring lack given the seriousness CHRISTIAN WITNESS AND RESPECT FOR PERSONS 205 of the accusation. Edge (2003) merely refers to Pennycook and Coutand-Marin (2003) as “an extensive and in-depth analysis” (p. 706). Pennycook and CoutandMarin (2003), who rely almost entirely on Web surfing to gather their information, present examples that are open and straightforward, whatever other objections they (or I!) might have to the advertisements cited. Pennycook seems to have thought better of the charge of deceit since then, as he and Makoni (2005) admit that most marketing copy on Christian organizations’ Web sites is “open and clear about their preparedness to use ELT for missionary purposes” (p. 142). Despite this concession, the critics remain unsatisfied, and it is their negative attitude toward Christianity that has led me to dig out more elusive roots or issues. One of these hidden questions seems to be: Can Christian witness—the desire for people to convert to Christian faith—and the value of respect for persons be reconciled? The potential contradiction is a serious one. In this essay, I attempt to provide one possible answer, arguing for it as rigorously as I can manage while also endeavoring to remain respectful toward readers who may disagree. ALL TEACHING IS TEACHING FOR CHANGE A starting point for my response is the proposition that all teaching is teaching for change. Too often this is granted as a mere truism; however, my discussion will benefit from more thoroughly exploring what it means. To begin, we consider the proposition that all education aims at change. Campbell (2003), for example, assumes that teaching is the “key agent of change in today’s knowledge society” (p. ix; see also Edge, 1996, pp. 23–24). She recognizes that the curriculum choices teachers make in structuring lessons, the pedagogical decisions they take, their casual social exchanges with students as well as their more formalized approaches to discipline and classroom management, their methods of evaluation, and many other discretionary aspects of their work all have the potential to influence others in profound moral and ethical ways. (p. 26) Johnston (2003) likewise takes it as axiomatic that “all teaching aims to change people; any attempt to change another person has to be done with the assumption, usually implicit, that the change will be for the better” (p. 5). He extends this idea: “[W]e are always in the business of changing our students.    [W]e can never satisfactorily segregate our influence as teachers from our influence as people; and, even more crucially, we can never fully separate our relations as teacher and student from other aspects of relations between people” (p. 101). Sockett (1993, cited in Campbell, 2003) summarizes the teacher as above all a moral agent, that is, “a person [who] considers the interests of others, does not make discriminations on irrelevant grounds, and has a clear set of principles or virtues in which he or she believes and on which he or she acts” (p. 2). 206 BAURAIN Critical pedagogy is specifically built on such premises. Pennycook has defined it as “education grounded in a desire for social change” (as cited in Johnston, 2003, p. 60) and elsewhere writes of “transformative pedagogy” (Pennycook & Coutand-Marin, 2003, p. 349). With these basic principles, many Christians are explicitly in agreement because we too assume that change for the better is a goal of the educational process. Purgason (2004) notes: “All teachers convey their values to students, and may have agendas both conscious and unconscious” (p. 711). Smith and Carvill (2000) “work with an implicit or explicit picture of the kind of person we would like to see leave our classroom. We seek to have some effect, however slight, on the learners who pass through our care; we want them to develop in a certain direction” (p. 107). These perspectives highlight the reality that teachers choose and promote specific changes in students according to their own beliefs and ideologies. Buzzelli and Johnston’s (2002) arguments along these lines are worth quoting at length: Any educational endeavor includes the positing of certain goals and ends. These ends involve making decisions about what others should know and should become; such judgments, in turn, are based on questions of value and worth, making them moral judgments    [Teaching] is founded upon a relationship which involves making decisions and taking actions that influence the social, emotional, intellectual, and moral development of others in one’s care. It is practiced within encounters between individuals in which one person seeks to assist and support the other in becoming a more knowledgeable, more able, and more thoughtful individual. (pp. 9–10) A (the teacher) gets B (the student) to do things that B would not otherwise do because, in A’s view, it is the right thing to do. The assumption that, even when B does not want to do this thing, it is truly in B’s best interests to do it, that B will benefit from doing it, and that (sooner or later) B will not resent this imposition but will be grateful for it, is a moral assumption. It is in this assumption that we can most clearly see the intimate connection between power and morality in teaching: The teacher’s goal in changing the students involves at once moral action and the exercise of power. (p. 52, italics in original) Buzzelli and Johnston summarize: “[T]eaching is an activity involving a deep awareness of the significance of one’s choices and how those choices influence the development and well-being