Why Christian colleges still matter
This reflection highlights the unique role Christian colleges and seminaries play in connecting scholarship with faith, shaping ministry disciplines, and forming lasting mentors and models. It also acknowledges real pressures and questions facing these schools while urging ongoing cooperation and support for the sake of the gospel.
- Christian colleges and seminaries strengthen faith while teaching practical and educational disciplines.
- Economic and cultural pressures raise real questions that deserve thoughtful attention.
- Support means more than money—it includes cooperation to address challenges and advance the gospel.
By Mark A. Taylor
Faith and learning in Christian higher education
Not long ago I heard a Christian college president make a speech that underlined the vital role his school fills. He cited research quoting three quarters of college students who say faith is important to them. “But faith is not discussed in three quarters of students’ college experience today,” he added.
How grateful all of us should be that his school, and the others listed in this week’s annual Christian college report, are marrying scholarship with faith.
How grateful many of us are for the way our faith has been strengthened by enrollment in Christian college and seminary. Classes there taught us educational and practical disciplines associated with ministry and how to keep learning more about them. But that’s not all. Our Christian college experiences also connected us with mentors and models that still influence our Christian life and service decades after our graduation.
I can’t imagine what turn my life might have taken had it not been for Christian college. And I know I’m only one of hundreds of thousands who could say the same thing.
Questions worth facing
To be sure, we could highlight some issues in the current Christian college scene that some would call troubling:
For years leaders among us have wondered whether we need all the schools we’re supporting, and the question is raised again in this week’s issue.
Economic pressures force some of these schools to enroll students who can’t do college work and who wouldn’t satisfy the enrollment standards of their secular counterparts. How does this practice affect the mission of these schools?
Many Bible colleges have quietly added liberal arts programs and welcomed a growing percentage of enrollees from outside our movement. These changes present them with many opportunities, but not all their alumni and supporters agree.
We need not ignore these issues while celebrating and supporting the contribution these schools make to our fellowship and, indeed, to our whole culture.
A call to support and cooperate
In a day when faith is being forced out of classroom after classroom, these schools are instilling biblical values in their students.
At this remarkable time when megachurches and multisite congregations and new church plants are thriving, these schools take seriously the task of preparing a new generation of Christian leaders.
This week’s essays and interviews by and about leaders at four of these schools indicate the quality we enjoy at the schools we support. Let’s remember that “support” means more than money; it also means cooperating to wrestle with the issues for the sake of advancing the gospel.
Surely these schools deserve that kind of support as well as the dollars we’re sending them.
Author: Mark A. Taylor
Mark A. Taylor, who served as Christian Standard editor from 2003 to 2017, retired in June 2017 after almost 41 years with Standard Publishing (Christian Standard Media).
