Christian Higher Education (eBook)

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Knowing and Loving God

Toward a Theology of Christian Higher Education

Nathan A. Finn

At one time, almost all higher education could be considered Christian higher education.1 Historians have ably chronicled, and sometimes lamented, the secularization of higher education in the West, and particularly in the United States.2 Many formerly church-related universities have abandoned their foundational faith commitments in the pursuit of academic prestige and cultural respectability. Some are now among the most lauded institutions in the USA. Many current church-related schools maintain historic ties with their sponsoring bodies, but the faith and practice of those Christian traditions have little meaningful impact on the ethos of the universities. Some of these nominally Christian universities nurture ambitions to be the next Princeton or Vanderbilt, academically prestigious schools that have mostly “outgrown” their Christian heritage.

As universities have drifted from their faith commitment, they have simultaneously rejected (or at least downplayed) a vision of higher education driven by Christian theology. In renouncing or shelving theology, former and nominally Christian universities have lost their institutional “soul,” replacing it with nontheological alternatives such as their unique institutional traditions, a semi- or nonreligious commitment to the liberal arts or to research, or simply the (understandable) desire to be as large and influential as resources will allow.3 Stanley Hauerwas laments that this loss of theological vision means that fewer one-time and alleged Christian institutions will leave behind “ruins”—future material evidence of a vibrant Christian academic culture that glorified God and whose influence endured for generation after generation.4

In this chapter, I look at the role that the Bible and the Christian intellectual tradition should play in helping to develop (or redevelop) a theology of Christian higher education.5 I write from the vantage point of an evangelical theologian who serves as an academic administrator in a church-related, comprehensive liberal arts university. I’m firmly convinced that a robust theology should inform every aspect of the life of a Christian university, from the classroom to the chapel to the ball field to the fraternity house to the faculty meeting. A commitment to Christian orthodoxy in the evangelical tradition animates faithful universities, reanimates institutions that have experienced spiritual “mission drift,” and contributes to a vision of holistic human flourishing that simply cannot be replicated in secular or post-Christian schools.

Defining Theology

When people hear the term theology, they often think immediately of either the academic discipline of theology or the deeper sort of preaching one might hear from a pastor. In this vein, Millard Erickson defines theology as “that discipline which strives to give a coherent statement of the doctrines of the Christian faith, based primarily on the Scriptures, placed in the context of culture in general, worded in a contemporary idiom, and related to issues of life.”6 This sort of technical definition is appropriate for those studying Christian doctrine in an academic setting. But theology is for all Christians, the overwhelming majority of whom will never be trained pastors or theology professors. Also, technical definitions like Erickson’s could unintentionally divorce belief from behavior, two ideas that are closely connected in the Scriptures.

I don’t reject the validity of such technical definitions; indeed, I use them in my own classes on Christian doctrine and the history of Christian theology. But in this chapter, I have in mind a more foundational understanding of theology that underlies the sort of theological work undertaken by professional scholars and ordained clergy. Etymologically, the word theology literally means “the knowledge of God” (Gk. theos, “God”; logos, “knowledge”). Theology is different from all other areas of inquiry. As Abraham Kuyper notes of theology,

In all other sciences man observes and thoughtfully investigates the object, and subjects it to himself, but in theology the object is active; it does not stand open, but gives itself to be seen; does not allow itself to be investigated, but reveals itself; and employs man as instrument only to cause the knowledge of its Being to radiate.7

For our purposes, theology is thinking rightly about God and his world for the sake of living rightly before God in his world. The goal of theology is not simply to learn true information about God, valuable as that is. Theology is about knowing God, loving God, and living out that loving knowledge of God in this world that he so loves (John 3:16).8 Theology is an expression of the Great Commandment, forming us into better lovers of God and lovers of others (Matt. 22:34–40). Theology is also an expression of Christian discipleship. As Keith Johnson argues, “The traditional goal of Christian theology is to develop a better understanding of God so that we can think and speak rightly about God within the context of a life governed by our faith in Christ and our discipleship to him in community with other Christians.”9 I would suggest that one of those communities where we learn to love rightly and live out some of the faith and discipleship implications of our theology is the Christian college or university.

The rest of this essay offers a brief account of some of the theological emphases that should animate Christian higher education in the evangelical tradition. My intention is not to offer a fully developed theology of Christian higher education, though such a work is needed.10 Nor am I offering a summary of basic evangelical theology, since many fine examples already exist.11 Rather, I’m offering a brief evangelical theology of Scripture, drawing on select resources from the Christian intellectual tradition, and making application to how evangelicals should approach the task of Christian higher education. My suggestions are preliminary rather than exhaustive. The goal is to encourage further reflection rather than to offer any sort of definitive statement.

Scripture: Our Magisterial Authority

Evangelical Protestants have traditionally affirmed that Scripture alone is our ultimate authority for faith and practice.12 The Bible is thus our magisterial authority for theology; it is the first and most important authority to which we appeal to determine sound doctrine. This view has commonly been summarized with the Reformation slogan sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”). Two key New Testament texts address the contours of an evangelical doctrine of Scripture:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16–17)

And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Pet. 1:19–21)

God himself has inspired (“breathed out”) the Scriptures, even though men wrote the various books of the Bible. The Holy Spirit led men to write God’s words and not just their own opinions. Because these human words are also God’s words, they are fully authoritative in all matters to which they speak. As Wayne Grudem notes, “The authority of Scripture means that all the words of Scripture are God’s word in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God.”13

The confessions and catechisms of the Reformation are replete with appeals to and summaries of the ultimate authority of the Bible. Most evangelical confessions of faith devote their first article to the doctrine of Scripture. It is also common (though not universal) for evangelical theologians to articulate their understanding of Scripture in the early chapters of their published systematic theologies before appealing to that authority in developing the various doctrinal loci such as creation, humanity, redemption, or the church. The very placement of Scripture in these theological treatises suggests that biblical authority is foundational to all our subsequent theological work. Though evangelicals debate the best understanding of any number of theological topics, all agree that a given doctrine must be biblical, or else it is not correct.

Christian colleges and universities should be radically biblical in their orientation. I’m not using this term in its most common contemporary understanding that someone or something is extreme or even fringe. Rather,...