Challenges Facing Biblical Higher Education
Christian colleges and universities have strong ties to churches, families, and supporters, but they also face serious questions about funding, mission, and educational quality. Mark A. Taylor urges church leaders to engage Gary Weedman’s analysis of the challenges confronting biblical higher education.
- Christian colleges and universities continue to need students, financial support, and strong relationships with churches.
- Questions about funding and institutional support deserve careful attention as schools increasingly depend on constituencies outside the fellowship.
- Schools must consider how best to prepare Christians for ministry, professions, and disciple-making in challenging cultures.
By Mark A. Taylor
Gary Weedman’s analysis deserves careful reading and thorough discussion among church leaders everywhere.
Here’s why: Most of us attend congregations led by ministers and other staff members who graduated from one of the schools listed on pages 14, 15. Most of us attend churches that send financial support to one or several of them. Many of us have urged our own children to attend one of these schools. We have strong emotional, philosophical, and financial ties to these colleges and universities.
Supporting Christian Colleges and Universities
They deserve our support: they continue to serve faithfully, they continue to improve the quality of their facilities and faculties and class offerings, and most need more students and more money.
But the smiling faces and enthusiastic news reports from the colleges reporting this week dare not distract us from the serious issues President Weedman raises. Can our fellowship of 1.5 million members continue to underwrite the budgets of 29 small schools? If not, what stake will we have in schools that must increasingly look for support and students outside our fellowship? (Indeed, many depend on support from outside our fellowship now.)
Questions of Mission and Education
And don’t miss Weedman’s questions about mission. Who must we educate today to penetrate hostile cultures around the world with the gospel? Preachers and other church workers? Disciple-makers in every profession—evangelistic lawyers and doctors and accountants and teachers and middle managers? If the answer is, “All of the above,” how are our schools offering world-class educations to equip Christians who will serve credibly as fully devoted disciples beside non-Christian graduates from the best universities in the land?
Weedman admits he doesn’t have answers for all the questions he raises. But he’s done us a service just to raise them. Many are watching to see how school leaders and their supporters will prevail in the face of today’s challenges to biblical higher education.
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).
