Transcript Christian University Education

Christian University Education
IDIS 102
Mike Goheen
Trinity Western University
Is Christian university education
important or frivolous?
Some might argue that in the face of such
human tragedies as starvation, political
oppression, and the threat of nuclear
holocaust, it is unconscionable for Christians
to engage in the frivolity of scholarship. Why
engage in studies when the whole of culture
is in such a crisis? (Walsh and Middleton)
Importance of university in West
This great Western institution, the university, dominates the world
today more than any other institution: more than the church, more
than the government, more than all other institutions. All the leaders
of government are graduates of universities, or at least of secondary
schools or colleges whose administrators and teachers are
themselves graduates of universities. The same applies to all church
leaders. . . . The professionals, doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc. have
all passed through the mill of secondary school, the college and the
university. And the men of the media are university trained. . . . The
universities, then, directly and indirectly dominate the world; their
influence is so pervasive and total that whatever problem afflicts
them is bound to have far-reaching repercussions throughout the
entire fabric of Western civilization. No task is more crucial and
urgent today than to examine the state of mind and spirit of the
Western university (Charles Malik).
Aiming for Christian Education
 Alternative kind of education to public
university
 Rejects cultural idolatry that shapes these
schools
 Based on distinctive and comprehensive
philosophy of education
 Christian approach transforms the whole
enterprise: goals, curriculum, pedagogy,
evaluation, structure, etc.
Settling for Christians Educating
 Christianity-enhanced public university
education
 Adds moral integrity, devotional piety, and
biblical insight to select topics
 Maintains status quo in university education
Christian Perspective
on University Education
 Efforts at worldview and Christian educational
philosophy sharpened vision for Christian education
 Language of Christian perspective: Christ-centred
curriculum, inner reformation of the sciences, biblical
perspective on all areas of learning, or Christian worldand-life-view
 Kuyper’s vision of comprehensive scope of gospel
challenges assumptions:
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Reality is segregated into two realms, sacred and secular, and gospel
belongs only to the sacred
Gospel transforms only individuals but not society
Enlightenment notion that public life, including education is
religiously neutral
Educational Faithfulness—A Third
Way?
 Christian education: difference
 Christian educating: enriching additions
 Third way: educational faithfulness
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Difference may be consequence
More emphasis on common task with different
faith
Elements of Educational
Faithfulness
 We participate in two traditions
 We participate in the educational task with
different faith commitments
 We need to understand the humanist faith
commitments and impact on university
 And ask: Creational insights/structure and
idolatrous distortion?
Participation in Two Traditions
In this task, a Christian university participates in two
venerable traditions. The first is that scholarly tradition within
western culture stretching back to the Academy of classical
Greece; the second is the tradition of Christian participation
in higher education which had its beginnings among the early
church fathers, flourished in the middle ages and was refined
during the Reformation and in subsequent ages. As Canadian
Christian academics in the twenty-first century, we do not
seek to create an academic ghetto in which we might devise a
new “Christian” scholarship from the ground up. Instead, we
seek to participate in the ongoing work of scholarship from
within a Christian tradition which seeks to carry out its
academic task in the light of Scripture.
Participation in Two Traditions
(cont’d)
Our participation in these two scholarly
traditions compels us to discern the religious
foundations and faith commitments that
shape all theoretical work, acknowledging
with thanks the creational insights they
confer while seeking to identify and to reject
the idolatrous twisting that can disfigure
them (Cross and Our Calling).
Faithful Christian Education?
 Need to define purpose of education
 Then: What needs to be taught to equip
children for that purpose? (Curriculum)
 Then: How can this be achieved? (Pedagogy,
structures, evaluation)
Purpose:
Why do we educate anyway?
 Traditional African education:
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Teach traditional life values
Goal of integration into tribal community
 Muslim education:
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Teach universal shariah law
Goal of integration in theocratic community
Teach certain things so that next generation will be
socialized into a certain kind of community.
Purpose governs educational activity.
Modernity and the
Purpose of Education
 Pass on a unified body of universal scientific
knowledge
 Equip a world of rational citizens
 Build a more rational world leading to
freedom, justice, truth, and material
prosperity
Postmodern Challenge to
Modern University Education
 If (in modernity) the university was guided
by the story of progress towards a better
society by science and technology but we no
longer believe that story...
 If (in modernity) the university was to pass
along a unified body of universal knowledge
but we no longer believe that exists...
 Then what is the purpose of the university?
Postmodernity and
Purpose of Education
 Postman’s trinity: economic utility,
consumerism, technology
 Vendor of useful information and marketable
skills
 Enables student to compete or survive in the
jungle of the market
Biblical Story and
Purpose of Education
 “Serviceable insight”
 Education for witness
 Education as witness
Purpose of the University
We understand the overall purpose of a Christian
university education to be to equip young men and
women to serve as witnesses to Christ’s victory in the
various vocations they will take up in society. They are
to be witnesses not solely by using the opportunities for
evangelism that their positions may afford, but by
testifying to the transforming power of Christ in every
aspect of their professional or vocational conduct as
teachers, homemakers, businesspeople, lawyers,
journalists or artists, or in whatever other tasks to which
God may call them (Cross and Our Calling).
Purpose of Christian University
(cont’d)
The Christian university seeks to prepare servant leaders who
dare to challenge the idols of our culture, and who in the very
exercise of their callings bear witness to Christ and his gentle
yet liberating rule. In formulating the purpose of university
education in this way, we are deliberately repudiating the
mistaken conception that study is merely the handmaid of
economic competitiveness. It is good that Christian university
students should become prepared in the course of their
studies to become successful and productive members of
society. But when social status and financial gain become the
principal goals of education, that good has become twisted
and rendered evil. Our students’ first task is, as ours, to
witness to God’s rule over creation. (Cross and Our Calling)