It is an inherent human tendency to find meaning in story. Ask someone to introduce themselves, to say who they are, and you will find them rehearsing part of the narrative which has led them to the present moment. Yet the narrative of a person\u2019s life\u00a0is not sufficient, in and of itself,\u00a0to ground the meaning of that life. Why? Because every individual lacks final permanence. There is a need, therefore, to embed one\u2019s own story within a broader narrative which can encompass one\u2019s own and so protect its meaning. Such broader narratives might include that of one\u2019s family (hence the growing popularity of genealogy), one\u2019s town, or one\u2019s country. It might also include the institutions to which one belongs.<\/p>\n
This propensity to embed one\u2019s own meaning within a narrative greater than one\u2019s own creates a series of nested horizons which, in a similar way to the cosmological argument for God, ultimately point toward the transcendent plane, the ultimate horizon. Thus, within a Christian perspective, what comes into view is the promise of the Gospel that one\u2019s own life can find meaning and permanence through inclusion in the Trinitarian life of God. Here God\u2019s story, as it were, becomes the gift of the supreme grounding of our own. Yet wherever meaning is sought via a narrative broader than one\u2019s own there exists a suggestive resonance with this gift of the Gospel of Christ.<\/p>\n
If this argument is accepted, then it places great onus on a Church Foundation university because it raises the stakes of what it might mean for those who are part of its community, staff and students, to inhabit that institution\u2019s\u00a0story. This is because such a\u00a0university has the potential to become a mediating narrative that links and connects the stories of its members with the larger Christian narrative. To what extent then, we have to ask, does one’s\u00a0university\u2019s story open onto the Christian narrative, and through which points of access?<\/p>\n
Chaplaincy has a vital part to play in being just such a\u00a0site of connection, but a wider channel of connection is required than simply chaplaincy alone.\u00a0In particular, it needs to encompass\u00a0the models of education employed. Education predominantly for the sake of personal advancement will create little resonance with the Christian narrative. Education as part of a quest to order aright one\u2019s relationship to that which can be\u00a0discerned as true will resonate far more strongly.<\/p>\n
The experienced culture of the university is also equally vital; it will need to model and enact that to which it desires to draw attention. Mere participation in the institution, on the part of its members, needs to give way to a deeper sense of belonging where a significant degree of mutual influence is both possible and permissible between the stories of those who comprise the university and the university\u2019s story itself. Engendering a profound sense of shared\u00a0ownership of the university is thus highly desirable. The university’s\u00a0nature and function cannot be dictated by a small minority with the majority left to conform to the imposed definition. Rather its character as institution must\u00a0be allowed to arise organically as the cumulative product of its various contributors. The various mechanisms of representation and decision-making employed by the university cannot, therefore, be a matter of indifference. They carry significant theological weight, for\u00a0the manner by which the university models the relationship between the part and the whole\u00a0can either obscure or help reveal the nature of the Gospel as the\u00a0gift of enfolding narrative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is an inherent human tendency to find meaning in story. Ask someone to introduce themselves, to say who they are, and you will find them rehearsing part of the narrative which has led them to the present moment. Yet the narrative of a person\u2019s life\u00a0is not sufficient, in and of itself,\u00a0to ground the meaning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":665,"parent":340,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-350","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaplaincyresource.canterbury.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaplaincyresource.canterbury.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaplaincyresource.canterbury.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaplaincyresource.canterbury.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaplaincyresource.canterbury.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/chaplaincyresource.canterbury.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1621,"href":"https:\/\/chaplaincyresource.canterbury.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/350\/revisions\/1621"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaplaincyresource.canterbury.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaplaincyresource.canterbury.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaplaincyresource.canterbury.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}