Christian University Education

IDIS 102

Mike Goheen

Trinity Western University

Is Christian university education important or frivolous?

Some might argue that in the face of such human tragedies as starvation, political oppression, and the threat of nuclear holocaust, it is unconscionable for Christians to engage in the frivolity of scholarship. Why engage in studies when the whole of culture is in such a crisis? (Walsh and Middleton)

Importance of university in West

This great Western institution, the university, dominates the world today more than any other institution: more than the church, more than the government, more than all other institutions. All the leaders of government are graduates of universities, or at least of secondary schools or colleges whose administrators and teachers are themselves graduates of universities. The same applies to all church leaders. . . . The professionals, doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc. have all passed through the mill of secondary school, the college and the university. And the men of the media are university trained. . . . The universities, then, directly and indirectly dominate the world; their influence is so pervasive and total that whatever problem afflicts them is bound to have far-reaching repercussions throughout the entire fabric of Western civilization. No task is more crucial and urgent today than to examine the state of mind and spirit of the Western university (Charles Malik).

Aiming for Christian Education

Alternative kind of education to public university

Rejects cultural idolatry that shapes these schools

Based on distinctive and comprehensive philosophy of education

Christian approach transforms the whole enterprise: goals, curriculum, pedagogy, evaluation, structure, etc.

Settling for Christians Educating

Christianity-enhanced public university education

Adds moral integrity, devotional piety, and biblical insight to select topics

Maintains status quo in university education

Christian Perspectiveon University Education

Efforts at worldview and Christian educational philosophy sharpened vision for Christian education

Language of Christian perspective: Christ-centred curriculum, inner reformation of the sciences, biblical perspective on all areas of learning, or Christian world-and-life-view

Kuyper’s vision of comprehensive scope of gospel challenges assumptions:

Reality is segregated into two realms, sacred and secular, and gospel belongs only to the sacred

Gospel transforms only individuals but not society Enlightenment notion that public life, including education is

religiously neutral

Educational Faithfulness—A Third Way?

Christian education: difference Christian educating: enriching additions Third way: educational faithfulness

Difference may be consequence More emphasis on common task with different

faith

Elements of Educational Faithfulness

We participate in two traditions We participate in the educational task with

different faith commitments We need to understand the humanist faith

commitments and impact on university And ask: Creational insights/structure and

idolatrous distortion?

Participation in Two Traditions

In this task, a Christian university participates in two venerable traditions. The first is that scholarly tradition within western culture stretching back to the Academy of classical Greece; the second is the tradition of Christian participation in higher education which had its beginnings among the early church fathers, flourished in the middle ages and was refined during the Reformation and in subsequent ages. As Canadian Christian academics in the twenty-first century, we do not seek to create an academic ghetto in which we might devise a new “Christian” scholarship from the ground up. Instead, we seek to participate in the ongoing work of scholarship from within a Christian tradition which seeks to carry out its academic task in the light of Scripture.

Participation in Two Traditions (cont’d)

Our participation in these two scholarly traditions compels us to discern the religious foundations and faith commitments that shape all theoretical work, acknowledging with thanks the creational insights they confer while seeking to identify and to reject the idolatrous twisting that can disfigure them (Cross and Our Calling).

Faithful Christian Education?

Need to define purpose of education Then: What needs to be taught to equip

children for that purpose? (Curriculum) Then: How can this be achieved?

(Pedagogy, structures, evaluation)

Purpose:Why do we educate anyway?

Traditional African education: Teach traditional life values Goal of integration into tribal community

Muslim education: Teach universal shariah law Goal of integration in theocratic community

Teach certain things so that next generation will be socialized into a certain kind of community. Purpose governs educational activity.

Modernity and thePurpose of Education

Pass on a unified body of universal scientific knowledge

Equip a world of rational citizens Build a more rational world leading to

freedom, justice, truth, and material prosperity

Postmodern Challenge to Modern University Education

If (in modernity) the university was guided by the story of progress towards a better society by science and technology but we no longer believe that story...

If (in modernity) the university was to pass along a unified body of universal knowledge but we no longer believe that exists...

Then what is the purpose of the university?

Postmodernity andPurpose of Education

Postman’s trinity: economic utility, consumerism, technology

Vendor of useful information and marketable skills

Enables student to compete or survive in the jungle of the market

Biblical Story andPurpose of Education

“Serviceable insight”

Education for witness

Education as witness

Purpose of the University

We understand the overall purpose of a Christian university education to be to equip young men and women to serve as witnesses to Christ’s victory in the various vocations they will take up in society. They are to be witnesses not solely by using the opportunities for evangelism that their positions may afford, but by testifying to the transforming power of Christ in every aspect of their professional or vocational conduct as teachers, homemakers, businesspeople, lawyers, journalists or artists, or in whatever other tasks to which God may call them (Cross and Our Calling).

Purpose of Christian University (cont’d)

The Christian university seeks to prepare servant leaders who dare to challenge the idols of our culture, and who in the very exercise of their callings bear witness to Christ and his gentle yet liberating rule. In formulating the purpose of university education in this way, we are deliberately repudiating the mistaken conception that study is merely the handmaid of economic competitiveness. It is good that Christian university students should become prepared in the course of their studies to become successful and productive members of society. But when social status and financial gain become the principal goals of education, that good has become twisted and rendered evil. Our students’ first task is, as ours, to witness to God’s rule over creation. (Cross and Our Calling)