A response to Ngugi and the "English" department label

One of my sister's favorite arguments for implication is, "Like the book of Esther: it's all about God, but it never mentions him once. Still, he's all over it."

I think about her point every time I hear a Messiah College English student complain about the curriculum's lack of Christian faith. How much more explicitness would you like, that's what I want to ask. Seems to me that the literary discussions in our classes involve and allow and weave Christianity integrally - need it be spelled out more specifically? Sometimes, to me, the need for explicitness seems developmentally immature, like toddlers who need to be told "No, that's bad" or "Don't touch" in definite terms so as not to misunderstand. Need we label "This book is About Jesus" or "This is Christian Literature" to prevent our misunderstandings? Need we categorize Christian literature the same way we categorize British, African, or any other national literature? I would like to imagine Christianity as more pervasive, more transcendent than that.

Once I heard Don Forsythe, art professor, speak about the relationship between his Christianity and his art. A student asked "Is it difficult to be both a Christian and an artist," as if the two were mutually exclusive. He responded something to the effect of "I don't think my art needs to be explicitly evangelical to be considered 'Christian.'" I liked that. We don't necessarily need to label our work, our study, as such in order for it to be so. The mere fact that we are Christians means that our studies will inherently involve Christianity. We cannot escape it. It's like asking, 'Is it difficult to study literature being you?' - How can it be any other way?

So I'm not sure it's necessary to label our literature studies as "Christian." We are Christians who do literature study. We read and write and analyze out of our Christianity. How else could we? Just like we read and write and study out of our gender identities, our cultural identities, our national identities. We are, and that inherently is our study.

Perhaps, in response to Professor Powers' proposed department changes, we could nix the "English" label and call the department "Literature and Writing." Maybe that would eliminate the colonized/colonizer context issue of which Ngugi writes. It would certainly allow, if in definition only, a more comprehensive scope of subject matter. But to go a step further and label the department "Christian Cultural Studies" would be ending up right back where we started. From one limiting label to another. It'd be superfluous, I think. That's what we are at this institution, why should we label the department as such? (And, if our department labels itself in such a way, then will the mathematics department label itself similarly? "Christian Mathematics" or "Number Configurations According to Christianity"?) Labeling it, being too specific, might limit the scope to evangelical and apologetic material, just like labeling a department "English" might limit the study to only colonizer literature.

An interesting issue, this one. I'm sure I haven't explored it entirely. For now, I'll just mull over it.