Christian or Secular College: Choosing between Them: There Is No One Answer

Is the only alternative an intellectual hothouse or a den of temptations?

If all truth is God’s truth, does it really matter where you learn physics and philosophy or engineering and English? Does the world view of the secular university professor mean that he will teach facts differently from the Christian college professor? Some say yes, some say no.

The Christian college is alternately condemned as an intellectual hothouse that breeds only plants too fragile to survive in the real world or defended as a haven of safety in a godless world—the only responsible choice for a discerning evangelical. Conversely, the secular university is depicted both as the haunt of irresistable temptations for the 18-year old innocent and as the only soil in which to grow sturdy, reproducing Christians capable of meeting effectively the exigencies of life in the twentieth century.

Is a freshman teen-ager better able to construct a scripturally informed world and life view in the midst of constant challenge at a state university or under the encouragement of professors committed to Christian faith? At the university he will be forced to test his faith daily in a milieu that is at best neutral, and often antagonistic to biblical faith; the positive influences to assist him and encourage his growth in Christian understanding will be at a minimum.

On the other hand, can an evangelical student really learn to stand up for his convictions and become an effective witness for his Christian faith within artificially sheltered confines where his faith is not challenged and where he encounters only believing fellow students and believing faculty?

Finding a solution to this dilemma is not easy. Indeed, there is no one correct answer to the perplexing problem of choosing a college. Only after careful examination of the uniqueness of both secular and Christian institutions can we discover God’s design for any one student. After studying these distinctives, we should follow several logical steps in arriving at the right decision.

The Christian Liberal Arts College: Distinctives

1. The primary distinctive of the Christian college is its integration of faith and learning. It is based on the principle that the God of the Bible is a God of truth; therefore, “all truth is dependent on God’s truth.” There can be no fixed chasm between the “sacred” and “secular.” Truth can be found in the Bible, in a physics lab, or in psychological research. Discovering truth thus means discovering something of the nature of the God of truth and of his creation, which is the product of a God of truth.

Here we may experience the lure of a red herring: many evangelicals are suspicious of linking the terms “Christian education” and “liberal arts.” Dr. Harry Evans, president of Trinity College (Deerfield, Ill.), counters with the term “Christian liberating arts.” “The truth will make you free. Put what you know of the world together with biblical concepts and you have what I call the ‘Christian liberating arts.’ ”

A Christian college is uniquely equipped to provide an integrated education. The isolated scholar on a university campus may be knowledgable or even brilliant in his own field, but only a community of scholars sharing a common Christian faith, complemented by scholars highly trained in biblical and theological studies, can offer a truly Christian higher education. Strictly speaking, we ought not to call most universities by the noble name university, for they have no common philosophy of education around which their faculty are united so as to provide an integrated education. They are, as one educator put it, a complex of individual faculty united only by a common heating system.

2. A closely related distinctive of the Christian liberal arts college is the refusal to isolate religion in its own private category. Religion should not be (and in any Christian college worth its salt is not) relegated to required Bible and doctrine courses. Nor is it the exclusive concern of the chaplain and chapel service. In endeavoring to preserve a unified, biblical world view, the Christian college maintains the Judeo-Christian philosophy that formerly gave meaning to all of the Western world. So important was this philosophy that 90 of the first 100 American colleges and universities were originally intended to be Christ-centered; these included William and Mary, Harvard, Columbia, Yale, and Princeton. Moreover, their charters reveal an ambition to propagate the gospel. This identity is largely lost today.

3. An advantage of the Christian liberal arts college over the secular university is its small size. The educational process is greatly enhanced when a student develops a relationship with a professor or administrator beyond that of a mere name or number listed on the class roll. The manageable size of Christian colleges fosters a more familial relationship between students and faculty of a type that is less common in a major university.

4. The accusation that academic excellence is lacking at the Christian college level is not necessarily true and often directly opposes the facts. At better Christian colleges the usable library actually available for underclassmen is thoroughly adequate for its purposes. Instructors, particularly of lower level courses, are frequently full professors and rarely, if ever, graduate students who are struggling to meet the requirements of their classes in master’s and doctoral programs. By contrast, the vaunted scholars of the university are absorbed in individual research and tutoring of doctoral candidates, but sometimes are inaccessible to lowly undergraduates. In this connection, it is worthy to note that the percentage of graduates from the small Christian liberal arts colleges who are found in Who’s Who is much higher than of graduates from our teeming universities, whose reputations are based less on the quality of undergraduate programs than on the research and scholarship of their graduate schools.

