Conceiving the Christian college
This book is designed to help those who are interested in Christian higher education explore anew the unique features, opportunities, and contemporary challenges of one distinct type of educational institution the Christian college. What distinguishes Conceiving the Christian College from the many other books on this subject is its incisive discussion of a set of crucial ideas widely misunderstood in the world of Christian higher education. Now serving in his eleventh year as president of one of the nation's foremost Christian colleges, Duane Litfin is well placed to ask pressing questions regarding faith-based education. What is unique about Christian colleges? What is required to sustain them? How do they maintain their bearing in the tumultuous intellectual seas of the twenty-first century? Litfin's themes are large, but they are meant to refocus the conceptual challenges to Christian education in ways that will strengthen both the academic environment of today's Christian colleges and their impact on culture at large
Print Book, English, ©2004
W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., Grand Rapids, Mich., ©2004
x, 283 pages ; 23 cm
9780802827838, 0802827837
55518513
Introduction
Two academic models: to understand more clearly our own identity
The centerpiece: to see more fully whom we serve
A centered education: to keep the center at the center
It’s all God’s truth: to strengthen the foundations of Christian thought
A balanced epistemology: to preserve the idea of truth
Integrative thinking: prolegomena: to understand the integrative mandate
Doing integration: to sustain our commitment to the integrative task
Faith and learning: to reinforce our commitment to revealed truth
The voluntary principle: to reconcile institutional commitments with individual freedoms
Institutional breadth: to appreciate our institutional uniqueness
Our place in the academy: to engender a more congenial academic environment