Return to Journal of Christian Teaching Practice (in Communication Studies), Vol. 13, 2026
Long Walks of Teaching and Faith *
Douglas Kelley, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Communication, Arizona State University
Abstract: The author uses the image of walking on the road to Emmaus as a metaphor for developing the “Christian” mind in pedagogy. Leaning into the theme of faith integration in the public sphere (particularly as developed by scholars Noll, Marsden, and Spencer), he emphasizes dialogue as human encounter and creating space where good things can happen through a process of letting go of ego and development of academic humility. Learning spaces then become co-creations between teacher and student as Christian faculty learn to embody their own faith in the classroom.
I have long loved Robert Zund’s painting, The Road to Emmaus—the pastoral scene, the travelers in rapt conversation. Along with the characters in Luke 24, I am drawn to the discovery of new truths and experiencing the fire within as I walk with Jesus and other companions seeking to experience truth. My life has been a long walk with Christ, listening to parables, aphorisms, and proverbs as we have traversed varied terrains together.
My teaching spaces have been designed as long walks as well. I have had no desire to write trade books and hit the circuit as a popular speaker. Rather, my place is in the classroom, in which students and I walk with one another as we form long-term mutual-learning relationships, with our mutual travel characterized by trust, connection, disruption, insight, and transformation.
I see my writing as creating similar transformative spaces. This has been problematic for me as a social scientist, in which the orientation is biased toward “significant” findings and answers. Of course, I have provided these elements when needed, but more so I have invited my readers to join me on long written walks to explore various subject matters. In this sense, my writing and research are heuristic. Each individual effort a part of a longer journey, not an end point. Together, they weave a tapestry of ideas that bring reader and author closer to their shared humanity and hopefully to the One who is our Ultimate Creator.
These long walks of learning have not differed much across context, contrary to the overly binary distinctions suggested by some. With some regularity, certain Christian individuals, upon finding out that I was teaching at Arizona State University, would give me a knowing look and ask, “How’s that going?” This experience parallels Mark Noll’s description in his essay for this volume: “I feel that in my academic life, I can’t tell people that I’m a serious church member. I feel at church that I can’t tell people I’m committed to the academic life.”[1] I have felt the same, but gratefully, as I tried to distance myself from being considered a “Christian scholar,” a non-Christian colleague encouraged me to keep bringing my faith perspective into my work. He saw both church and university as places where moral questions could still be considered. Some may question that basic assumption, but it was in that spirit that my teaching at Seattle Pacific University (Christian) and Arizona State University (public) differed little from one another—genuinely engaging students in both places as we courageously encountered course content.
Where is the “Christian” in all of this? I would argue that this is the wrong question. For me, it is impossible to separate faith from the rest of my life—both personal and academic. My teaching at SPU and ASU sprung forth from what I call my genuine teaching self or what Parker Palmer terms, the undivided self.[2] My faith heightens my awareness to certain ideas, perspectives, themes, happenings. My awareness and interest piques as students and I explore ideas of love, justice, intimacy, and forgiveness. Mark Noll states, “It is not ‘the evangelical mind,’ ‘Christian thinking,’ or such categories that are important. It is rather the specific task needing research, the nagging problem requiring further thought, and the current field to which one has been called.”[3]
As a communication scholar I am prone to learning and understanding through dialogue. Specifically, I have been drawn to Buber’s notion of genuine dialogue: “Whether spoken or silent . . . where each of the participants really has in mind the other or others in their present and particular being and turns to them with the intention of establishing a living mutual relation between himself and them.”[4] When my students or readers and I can approximate genuine dialogue, learning and knowing emerge.
As an undergraduate religious studies major at Arizona State, I was fortunate enough to take courses with Del Brown, a Christian professor who introduced me to liberation and existential theologies. Much more liberal than I was, Del was bright, articulate, and had a beautiful mind for the faith. I have fond memories of walking together after classes chewing over course concepts, while at the same time talking openly about his concern for his own son’s faith.
This approach to nurturing the mind was formative for me. In later years I would connect it to Paul’s injunction to have the mind of Christ: “who . . . did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:7, English Standard Version). I have truncated Paul’s statement to highlight two aspects that have characterized my hope when writing and teaching. The first aspect is self-emptying—to let go of ego in the service of others. Closely related is the aspect of academic humility—to cease grasping after being a “god,” but rather to become human to my students and readers.
