Christian Education as Preparation for Life
Two recent published items prompt this reflection: an article in the PCA’s denominational magazine and a radio broadcast for a well-known Christian family ministry. The article dealt with the challenges that Christian college students face as they attend secular colleges and universities, and the author offered counsel and encouragement for how Christian students can not only survive but thrive in contexts not only different from but often hostile to their Christian faith and values. The author recommended realistic expectations of what they will encounter; intentional preparation for living in the midst of openly sinful behavior and for resisting “four years of liberal propaganda;” connection with a campus ministry and a local church congregation; and reaching out in Christian love and care to those they meet.
The radio broadcast focused on the resources available to Christian students who find themselves harassed, discriminated against, or otherwise treated unfairly, providing real-life examples in which Christian legal help came to the aid of Christian students to defend their rights and privileges.
I deeply appreciate these efforts to help Christian students cope with the realities of secular campuses. Tom Wolfe’s novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, offers graphic descriptions of what students regularly encounter (Warning! Wolfe’s novel is explicit), and it is crucial that Christian campus ministries, churches, and authors provide support and resources for survival.
At the same time, I found it disappointing that virtually no attention was given in either the article or the broadcast to the central feature of college life: the classroom. Students attend college to learn, and the learning occurs primarily through the interaction with faculty who will inevitably shape how students think and feel about everything. Professors are very bright, very persuasive, and in secular institutions almost always opposed and even hostile to Christian faith. And they want their students to think like they do. Even if professors are not actively attacking Christian faith, they are teaching from a framework that does not acknowledge Jesus Christ, i.e. they are failing to take into account the One by whom all things were created, in whom all things hold together, and under whose authority all things find their unity. Students who study in such settings simply will not learn to think Christianly – unless there is, alongside the “normal” curriculum, some comprehensive and systematic study that demonstrates the preeminence of Jesus Christ and the biblical reality that in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3), and does so for every academic discipline which the student studies. Unfortunately such parallel study rarely happens, and most campus ministers, gifted as they are, do not have the capabilities to help students deal with the relentless and powerful imprint of sophisticated secular scholarship in all the academic fields.
The result is, in my view, a looming disaster for the church: people whose souls are nurtured while their minds are lost. At the least this produces the kind of dichotomous thinking – disintegration in the literal sense – that Nancy Pearcey so trenchantly describes and decries in her important book Total Truth, with the spiritual sphere separated from and in fact walled off from the intellectual and vocational. What a decline this represents for the church and the people of God – where once Christians led the way in scholarly, artistic, and professional endeavors, now we follow paths set by opponents of our faith.
At the worst the soul-survival/mind-loss reality occurring among Christian students on secular campuses increases the momentum of the blurring of the church’s distinctive identity and the diminishing of its impact on the wider culture. We are inexorably shaped into the world’s mold and modes of thinking and living.
Why do so many Christians continue to fail to grasp the utterly crucial importance of shaping the mind and the heart in the educational process itself? Many Christian parents, who devote themselves so diligently to caring for their children’s souls, miss the very point of college education, opting instead for short-sighted emphases on university traditions, prestige, and the perceived path to a good job, and launch their children into learning contexts where they are inundated by ways of thinking that the parents undoubtedly abhor but willingly allow to shape their children’s minds and hearts. And perhaps even more important, the children of these Christian parents miss the glorious opportunity, in the educational context, to see how everything in creation fits together under the kingly rule of Jesus.
Discipleship is wonderful; we all need it. Learning to show compassion to those around us, to live holy lives, to say “no” to ungodliness, to witness to others of the love of Christ – all these are important for all Christians no matter what their context. And defending rights is important, and we should be grateful for those who understand the constitution and the legal process well enough to come to our aid.
But the college years are primarily about getting an education as preparation for the rest of life, and merely providing a safe haven and protecting students’ rights simply do not get at the core issue: how will students be formed intellectually to live faithfully in their various vocations and in life in general? Where is the focus on the development of Christian thinking about everything: history, art, business, philosophy, physics, psychology, theater, and on and on? Where is the passionate concern of the church to raise up generations who not only are good church members and evangelists but who also will shape their culture according to the Scriptures and the sovereign lordship of Jesus Christ?
Am I grateful for college campus ministries, and do I pray for Christian students on secular campuses? Every day! Do I believe that these students are receiving what they need to lead lives comprehensively and vitally formed by the preeminence of Jesus Christ in all things? Honestly, no. This is why I believe so passionately in the mission of Covenant College. We do what no university education plus a campus ministry can possibly do, and it is crucially important for Christian families, the church, and gospel witness in every dimension of life and culture.
Published on 31 Oct 2007 at 10:20 am. 5 Comments.
Dr. Nielson,
Well said! As we struggle with pragmatism at the K-12 level, it is my hope that K-12 insitutions and Christian colleges, like Covenant, will start to form relationships to work together. I am thankful that we (WCA in Huntsville, AL) have begun that process with CC. Hopefully you will start to see more of our students attending CC. I pray for you often. Also, welcome to the world of blogging (monroebridge.blogspot.com)!