of others” (p. 120). How does this work in practice? The following examples suffice to show the rich diversity of means and ends: • Vandrick (2002), who indicates that “instructors’ backgrounds would have an enormous effect on their motivation, teaching philosophies and styles, and attitudes toward and interactions with students,” proves her point by CHRISTIAN WITNESS AND RESPECT FOR PERSONS • • • • • 207 challenging ideologically the content of survival English materials as conditioning students for subservient social roles (pp. 412, 419). Minor (2002) describes the integration of “service learning” values into ESL programs at a Catholic university. Johnston (2003) cites one teacher’s complex ethical experience designing a language-learning course on volunteerism (pp. 128–130). The authors of the Global Issues title in Oxford University Press’s Resource Books for Teachers series assert: “The primary aim of language teaching is to communicate with people from other cultures. It is a natural extension of this to challenge cultural and racial stereotypes, promote tolerance, and work to reduce conflict and inequality” (Sampedro & Hillyard, cited in Lindstromberg, 2005, p. 81). Iwasaki cited in McKay, 2004) gives examples of English dialogues in Japanese textbooks that present selected Western values with approval and for imitation, often in direct contrast to local or traditional values (pp. 13–15). Such pseudocontextualized content is referred to as “autocolonization” (p. 14). Columnist John Leo (2005) describes “disposition” as a rising criterion in teacher evaluation. Dispositions, as supported by the (U.S.) National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, are “the beliefs and attitudes that guide a teacher toward a moral stance.” Graduate students at Washington State University, for example, must pass a “professional disposition evaluation” that includes agreement with specific “politically correct” values. In another interesting example, Brutt-Griffler and Samimy (1999) offered a graduate seminar to guide teacher trainees in reflecting on and resisting nonnative speaker teacher discursive constructs. The end goal was for the participants to become “agents of change,” able to reproduce their new understandings and beliefs in others (that is, missionaries). The “significant minority” who failed to convert to the seminar’s viewpoint come off as ongoing victims of blindness and internalized prejudices. The article’s concluding pages, apparently without irony, analyze and celebrate the more compliant students who successfully reached a new state of liberation and empowerment (pp. 426–429). (I strongly oppose nonnative speaker teacher stereotypes, prejudices, and so on. I use this example simply to show more clearly the pervasiveness of the moral dynamics of classroom change and power.) The two pedagogical realities I am exploring—that teaching aims at change and that teachers decide at which changes to try to aim their students—are allencompassing. Even if we set aside our beliefs to some extent and commit to “emergent learner purpose” (Edge, 2003, p. 707), this is done from a personal conviction that such a choice is morally admirable—the right thing to do— and will have beneficial results. These two realities cannot help but find their 208 BAURAIN way into materials on other topics. Richards (2001), for instance, describing the process of curriculum development, is constrained to delineate five ideological strands, each of which has a set of moral assumptions, goals, views of human nature, and beliefs about desirable (that is, good or right) behavior (pp. 113–120). Even denial proves the point: Gabrielatos (2003a) mocks the “lofty mission of shaping learners’ personalities, of making them ‘better persons,’” and claims that the “distinction between shaping and brainwashing is simply arbitrary.” Nonetheless, just a few paragraphs later he clarifies the teacher’s purpose as one of promoting autonomy, critical thinking skills, and affirmations of identity. It would seem he believes these are “good” and that his students will be better off with these value-laden attitudes or abilities than without them. This makes sense because he also believes: • • • • Language    embodies and expresses the world-view and experience of communities and individuals. Language is a window to the human mind. Language is not only a means of communication, but also of getting things done (from declarations of love to political propaganda). Language not only expresses, but also creates realities (e.g. fiction and advertising) (Gabrielatos, 2003b). To summarize thus far: Education necessitates, and teachers encourage and guide, an intentional process of change and development. All teachers proselytize in the classroom, that is, whether consciously or unconsciously, they try to persuade students by words and actions to accept their beliefs and values. As the examples demonstrate, they do so with an often evangelistic fervor or missionary zeal. “Whose values?”