Saju was from India. After graduation, he would have an arranged marriage. Marlo was an African-American classmate and co-worker. We spent hours talking about race, culture, and the church.
I stuffed mail and recruited prospective students as part of my work-study program in the Admissions Office. Recovering from getting dropped on by a bird while giving a campus tour is a learned skill. As a Resident Assistant, I discovered everyone doesn’t live like I do. Student government exposed me to the complexities of food service contracts and intramural sports regulations.
The people I met and the experiences I had during four short years of college broadened my horizons, built my confidence, and developed important life skills. And the classes I took taught me a few lessons as well. It was a good experience at a state university.
I wonder, however, if that would the very best use of those most formative years of my life if I were reliving them in 2020.
Non-religiously affiliated institutions of higher education serve an invaluable role that benefits every sector of society. Their contribution cannot be overlooked, and I’m not suggesting that people of faith should abandon them. I’m also not suggesting that all religiously affiliated schools are as helpful as others (more on that later).
What I do want to suggest is that followers of Jesus have an unprecedented opportunity in this era of cultural confusion. Too many of our neighbors simply do not know how to live their lives. And we have hope and help to give.
For example, the erosion of the family, which is the building block of every healthy society, has left generations of men and women unprepared for and largely uninterested in marriage and parenting. Questions around gender and sexuality require more thoughtfulness than pat answers or political pundits can offer. And despite the advances in almost every area of life, including healthcare, communications, technology, and science, the epidemic of hopelessness and despair continues to paralyze us and undermine our ability to build and maintain healthy relationships.
Could it be, then, that in this era of cultural confusion, Christians could give Christian higher education a more serious look? Could disciples of Jesus step into this moment rather than acquiesce to it? Rather than retreat into cultural Christian bastions, could we intentionally train the next generation to live as salt and light bearing a distinct Christian witness in the public square?
So consider with me these four benefits of Christian higher education that are not the luxury they once seemed to be:
A distinctly Christian education deepens a student’s faith in Jesus.
Once upon a time, the average Christian high school graduate grew up in a relatively healthy, nuclear Christian family. A father and mother modeled Christian virtue, and taught, if only by example, biblical orthodoxy. The family was active in an imperfect church, but one nonetheless, rooted in the foundations of the faith. They did not simply attend Sunday services, but were embedded in the relational and missional streams of church life.
In many cases, today’s Christian high school graduate has a different testimony than that. It’s likely they have attended multiple churches throughout childhood as their parent or parents have dropped in and out of church life. It’s likely that Sunday church attendance through the middle and high school years has been regularly interrupted by sports and other travel commitments.
Very often, the student’s moral, spiritual, and biblical formation has been stunted by a distracted family life.
While churches want to launch these high school graduates into the world to live on mission with Jesus, many graduates, even if they are willing, are simply unprepared.
It’s at this point we must acknowledge that not all Christian or religiously affiliated schools are created equal. Many historically Christian schools have loosened their commitment to Christian orthodoxy. The result is a faculty of nominal Christians who live and teach according to a more secularist, progressive framework that actually leads students away from Jesus, away from the local church, and produces graduates who do not live with a commitment to the Gospel once delivered to the saints.
Distinctly Christian institutions of higher education, on the other hand, offer an environment and educational opportunity for young adults to deepen in their personal faith in Jesus. When Jesus-loving administrators and faculty intentionally invest in their students, life transformation takes place, love for Jesus grows, and a biblical worldview emerges.
Parents and students, then, considering higher education options can look to distinctly Christian institutions as incubators of spiritual growth where students learn to trust the Bible, walk with Jesus, and live on mission with him.
A distinctly Christian education forms a student’s thinking skills.
The purpose of the academy is education, but education is not simply the gathering of knowledge. It is the development of one’s ability to think well, to reason logically, and to create solutions.
So every Christian university to should aspire to the highest academic standards. Academic excellence is never compromised in the pursuit of Christian values. Instead, our Christian values fuel a commitment to academic excellence.
Critical thinking skills, however, are indeed waning among the current generation of students. With the deterioration of classical education and the rise of video and social media binging, students (and adults) are often left vulnerable to unscientific science, imprecise history, and what we now call, “fake news.” The result is that young adults are trained for a job or trade, but totally unprepared to join Jesus’ kingdom work in the various domains of society.
Christian higher education, in contrast, does not avoid or shield students from a progressive worldview, but it does teach students to think critically and biblically about important worldview issues. It also equips them to form arguments and engage others in a way that not only makes sense and represents Jesus well, but also winsomely and convincingly calls people to consider opposing views.
A distinctly Christian education helps students build meaningful friendships.
The friendships we make during the college years stick with us longer and affect us more deeply than all the relationships we made in the first twelve years of our education. For reasons social scientists explain, we are better prepared for friendship during these years of higher education.
The university environment also lends itself to fruitful relationships. Often, students live away from home for the first time, so they are pushed to form new friends. And college students are coming of age. They are thinking about life after school, and romantic interests suddenly grow more interesting.
It’s been said, “We are most shaped by the books we read and the people we meet.”
So who, what people, what young man or woman, what professor or classmate, should have the privilege of shaping the future of the university student? Who gets to mentor our kids? Is it the nominal Christian, newly hired psychology instructor? Is it the tenured Darwinian Biology professor who denies the God of the Bible altogether? Or is it the Jesus-loving History professor who also serves as a deacon in his local church?
Who gets to woo the heart of our daughter? Is it the man whose heart is set on carnal ambitions or the young Jesus-follower who aspires to a life like that of Bonhoeffer or Livingston?
Is it the typical, alcohol-infested, sex-crazed parties that you hope will write your student’s collegiate history, or her partnership with other Gospel-minded students who give their weekends and summers to serve the vulnerable and share the Good News.
No one suggests that Christian institutions of higher education exist as towers of utopian otherworldliness, but we must admit that Jesus-shaped relationships are more likely to thrive, Christ-centered marriages are more likely to form, and Jesus-loving grandkids are more likely to be born out of an environment that is built on a commitment to the Jesus of the Bible.
A distinctly Christian education sets a student’s kingdom trajectory.
Jesus said to seek His kingdom first (Matthew 6:33). Can Christian students prepare to live for the kingdom at a non-religious university? Absolutely.
Some students attend secular universities with a vision to live on mission with Jesus. They study hard, build healthy friendships, and live for Jesus. In many cases their educational experience prepares them well to make disciples of Jesus in their particular vocation. Even the opposing worldview that confronts them throughout their experience emboldens their faith in God and commitment to his work.
Unfortunately, this is often not the case. Many high school graduates find themselves unprepared to walk with Jesus and live for his kingdom in a secular environment. Their faith is still formative, and the secular academy does nothing to to strengthen it.
A distinctly Christian college that intentionally invites and prepares students, as a matter of first priority, to live for Jesus’ kingdom in every domain of the society will set a different kind of trajectory for life. Students are trained to see the world and their place in it with a kingdom perspective. And upon graduation, they are launched out to serve people with excellence and to live as a missionary through their particular vocational calling.
Not every high school graduate should go to college. And not every college bound student must attend a Christian university. But every Christian student should prayerfully consider it. Every Jesus-following parent and student should view the college experience with the mission of Jesus in mind. And then ask, “What university will prepare me to live for Jesus’ kingdom first?”
Photo by Juan Ramos on Unsplash