“Higher” Education: A Perspective from a Christian University Foundation in Contemporary England

Abstract

The relation between Christian education and the secularized public square, based on how state and church relations are typically portrayed, has been described chiefly in terms of conflict. However, in the case of church-founded schools and universities in Britain, the relationship, in practice, is more ambiguous than polarized. Arguably, there is growing antipathy to direct institutional identity with faith or religion; at the same time, however, there is growing confidence among others that institutions informed by faith bring something indispensable to education. This essay investigates this issue via the existential experience of Liverpool Hope University, the only ecumenical university in Europe. Although Liverpool Hope University is an ecumenical institution, it is also a part of the British State university system. The argument is made that the “way of ambiguity” is not unlike the “way of Incarnation,” which steers between the certainty of public recognition that has often led to forms of triumphalism and the dwindling public confidence that leads inadvertently to the dumbing down of Christian identity in public service. The church's long service to education is essential to its contribution to the common good and is indispensable for the sustainability of humane societies.

Notes

A foundation in this context refers to the basic founding mandates and legal identity of a university. A “church-established” or “faith” university foundation means a religiously chartered university.

Religious tests at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge were only abolished when The Universities Tests Act was enacted in 1871 that allowed non-Anglicans to teach at Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham. Other restrictions on non-Anglicans remained at Oxford and Cambridge until 1913.

The signatories included author Philip Pullman, performer Tim Minchin, journalist Polly Toynbee, philosopher A. C. Grayling, the BBC presenter Dan Snow, and Professor Jim Al-Khalili, president of the British Humanist Society.

The Edinburgh Review, or The Critical Journal, founded in Edinburgh in 1802, was a journal of liberal literary, social, and political thought.