Christian Higher Education as a High Calling

What is the high calling of Christian higher education in today’s world? Most Christian colleges and universities proclaim carefully worded mission statements, intended to motivate their students to influence the world with the power of the gospel. These aspirational documents exist to keep people in educational communities aimed in the same direction. Yet, the institutional mission, even when articulated well, may not capture the individual motivations that impel scholars, practitioners, and leaders to remain committed to the service of Christian higher education. Tension often exists between individual scholars’ intrinsic callings to serve within Christian education and the institution’s stated mission and expectations for y members ... between the individual and the collective. Within the context of the United States, most higher education colleagues would agree that we live in very difficult days—that higher education is under assault as never before, as evidenced by the commoditization of the higher education experience, the declining interest in—and support for—the liberal arts, the exponentially increasing and persistent financial pressures and demands, the unaffordability and inaccessibility of today’s college education, expanding government regulation and intervention, public disengagement, criticism and declining support, media misrepresentations, changing demographics, and an increasing inability to argue successfully the value proposition. The Christian college, once the foundation upon which American higher education was formed, is not immune to these significant concerns. Indeed, in addition to navigating the rapidly changing landscapes and environments that exist today, Christian institutions are also tasked with engaging changing cultural norms and evolving legal authority that, at times, may be inconsistent or at conflict with the faith mandates to which these institutions subscribe and the deeply held religious values they seek to honor and advance. These are difficult days, to be sure, and for distinctly Christian institutions, these are arguably the most challenging days in the history of American higher education. We live in a world that unceasingly shudders and groans, searching for substance—and ultimate meaning—but finding little, if any, of either. We also live in a world desperately seeking honesty, integrity, justice, peace, truth, substance, value, trustworthiness, assurance, confidence, comfort, love, unity, and rest, but too often coming up empty. Christian postsecondary institutions are facing these current challenges with all of the hallmarks of excellence that mark the finest colleges and universities, yet with an