New Saint Andrews College, the original classical Christian college in Moscow, Idaho, has been forgotten within the media hype surrounding Patrick Henry College – a more recently established classical Christian college in Virginia.
It seems that the two colleges are at odds. Patrick Henry College might be on a “mission to save America,” to quote the title of Hanna Rosin’s new book profiling the school, but according to a quote in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine from Doug Wilson – NSA’s founder – New Saint Andrews is “trying to save civilization.”
According the writer of the New York Times Magazine story, Molly Worthen – who is writing a book about evangelical intellectual life – NSA is outspoken about differentiating itself from their classical higher-ed counterpart:
When you ask teachers and students what sort of school New St. Andrews is, they often cite one school they are not: Patrick Henry College, the evangelical college in Purcellville, Va., with a reputation for training home-schooled Christian students to wrest the reins of power from “secular humanists” in Washington. “We believe in a much longer view,” says Joshua Appel, a professor at New St. Andrews.
And again:
[NSA’s] curriculum is a “reformation in higher education,” says Roy Atwood, the college president. “The last thing we wanted to be was a Liberty University or a Patrick Henry. We are not interested in political takeover.” Patrick Henry – which requires classical core classes and offers a major in classical liberal arts as well as more political fields – hemorrhaged faculty and students a year ago as a debate over academic freedom and the role of the liberal arts in Christian education divided the campus. “I wonder if the N.S.A. people are right,” says G. T. Smith, a philosophy professor who left Patrick Henry after the turmoil.
Is this rivalry just another example of what should be like-minded partnering but instead is a divisive “We are right. You are wrong.” mentality?
