Last fall, a group of college freshmen and their parents gathered at a Catholic college for a day of orientation. The head of Residential Life began by explaining various aspects of campus living. He closed the five-minute presentation with this statement. “By the way, you’re not here to get an education. You are here to learn to help the world.” The next speaker ended with the same closing statement: “By the way, you’re not here to get an education. You are here to learn how to help the world." Every speaker during Orientation Day finished with this identical statement. Every single speaker.

Later that afternoon, the president of the university spoke with parents and explained, "We are trying to pitch a tent in their moral imagination. We want to shape their view of what they imagine it means to be a good person—whether they are Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, or Jew. We have a very diverse student population."

“Moral imagination.”

With moral imagination, a sophomore pictures herself as a person of integrity, a junior sees himself as a friend to those on the margins of acceptance. An athlete plays with sportsmanship.

With moral imagination, young people can see themselves standing on the side of the angels when situations and social practices present them with the moral low road.

Teaching for Discipleship intentionally seeks to cultivate moral imagination. In fact the whole concept of discipleship is built on moral imagination.

Jesus was all about moral imagination as he called his followers toward discipleship,

“I am the vine, you are the branches.” “Turn the other cheek.” “Walk not one mile but two.” “You are the light of the world.” “You are the salt of the earth.”  “Be born again.” “Love one another.” Moral imagination starts with faith, resonates with experience, and surfaces as we prod, probe, and provoke with images, metaphors, stories, and symbols.

Ask your students what it means to be a good person, and most responses will be related to some form of “do no harm.”

But Teaching for Discipleship moves beyond this understanding of morality—intentionally expanding students’ moral imagination to center around Doing Good.

There is a huge difference in Doing No Harm and Doing Good.

On the moral continuum, Doing No Harm lines up with accepting others, tolerating differences, and trying not to inflict pain. It is on the more passive end of the moral continuum.

Doing Good is on the other end of the continuum. This is a much more active image of morality—an intentional shift. Imagining the moral life this way calls young people—calls all of us—to be agents of the good and committed to the virtuous life. Being an agent of the good instead of a person who simply tries to do no harm is a lot like moving beyond being a believer and towards being a disciple.

Imagine that.

Ask your students: “What virtues will people use to describe you?”