Fidelity and Fearless Engagement: Charting the Future of Christian Colleges (Part I of III)

When I first became a provost at a small Christian college about ten years ago, I encountered the reality that forty percent of our faculty were within five years of retirement or already well beyond retirement age. Most of these faculty were long tenured members with a significant amount of institutional knowledge, strong academic leadership (many served as department chairs), and deep commitment to the mission of our college, an institution deeply rooted in the Reformed Christian faith. Over a period of five years, we lost a combined total of more than 400 years of institutional service. Both trustees and faculty expressed concern that the college might falter in its missional commitments without careful attention to the onboarding and development of our new faculty. As a result, faculty hiring and development assumed a primary role in my work. At the same time, as a college located in the northeastern United States, we faced the reality of a significant demographic decline further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar situations affect other Christian higher education institutions around the United States. As an academic leader in this complex and challenging environment, I welcome resources that may provide insight and guidance to the dynamic reality facing Christian higher education. Three such books—Richard Langer and Scott Rae’s Mission-Driven Colleges, John Hawthorne’s The Fearless Christian University, and Rick Ostrander’s Academically Speaking: Lessons from a Life in Christian Higher Education—offer timely insights, critiques, and visions for Christian higher education. While each book approaches the subject from a distinct vantage point, collectively they identify shared challenges and opportunities, contributing to these ongoing conversations in Christian higher education. I will summarize each briefly below, identify themes and tensions, and conclude with each author’s unique perspective on a vision for institutional flourishing.

Mission-Driven Colleges: Keeping First Things First in Christian Higher Education

Richard Langer, professor emeritus of biblical studies and theology, and Scott B. Rae, senior advisor to the president for university mission and dean of faculty, both from Biola University, directly address a critical challenge facing Christian higher education: the potential for mission failure “by failing to be Christian or by failing to be higher education” (5). The book’s framework, originating from a three-day dean’s retreat facilitated by the authors at Biola in 2017, targets academic leaders from board members and presidential cabinets to deans and department heads to faculty. In six chapters and 192 pages, Mission-Driven Colleges desires to guide primarily those institutions with distinctly Christian faculty in “identifying, owning, and implementing the Christian mission of higher education” (5).

The book begins by exploring “What is a university?”, identifying five basic conceptions of the telos (purpose) of higher education: for jobs, for justice, for knowledge (or truth), for self-actualization, and for human flourishing. While acknowledging that any of these might be connected to the Christian faith, they argue that “the deepest and most natural connections are likely to emerge from higher education for the sake of human flourishing” (34).

In “What is a Christian university?”, Langer and Rae critically examine “inadequate” understandings of Christian higher education. They recognize that Christian institutions should not simply function as places of safety and Christian socialization. Instead, “Christian higher education exists to nurture the life of the mind and form our souls so that we might better serve the good of humanity and the glory of God” (39). The authors delineate a variety of distinctives of the Christian mind, including a view of the cosmos as creation ex nihilo, the “unity of truth,” that all knowledge is the result of “divine revelation,” a commitment to human flourishing, and an emphasis on calling and vocation as “an arena of service” (48–57).

The question “What is our university?” prompts institutions to understand their “sacred core,” defined as that which “animates the organization” and makes them distinct from other Christian colleges. At a minimum, a Christian college should “be clear about its foundational doctrinal positions since they significantly contribute to establishing the institutional identity of the school” (66). The authors discuss ways that institutions might communicate important doctrinal positions of their identity through required doctrinal statements, confessions of faith, or denominational membership.

In “What is a Christian understanding of academic disciplines?”, the authors present several competing models of faith integration. They critique the “compartmentalization model,” which by its essence avoids integration, and the “ministry model,” which simply adds religious practices in nonreligious contexts (e.g., prayers before class). The “cultural critique model” emphasizes a critical examination of modern culture and identifies those aspects that are not pleasing to God. The authors also refer to this system as the “referee model” (106). Their recommended integration process, a “cultural participation model,” encourages Christians to cultivate a Christian imagination for academic disciplines and cultural activities (106).

A practical section, “Creating and maintaining a culture of mission fidelity,” offers guidance for identifying strong missional faculty in the hiring process with an extensive list of potential interview questions. Langer and Rae also outline a variety of faculty development activities successfully launched at Biola aimed at increasing effectiveness in faith integration. These include faculty integration seminars, roundtables, coaching conversations, faculty reading groups, image reading groups, table talks, new faculty integration workshops, and co-teaching.

In the final chapter, “What is the Christian graduate?”, Langer and Rae advocate that Christian institutions should not only be concerned with academic outcomes but also provide “a clear vision of how their education seeks to form genuine and committed disciples of Christ” (154). They provide an example of what this looks like at Biola, a former Bible institute which still requires thirty credits of Bible for all students. Their Christian formation outcomes include a desire that graduates: know and interpret the Bible (biblically grounded), are equipped to articulate the Christian faith graciously (truth-bearers), are confident in their identity in Christ (identity in Christ), abide daily in Christ and his Word (abiding daily), worship in a local church community (unity within community) and love God and neighbor (God’s kingdom ambassadors) (167). The authors emphasize that students need to both “know and do” for transformative learning to take place.

Parts II and III will be posted tomorrow and the day after.