The Sustainability of Private Christian Higher Education
By Dr David H. Johnston
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Introduction
Never before in all of history has there been a greater need for Christian education. It should be a wake-up call to the church and Christian educators to hear that we are now entering a post-Christian era. The apostle Paul tells us that we can prove the value of our service to the Lord only through the renewing of our minds and the offering of our lives as living sacrifices to him. (Romans 12:1-2). The need for such worldview thinking and living on the part of Christians has never been more urgent, because we have been living in an era, which for lack of a better label is called postmodern. What it really means is not the emergence of a new philosophy but rather a reaction against modernity and its reliance on reason to determine truth. Postmodernists say that reason fails because there is no absolute truth to be found. No principles, only preferences. Christian colleges carry a tremendous responsibility to rise up for the great intellectual contest for the mind of our culture.
Reported in a Senior Staff Report presented by Dr Keith Suter, manager of strategic alliances for Wesley Mission, Sydney, sustainability is defined as: meeting the needs of the stakeholders (including the community) to ensure the long-term future of the organization. The sustainability of Christian higher education can only be observed from its history and where it appears to be going in the future. Enrolments have been increasing in Private Christian Colleges by 22% in the US and this would suggest sustainability of Christian colleges and universities in most of the western world.1
David Dockery cites in his preface to Shaping a Christian Worldview that only about 5 percent of colleges and universities carrying out the work of higher education do so with a Christ-centred mission.2 In this postmodern age we recognise the need for tough-minded Christianity. The Christian colleges and universities of today will only be sustainable if young people of the church are taught to examine every aspect of life from the perspective of God’s Word in order for them to be equipped to go and take every thought and every arena of life captive for obedience to Christ (2 Cor. 10:3-5).
What is Christian Higher Education?
In recent dialogue with the Department of Religion faculty at a Christian denominationally related university, it became readily apparent that one should not take for granted agreement as to the distinctiveness of Christian higher education, even among faculty of a Christian university. 'Christian higher education is one of those categories that people find very difficult to define.3 Is it enough to hire academicians and staff members who are Christians, hold prayer before some classes, and require Chapel along with certain curfews, restrictions and some strict guidelines? Many see these as entirely adequate and the sum total of what defines a Christian university—namely, to graduate students who were taught by Christian teachers. With that mindset, Christian colleges are merely producing a product while attempting to influence that intended product toward Christ. Others argue that there must be much more to the idea of a Christian university than merely producing graduates who’ve had the opportunity of sitting under some excellent professors who are Christians. The notion of a Christian university versus a secular university then has less separation with lines of distinction blurred.
Over the years, Wesley Institute, as with other Christian colleges, has certainly struggled to define what a Christian college is. In some instances it has had to hire non-Christian teachers because it was unable to identify suitable Christian industry professionals and educators within the region. The college realises the potential danger in doing this, but most staff are convinced that a solid Christian education results in change of behaviour and not just the implementation of Christian curriculum taught by a Christian teacher. It is therefore believed that it is more important to instil within its students the ability to think Christianly, know the truth and make Christ the centre of life-style and worldview. It is commonly believed that it is of paramount importance to impart into its students more than information, curriculum and knowledge.
In the book, The Future of Christian Higher Education, Robert Sloan suggests that there are six commonly used, although inadequate, components of distinctive Christian higher education:
1. A reference to the history and tradition of that institution. This may include founding documents, intentions of the school’s founders, and the earliest dimensions of the school’s history. As the founder of Wesley Institute it is important that accurate written records are kept of the original foundation and objectives of the College.
2. A reference to the composition of the governing Board, i.e., the governing Board members must meet a certain religious and spiritual qualification for membership.
3. Relationship of the institution to an ecclesiastical body or some Christian denomination. Robert Benne sees this as especially critical. 'If full-blooded Christian colleges and universities are those in which the Christian heritage is publicly relevant to the central focus of the college, then colleges and universities in which secularisation is occurring experience a waning of that public relevance, and find themselves less and less under the influence of the sponsoring tradition’s vision and ethos. If the secularising process is allowed to continue, that heritage will be increasingly marginalized and will disappear except for its mention in the historical documents and account of the college’s early history.4 In the case of Wesley Institute, it is a ministry of Wesley Mission, Sydney, which is a parish church of the Uniting Church in Australia
4. Reference to the 'atmosphere', ‘ethos’ or the 'environment' of the institution. This expected atmosphere may be embodied in the values commonly held, the way students are treated, the attitude in which discipline problems are handled, or certain dress codes enforced. 'This view focuses upon the moral-relational dimensions of the university as a community but does not necessarily include other issues related to the worldview and/or the intellectual content as a basic resource for understanding and conveying the academic dimensions of the university experience.5
5. Understood in terms of Christian or religious activities. This could be seen as a social definition of a Christian institution—may have Chapel services, some form of Spiritual Emphasis Week, allow or even encourage extracurricular activities of a Christian nature.