As we release ego and embrace humility, we create spaces in which if good things can happen, they will. I first proposed this idea in Just Relationships as a means of interpersonal advocacy.[5] As advocates we create space, invite others into that space and, if they come, then begin to co-create space where good things can happen. This process recognizes our own agency, but it also emphasizes our lack of control of other individuals. As teachers, we are advocates for our students. As such, we create safe spaces for learners to risk disruption and consequentially to experience the opening of their minds to new ideas and new actions.
This kind of genuine teaching is a humbling process, void of ego, in that it recognizes that we do not control the outcome. Once students are willing to enter into this rather sacred space, we join together in a long walk of mutual learning and potential transformation. For me, some of today’s public scholar talk is filled with too much certainty. As Christian scholars, we can find ourselves in this same position: too confident in what we think we know. And, as Greg Spencer argues in his contribution to this volume, we are in danger of avoiding the practice of good thinking that is willing to endure risk.
Examples of safe spaces for co-learning occurred frequently in my forgiveness course. In the third week of the semester, I would host a panel including a Christian pastor, a rabbi, the head of the local Muslim congregation, and a Buddhist priest (and, no, they do not all walk into a bar). Each panelist would provide an overview of their religion’s understanding of forgiveness. Then the class session would be opened for questions. In the spirit of full disclosure, during the class period before the panel I would share my own faith background related to forgiveness.
The point of these forgiveness panels was not to offer information as much as it was to create a space where good things could happen. Talking to a Buddhist priest is different than reading about Buddhism. A tone was being set for the rest of the semester—we could safely broach a wide variety of religious perspectives together as part of our class discussions and assignments.
The panel also provided the opportunity for students to watch me learn and be challenged. Like it or not, I became an imperfect embodiment of the Christian faith for many students. I say this not to exaggerate or place undue pressure on our roles as professors. However, my how became an important contribution to what the students were learning. As Marsden comments in his contribution to in this volume, “This self-critical work about my own Christian ‘tribe’ turned out to be something that people on the outside were really appreciative of because it wasn’t just celebrating or defining my own fundamentalist background, on the one hand, and it wasn’t just criticizing and dismissing it, on the other. In a sense, I began doing what all good scholars do—weigh the evidence and make fair judgments that speak the truth in love [italics mine].”[6]
Release of ego and embrace of humility opens space for the embodiment of faith in our classrooms and writing. It is part of the long walk that cultivates the mind of Christ in us all. It creates space where good thinking and learning and discovery and transformation can, and do, happen. As Parker Palmer reminds us: “Good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.”[7] For me this has meant bringing my genuine teaching self to my students and writing as honestly as possible—long walks together in hope of hearing the Shepherd’s voice along the way.
About the Author
Douglas Kelley (PhD, University of Arizona) is Professor Emeritus of Communication at Arizona State University. His research and teaching focus on how relational partners can treat one another humanely as they pursue intimacy and love and negotiate their responses to hurt and struggle. Professor Kelley is recipient of NCA’s 2017 Bernard Brommel Award for Family Communication and has authored seven books, including Just Relationships: Living Out Social Justice as Mentor, Family, Friend, and Lover, Intimate Spaces: A Conversation about Discovery and Connection, and A Communicative Approach to Conflict, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation: Reimagining Our Relationships. He continues to teach, write, pursue reconciliation, and offer spiritual direction in his local community. (www.groundedinsanity.com)
*This article originally appeared in From the Outrageous to the Scandalous: Re-imagining Christian Thinking in the Age of Tribalism and Ideological Resentment, eds. Robert H. Woods Jr. and Mark Allan Steiner (Pasco, WA: Integratio Press, 2025).
Notes
[1] Mark A. Noll, “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind: Then and Now,” in From the Outrageous to the Scandalous: Re-imagining Christian Thinking and Scholarship in an Age of Tribalism and Ideological Resentment, ed. Robert H. Woods Jr. and Mark Allan Steiner (Integratio Press, 2025), 9-13.
[2] Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of the Teacher’s Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998).
[3] Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1994), 247.
[4] Martin Buber, Between Man and Man: The Realms in The Human Dialogue: Perspectives on Communication, eds. Floyd W. Matson and Ashley Montagu (New York: Free Press, 1967), 133.
[5] Douglas L. Kelley, Just Relationships: Living Out Social Justice as Mentor, Family, Friend, and Lover (New York: Routledge, 2017).
[6] George M. Marsden, “Mere Christian Scholarship,” in From the Outrageous to the Scandalous: Re-imagining Christian Thinking and Scholarship in an Age of Tribalism and Ideological Resentment, ed. Robert H. Woods Jr. and Mark Allan Steiner (Integratio Press, 2025), 16-18.
[7] Palmer, Courage to Teach, 10.