Why College Matters to God - A Summary (among other things)

My job is -unusual- to say the least. It has a definite ebb and flow and there are various seasons, but generally speaking no two are alike. The busiest part of my year is August. Hands down, I will work 80 to a 100 hours most every week and only see my apartment long enough to shower and sleep.

Then there is January. Before student hiring begins in February and before conference season, I am in a quiet place of not having a pressing task or appointment I have to keep each day, and my inbox stays at zero for an entire week. It's at times like these that my imagination gets to roam and I get to work on one of the favorite parts of my job: research and development.

Now, I don't have Ideation as one of my top five Strengths or even Futuristic, so sometimes my love for research and development is strange to me (if you don't know what Strengths are, check out this website: www.strengthsfinder.com). But I do have Developer, though it generally refers to developing people and not programs, which gives me the strength of wanting to see things grow and become better (deeper, bigger, more refined) than they are now. I also have Analytical, which generally is my least favorite Strength because it means that I can't turn my brain off, but for the purpose of research and development is fantastic as my little problem solver upstairs can just go to town.

This semester, I am trying my hand for the first time at curriculum development. I teach and am the administrator for the Learning and Transitions Course that all new freshmen take at the institution I work for. Currently it covers aspects of leadership (mostly self-leadership, character development and personal mission statement creation), while providing a place for students to be with a group of peers while they go through the often tumultuous transition from high school to college.

However, looking to the future I would like to include broader philosophical questions in the class about why they are even in college and what the purpose of college, specifically a Christian Liberal Arts college, is for. So I am beginning this research and development process by reading-a lot. Two days ago I finished: Make College Count: A Faithful Guide to Life and Learning by Derek Melleby. A small, thoughtful, engaging introduction to the seemingly simple yet very deep questions a student should ask themselves before they begin college.

Today, I finished Why College Matters to God: An Introduction to the Christian College by Rick Ostrander. For me the first reaction (besides that it was a summary of my entire graduate degree) is that it felt very devotional for me. As a book about the purpose of Christian liberal arts education, it really gave me a renewed sense of purpose for my own vocation, which is working in Christian higher education. I am often torn after seeing images of fellow believers evangelizing or making an impact on critical social and injustice issues around the world. I can see how desperately important their work is, which causes me to question the importance of my own work.

But Ostrander's book has reminded me of just how critically important the work I do is. In his book he challenges his readers (his audience being new students to college) to realize that as Christians we have a responsibility to glorify the Lord with our minds, not just to see schooling as the world so often does-as a way to get a job to get a paycheck and pay for the things that we want. But that by educating ourselves in how the world works (socially, biologically, politically, artistically, etc.) we are then able to play a deeper role in transforming the world to the way it should be through the redeeming power of Christ. And by my raising student's awareness to this need, I am doing the critical work of opening their eyes to see how important this call is. My call and the call of our students is critically important.

Ostrander begins his book with an introduction to the concept of worldview, stating that it is a set of beliefs that dictate how we effect how we view the world and then how we choose to take action in that world (Ostrander, pg. 19). He tells the reader that a worldview is an important concept to begin with as every education comes from a specific world view perspective which then affects and shapes our worldviews. Christian education is no different and he lets us know that for most of Christian Higher Education there is a unified worldview that drives the function of those institutions.

He articulates this Biblical worldview being that of the meta-narrative of Scripture set in three parts: 1. Creation 2. Fall 3. Redemption and Consummation. He unpacks these in 3 subsequent chapters (after a chapter summarizing a brief history of Christian higher education) discussing how each of these parts has (deeply) impacted every aspect of higher education.

Creation-every aspect of this world has been created by our Lord God for good things. And He set Adam and Eve into the garden to cultivate the earth that He had created. As Christians, studying and interacting in this world is a part of understanding the Creator God and His heart for us and in that world.

Fall-the fall tainted and covered every part of this creation. There is no part of this creation that is clean from the effects of sin. Therefore higher education has been affected as well. We need to keep this in mind as we engage higher education in order to recognize the systemic evils that are in place, how the fall has impacted individual disciplines and determine what the gestures and postures are that we take in response to these things (he borrowed from Andy Crouch's Culture Making for the gestures and postures conversation-a book that I am currently reading at home!).

Redemption-the world as we know it will one day be redeemed and parts of our cultural heritage will be a part of that: the best parts of cultural that are worthy of being in a heavenly palace. So in education we should be working toward creating cultural goods that are worthy to be a part of that palace. We should be a part of redeeming creation to the way that God intended when it was created; from politics, to the environment, to sex to food and nutrition to our health, our science, our literature. It all needs to be redeemed. And as we study in higher education from this Christian perspective, we are learning the deep roots of our majors and disciplines which allows us to see the systematic evils, learn how to ask the good questions (such as what would my discipline look like if it were totally redeemed) and then have the skills and tools to go into the world making change.

The second to last chapter of the books talks about what it means to have an integration of faith and learning. That it is not just praying before class, and it is not just relegated to the disciplines of theology and religion. Every discipline needs to take heed to the Christian worldview and see how this worldview explicitly and implicitly effects how we see and understand truth in our majors.

Finally Ostrander discusses the importance of a Christian liberal-arts education. He explains that if we believe the Christian worldview to be correct, then a liberal arts education helps us to the end of redeeming creation by giving us the tools to think deeply and critically about the whole world, not just our disciplines. Creative, deep and critical thinkers are also the type of individuals that employers are looking to hire now, more than people with a specific skill set.

  Ostrander’s purpose in writing his book was to help Christian students to understand how important a Christian liberal-arts higher education experience is to the Lord and His calling for us in this world.  But, whether intentioned or not, it is also a book for the professional in Christian Higher Education, urging us to continue in our calling to help transform our students so that they can then transform the world (transform language stolen and slightly edited from my friends at the Coalition for Christian Outreach).  I recommend this book to any student wondering why they should attend Christian higher education, but more so to any professional needing help renewing their passion for work in Christian liberal-arts education.