5. The Christian campus provides a socially constructive environment for the development of Christian leaders. Here the youthful Christian makes friends for life; he or she may discover a life partner. The student here learns the skills of leadership in a Christian community. Evangelical organizations around the world to a significant degree depend on Christian colleges and Bible colleges for their laders.

6. The charge that students on a Christian college campus are isolated from the real world need not be true, and quite frequently is invalid. Rather, students are in a temporarily controlled environment for the express purpose of providing opportunity for them to learn under Christian tutelage how life is to be understood and how it is to be lived on planet earth. The educational curriculum of the Christian college demands off-campus service and projects that bring the student into contact with the real world.

8. A Christian college is not a glorified Sunday school that offers a four-year diploma. It is not a sanctuary in which a parent can hide a teen-ager from a pervasively evil society in hopes that the only ensuing change in lifestyle will be marriage to another pleasing and doctrinally pure Christian followed by a valiant missionary career. The Christian campus is not one on which doubts will be stifled or silenced as the student is indoctrinated. Rather, it is an ideal environment in which to pose legitimate questions and to examine differing viewpoints—and to do so with dedicated evangelicals who are also experts in the areas of their academic specialities.

“The concern for individual students shown by professors is not due just to the small size of my alma mater, but because of commitment to Christ. The disadvantage, though, is for the student whose parents force him to attend. It’s easy to get close to a not-so-genuine Christian professor and then Christianity seems even phonier.”

—A student at a Christian college.

The Secular University: Distinctives

1. The secular university also provides its own unique advantages for the Christian student. The goal of the secular university is broad education in the sciences, humanities, and arts with the opportunity to learn technical specialization that prepares the student with professional skills. (This is at variance with the scope of the liberal arts education that seldom offers professional courses in depth.) The strength of this broad scope has also sometimes been called its weakness; the university is often better defined as a multi-versity. It has become, in many cases, a conglomerate of isolated colleges under the broad sponsorship of the university. However, most see this wide breadth of specialized courses as a potential strength since it allows for highly respected specialists in given fields to teach as well as to concentrate on advanced research. Unfortunately, knowledge often becomes an end in itself at the secular institution. In such professional schools, with their abundance of specialized courses, a student can learn how to earn his living but he does not learn how to live; he does not secure a truly liberating education.

2. In the modern world, secular universities have become the pacesetters within our culture. Here are to be found the think tanks for the twenty-first century. Here are gathered the intellectual leaders whose research and writings are shaping the direction of human thought. Unfortunately, the college freshman rarely sees or hears these exalted intellectual leaders (and their published works are available on the Christian college reading list as well as in the university bookstore). In upper division courses, however, these leaders of thought are often the teachers.

3. It is true that occasionally professors in secular universities take undue delight in destroying the naive religious faith of their gullible students, but this is more likely to occur in the small, secular liberal arts colleges with historic but not current Christian commitment. And the Christian student will usually find this a profitable, though perhaps painful, experience. Such opposition spurs him to sink his own roots deeper. It becomes a powerful incentive to reexamine and deepen his faith. Those who survive such testing are stronger for it. And often past religious training and the presence of a nearby evangelical church make the difference between success and failure.

4. The resources available to an evangelical Christian on a large university campus are often overlooked. There are probably 2,500 evangelical Christians at the University of Illinois—more than the total enrollment at many Bible schools and Christian colleges—and these Christian students provide a mutual support group of immense importance. Moreover, conservative Christian organizations like Campus Crusade for Christ, Navigators, and Inter-Varsity encompass hundreds of students on a given campus, providing ministry and teaching opportunities unavailable on the Christian campus. Further, on every major university campus evangelical teachers are a constructive force of major proportions. Western Kentucky University is almost unique with its evangelical religion department fired by Dr. Robert Mounce’s conviction that students should have seminary level teaching available at the state university. The Wisconsin Association of Biblical Studies, located just off the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison, offers a core of academic study with university credit. John Stott’s Basic Christianity, Josh McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict, and Colin Chapman’s Christianity on Trial have been designed specifically to help students confront the hostile secular viewpoint and are frequently used with academic integrity and thoroughness in seminars and on satellite campuses to encourage Christian faith.

5. Any committed Christian must face the missionary challenge of the secular university. Here are thousands of students, largely uncommitted, in the process of forming their world and life views, wide open to the reexamination of their most fundamental values. Christian students can adamantly, lovingly, and relentlessly press the Christian alternative in classroom, dormitory, school organizations, and student government. No nonstudent can carry on such an effective witness for Christ in such receptive and fertile soil for the gospel.

