In the United Kingdom, the experience of Christian higher education has been mainly restricted to Anglican and Roman Catholic colleges, originally founded for the training of teachers for denominational church schools. Some of these now have university status. So we do have some experience of the “Christian university” in the United Kingdom, and a number of the authors and editors of this volume have worked within such institutions. But the text reflects a wider context than this in three ways. First, it draws on broader reflections from scholars who have worked in both Christian and “secular” institutions in North America, Australasia and Continental Europe. Secondly, the authors and editors represent not only Anglican, but also Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox perspectives. And, thirdly, as its sub-title reveals, the book offers a wider theology of higher education that should be of interest to anyone concerned with creating links between the study of theology and the practice of education.
The theologically-grounded understanding of Christian higher education presented in the seventeen essays of this collection covers two dimensions. Part One of the book, “A Christian Calling?,” recognizes that the very idea of a Christian university is controversial. So this part addresses questions not only of aim and purpose, but also of desirability and justification; as well as offering some more general discussions of the criticisms, context and shape of the practice of Christian education. Part Two, “A Christian Curriculum?,” is more concretely focused on the nature of the curriculum of the Christian college or university, and the difficulties and opportunities faced by scholars and teachers who seek to deliver this from and out of a Christian perspective. Some highlights of the volume…
The first essay, by Ian Markham, presents an account of the key features of the Christian university. These include its ideological and education honesty in not pretending to be tradition-free and “neutral”, and in acknowledging its intention to transmit a tradition by educating its students into “faith-based values”. A Christian university will also explore the philosophical basis of the assumptions that underlie the subjects that are taught there, critiquing them from a Christian standpoint. Finally, it will function as a location where rationality and conversation are celebrated in the quest for truth, amid the diversity that God has created in the world.
It is therefore “a place in which a range of vantage points are encouraged to engage in conversation and learn in humility from the process.” In accordance with this final criterion, the unity-in-diversity that Anglicanism expresses may properly be applied to our understanding of all human learning.
The relevance of the Greek notion of paideia, understood here as the formation of people in a cultural heritage – is explored in illuminating ways in the piece by Andrew Walker and Andrew Wright, who see this concept as providing a plausible ground for defending the notion of a Christian university. As a Christian paideia includes the Christan duty to uphold the common good, the Christian university is called to “work towards the common wealth of all” as well as bearing witness to the one true God and Father of all”.
The wider theme of teaching as a vocation is taken up by two of the editors. John Sullivan (a Roman Catholic) regards a strong sense of vocation in teaching as a valuable resource for and expression of responsibility, “ a response to God that is made from within, with others for students”. Jeff Astley (an Anglican) presents this in terms of an analysis of teaching including university teaching - as “a pastoral task and an exercise of Christian ministry.” In a nuanced but powerful essay, he articulates what it means to be a truly loving teacher, expressing a care for others (the learners) that is passionate yet disinterested. “We must . . . lovingly teach them for their sakes”, he writes. The Anglican empirical theologian, Leslie Francis, takes up another of Astley’s concerns: that of listening to and learning from the theological reflections of ordinary people (their “ordinary theology”).
Francis discusses a study of first-year undergraduates at a Church College of Higher Education, analysing the significance they place in, and their expectations of, a “Christian campus”; and comparing the views of those students who do and those who do not self-identify as Christians, and those who do and those who do not attend church regularly. Hard-nosed empirical data of this kind surely represent a significant resource for any informed discussion of the nature of a Christian university, at least for those whose concerns are pragmatic as well as ideological. Such as Anglicans, perhaps?
The Idea of a Christian University, edited by a team in Britain, has already attracted considerable attention in the United Kingdom, at a time when Evangelical Churches are asking radical questions about the role of Christians in secondary and higher education and at a time when several of the older Anglican Colleges of Higher Education have achieved university status. I commend this collection of essays to my Anglican colleagues concerned with higher education in other Provinces.
Further publication information:
Milton Keynes, United Kingdom: Paternoster Press, 2004. xi + 316 pp. ISBN 1-84227260-0
