“Christian colleges are in trouble.” So sounds the doleful refrain from every quarter—and the trouble referred to invariably is financial. Without minimizing their financial straits, we must insist that the root problem of Christian colleges lies in quite another direction. The soul of the Christian college is composed of two essential ingredients—Christianity and education; without both a private religious college has lost its soul. In this issue, William Ringenberg and Robert Mounce discuss the Christian college—what gives an institution the right to call itself a Christian college, and what makes a Christian an educated person. Then Karen D’Arezzo provides help for the minister, youth counselor, or parent who seeks to guide bewildered youth to select the right kind of college or university to meet their individual needs.
Appropriately enough, David Wells offers a spiritually edifying and instructive article on prayer—an essential ingredient not only for counselors and students puzzling over the right choice of school, but also for all evangelical Christians who are deeply concerned about the multiple needs of the body of Christ. Perhaps God will answer our prayers by instructing us to give sacrificially to those struggling Christian colleges that are seeking earnestly to be truly Christian and truly educational.