—the strident question Campbell (2003) interprets as an attempt to stifle expression, discussion, and debate (p. 13)—turns out to have an obvious answer: the teacher’s values. We possess “an aspiration to have [our] ‘little efforts’ make some little contribution now, among those to whom [we] can reach out, and rather for better than for worse” (Edge, 2004, p. 718). By working to convert students to our ways of seeing, thinking, and acting, teachers strive to create better persons and a better world. Despite all the talk of change and influence, many postmodern Western academics do not wish to describe their work so boldly. Both anonymous reviewers of this essay, for example, strongly resisted the idea that what Christian teachers do is not so different from what other teachers do (Editors, personal communication, 2006). One called this line of argumentation “a misrepresentation of what goes on in classrooms: teachers may influence their students but many are far more sophisticated in their thinking than to believe that their own way is right.” The other labeled it “simplistic (perhaps even disingenuous) because it elides value orientations, which we all have, and which are clearly acceptable, and indoctrination, which is not.” As with the critics previously cited, it appears these CHRISTIAN WITNESS AND RESPECT FOR PERSONS 209 reviewers could not envision people who think their beliefs are right or true as people also capable of tolerance, dialogue, or subtlety: Believers are by definition indoctrinators; the desire to convert another is by definition disrespectful. In any case, this process of guided change is welcomed within many traditions and cultures. Students in many contexts see teachers as moral guides or spiritual role models and are willing to trust their experience, maturity, or wisdom to show the way. Phan (2004), for example, observes that this expectation pervades Vietnamese classroom culture, even if it is not fulfilled in ways Westerners might presume or expect (pp. 55–57). I do not mean to suggest that teachers are in a godlike position of control, for learning, growth, and influence can and should be a two-way street, but we do have distinct authority and responsibilities (Johnston, 1999, p. 560). When critics oppose Christian teachers’ witness, they often appear to “forget” this legitimate process of change, growth, and influence in education that they acknowledge in other contexts and use aggressively for their own purposes. When they seek to influence students’ beliefs, it is “consciousness-raising” or “empowerment” or “social responsibility,” but when Christians do so, it is handled as ethically suspect deviant behavior. From this perspective, one main purpose of their analyses and criticisms appears to be to exoticize the Other (certain types of Christians being the Other) to condemn rather than to understand or dialogue. Although one purpose of this critique is obviously to highlight inconsistencies in critics’ positions, I want to make explicit that I view this process of purposeful inviting and influencing as not only unavoidable but in fact desirable. Teachers should not withdraw their beliefs from the classroom and become faceless facilitators. It would not work and is an unjust expectation for us as stakeholders. But neither am I asserting that preaching or indoctrinating are appropriate (or even effective) classroom activities. The key argument here is that because of the very nature of education, teachers possess priorities, beliefs, and passions, and in living these out they call their students to the same priorities, beliefs, and passions—not as automatons whom they can brainwash, but as human beings who will choose what to believe and how to find their own way in the world. No matter what beliefs a teacher holds, then, the inevitability of transformative pedagogy is best acknowledged and pursued within a strong value of respect for persons. In summary, within the educational process whole-person teachers engage whole-person learners in meaningful and complex ways. Christians believe the whole person includes a spiritual and even eternal dimension. Smith (2004) articulates it well: I see my students as images of God and therefore as beings whose spiritual and moral dimensions cannot be split away and left at the door. I do not think that learning happens best when students are approached as disembodied minds or bundles of habits to be trained or autonomous centers of self-esteem. Accordingly, I try to find ways of integrating cognitive growth with spiritual or moral challenge. (p. 4) 210 BAURAIN Moreover, education and witness are closely comparable processes. Both work toward changes of mind and heart through persuasive efforts made by believers (religious or not) who try their best to convert the unconverted to their ways of seeing, thinking, and acting. Acknowledged or not, all teaching is a journey of faith (a point to which I will return). WHAT IT MEANS (AND DOES NOT MEAN) TO BELIEVE IN ABSOLUTES I have been using the word witness without defining it directly, but I must now do so. I have waited until this point in order to problematize the easy stereotypes implicit, and occasionally explicit, in many discussions, as when Pennycook (1998) shows readers a picture of European missionaries preaching to African tribesmen (p. 147). By contrast, witness has emerged in this article to mean living out one’s beliefs in purposeful ways so as to persuade others also to accept them as true. Christian witness thus might be direct and verbal, but it should also flow through actions and character, such as by service or patience or showing care or working for justice. Snow (2004), for example, lists as two components of a “ministry of reconciliation:” One consists of tearing down walls and removing obstacles that would separate people from God’s love and the good news of the gospel. While telling others about the gospel is part of this task, the task is not confined to this, and we also carry out this task through the many ways we serve our students and minister to their needs. A second component