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Why Should I Attend An Unapologetically Christian College?
by
Dr. Carlton Fisher, Houghton College’s Dean of Academic
Administration, Professor of Philosophy
People
around the world have traditionally marked the transition from
childhood to adulthood in very precise ways. Often the lines of
demarcation have been very clear: One begins the day as a child
and ends it as an adult. Whether the individual undergoes any
identifiable change or not, his or her place in the society has
been irreversibly altered. The things of childhood are put
away; the responsibilities of adulthood are shouldered.
In America today, this transition is
delayed and elongated; for many it is the four years spent in
college or university. Students enter fully dependent upon
their parents; they leave four years later with certification
that they should be able to strike out on their own, making
independent and valuable contributions to society as
full-fledged adult citizens.
But while these years serve a traditional
ceremonial function, they are far from ceremonial in their
significance. A mere ceremony functions as a societal
declaration: “You may still be a child, but from this day
onward we will treat you as an adult—you had better become one
quickly.” But the college years result in substantial changes.
A person really is different by the time of graduation. Parents
understand this when they send their teenagers away to college;
the person who comes home will be changed.
What an adventure! And what a risk. From
the perspective of the parent, the question is, “How do I want
my efforts to be supplemented, in bringing my daughter or son
into adulthood?” From the perspective of the student, the
question is, “Who do I want to become?”
To put it most bluntly: The college years
are easily the most significant transitional phase in the
movement toward adulthood for American young people. And in
matters of this great consequence there are critically important
questions: Who is running the induction ceremony? How is it
designed, and to what end? Who are one’s peers? What is the
vision of the adult world they are being inducted into? What do
we believe is going on in that world? What, by the way, is LIFE
all about?
The college options are plentiful. And
many are cheaper.
Thus one must have convincingly good reasons for shouldering the
extra financial burdens of receiving or providing a Christian
higher education.
There
are three, and they are very simple: Christian professors,
Christian peers, and a Christian view of the world and God’s
Kingdom within it.
It is common to assume that years of Sunday
School and Church along with a Christian home need not be
supplemented in important ways. And, by God’s grace, those
solid foundations are not easily destroyed. It is often thought
that one’s Christian life can be sustained by the non-curricular
Christian fellowships present on secular campuses. And again,
by God’s good grace, their ministry is powerfully effective for
many.
Still, the secular college/university
campus—whether public or private—is no friend to grace. The
Christian story is not held in high esteem, the virtues of
chastity and temperance are not prized, and truth is often not
much more than personal opinion. And Christian college
students, with good home and church backgrounds, on Christian
and on secular campus, are beginning to ask new questions about
their faith. After all, they are in transition from childhood
to adulthood. No matter how Christian their childhood, becoming
a mature Christian adult remains a true “becoming.”
An authentically Christian college only
hires faculty who are committed to the truth of the gospel
message and the lordship of Jesus Christ. An authentically
Christian college of high quality hires such people with
first-rate credentials. And then they are set free in the
classroom to explore God’s wonderful world using the techniques
of their disciplines of study, finding truth wherever God allows
them to discover it, sharing with students both the certainties
of truth and the uncertainties of thoughtful investigation, all
in front of a grand backdrop of Creation, Redemption, and the
ongoing work of God and the Church in the world.
And Christian college are filled with
Christian students, peers along the way toward Christian
adulthood, friends with similar questions, colleagues with
common goals of doing God’s work in the world, classmates with
whom to worship, pray, study, and seek out one’s own role in
God’s Kingdom work.
Christian professors. Christian students.
Christian vision and purposes. The centrality of the question:
What will be your contribution to God’s work in His
World?
This is the very best entry into Christian
adulthood. This is the Christian college experience when done
well. This is Houghton College.
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