6. Finally, the secular junior college or university is usually far less expensive than the accredited Christian college.

Clearly, a student can receive an intense spiritual education at a secular university or college, coupled with unique challenges and personal confrontations, God-tailored to insure spiritual growth. The student in a secular situation is not left alone to flounder, but is surrounded by other Christian peers and spiritual and intellectual leaders who are eager to help him.

“I wouldn’t trade my degree from the university with any other. It gave me a realistic exposure to the world’s way of thinking and dealing, and its rewards, along with plenty of opportunity to learn about confronting secularism in ‘trial runs.’ I wouldn’t have wanted to have been cloistered in a strictly Christian community or I would have forgotten that the majority of Americans are still in need of a Savior.”

—A student at a secular university.

How To Choose

It should be clear that not all Christian students will have their needs best met at a Christian college—or at a secular university. Needs vary; each student is an individual. Many factors have a decisive bearing on what type of school best meets the needs of a particular student. One man’s meat is another man’s poison.

In reality, most students—and their parents—have no definite philosophy of a college experience beyond strictly vocational or social aspirations, and these are often extremely vague. The decision on the best way to acquire a college education depends on many variables: personal inclinations, specific talents, previous background, general intelligence, major field, geography, tuition, financial assistance, job availability—along with many others. The judgment must be highly individualistic.

In looking at preliminary alternatives, the following suggestions are given to aid a student in his methodical search for God’s will.

1. The prospective student and his or her parents should formulate written lists of expectations and goals, defining the purpose of college education and social life, and listing life aspirations.

2. Very early the student should order catalogues and brochures from several different types of schools and from all of the schools that attract his or her serious attention. These should be read carefully. The availability of programs should be noted, as well as the training of the faculty, the statement of religious faith, and other pertinent information.

3. The student should talk with recent graduates of both Christian and secular schools. Such a survey should not be narrowed only to graduates of those institutions he or she already was considering, but should include a broad scope.

4. The prospective college student should visit various types of schools. He or she should visit admissions counselors, sit in on classes, and note the size of classes, of the library, and of the availability of library stacks to freshmen. A student should stroll through the dorms, and talk with the chaplain, representatives of local parachurch groups, or pastors of nearby evangelical churches to assess spiritual life and opportunities for growth. (Names and addresses of these people are available from the school activity office.) Above all, questions should be asked. If certain queries are resented or left unanswered, that too will tell something.

5. The prospective student should check carefully into the accreditation of any school in which a year or more of his or her life is about to be invested. This not only reveals something about the quality of the education available; it is critical in case the student later transfers to another college, either to complete undergraduate work or to go on to graduate studies. The new college may well accept transfer credits only of certain courses if the first college is not fully accredited.

“I get excited about sharing Christ with guys on the hall and inviting them to church and other Christian meetings. I think that learning to tell men about Christ while in college will help me be a better church member in the future and it will give a whole new dimension to my job.”

—A student at a secular university.

Note that some colleges are “accredited” by their state to offer degrees, but are not accredited by the multi-state “regional” accrediting associations (such as, in the case of Ohio, for example, the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools). A student may choose to go first to a college whose credits will not transfer to a state university or (in Canada) to a provincial or (overseas) to a national university; but he should know in advance that this is the situation.

In the case of accreditation for Bible colleges and Bible institutes, a Bible college accrediting association exists. (However, specialized Christian courses like homiletics may not transfer to accredited colleges, and admission to better graduate schools may be more difficult.)

6. The student should compare his other interests and strengths with those of preferred schools. A student who wishes to become a home economics teacher must find a school that offers adequate courses in that field.

7. The student should pray with family, pastor, and concerned friends that God will indicate which school will provide to him or her the education described in Proverbs 1:5: “A wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel.”

Finally, a personal note to the prospective student: Trust! Do not nourish self-doubts about your decision. Believe in God’s guidance promised in Scripture. Remember, your choice is not necessarily between two bad things but between two good things; and in reality, each can be very good and God’s best for you.

The decisive factor is not the school, but you and what you yourself make out of the situation to which God directs you. Give your choice a good try—at least a full year—before you consider transferring or dropping or stopping out. And give it your best. God demands nothing less, and you can’t afford to give less.

G. Douglas Young is founder and president of the Institute of Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem. He has lived there since 1963.

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