of this ministry consists of removing obstacles that separate one nation (culture, group) from another. In Scripture we are explicitly called on to be peacemakers, and one way we can carry out this task as English teachers is by helping build better understanding—even empathy and sympathy—between people of different nations and cultures. (p. 5) With this definition in mind, on what basis is general Christian witness carried out? Most Christians believe certain truths are objective or absolute. That is, not all realities are purely subjective, contextual, or constructed. Not all knowledge depends on the identity and position of the human perceiver, although of course identity and position do affect perception. To borrow a line from the movie, City of Angels, “Some things are true whether you believe them or not.” Believing in absolutes, however, is quite far from having a crib sheet for life’s exam; rather, it is more analogous to living with gravity. Gravity is an objective reality and force in the physical world. It has observable effects, can be mathematically described, and so on. A person who does not believe in gravity and acts on this unbelief will surely come to injury or death. Yet gravity’s specific behavior, force, and effects are different in different contexts or locations in the universe. Its characteristics CHRISTIAN WITNESS AND RESPECT FOR PERSONS 211 are altered in certain ways while remaining consistent or constant in others. Similarly, and paradoxically, Adeney (1995) observes of Christian faith: Christians believe that what is good is determined by the will of God, not by culture.    But how the virtues are expressed and how they are prioritized may be very different in different cultures.    The will of God is incarnated in human practices that derive their meaning from the cultural communities in which they take place. To mean the same thing in different cultures, our practices may have to change. (pp. 15–16) When we move into a new culture, even what we believe is absolutely true must be relearned if we are to understand how it is coherent with our new context. (p. 58) To say most Christians believe in absolute truths is to say we believe we are describing reality. Critics such as those previously cited treat Christianity as a social, political, economic, or personal phenomenon, and nothing else. I am not dismissing these phenomena or their effects, but these are not the reasons people come to genuine faith. People believe what they see as true, in religion as in any sphere of life. An epistemological disparity exists here between religion and contemporary Western academia, which is dominated by social constructivism. Broadly, social constructivism holds that knowledge is molded or even determined by a variety of complex sociocultural factors and that the mediated nature of knowledge prevents us from knowing objective truths or transcendent realities (if any exist). Pennycook (1998), for example, sets up a dilemma between reality that can be represented in language and realities produced by language and chooses the latter (pp. 164–165). He argues neither for the validity of his choice nor even for the validity of the either/or polarity. In my opinion, the reason for this is that he, as so many postmodern thinkers do, takes it as a given that the truth about “representational reality” can seldom if ever be accurately discerned and may not even exist. Throughout the book, he reminds readers that he is interested in the effects of discourses, not in their essential truth or falsity, and denies that the question of whether or how accurately the discourses reveal reality has anything to do with his argument (see, e.g., pp. 181, 185, 215; but see also Johnston’s, 1999, comments on the tension between critical pedagogy and postmodernism, pp. 561–562.) None of the world’s major religions, however, accept social constructivism as a sufficient epistemology. At a minimum, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism include supernatural and scriptural elements which from believers’ perspectives lie outside the ability of social constructivism to explain or understand fully. Whatever insights it offers, it is inadequate as a totalizing paradigm. But because social constructivism has evolved into a basic article of secular/academic faith, many contemporary scholars are ill-equipped to imagine what it is like to believe in truths or realities that are thought to exist objectively and be knowable to a meaningful extent. 212 BAURAIN These epistemological differences matter profoundly because they help explain why most Christians desire others to hold our beliefs. This is one reason why we witness. We must pursue both respect for people’s worth and integrity and respect for the worth and integrity of truth. If I met people who did not believe in gravity, I would certainly treat them with respect and dignity, but I would just as certainly work to change that belief. “Tolerance” in a shallow sense would be irresponsible and the celebration of “diversity” irrelevant. For many Christians, spreading truth constitutes genuine empowerment and freedom. Merely “respecting” error is not a loving action. Because Christians are able to conceive of witness along such lines, the sharing of believed truths becomes a moral and spiritual imperative (even apart from the scriptural commands to do so, see Matthew 28:18–20). Not all Christians would agree, of course, including the “rather shocked, practising Christian colleague” whom Edge (2003) uses as an opening gambit in the second