Craig L. Bouvier on 4 Nov 2007 at 4:54 pm.
Hello Dr. Nielson! I’m an applicant for Covenant’s class of 2012. When I read your post (which I must say was greatly needed), I immediately thought of my dad. He is, from a financial aspect, hesitant to support my desire to attend Covenant. I sent him the link to your post. Stemming from this was a fantastic discussion that opened his eyes a bit wider to why I believe God is leading me to spend my college years at Covenant.
In our discussion, he raised a question about one of your points. I thought it best to go straight to the source instead of speaking on your behalf. Here is my dad’s question:
“Students who study in such settings simply will not learn to think Christianly – unless there is, alongside the “normal” curriculum, some comprehensive and systematic study that demonstrates the preeminence of Jesus Christ and the biblical reality that in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3), and does so for every academic discipline which the student studies.”
By saying this, do you mean that a student who attends a secular university without having a “comprehensive and systematic study that demonstrates the preeminence of Jesus Christ…and does so for every academic discipline which the student studies” is unable to think Christianly?
Also, thank you for your attention to the dangers of a secular education. What a blessing to know I will spend those four important years at Covenant College!
Kaiti Boling on 13 Nov 2007 at 8:22 pm.
Agreed…well said. We share that vision here at Prestonwood Christian Academy where we are the only K-12 school in the country with a full-time Worldview Director — that’s me! My job is to get our students to THINK critically and Christianly and to equip them to engage their culture, including the classrooms on their college campuses! Keep up the great work on the college level, we’ll continue to prepare students for the challenges and opportunities which lie ahead.
Dan Panetti on 14 Nov 2007 at 1:22 am.
Dear Kaiti:
Thank you for your comment. I am glad you found it helpful, and I’m very glad that you are excited about the prospect of spending your college years here at Covenant!
I have a good friend who encourages students attending secular institutions to engage in what he refers to as “double study” – the purposeful and systematic study of a parallel curriculum which helps the student think biblically about the frameworks, issues, questions, and answers presented in academic courses taught by professors who don’t acknowledge that in Jesus Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. His reasoning – with which I wholeheartedly agree – is that, without such parallel study, there is virtually no way for the Christian student to filter through the inaccuracies, fragmentation, and falsehood that will be their daily fare in the classroom. Campus ministries can help to some degree, but I know of very few campus ministers who are sufficiently competent in the academic disciplines to be able to help students with this complex and crucial task. The result is most often a radical separation between academic and spiritual life: souls nourished while minds (i.e. thinking, “taking every thought captive in obedience to Christ”) are lost. If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you (and your father) to read Nancy Pearcey’s book Total Truth; she does an outstanding job in explaining and drawing out the implications of this separation.
One of our philosophy professors, recently retired, contends that throughout our lives we are confronted and bombarded with “conceptual recommendations” – appeals to us for what to believe, what to love, what to value, what to hope for. Without a well-formed biblical framework, properly informed across disciplines and touching every aspect of life, it is indeed unlikely that a person will be able thoroughly to think Christianly, i.e. according to the preeminence of Christ in all things.
Note that I’m speaking of the framing of a student’s mind – what and how they think about everything. I’m not here addressing the issue of the context of learning – the potential impact and influence of a secular campus. Tom Wolfe’s disturbing novel I Am Charlotte Simmons – which I do NOT recommend to you because of its graphic language – chronicles the moral demise of a young Christian woman on a university campus, with descriptions of campus life which can’t be denied. But that’s another topic.
Your phrase “from a financial aspect,” which I take to refer to your father’s concern about getting a good job, is very interesting to me. First of all, Covenant has a fine record of graduates who do well: they find jobs, they support their families, they give generously to churches and other causes. Our two sons (a senior and a sophomore) are being well-prepared for what will come next, and we are confident that they will find pathways through which they will thrive. But I don’t want to miss the opportunity to say that college is – MUST be – about more than the ramp-up to a good job. There is no period in life where minds and hearts are more comprehensively and even permanently shaped, and it is, in my opinion, a huge risk to sacrifice the opportunity to learn to think, love, and live Christianly for the sake of an entry-level job. (I’d love to share my own story in this regard.)
I hope this helps. I’d be delighted to continue this conversation, both with you and with your father. Thanks for taking the time to engage my blog.
Blessings –
Niel Nielson
President
Niel Nielson on 19 Nov 2007 at 8:31 am.
[...] To read his post, “Christian Education as Preparation for Life” on his blog, please click here. CSI commercial moment ☺ - we look forward to hearing more from Dr. Nielson as one of our keynote speakers at our summer leadership convention this coming summer. [...]
Preparing Christian minds for college « Nurturing Faith on 4 Feb 2008 at 10:25 am.