Union University August Graduation Address August 5, 2000 Issachar Factor: 1 Chronicles 12:32 David S. Dockery, President

It seems that it is always a small minority of people who are able to rightly discern both current and future challenges. In 1 Chronicles we read the story of a great army that came to Hebron to make David their king. Among the 340,000 fighting men of this army was a tiny group of men from Issachar, numbering 200 plus their families. But these 200 were different from the rest of the crowd. The biblical writer describes them as "those who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do."

This group had a reputation for being discerning. Somehow they were able to lift their eyes to the distant horizon and see further than those around them. They could read the signals of the changing societal climate, the movement of armies, and the hand of God on their nation. Through effective analysis they were able to synthesize the facts and shape a strategic response.

Every agency, institution, and organization needs an Issachar factor-people who can look to the horizon and interpret the times, influences, forces, and trends. I trust that your time at Union University has prepared you to be an Issachar like person in the business, agency, school, or organization in which you will serve. You have had the privilege of learning from and interacting with one of the finest teaching faculties to be found anywhere in this country. Today marks the conclusion of your formal time with them. They have put their seal of approval on your work and they join me in offering a word of hearty congratulations to each one of you!

To embody the Issachar factor in your future service does not mean that you must become a futurologist-though most of us here can make as good--if not better-guesses than some best selling "experts." Jim Taylor and Watts Wacker in their 1997 publication, 500-Year Delta, where among the many changes and predictions which they think will take place over the next 500 weeks suggest that 30% of the U.S. workforce will be engaged in supporting the elderly, that multinational corporation headquarters will virtually replace the role of national embassies, that consciousness will be downloadable, and that being "unknown" will be a status symbol. If they get two out of these four correct most all of us will be surprised. Futurologists of the past did little better and to read their science fiction-like predictions for the year 2000 is now an entertaining, though not necessarily informative, way to spend an evening.

Amid all the speculation about the future, what is certain is that change and the cadence of change will increase. The Issachar Factor does not then call us to become futurologists but to develop an awareness of the challenges we will face in order to serve effectively and with excellence in the various roles to which we have been called. Let me briefly mention a few of these challenging changes that I see:

1. Changes in Demographics
   Pictures of leadership of major companies and institutions from years gone by look remarkably similar. They generally feature a group of white men sitting around a large table or standing in front of a building. But those homogeneous pictures are changing as women and ethnic groups now play a larger role. What is coming in this country is a nation made up of many minorities, each staying in touch with its cultural heritage to some extent. This demographic shift can be the cause of many tensions-racial, cultural, and religious-which threaten to erupt on occasion. Organizations-including Union University-that are not able to reach this changing audience face the danger of becoming irrelevant to the various needs of that audience. Those of us who serve in smaller cities, particularly here in West Tennessee, may not see these changes so clearly today, but as the years pass and changes mount we must come to grips with these realities. Sociologists suggest that most people opt for one of five responses when faced with these demographic challenges:
   1. Hold out
   2. Keep out
   3. Move out
   4. Close out
   5. Reach out

   I would suggest today that the Issachar Factor calls for us not to react to these changes but to respond by finding a way to "reach out" in this changing environment.
   

2. Changes in Belief Systems
   We are living in what some call an in-between time-as the modern age winds down and-for lack of a better term-the postmodern age emerges. There are at least two hallmarks to the ideas that go under this heading:
   1. Disbelief in objective truth
   2. Deep sense that morality is relative

   Many graduates coming out of today's educational institutions are unlikely to believe that there are universal ideas or truths. Students are likely to have been bombarded with conflicting truth claims and have thus concluded that all ideas or truths are relative. The effects of this are twofold:

   1. The first is an eclectic approach to life where we decide what is true according to personal taste.
   2. The second is that tolerance should prevail and thus claims to truth, much less the proclamation of that truth or the sharing of one's faith, are viewed as improper behavior or bad manners.

   We have not apologized at Union University for shaping your education in a Christ-centered direction. I think the Issachar Factor calls for us to be even more intentional about doing so in the future. Jesus himself said, "I am the way, the truth and the life" and it is our prayer as you leave the hallways of Union University that you have come to the place in your life of believing in Jesus Christ and shaping your belief system accordingly.
   

3. Technology Issues
   A third and perhaps obvious factor that will impact your work is the changing field of technology. While many current graduates across the country might be morally illiterate, for the most part all are technoliterate. We live in a world shaped by the internet, pagers, voice mail, VCR's, and audio CD's. Graduates entering the 21st Century thus face unique challenges different not only from those who graduated a century earlier but from graduates of just twenty years ago. The combination of the denial of absolute truth, moral relativism, and the new technoliteracy will create new challenges for you as educators and business leaders alike in coming days.
   
4. A Spiritual Hunger
   Amidst these many shifts in our world is an underlying hunger for things spiritual. The seeming ubiquitous interest in spirituality and religion I believe gives witness to the universal longing for God. St. Augustine expressed it well over fifteen hundred years ago when he said that God has made us for Himself and ultimately our hearts find no peace and life finds no direction until we rest in Him.
   Contemporary spiritual hunger is evidenced in the bright colors of major book displays at most any secular bookstore. Books like:
   --Finding God on a Train
   --Conversations with God
   --Chicken Soup for the Soul
   are just a few of the dozens of titles to be found.
   
   But in the search for spirituality there has developed what Chuck Colson calls a "searing of the conscience." In the recent film, Keeping the Faith, a young single rabbi has sex with a woman he has no intention of marrying. Does he sense shame or guilt for his actions? Not one bit and the viewers are to thus assume that his actions are OK.
   
   We have shifted moral issues away from objective standards to what feels right. Princeton Professor Robert George has noted that when our contemporaries use the word conscience they don't mean it in the sense of conscience directing their behavior. Instead conscience licenses behavior by establishing that one doesn't feel bad about doing it. Instead of being a guide to action or at least an inhibitor of wrong actions, conscience is now, as Russell Hittinger suggests, "the writer of permission slips." What our grandmothers told us, "to always let your conscience be your guide" may now be a dangerous thing to suggest.

The Issachar Factor calls for us to recognize not only what we might view as positive changes in demographics and technology and other key areas as well, it ultimately means guiding us to know what we ought to do in matters of eternal consequence.

The Issachar Factor means that as you leave this place you will move into your various areas of responsibility-as one church father put it-to become the soul of society. It means getting past the feel good model of life decisions striving to rejuvenate educational institutions, social agencies, and business organizations.

I believe we live in a time when the Christian's role in general and the Union graduate's role in particular is filled with opportunity because of the unique perspective we can bring to the changing issues of our day. We have the privilege to carry the banner of Issachar for this generation to our society.

Again, congratulations on this significant educational accomplishment and may God help you to represent well your alma mater in the workforce, in community, and in society with an Issachar mindset that has an understanding of the times in order to know what we ought to do.