section of his critique (p. 704). Both of the anonymous reviewers of this article in fact scolded me for “essentializing” Christians in this way (Editors, personal communication, 2006), which I interpret in part as a secular preference for more docile religious believers. Yet despite such protests, holistic witness is very much a mainstream Christian practice in terms of both doctrines and traditions. This motivation for witness does not, however, entitle Christian believers to jettison respect for persons; that is, we cannot take it upon ourselves to use witness approaches not consonant with the intrinsic value and integrity of others. Simultaneous commitment to the two moral imperatives of witness and respect is challenging, and it is certainly possible that in practice Christians may err on one side or the other. I admit that this description of a motivation to witness is philosophical, that is, somewhat decontextualized or idealistic—it is a standard toward which we are always striving—but a concrete example of one place in which it is front and center is the Edinburgh Centre for Muslim–Christian Studies (Glaser & Anderson, 2005). This line of reasoning might help answer Johnston’s (2003) puzzlement as to why religious believers feel a moral duty to convince others to accept their faith (p. 113). Yet despite his perplexity, he himself demonstrates this same witnessing dynamic. He does not push his atheism on others (p. 112), but he does believe in moral absolutes and in enlightening or persuading others about them. When he attempted to bring Kurdish perspectives to the attention of his Turkish hosts during a workshop, he did so from a conviction that they and the world would be better off if he could influence them to accept his beliefs in equality, individual freedom, and the “moral duty to try to understand the viewpoint of those without power.” He says he would never shove his beliefs down anyone’s throat, but they are “moral bedrock” on which he is willing to stand even if it means conflict (pp. 146–149). In thus seeking to persuade others to convert to his way of seeing, thinking, and acting, he fulfills my definition of witness by CHRISTIAN WITNESS AND RESPECT FOR PERSONS 213 living out his beliefs in purposeful ways so as to persuade others also to accept them as true. Similarly, Pennycook (2004), writing about a teaching practicum observation visit, comes across much like a missionary. He has a gospel, critical pedagogy, that is analyzed and reflected on in various ways, but not seriously doubted. He has a witnessing technique, which he describes in terms of problematizing and disrupting “business as usual” so that a critical orientation can indeed be one of resistance. During the postlesson conference with the student teacher, Liz, he searches for “critical moments” within which these beliefs can be raised for discussion, acted upon, shared, and spread. Although Liz does not “convert,” she does move a bit closer to the beliefs he holds, to the way he perceives and responds to the world. As for Pennycook (2004), he summarizes the encounter in terms of lessons learned about effective witnessing (using the more acceptable academic term intervention): And so one of the lessons I have learned here is that while all three models of intervention – critical-directive, critical-alternatives, critical-nondirective – may be successful, it may have been the latter that was the most important, at least in this instance. Our discussion afterward didn’t raise any great moments of enlightenment, empowerment, or emancipation. But the significant lesson for me here was that the potential critical moment needed to emerge not only from the specific context of the class and our jointly constructed understanding of it, but also from Liz’s particular interests and concerns. (p. 342) For readers, one purpose of this “narrativized quasi-ethnography” (Pennycook, 2004, p. 343) is similarly to highlight ways in which “seeking to be critical is an ongoing, moment-by-moment process of slowly prodding for possibilities” (p. 341). Within the argument of this essay, the witness of Johnston and Pennycook in these examples is appropriate. I would even go so far as to say that both have taught me something about witnessing as a Christian. Possessing faith, they show a strong motivation to live it out in the context of their professional and pedagogical lives. No one was indoctrinated, no one was deceived, yet both men purposefully and strategically did their energetic best to persuade others to believe and act in the same ways as themselves. As stated earlier, this process is inevitable and desirable in education. I would identify teachers who live out their beliefs with integrity, whether those beliefs are the same as my own or not, as among the most stimulating and transformative of educators. THE BELIEVER’S NECESSARY HUMILITY The belief in absolutes described previously has led some observers to see Christians as smugly content with their answers, confident in their rightness, 214 BAURAIN and incapable of reflection, change, growth, or development. This reaction is understandable and constitutes a prima facie push toward humility. Arrogance is not attractive, and witness above all aims at attracting others to faith. This is a merely utilitarian reason, however, and there are better reasons why a Christian belief in absolutes should not be separated from the practice and pursuit of humility. The primary reason is that while most Christians believe absolute truths exist, our perceptions and understandings of them are inevitably subjective or contextual, that is, limited and fallible. Adeney (1995) explains: Not only the limitations of our cultural, social and economic background but also the presence of sin in our lives prevents us from an absolute understanding of right and wrong. Inadequate or wrong theology may subvert our ethics. Lack of virtue in our practices undercuts our ability to understand truth.    