Variations on a Theme: Convergent Thinking and the Integration of Faith and Learning

Abstract

Given the volatile nature of American higher education, the need for institutions to promote a distinct purpose has become critical. For Protestant colleges and universities, the historical answer to questions of identity has traditionally been the “integration of faith and learning.” Scholars have focused on this concept since its articulation over 40 years ago, and the result has been the proliferation of various sets of integration models, paradigms, and approaches. Although many debates over the nature of Protestant higher education rightly cast a broad perspective, often lost is how the integration of faith and learning is understood by the individual faculty member. Using convergent thinking as a conceptual framework, and meta-synthesis as the specific convergent instrument, this article analyzes four decades' worth of theory to offer a taxonomy of seven faith-learning integration approaches. Implications exist for institutional leaders in defining the expectation regarding the paradigm(s) of integration for faculty. Also, given that this essay identifies a theological base intrinsic to some integration models, implications exist for institutional leaders whose faculty, and students, are located along a continuum of faith traditions.