6. Has to do with the curriculum. There are certain clearly identified subject areas that point to a Christian identity, such as required religion courses for all students, or in the case of Wesley Institute, Integrative Studies which seek to merge theology and the arts, faith and practice.
Sloan concludes the list by stating that all of these frames of reference are legitimate but 'something that could be called distinctively Christian higher education requires more than this’.6 What is that 'something else' that is required of distinctive Christian higher education?
Sloan goes on to say that Christian colleges and universities today are in danger of losing their 'heart' and core of the original vision as a Christian based centre of higher learning. Aside from the ever-present temptations to compromise the standards due to low enrolments resulting in funding threats and financial pressures, the heart of Christian higher education is more than the atmosphere of our institutions, our church relationships, and compulsory Chapel and religion courses. It involves our worldview; it involves how we think and how we live. It involves how we live as well as how and what we teach. This paper proposes that the heart of a Christian university is to instil a Christian worldview while assisting and preparing students to discover and prepare for their vocational calling from God while building Christian character.
A Christian Worldview & Higher Education
Everyone has a worldview. A Chinese proverb says, “If you want to know what water is, don’t ask the fish.” Water is the sum and substance of the world in which the fish is immersed. The fish may not reflect on its own environment until suddenly it is thrust onto dry land, where it struggles for life. Then it realises that water provided its sustenance. Immersed in our environment, we have failed to take seriously the ramifications of a secular worldview.
As cited by David Dockery, 'cultures pattern perceptions of reality into conceptualisations of what reality can or should be, what is to be regarded as actual, probable, possible, and impossible. These conceptualisations form what is termed the ‘worldview’ of the culture.'8 Worldview is the system by which cultural members process reality and is also the foundation of values and mores. According to Kraft, 'worldview lies at the very heart of culture, touching, interacting with, and strongly influencing every other aspect of culture.7 Every member of a given society is conditioned to interpret reality in terms agreed upon by members of that culture. Seerfield defines a Christian worldview as 'an awareness on the part of the individual that whether he eats or drinks, plays or studies, whatever he does issues from a heart committed to a true and jealous Almighty God revealed in Jesus Christ recognizing God’s sovereign control on him, and indeed, over the entire universe.8 This has particular relevance to the issue of Christian higher education.
Inherent in Christian belief is the discovery of truth, and this leads to a striving for education in order to explore truth. With regard to Christian higher education, what has clearly taken place over time is the separation of Christian faith (piety) from the pursuit of truth (academics). Sloan calls this the two-sphere theory of truth.9 This is the notion that one may separate academics from faith. We now encourage initiatives in the integration of faith and scholarship when in reality, separating the two would be artificial. In other words, effort to integrate faith and learning introduces nothing new but takes us back to the original intention of education in the western world. If God is truth and all truth is of God, truth should always be embraced with spiritual awareness and moral accountability. 'At Christian colleges we must believe that there is an underlying unity of truth. We must refuse to separate religion and life. We must refuse to separate the question of meaning from the total academic pursuit of truth… Christian higher education is nothing less than the attempt through the individual and communal activities of thinking, teaching, researching, discussing, performing, and living to understand the totality of life, history, and the universe in relationship to the lordship of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.10
The late economist Peter Drucker said a few years ago: “Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation ... Fifty years later, there is a new world. And the people born then cannot even imagine the world in which their grandparents lived.” We are witnessing a modern effort to transform the church into an institution that experiences broad cultural acceptance. This effort is a much-talked about movement that has brought new challenges into Christian higher education and even the Church of Jesus Christ. This movement was formed out of frustration with dead and irrelevant evangelicalism. The problem is that it has decided to modernise and re-create the church so as not to offend sinners. This renders virtually meaningless the life-changing message of the Gospel. We must guard against such the erosion of the Gospel in our Christ-centred campuses of higher education. Christian higher education will only be sustainable if it does not buy in to the compromise of the Gospel.
Individuals of all ages are seeking for purpose and meaning as never before. 'On the one hand ‘spirituality’ is at a high point; there’s never been a day in the Western world where you find surveys – like the one MTV recently conducted – that say 99.4% of young people believe in God. On the other hand, even with the peak of spirituality, Christianity is at the bottom of the list.11 The very language of current Australian culture exemplifies this search for meaning, most significantly among college students immersed in a postmodern cultural shift.
