Two recent books, which I heartily recommend, highlight the importance and delight of participation in the local church.

In Why We Love the Church, authors Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck contend that “being part of a church – and learning to love it – is good for your soul, biblically responsible, and pleasing to God.” They lean hard against a collection of contemporary voices who, often despairingly or cynically or angrily, describe the institutional church as outdated, irrelevant, dead, and even harmful. With wit and reference to their own personal experiences, DeYoung and Kluck draw deeply on the Scriptures, theology, church history, and the examples of thriving and gospel-purposeful churches to present a compelling case for the structure, discipline, preaching, community, and mission of organized churches.

In The Church and the Surprising Offense of God’s Love, author Jonathan Leeman contends that “insofar as the gospel presents the world with the most vivid picture of God’s love, and insofar as church membership and discipline are an implication of the gospel, local church membership and discipline in fact define God’s love for the world.” This book is an extended explication of the love of God realized and displayed in and through the life and historic practices of the local church, and, with DeYoung and Kluck, Leeman provides a profound and arresting response to those who propose that the church is either irrelevant or antithetical to God’s saving and sanctifying love.

I suppose that a primary reason why I appreciate these two books is that their themes connect with Covenant’s historic church-related identity and commitment. Covenant is formally part of an ecclesiastical community: we are owned by the Presbyterian Church in America, and we exist foundationally to serve families and churches of the PCA as well as of other like-minded and like-hearted church fellowships. So, while Covenant is itself a college and not a local church, our guiding theological convictions and our covenantal responsibility for the education we provide are aligned with and supportive of our overseeing church body. Click to continue »

The Winter 2010 issue of Christian Scholar’s Review includes an article titled “A Slippery Slope to Secularization? An Empirical Analysis of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities,” by Samuel Joeckel and Thomas Chesnes, both on the faculty of Palm Beach Atlantic University. The article presents the authors’ analysis of results of a 2007 survey of 1,900 CCCU faculty, concluding that “these institutions are hardly descending a slippery slope to secularization.” They go on to argue that “overzealous vigilance against secularization proves counterproductive” to the appropriate ethos and aims of higher education.

The authors claim that their data “suggest that faculty at CCCU institutions are firmly committed to Christian higher education,” basing that judgment, at least in part, on the following responses:
• 98% strongly or somewhat agree with “My college/university should maintain its Christian identity”;
• 94% strongly or somewhat agree with “I have a good idea of what is meant by the phrase, ‘the integration of faith and learning’”;
• 84% strongly or somewhat agree with “It is not difficult for me to integrate faith and learning in my discipline.”

They also claim that their data “suggest that CCCU institutions are places where faith is nurtured and strengthened,” with 79% reporting that, “as a result of the time spent at their college/university, their faith has either become much or somewhat stronger” (sic).

So here is their conclusion:

Based upon our data, we conclude that the dangers of secularization, insofar as they apply to the CCCU, have been overstated. Survey participants overwhelmingly endorse the Christian identity of their institutions; participants also understand and practice the integration of faith and learning.

Finally, they quote approvingly an author who refers to “the myth of declension” which “has cramped our thinking and narrowed our reflection on the nature and character of Christian scholarship.” (Rodney Sawatsky, Scholarship and Christian Faith: Enlarging the Conversation)

I can only begin to scratch the surface of the serious and complex issues which the authors gloss over in their effort to convince us that everything is just fine in Christian higher education — and that any who claim otherwise should be characterized as over-vigilant, hyper-conservative, closed-minded indoctrinators. . . in other words, the real problem. Click to continue »

A couple of months ago, my wife and I traveled to watch a Covenant men’s soccer match – a purposeful and delightful journey as our son David was playing defensive midfielder in his senior season on the team.

During breakfast at the bed-and-breakfast where we stayed, we met a couple who both work for a Fortune 500 company and who, upon learning that I am president of a college, asked me what I thought about the preparedness of today’s college graduates for work in the world.

The context for their question was that, although their company recruits from the very “best” colleges and universities, the college degree seemed to them to guarantee virtually nothing about what these graduates know or are able to do – and this with respect not only to business knowledge and competencies but also to more general abilities to speak and write well and to work effectively with others. They also noted that today’s graduates have little sense of the wider world and its significant systems (economic, political, social, cultural, etc.). The company’s training programs, therefore, assume almost nothing except simple reading skills.

This couple’s observation is not theirs alone: According to a recent survey of employers, only 24% of today’s college graduates are “excellently prepared” for even entry-level positions.

While there may be multiple reasons for the weak condition of graduates’ preparedness, one important factor may be the increasingly nonprescriptive curricula of American colleges and universities. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni recently released “What Will They Learn: A Report on the General Education Requirements at 100 of the Leading Colleges and Universities,” which graded these institutions on their course requirements in seven key subjects: English composition, literature, foreign language, U.S. government or history, economics, mathematics, and science. Forty-two of the 100 received a grade of “D” or “F” for requiring courses in two or fewer of these subjects, with twenty-five receiving “Fs” for one or no such courses. (For more information, go to http://whatwilltheylearn.com.)

Even among institutions which, for general subject areas like literature and history and science, have “distribution requirements” to satisfy which students can choose from among a group of courses, the listed courses for each area are often so varied in topic and depth that virtually no common understanding and competency can be ensured. In fact students are graduating with huge gaps in their knowledge.

It’s no wonder that diplomas from such institutions carry less and less assurance for employers, and it should be no wonder that those who pay for such education – through tuition, public funds, and donations – are asking more questions and expecting more accountability. Click to continue »

Last July, one of my blog postings focused on the appointment of Dr. Frances Collins as the new director of the National Institutes of Health. My principal purpose was to raise concern about how Dr. Collins, a professing Christian whose appointment to this new post has been hailed by many Christians, reconciles his Christian faith with his clear commitment to Darwinian evolution. I questioned the biblical adequacy of his approach, and encouraged believers who hold to the authority and sufficiency of the Bible to look elsewhere.

A major concern regarding evolution among Christians has been the possibility – or, as some would argue, the inevitability – of ethical implications and consequences which contradict biblical truth regarding the dignity and sanctity of human life. God’s direct and special creation of Adam and Eve, our historical first parents, in his own image provides a major biblical ground for the unique nature of human being and an important moral mandate for its protection. Give that up, as Dr. Collins is explicitly willing to do, and this most significant theological/ethical foundation for the protection of human life is more likely to fall.

One might wonder, then, what Dr. Collins’s views of the sanctity of human life are, given his dual profession of Christian faith and evolution. We are beginning to find out. Click to continue »