A first step in overcoming ethnocentrism is the recognition that my own values are not necessarily the same as God’s. All Christians hold many values derived from their culture. A second step is to understand that our own interpretation of Scripture comes from a particular cultural context. A third step is to see that God’s values may be “enfleshed” differently in another culture from how they are in my own. (pp. 20–21, 23) This makes the living out of Christian faith an enormous act of, well, faith. The starting point is a belief that objective truths exist. Then faith must attempt to perceive, interpret, accept, and act upon these truths, while humility is demanded by the formidable barriers to doing so. The tension might also be stated in this way: Most Christians treat their beliefs as objectively true, but without QED proofs or evidence, and in light of human finitude, in practice such beliefs are matters of choice rather than matters of fact. The bottom line is that even while engaged in witness, Christian believers must remain humble, committed to learning, change, and growth, and engaged in continuous, dialogic reinterpretation of what, how, and why we believe. Pride is a wrong attitude because it fails to respect the very absolutes championed, because it is blind to our own fallibility and sinfulness as specific believers in specific contexts, and because it can lead to actions disrespectful of others. Christians should not in fact trust in our own rightness or righteousness, but in God’s. Faith in God’s righteousness is at the very core of Christian doctrines of redemption. We believe God will be proven right, although our understanding of him and his revealed truths and how to apply them may go astray or break down at various points. This is why Christianity requires confession, repentance, and forgiveness, between God and believers and among individuals, both before and after conversion. This is also why Adeney (1995) describes the life of faith as a partnership between “epistemological humility” and “ontological conviction” (pp. 188–191). CHRISTIAN WITNESS AND RESPECT FOR PERSONS 215 Johnston (2003) similarly points out that moral beliefs “cannot be based in or justified by reason alone. I call these kinds of belief faith, because they are based on a kind of trust” (pp. 8–9). He places his trust in his own instincts and personal experience, as well as modern human rights documents, and acts for good despite the epistemological ambiguity (pp. 47, 148–149). Christians put their trust in God and his revelations and do the same—the applied dynamics of faith appear similar. In both cases, faith-as-lived lies between the paralysis or rationalizations of doubt and the conceit or totalitarianism of certainty. This reality opens up a space for fruitful tolerance, space within which people can believe and witness, but also listen to and respect one another. Most people, including religious believers, live their lives in the spaces between the two extremes of Voltaire’s easy aphorism (Edge, 2004, p. 720; see also Edge, 1996, p. 24). WHAT IT MEANS TO COME TO FAITH When Christians witness, that is, when we live out our beliefs in purposeful ways so as to persuade others also to accept them as true, the goal is conversion or coming to faith. The Oxford English Dictionary defines conversion in this sense under main heading “II. Change in character, nature, form, or function” (Simpson & Weiner, 1989, p. 870). The general definition is “8. a. The bringing of any one over to a specified religious faith, profession, or party, esp. to one regarded as true, from what is regarded as falsehood or error” (p. 870). This is later followed by a specific definition, “9. Theol. The turning of sinners to God; a spiritual change from sinfulness, ungodliness, or worldliness to love of God and pursuit of holiness” (p. 871). True conversion is thus a personal decision to change core beliefs. It cannot be forced, imposed, or manipulated; indeed, the use of false, distorted, or perverted tactics would yield false conversions and be self-defeating (as history attests). This fact demands a high respect for persons, both individuals and communities, from Christians as we witness. To act in the deceitful or heavy-handed ways feared by critics would be not only morally wrong, but also pragmatically ineffective. So at least in theory, Christians should be among those most highly motivated to recognize or develop a “culture of responsibility” that empowers people for choices (Edge, 1996, pp. 19–20). Of course, choice does not happen in an autonomous vacuum—we all understand it can be an illusion or rhetorical tool and will be influenced in profound ways by contexts, subtexts, pretexts, and texts. But at some level, all but the most dogged determinists do believe in the possibility, validity, power, or responsibility of individual choices. By this standard, the classroom, especially the TESOL classroom, is an immensely complex environment within which to work. The integrity or 216 BAURAIN effectiveness of witness can be hamstrung by multiple factors, including: (a) Power–distance relationships between