Do we need a Christian university?
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7a, attributed to Solomon)
Its [higher education's] research pushes back the frontiers of human knowledge and is the foundation of human progress. Its teaching educates and skills the nation for a knowledge-dominated age. It gives graduates both personal and intellectual fulfilment. Working with business, it powers the economy, and its graduates are crucial to the public services. And wide access to higher education makes for a more enlightened and socially just society.
DfES White Paper[1]
The concept of a university was substantially a Christian innovation, yet most modern universities are secular institutions. This paper surveys briefly the historical background which shows how this came about and the institutional landscape of higher education today. Next, biblical perspectives applicable to all Christians involved in higher education are explored. At the heart of the paper, there lies a discussion of the arguments for and against a Christian university, and the characteristics of such a new Christian university, as envisaged, are presented. The paper is intended to provoke readers across the world to thought, discussion and a more informed response to the many possibilities for Christian service within higher education.
The Early Church Fathers, such as Justin Martyr and Augustine, fostered the critical assimilation of the philosophy and learning of the ancient classical world into Christian culture and thought. Their writing ensured that the church developed a powerful intellectual tradition that engaged with secular scholarship and ideas. During the medieval period, Jewish and Christian scholars in Spain capitalised on the work of Muslim Arab commentators of classical works,[2] while theologians like Aquinas critically appropriated the philosophy of Aristotle. These were some of the main influences that created the intellectual basis for the rise and proliferation of the medieval Christian university.
The world's first educational institution to be called a university was Bologna, in the eleventh century, followed by Paris in 1200. The medieval universities in Britain arose with the backing of the Roman Catholic Church. There was teaching in Oxford by the end of the eleventh century. In the medieval university, theology was the apex of study.[3] The Reformation not only deprived the Catholic Church of many of its universities but also brought a new level of emphasis on scholarly activity among Protestants and Catholics, leading to great increases in student numbers. The earliest Ivy League universities in the United States, such as Harvard (begun as a college in 1636), Yale (1701), Pennsylvania (1740) and Princeton (1746), were all founded as Christian places of learning. Rutgers, Dartmouth and Brown were all established by activist clergy.[4]
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) created the method of scientific induction. His work was a major influence within the methodological revolution which took over universities from the nineteenth century. Beyond Bacon's time, many of the most exciting intellectual advances, not least in the sciences, took place outside the universities. Newton was at Cambridge, but many other key figures in the Royal Society were gentlemen scholars. In the Age of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, a central concept was the place of reason as the primary source of authority. In Britain, steps taken to make universities more inclusive diminished the clerical control of them.
The conditions were thus created by the nineteenth century for the development of the secular academy reliant on a theologically-independent method of delivering true knowledge. The gradual loss of an overarching narrative contributed to divisions between academic disciplines that rendered them more like insulated epistemological islands. In the nineteenth century, many more Christian colleges were founded. In England and Wales these were teacher training colleges that would train teachers so that more of the poor in the population could receive education. This was'widening participation' before the expression came to be used by the church-related institutions that continue from that era.[5] The greatest number of Christian universities and colleges in a single country today is to be found in the United States. However, a large number of other such institutions have been founded across the world, many as a result of missionaries functioning as educators. For example, William Carey helped to found Serampore College in West Bengal.[6]
'Christian higher education' is taken here to refer to education in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) where Christ is honoured at an institutional level, both in their legal documents and in at least some of their official ceremonies. This in itself does not set the hurdle bar very high, even though it can be deeply challenging to preserve even such features. In order to see where a 'Christian university' fits into the current spectrum of Christian higher education, two alternative typologies are given here. The first of these could be called a churchman's typology, as it makes distinctions primarily according to the church relatedness - or otherwise - of the institution. It has four categories:
A higher education institution, or a college within one, founded by a denomination and with ongoing legal links to it. This might be referred to as a church university or church college, or neither of these expressions may be used. There are fourteen of these church-related institutions in England and Wales, with none in Scotland or Northern Ireland.
A higher education college that was founded under the auspices of the church and which is now not legally connected to any denomination: its status as a church college is essentially historical. The contemporary impact of Christianity within these colleges varies greatly; they are exemplified in Britain by a number of colleges at Oxford, Cambridge and Durham.
A higher education college founded by a group of Christians, or a Christian organisation, but not by a denomination. This may be termed a Christian college or university. It is this category which features in the title of this paper. There are none in this category in the United Kingdom, though there are many in the United States and in other countries. A Christian college or university might simultaneously include within it both highly Christian and highly atheistic pockets.
A Christian college which is not an HEI but which offers higher education programmes accredited by a university. Moorlands College and London School of Theology are British examples.
A second typology could be called a spiritual heritage typology, as it can be used to classify institutions according to the extent of their commitment to their religious heritage. Benne[7] has produced a four-level typology which distinguishes, in diminishing order, a commitment to the institution's religious heritage. My own research has indicated that most Church universities and colleges in Britain are located in the intentionally pluralist category.[8] Benne distinguished:
orthodox (e.g. nearly 100 per cent of members fit the orthodoxy tests)
