Definitions

Mission Statement:
Point Loma Nazarene University exists to provide higher education in a vital Christian community where minds are engaged and challenged, character is modeled and formed, and service becomes an expression of faith.  Being of Wesleyan heritage, we aspire to be a learning community where grace is foundational, truth is pursued, and holiness is a way of life.

Our goal is to create a vital Christian community that is shaped by our Wesleyan theology.  This can be illustrated in the following diagram (Allen and Zack).

Wesleyan Theology:
Point Loma Nazarene University is sponsored by the Church of the Nazarene, a Wesleyan denomination with roots in the American holiness tradition.  From our Wesleyan heritage we derive three essential theological themes:

• God’s grace as revealed in Christ’s self-sacrificing love empowered by the Spirit is foundational to our understanding of God’s work and identity;
• In response to the command to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” (Luke 10), we must be seekers of truth in many forms;
• To express our love of God and neighbor, we are called to live holy lives; ones that communicate gratitude for the cleansing work of Christ by participating in the world through love and good works.  Holiness affirms in hope and faith that through the power of the Spirit human beings can become more fully conformed to the image of God in which they were created.                                               

A Foundation of Grace:
Grace is the unmerited gift to us from God.  Prevenient grace, “some tendency toward life, some degree of salvation, the beginning of a deliverance from a blind, unfeeling heart, quite insensible of God” [Wesley], is the gift of God the Father to each human being. This grace is sufficient to bring us to Christ, but it is God’s justifying grace mediated through the death and resurrection of Christ that results in our salvation.   Finally it is God’s grace in the work of the Spirit that sanctifies, leading us to more fully reflect the image of God.  This interdependent work of the Trinity forms our identity; for in God “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17).  It is by grace that we have been welcomed into a loving relationship with God and it is through grace that we can love God and our neighbor.
 
The Pursuit of Truth:
The pursuit of truth is the search for knowledge and understanding; to seek the mind of God.  Our search is always tentative, ongoing, and respectful.  We “see as through a glass darkly” and we “know only in part” (I Corinthians 13) so we approach learning with a sense of humility.  There is always something more to be learned.  We can not know everything, yet we can approach truth with a sense of confidence; we have been given eyes “see” (even if through a glass darkly) and the intellect to “know” (even if only in part). Thus, we believe that the best way to arrive at the truth is through formative dialogue that includes texts, tradition, data, reason, experience and the insights and knowledge of others. 

A Life of Holiness:
A “holy” way of life is one that seeks to live out the message of the Gospel in the world.  This requires both personal integrity (works of devotion) and heartfelt compassion for those in need (works of mercy).  A holy life is lived out in community.  We practice discipleship in community, we serve in community, we comfort in community, we worship in community, and we are held accountable by the community.  This is a covenantal community, not only because we are all a part of the New Covenant, but also because we believe that a committed “life together” is the only way to be the body of Christ.  The grace of God is extended to us – but we make the choice to embrace the covenant and walk in community.

Hospitality:
Our understanding of hospitality begins with grace; we have been forgiven and welcomed into a loving relationship with God that we do not deserve and can not earn.  God is actively at work in the world reaching out in mercy to draw all persons to Himself.  This action of a loving God compels us to extend the welcome of hospitality to all.  In some respects, our theology is made tangible in the way we receive the stranger – literally and intellectually.

Academic Hospitality is an openness to ideas and people, and a willingness to understand them and to be changed by them.  Hospitality codifies the human desire to cross boundaries by inviting others to join us as fellow inquirers, believing that people with differences have something important to say to each other.  Authentic hospitality is marked by respect, intellectual curiosity, the sharing of resources and genuine scholarly reciprocity.  Hospitable
academic pursuits embrace and celebrate our relatedness as together we receive with care the new and the strange and review critically both the fresh and the familiar.

Conversation:
Conversation turns the openness and welcome of hospitality into action.  In order to hear, understand and be changed by ideas and people we need to listen and speak with engagement and respect; our minds and our hearts must be involved. Conversation involves texts, traditions and other sources of information along with human beings. Conversation develops knowledge and forms character as each individual has the opportunity to support their own interpretation of the truth and respectfully challenge the interpretations of others.  Hospitable conversations allow for the participation of many voices, are open to new ideas, and through dialogue seek an accurate understanding of the truth.

Covenantal Community:
An academic “covenantal community is rooted in members’ commitment to each other in pursuit of the common good.  These are public vows.  They are created and maintained through the promises of each member to the others” to practice hospitality, promote conversation and persevere in faithful living (Bennett).   As Christians we affirm that our lives are inescapably interdependent, that “just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (Romans 12).  The entire community is essential to accomplishing the work that God has put before us, the teaching, shaping and sending of students.  Entering into a covenantal community involves embracing shared values and actions, being dedicated to the well-being of others, accepting accountability, and committing to on-going involvement in discourse and joint projects. The relationship is more than contractual; not all of the obligations can be fully specified in advance. 

Cultivates a “Sense of Place”:
Our institutional identity is grounded in a Wesleyan theology of grace, truth and holiness. We pursue our mission – to teach, to shape, to send – as Christians who endeavor to practice what we profess.  We teach with confidence, humility, integrity, and compassion.  We embrace hospitality, conversation and a covenantal community as essential academic values – and permit ourselves to be shaped by them as members of the “wisdom community.” This creates a distinctive intellectual community that is shaped by our collective understanding of what it means to be an educated Christian.  It is this vital “sense of place” that forms the foundation for who we are and what we do as scholars.

Teach:
To teach is to create a space where obedience to grace, truth and holiness are practiced and encouraged.  Excellent teaching is defined as a three-way dialogue between the professor, students and material that engages and challenges the minds of all participants. The goal is always for students to acquire a depth of knowledge that allows them to articulate their own understanding of the truth.  Fine teaching encourages intellectual curiosity and helps students to acquire the skills to become “life long learners.”  This is fostered through carefully designed curriculum taught by faculty who are active scholars and who invite students to join them in scholarly work.

Shape:
To shape students is to engage them in a process that fosters intellectual development, personal growth and spiritual formation in a covenantal community rooted in Christ.  Intellectual development is cultivated through providing academically challenging course work that involves collaborative and experiential learning, and deep engagement with faculty members and other students both in and out of the classroom.   Personal growth and spiritual formation are modeled by members of the community and nurtured in a wide variety of ways including encouraging participation in ministry and service opportunities, exposing students to wellness information, embracing diversity, and discussing ethical professional practices.  As an institution, we affirm that all of life is under the authority of Christ.  Our aim is provide students with a complete education; one that in addition to fostering development and growth, cultivates the life-long process of forging connections between their intellectual, professional, personal and spiritual lives.  

Send:
To send students into the world is to instill in them a deep sense of vocation, that all of life is an expression of faith.  We want our graduates to live in a holy ways. What is modeled for and encouraged in students is the understanding that we are all called to be competent and ethical professionals, compassionate leaders and servants in both the community and the church.  The Church of the Nazarene has a deep investment in the Wesleyan ideal of social holiness.  We send our graduates into the world in the hope that they will acknowledge all human beings as bearers of the image of God though acts of charity and mercy enacted both around the corner and around the globe.

References:
Allen, Patrick and Maria Zack (2005), diagram in p1 to appear in publication.

Wesley, John (1829), The Works of John Wesley, Thomas Jackson editor, London, John Mason, VI, 509.