College and Worldview – A Reason for Choosing a Christian Campus

Over recent years I have noticed that many churches and pastors do not teach or emphasize the importance of attending a Bible college much anymore. Back in the 70’s & 80’s I remember hearing quite often about the value of attending Bible college. Now? Not so much.

Would any of you pastors care to offer your thoughts about this?

I believe Bible or Christian college isn’t for everyone and yet there is and will continue to be a need for them.

Personally, I would like to see an increased emphasis on attending Christian college, but with a sense of balance that it isn’t for everyone and a not a magic pill for greater Godliness.

BTW, I agree 100% with Ron Bean’s assessment that most Christian colleges need to improve their quality of academics.

[mmartin]

Over recent years I have noticed that many churches and pastors do not teach or emphasize the importance of attending a Bible college much anymore. Back in the 70’s & 80’s I remember hearing quite often about the value of attending Bible college. Now? Not so much.

Would any of you pastors care to offer your thoughts about this?

• Our church is located near the largest university in the United States, where in state tuition is roughly $10K / year.
• Many attending our church are graduates from said university.
• Our church is a conservative evangelical Bible church, and not a fan of cultural fundamentalism.
• While our elders have heard of BJU, PCC, Clark Summit, or other Bible colleges, half of our elders not familiar with them or think they are only for people interested in Christian ministry.
• Our church has active partnerships with student ministries / churches near campus of said largest university.
• A couple of our students have gone to Cedarville.

Note here that some are arguing that a person’s faith may be compromised or even eliminated through the wrong school—say generally the secular school—how do we square that with the doctrines most of us hold of either eternal security or perserverance of the saints.

Now I don’t have a completely good statistical sample here, but my experience is that you can generally tell who is going to thrive in terms of faith going on, and who is not. You will get some variance in sanctification based on how good the shepherds are, or are not, but all in all, I remember being very impressed by how many of my friends really dug into as they had opportunities. For some, it was the 1/2” thick books on a subject, for others, it was all 12 volumes of Kittel. I personally got a nice box of references when my pastor told me what he thought I ought to have—it was a good list.

[Bert Perry]

Note here that some are arguing that a person’s faith may be compromised or even eliminated through the wrong school—say generally the secular school—how do we square that with the doctrines most of us hold of either eternal security or perserverance of the saints.

I’ve argued this previously: that those who “lose” their faith upon attending or graduating from a college (whether secular or Christian) never really had faith to lose:

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” (John 10:27-29 ESV)

[TylerR]

• I remain astounded that the local church is largely missing from this discussion. There is a bizarre trend among some Christians (ironically, many of them are Baptists) to replace the role of the local church with that of the Christian university. This is wrong. It is un-Biblical. It is surprising. The God-given organization for sanctification and fellowship is the local congregation, not the university.

The issue, Tyler, is that most churches aren’t equipped to provide a thorough theological education, especially in a one-pastor church. At our church, we have enough scholarship on the elder board (1 DMin from TEDS, 1 DMin from SBTS, 1 ThM from Grace Theological Seminary, and 1 MDiv from Clark Summit) to teach college-level Bible classes, Greek and Hebrew language classes, systematic theology classes, and hermeneutics. However, none of it would be recognized by a college or seminary, and the individual would not have an accredited degree at the end. The best someone could do is test out of first-year Greek and Hebrew. So, most people would prefer to go to an “official” Bible college/university and get an accredited degree.

The problem is that there is no right or wrong answer. Don drives his argument around the idea that if “A” is good, wouldn’t more of “A” be better? He then creates the entire foundation of his argument around the sentence,

“but one would have to think that college campuses have a profound impact on the thinking of their students “

But this is not really an argument that can be defended. We could just as easily say that someone like Mark Dever who went to Duke University, proves that going to a secular institution creates great Christian leaders. The argument goes round and round with no good foundation. The facts that we do know is that 1) a Christian college is not needed for a healthy church (otherwise Christ would have ordained it) and 2) attendance at Christian colleges, highschools…. are rapidly decreasing.

I am glad there are choices today, but I think it is a very difficult to defend stance that if you want a better Christian worldview you must attend a Christian college over a secular college. Don Johnson has no data to back this up, it flies in the face of the institutional ordination that Christ provided, and it smells more like a Christian University promotional segment.

I think the article doesn’t give enough credence to the ability of God to direct an individuals spiritual condition in light of the world. Do we really feel that our children are in such a precarious situation and that God’s working is so ineffectual that the local church and the family are not enough to prevent the failing of that child and that we need this other institution to prevent our children from falling to the world? My hope rests in the fact that despite the world, sin, secular colleges, immoral laws that even though the world will be able to have ultimate control in the demise of Christian colleges and schools, it will not have ultimate control in the demise of the family or the church and that Christ will still reign pre-eminate and His work will still be carried out.

Because the Christian university, as we know it now, will not be around. Tax exemption, accreditation, grants, professional licenses, etc. will have an LGBT requirement tied to it. Combine it with the high cost, they will enentually die. I can’t believe that there are still conservative evangelicals out there who are still in denial about this when it si happening right in front of them.

I do, however, believe that the young lad, jbrazeal, is correct on his first point. Even though good churches can disciple on scriptural matters, many young Christians at these churches that attend secular campuses can feel isolated. My oldest is studying engineering at the local state university. Before he attended, I suggested he attend a Christian university with a one-two year Bible Institute before he started engineering. It ended up being good for him to develop relationships with other Christians outside our local area. I think that these current evangelical universities need to plan for making themselves more like regional Bible Institutes without concerns of accreditation. They need to lower their costs and encourage young high school grads to take a “Gap Year” to study the Word and fellowship with likeminded young people.