A term that exemplifies postmodernity today for young people is radical. The current post-Christian preoccupation with radical or extreme living evidences an entire culture’s longing for a higher purpose and clearer meaning in life. According to a recent poll by researched George Barna, today’s college students are motivated by two things: (1) relationships and connectedness, and (2) investing themselves in pressing causes they believe in. Os Guinness underscores this reality when he states:
Deep in our hearts, we all want to find and fulfil a purpose
bigger than ourselves. Only such a purpose can inspire us
to heights we know we could never reach on our own.12
A majority of college students could relate to the desire of Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard in his Journal: “The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wants me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.” In postmodern language, only in discovering this purpose are we able to experience an epic life. The Apostle Paul speaks of the Christian adventure in these terms:
'Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already
been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for
which Christ Jesus took hold of me.' (Philippians 3:12)
The sustainability of Christian education is clear to see that if these truths are upheld there will be an increasing need for this education. After all, it is not true that as educators we must listen to our customers and give them what they want? What the youth around the world are crying out for is education, which inspires to heights they know they could never reach on their own.
Distinctive Christian higher education in a postmodern culture must take seriously the demand of college students to find a cause considered worthy of the ultimate self-sacrifice. Young people today want their lives to count for something. Christian colleges that stop short of developing these principles within their students fail their students as well as the kingdom of God.
Institutions should be seen as kingdom resources as well. Too often we lose sight of the real purpose and potential of Christian institutions. In Kingdom Campus: Re-envisioning the Christian College as a Kingdom Resource, Fowlkes goes on to say that Institutions easily become self-centred and self-serving. They become castle-building societies sucked in to competitiveness of other colleges vying for the same students rather than kingdom outposts on the frontier. If we’re not intentional and very careful, we are merely selling 'construction tools' to help narrow-minded students build their own egocentric castles. Instead, we should be instilling a Christian worldview in students that encourages them to see themselves as resources to build God’s kingdom. Too often, Christian institutions pat themselves on the back if they have a majority of Christian faculty who pray from time to time to begin class and refrain from identifying too closely with 'the world.' Imagine what could happen if Christian colleges re-envisioned themselves as kingdom resources? Think of the kingdom-sized impact that could be made by faculty and drama students, graphic design students, dance students, music students, ministry students, theology students, etc., if these human resources were channelled in a strategic manner to make a kingdom difference somewhere in the world! This principle crosses all cultural barriers.
End Notes
1 Richard Gathro, Senior Vice President, Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, 2004
2 David S. Dockery & Gregory A. Thornbury from the Preface in Shaping A Christian Worldview (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2002).
3 Robert Benne, Quality With Soul' How Six Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith With Their Religious Traditions, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001), 6.
4 Robert b. Sloan, Jr., 'Preserving Distinctively Christian Higher Education,' in David Dockery and David Gushee, eds., The Future of Christian Higher Education, (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 26.
5 Sloan, 1999, 28
6 Ibid, 28
7 Charles Kraft, Christianity in Culture (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1988), 53.
8 Calvin Seerfield, ‘Relating Christianity to the Arts,’ Christianity Today, November 1980, 48-9
9 Douglas Sloan, Faith and Knowledge: Mainline Protestantism and American Higher Education (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994).
10 Sloan 1999, 32
11 The term 'postmodern' was first coined by Frederico de Onis in the 1930’s, but did not become prominent in art and literature until the 1960’s and 1970’s. Its meaning was broadened in the 1980’s to cover an emergent comprehensive worldview. Postmodernism has nothing to do with styles but everything to do with an entire cultural shift. Postmodernism is more easily described than defined. Things 'modern' are predictable, mechanistic, reasonable, with change being initiated at the centre. Things 'postmodern' are unpredictable, fluid, uncertain in dealing with the present and pessimistic in dealing with the future, with change initiated at the periphery.
12 Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life, (Nashville: Word Publishing, 1998), 3.
13 Paper, Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, Kingdom Campus: Re-envisioning the Christian College as a Kingdom Resource by Dane W. Fowlkes
Dr David Johnston
BA, MMus, TC, DipViolin, DipConduct, DipChamMus (Aspen), DipChamMus (Mozarteum), DHum (Hon)
American-born, David is a concert violinist, conductor and educator. He trained at the University of Southern California, University of the Pacific, the Mozarteum, the Julliard School, and the Aspen School of Music. He was the recipient of a Graduate Fellowship at the University of the Pacific, California for his Master of Music.
For eighteen years, David was the Director of Music for the Feast of Tabernacles, Jerusalem’s annual International Christian Celebration. He is the Concertmaster of the Sydney Sinfonietta, and Conductor of the Wesley International Chamber Orchestra, and continues to perform with orchestras worldwide.
As the Founding Director and Principal of Wesley Institute, David has drawn students from more than 25 nations over the past twenty-four years. He is the Choral Director of the Wesley Institute Concert Choir.
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