• BC Christian News • JUNE ISSUE 2001 • VOL. 21 #6 • Formerly "Christian Info News" •

Honouring our elders: Dr. James Houston, founder of Regent College

By Mark Filiatreau

Dr. James
Houston

In the 1960s, a group of Vancouver businessmen asked two British scholars, F.F. Bruce and James M. Houston, to help them start a new Christian college. Houston and his wife, Rita, prayed about it; they eventually moved to B.C. from Oxford to found a transdenominational graduate school for the laity, Regent College.

Four students entered that first class in 1970; in April 2001, 180 students graduated to join more than 12,000 former Regent students on every continent in the world.

Houston has served as chancellor and as professor of spiritual theology. For his retirement this year (at age 79), he demurred at any suggestions of a large-scale commemoration. But he agreed to let his last lecture for 'The Christian Mind' course be open to the public, and on the evening of April 2, people from the Regent and Vancouver communities filled the college's auditorium to capacity.

Instead of a lecture, they heard a moving narrative -- as Houston spoke from the heart about Regent's past, present and future. Afterwards, the audience accepted Regent president Rod Wilson's invitation and freely thanked God for Dr. Houston and Rita and their unique work. Houston's books include Prayer: The Transforming Friendship, In Search of Happiness, and The Heart's Desire.

Mark Filiatreau: Regent College was at the forefront of the Protestant interest in 'spiritual theology.' What was the state of spiritual theology when you founded Regent in the 1960s?

James Houston: Well, we never thought of it in evangelical terms at all. An interest in spirituality developed in the late '60s, and I suppose what really shook us to the foundations of our western culture was the Cuban missile crisis. I know that motivated me to come here, because we were thinking of a nuclear holocaust and that perhaps we didn't have long to live. Therefore, the nurturing of young people in a radical kind of way was all very appropriate, living under that crisis. That shook me up to do something as radical as leave one's profession and one's career and one's culture and home, and start everything afresh here.

It was the same profound shaking up of our Western culture that triggered off the student revolts in 1968 in Paris, and then of course in the early '70s in America, coupled with the results of the Vietnam war -- they shook our society to its core. Everybody began to see things more holistically. We were looking for connectedness and life. The technocratic mindset and the impact of living with science and scientism --there was a strong reaction to that. Their reductionism was cheating us.

There came to be a greater desire for theology to be something that should produce wisdom, that should produce healing of the soul and caring of the soul, as well as teaching of the soul. And this is what spiritual theology was purporting to do, to be more holistic, more integrated.

MF: What have you learned that has been the most important?

JH: Oh, I think the most important thing we can ever learn, that our natural abilities do induce us to practice atheism. Because where I am strong, there I don't need God. So I think it's crazy to hear so many Christians saying, "Find out what your natural abilities are and use them for God." I think that our natural abilities are where we are least likely to meet God. So therefore, the most significant thing that has happened in my life was realizing -- like Paul -- that where I am weak, there am I made strong. It's precisely when you're facing 'mission impossible' that you can most profoundly seek the relevance of God for your life.

MF: Do 'mission impossible' and finding strength in weakness describe a large part of your experience in founding Regent?

JH: I would say that's the most basic thing I dealt with. Though when I think in terms of what I've suffered most, I think what I suffered -- and found most costly -- was simply being an ordinary Christian. The way Christianity becomes an excuse for a career, and becomes an opportunity for professionalism -- that, to me, is where we've distorted the gospel most of all. You've probably heard me say, that to me the greatest outrage is to make a career out of the crucified. So we need to reinstate the dignity of just being ordinary Christians.

MF: Looking back on all that's happened at Regent, how do you feel about how things have developed in 30 years?

JH: I think the most wonderful thing about Regent has been the way in which hearts have been transformed, and now have been scattered all over the world like live coals -- so that now they are creating their own little hearths of desire and service, and transforming lives. So that's the most wonderful reality of Regent, I think -- that it's a movement, not just an institution.

When we first started, I had just read the biography of [British World War II] General Montgomery. It was trying to analyze how he succeeded in North Africa in his campaign against Rommel. And the issue was, he said, "Battles are won in the hearts of men." So when we came, we came inspired -- in fact, I wrote to General Montgomery and told him how inspiring this was -- and I said that this issue, that battles are won in the hearts of men, will ever be before me. And so I still see that -- that Regent is seeking to win hearts, where the battles are won, and not giving primary concern to the strategy for battles.

MF: Is there anything else you'd like to tell our British Columbian readers and our online readers around the world?

JH: Yes. I think, basically, the danger for North American Christians is to live too comfortably -- and therefore not radically enough as Christians. Unless we travel to places where Christians have got their backs to the wall, we won't recognize how radical our faith should become. This is a good age for tourism; but let's make it more of an age for pilgrimage, of visiting Christians who have their backs to the wall, in difficult situations -- and then live more radically, as a result. Otherwise, the West Coast is too comfortable.