[T Howard]

TylerR wrote:

• I remain astounded that the local church is largely missing from this discussion. There is a bizarre trend among some Christians (ironically, many of them are Baptists) to replace the role of the local church with that of the Christian university. This is wrong. It is un-Biblical. It is surprising. The God-given organization for sanctification and fellowship is the local congregation, not the university.

The issue, Tyler, is that most churches aren’t equipped to provide a thorough theological education, especially in a one-pastor church. At our church, we have enough scholarship on the elder board (1 DMin from TEDS, 1 DMin from SBTS, 1 ThM from Grace Theological Seminary, and 1 MDiv from Clark Summit) to teach college-level Bible classes, Greek and Hebrew language classes, systematic theology classes, and hermeneutics. However, none of it would be recognized by a college or seminary, and the individual would not have an accredited degree at the end. The best someone could do is test out of first-year Greek and Hebrew. So, most people would prefer to go to an “official” Bible college/university and get an accredited degree.

I am reminded, really, of something I’ve noted regarding homeschooling. Often, the objection is made that parents are not capable of training their own children to read, write, and cipher after 13 years of primary and secondary school, and often after four or more years of university training. To which I answer; if the education we have gotten in 13-17 years is so inadequate that we cannot train our children in the 43 phonics of the English language, then that is precisely why we’re taking our children out of the government’s schools. We will bust our tails to figure it out so they won’t have to do so.

In the same way, if our pastor’s 13 years in primary and secondary school and 4-8 years in college are insufficient training for him to make disciples beyond having them pray the “Sinner’s Prayer”, that’s not a reason to send more kids to the pastor’s alma mater. It is rather an argument that the pastor needs to figure out what went wrong and fix it in the setting he’s in—specifically the church he serves.

No argument with the idea that Christian colleges have a place, starting with ministerial training and going on especially to the things like real liberal arts education that the secular world is not doing. But Tyler is entirely correct to point out that ordinary sanctification and discipleship really ought to be the province of the local church, even one with only one elder/pastor. Maybe a gut check for Bible colleges might be this; if a plurality or majority of your graduates are working hourly jobs involving manual labor, you’ve got to consider why you’re putting a huge financial burden on them for a degree that’s only getting them what they should have been getting in church.

I appreciate the reminder of the theological implications of the argument. Over 80 years ago the founder of a Christian College published a tract entitled “Three College Shipwrecks” that strongly implied that three Christian young people had had their faith destroyed by attending secular educational institutions. The tragedy those three people experienced would not be in agreement with those of us who hold to eternal security.

I hang with Central’s OT prof - I asked him today:

• We couldn’t be more different …
• He raised in a Christian home …. me not
• He saved early … me in adulthood
• He went to a Christian college … me secular

We are just about the same age (I have him by 2 years)

He said that he felt that our worldviews were basically the same

It’s because of Romans 8:29-30

Ron & Larry, thanks, but to be fair, per jbrazeal’s comment, there is the question of whether sanctification will proceed better in a “Christian” or secular environment. That, in turn, must be interpreted in light of 1 Cor. 15:33, written by Paul to a church in a city with the greatest temple of Aphrodite in the whole region, and we ought to remember as well that the Protestant ethic has generally opposed the monastic impulse as a way of fighting sin. To use some examples I’ve given, there is a happy medium somewhere between Cedar Village and the convent where we ought to be.

[Bert Perry]

In the same way, if our pastor’s 13 years in primary and secondary school and 4-8 years in college are insufficient training for him to make disciples beyond having them pray the “Sinner’s Prayer”, that’s not a reason to send more kids to the pastor’s alma mater. It is rather an argument that the pastor needs to figure out what went wrong and fix it in the setting he’s in—specifically the church he serves.

Bert, my comment was really speaking to the fact that a single pastor model does not allow the pastor the time (let alone the specialization) he would need to provide systematic theological training beyond his preaching. I agree with Tyler that the church should be the theological training / discipleship center. But, when you’re a single pastor of a church of 75 - 125 people, you really don’t have the time to implement advanced theological training at your church. Well, not if you’re expected to prepare 3+ sermons a week, teach a Sunday school class, visit the sick and elderly, provide biblical counseling to members of your congregation, go “soul winning,” serve as church janitor, etc. If you have a good group of biblically qualified elders who can share the shepherding responsibilities, that makes the task a lot more manageable.

[T Howard]

Bert Perry wrote:

In the same way, if our pastor’s 13 years in primary and secondary school and 4-8 years in college are insufficient training for him to make disciples beyond having them pray the “Sinner’s Prayer”, that’s not a reason to send more kids to the pastor’s alma mater. It is rather an argument that the pastor needs to figure out what went wrong and fix it in the setting he’s in—specifically the church he serves.

Bert, my comment was really speaking to the fact that a single pastor model does not allow the pastor the time (let alone the specialization) he would need to provide systematic theological training beyond his preaching. I agree with Tyler that the church should be the theological training / discipleship center. But, when you’re a single pastor of a church of 75 - 125 people, you really don’t have the time to implement advanced theological training at your church. Well, not if you’re expected to prepare 3+ sermons a week, visit the sick and elderly, provide biblical counseling to members of your congregation, go “soul winning,” serve as church janitor, etc. If you have a good group of biblically qualified elders who can share the shepherding responsibilities, that makes the task a lot more manageable.

Well, what do Matthew 28 and 2 Timothy 4 say about the matter? What’s the more important thing for a pastor to be doing, and where do they learn what’s important? Is it cleaning bathrooms and arranging chairs in the auditorium, or something else?

Is there really not enough time to make disciples, or are many pastors (and not just those in single pastor churches) ignoring their calling?