Christian Higher Education: An Education that Liberates

Abstract

In this wide-ranging review essay, the author engages Christian Higher Education: A Global Reconnaissance, a book edited by J. Carpenter, P. L. Glanzer, and N. S. Lantinga (2014). His remarks focus especially on the five chapters of the book that survey Christian higher education in nations where he has direct experience: Brazil, Kenya, India, South Korea, and the United States. An extended reflection, both philosophical and practical, is then offered on a common task of Christian higher education across many cultures: how to develop and sustain a holistic education that promotes Kingdom prospering, above and beyond national and commercial purposes. He makes the case for a liberating education that seeks to instill a dynamic combination of integrative thinking and character formation. The essay ends with practical advice as the author encourages fellow educators to focus their efforts on faculty development, general education, and cross-cultural partnerships as the keys to building and sustaining a liberating education.

Notes

To learn the results of the global research project, see P. L. Glanzer, J. A. Carpenter, and N. S. Lantinga (2011), Looking for God in higher education: Examining trends in global Christian higher education, Higher Education 61(6), 721–755.

The term privatization seems to be used ambiguously throughout the book, sometimes referring to institutions owned and operated by nongovernmental (private) organizations (p. 284) and sometimes to the changing goals of students involved in higher education, away from public common good or kingdom of God purposes to goals of personal (private) gain (p. 123).

Many of these are identical to the secularizing forces described in the book: massification, privatization (in the broader sense whereby students focus more on the private benefits of an education rather than on those aimed at the common good), external controls (domineering government and accreditation agencies), overreliance on part-time instruction, loss of strong focus on general education, and neglect of a clear and distinctive philosophy of liberating education.

Not one Protestant institution founded before 1817 (CMS College in India) has preserved its Christian identity.

See, for example, E. N. Wolff, The Asset Price Meltdown and the Wealth of the Middle Class (New York, NY: New York University, 2012), which claims that in the United States in 2010, the top 10% own as much as 83% of the wealth.

Corresponding analogies to explore might be “Melting pot” model vs. the “Salad bowl” model. More below in my reflections on broadened pluralism.

Nguru alludes briefly to the tendency to appoint “some of their own” to positions of authority. While she does not raise it in the section on governance, it is an issue. Exploration of this question, especially in the context of African tribal and extended family values, would be helpful.

It is interesting to ask how the loss of this view of pluralism in nations that are obviously diverse (United States, India) impacts the health/success of CHE. It would seem to this nonhistorian that generally CHE suffers.

Without developing the worry here, I wonder if historical approaches to integration, rooted in Reformed (Kuyperian) thinking about “world views,” are limited by an overly theoretical approach to this crucial educational task. One might consider whether that approach needs to be balanced by a more Wesleyan Arminian attention to practice. Nick Wolterstorff, a leading Reformed educational philosopher, moved his approach toward the continuum of theory and praxis.

Holmes was professor of philosophy at Wheaton College in Illinois for many decades, and considered by many to be the “dean of Christian liberal arts.”

Hope Africa Unversity (Burundi), Immanuel University (Hyderbad), and Medes American University (Erbil).