students and teachers. What if students “convert” to please or obey the teacher? What if teachers encourage dependent attitudes to accomplish “conversion”? (b) Responsibility of the teacher as a moral–spiritual guide, influence, and impetus to change and growth. What if students “convert” out of an unthinking desire to imitate? What if teachers pass beyond invitation or persuasion into manipulation and dishonesty? What are the boundaries based on the age and maturity of the learners? (c) Certain aspects of colonial and postcolonial history. What if students “convert” in order to join the ranks of the rich and powerful (their perception)? What if teachers play “spiritual sugar daddy” and associate the hope of material benefit with “conversion”? Snow (2001), for example, worries: My concern here is not that CETs [Christian English teachers] will knowingly use their power as teachers to coerce students toward a profession of faith. The unjustness of such behavior would obviously generate resentment and severely tarnish any positive witness a CET might hope to have. The greater danger lies in CETs being insufficiently aware of how the power inherent in their roles affects the way students respond to their interest in proclaiming the gospel, whether in or outside class. In one such scenario, students gradually discover that the CET is very interested in sharing his or her faith, and tends to be quite pleased when he or she has a chance to do so. This gently tempts students to express an interest in Christianity in order to get on the teacher’s better side and get what they want (better grades, more chances to practice English, whatever). (pp. 76–77) Christians who have entered the field of TESOL, and indeed all teachers, have an ongoing obligation to examine motivations and practices in these and other areas. From a believer’s perspective, the model for Christian witness is God himself. He has revealed himself, he invites, there is evidence, there are arguments, but he does not force people to believe nor make it impossible for them to believe otherwise. In the end, people choose to take steps of faith in one direction or another. This example has been made concrete in the TESOL classroom by Purgason (1994), who suggests two principles: The first is to recognize that the process of spiritual transformation, which begins with conversion, is a work of God, not people, and so we must avoid attempting to impose our own agendas (p. 239). The second is to listen to and understand your students.    Jesus spent about 30 years listening, and only two years proclaiming. Students should think of us not so much as people with answers (though we do have some), but as people who will listen to questions. Students should think of our class not so much as a place where they will find out what we think, but a place where everyone’s ideas are valued. (pp. 239–240) CHRISTIAN WITNESS AND RESPECT FOR PERSONS 217 Snow (2001) similarly argues that by genuinely communicating with students in class, especially listening to them and taking their ideas seriously, CETs can demonstrate respect for students and enhance their sense of self-worth. Moreover, I would suggest that by doing this CETs accurately reflect the importance each individual person has in God’s eyes.    [I]nteraction and dialogue were an important part of Jesus’ approach to teaching. (pp. 87, 89) CONCLUSION Faith affects how Christians teach ESL in many complex and creative ways. My purpose in this essay has been to address a specific issue I believe demands engagement before dialogue or debate can proceed (as invited by Pennycook & Makoni, 2005, p. 144). The “difference between people living to embody the values they cherish and people living to manipulate others into the acceptance of their doctrines” (Edge, 1996, cited in Purgason, 2004, p. 712) needs to be understood clearly so that witness and conversion need not fall into the latter part of the distinction. My main line of argument has been toward this endpoint, which is also a starting point: Christian witness and respect for persons are not only not contradictory, but in fact should be consanguineous. Christian teachers should respect all people as intrinsically valuable spiritual beings capable of love, sin, and choice. We witness because we believe people will be better off with than without truth, yet the witnessing must come from the humble perspective of fellow travelers. We are inside, not above, the human condition. As Jesus’s disciple, Peter, advised: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience” (1 Peter 3:15–16). ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My warm thanks to Marilyn Lewis, Greg Bock, and Mike Packevicz for reading an earlier draft of this essay and making suggestions for its improvement. I am also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers, whose efforts to remain constructive yielded copious criticisms, many of which contributed to making this essay a stronger one. Its deficiencies, of course, remain my own. 218 BAURAIN REFERENCES Bible quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Adeney, B. T. (1995). Strange virtues: Ethics in a multicultural world. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Brutt-Griffler, J., & Samimy, K. K. (1999). Revisiting the colonial in the postcolonial: Critical praxis for nonnative-English-speaking teachers in a TESOL program. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 413–431. Buzzelli, C. A., & Johnston, B. (2002). 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