The Christian University as Mission Outpost

The Concept Paper for the Final Chapter of My Book

Throughout the book, I’ve argued that the raw materials for an institution to become a Fearless Christian University are readily at hand for a university willing to face change boldly. Centering the experience of current and prospective students fits nicely within the self-proclaimed mission statements of most Christian Universities. Committing to a transformational vision of education requires faculty, administration, trustees, and stakeholders to be in frequent interaction if they are to achieve the kind of alignment of values that fosters change. This, in turn, alleviates the need for a fear-based culture war posture that has defined far too much of Christian Higher Education.

One final shift is necessary for Christian Universities to move toward fearlessness. There needs to be a reimagined understanding of the central role of the institution on the part of sponsoring denominations, major churches, evangelical gatekeepers, and the general public. As Peter Berger noted, plausibility structures can be malleable. Understandings can be revised and new ideas incorporated.

Central to revising the plausibility structures is to abandon a metaphor I addressed in chapter seven; that the Christian University is like the church. Too many denominations and gatekeepers have operated from a boundary-maintenance mode, trying to keep universities (and churches) in line. Because of official or implicit support, the Christian university is seen as an extension of the church’s work.

When Arthur Holmes wrote his classic “The Idea of a Christian College” nearly five decades ago in 1975, he did far more than introduce the phrase “the integration of faith and learning”. He was very clear that the Christian college was not the church. He makes this clear very early in the book.

A frequent idea people have of the Christian college has been captured in the label “defender of the faith.” Though defending the faith was certainly an apostolic responsibility, it is hard to extend it all to the educational task, all of art and science or all of campus life. Yet a defensive mentality is still common among pastors and parents; many suppose that the Christian college exists to protect young people against the sin and heresy in other institutions. The idea therefore is not so much to educate as to indoctrinate, to provide a safe environment plus all the answers to all the problems posed by all the critics of orthodoxy and virtue. (4)

It is worth asking why so many Christian universities missed this admonition from Holmes and went in the opposite direction. A tremendous amount of scholarship has demonstrated the ways in which the rise of the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family shifted evangelical consciousness toward political engagement and Culture Wars. Tim Alberta notes that the nascent movement from Jerry Falwell, Sr. launched at the US bicentennial in 1976. Focus launched the next year. This politicization of evangelicalism dwarfed the educational argument that Holmes was making.

The Culture War understanding became entrenched in the identity of Christian universities. Even though very few institutions define their mission around these battles -- instead claiming educational aspirations -- their perception of success depended upon holding the line against the larger cultural changes.

In “Playing God”, Andy Crouch provides a good sociological treatment of institutions. He argues that “[t]he recipe for an institution, then, is four ingredients plus three generations: artifacts, arenas, rules and roles that are passed on the founding generation’s childrens’ children (178).” If those four ingredients are oriented toward conflict, then it is hard for the institution to change toward culture making.

It is interesting to consider Crouch’s three generation argument. A generation is loosely defined as fifteen and twenty years. Three generations, then, would be between forty-five and sixty years. That time period precisely defines the gap since Holmes wrote his book and the Moral Majority took the stage. As I’ve argued throughout the book, things are changing among students in this third generation but institutions are not keeping up.

Crouch discusses this general problem by introducing the idea of “zombie institutions”. These are institutions that continue to do things as they always have, without a clear sense of why. It is simply a case of institutional momentum. Crouch writes:

Zombie institutions are institutions that have not faced the truth about their own failure. And because of their access to privilege – their ability to continue collecting rent – they continue to exist, crowding out institutions that might create true shalom. Zombie institutions are dedicated first and foremost to their own preservation, not to anyone’s flourishing. (199)

He uses churches as an example, but these comments about zombie churches are apt for Christian universities:

But over time the imperatives of self-preservation can create a risk-averse culture that prevents continued learning and growth. Zombie churches exist to keep the lights on rather than to be the light in dark places; they turn inward rather than outward; they serve insiders and ignore outsiders. (200)

Revitalizing zombie institutions requires new analogies that embrace the core purpose of the institution. New images feed brave understandings. Arthur Holmes recognized the need to embrace core purposes:

I think rather that the Christian college has not sufficiently articulated its educational philosophy, and has not sold the evangelical public or perhaps even its own students and teachers on what it is trying to do. (10)

He adds:

It is time that evangelical educators took the initiative in educating the evangelical public as to the nature of Christian higher education and the role of academic freedom. A college is not the church. The educator’s speeches and sermons and articles as well as the college’s advertisements and brochures could expound more eloquently than they do the idea of a Christian college and the responsible us to which it tries to put its freedom. (75)

If the analogy of the Christian University as church isn’t sufficient, what could take its place?  I suggest that there is another image within the evangelical framework that better fits the university. This is image of a mission outpost.

While the romantic ideal of a mission outpost fosters thoughts of a brave preacher taking the gospel to unchurched tribes, much mission work involves specific institutional activity. Mission organizations operate orphanages, hospitals, schools, social service agencies, and construction operations. Each of these have a Christian identity and generally hire people who are compatible with the faith.

What makes these mission outposts unique is that they are concerned with the common good and not simply boundary maintenance. As James Davison Hunter argues in “To Change the World”,

If there are benevolent consequences of our engagement with the world, in other words, it is precisely because it is not rooted in a desire to change the world for the better but rather because it is an expression of a desire to honor the creator of all goodness, beauty, and truth, a manifestation of our loving obedience to God and a fulfillment of God’s command to love our neighbor. (234)

The Fearless Christian University is a mission outpost. It is the place where the faith commitments of the church meet the educational needs of a variety of students. It is the place where the hard work of discerning the culture is done, to the benefit of the church in particular and the culture in general. It is forward thinking and not fighting yesterday’s battles. It is unafraid of critiques from the church because its work is different from the church. It lives not in fear but in hope. As David Gushee argues:

A healthy Christian politics is driven by hope and not fear. This is hope in God, not in the state, political parties, or politicians. The hope we should adopt is Jesus’ hope of the kingdom of God. This kingdom of God sets a moral agenda of peace, justice, deliverance of the oppressed, healing, and restoration of people to community. Meanwhile, the church affirms that Jesus is Lord and Christ is King, even as we wait for the full consummation of his rule. The church is that community of people who obey Jesus and work toward his reign, until Christ returns. (145)

Such a hopeful focus for the Christian University, focused on the transformation of its current and future students works to the benefit of society. It is directly related to the mission of preparing future leaders who combine academic, character, and spiritual maturity into an authentic whole. Arthur Holmes closed his book with a celebration of a imagined student, Pat:

Pat is alert to the issues of the day: she feels the injustices of apartheid and admits there are ambiguities in Nicaragua. She listens to the other side, rather than reacting with an outburst of ridicule or anger. She measures her judgments before she acts, and before she votes. Her vote, in the end, is the kind of vote a democracy needs – informed, principled, and caring – and not just blindly partisan. Her friends tell me she always gets to the heart of an issues. {skip} Pat, I say, is an educated person. (104)

The Fearless Christian University is built around students like Pat. All aspects of its institutional life are designed to see her flourish for the benefit of a future we can only imagine.