Christian Higher Education E-Book

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1045

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Our world is growing increasingly complex and confused—a unique and urgent context that calls for a grounded and fresh approach to Christian higher education. Christian higher education involves a distinctive way of thinking about teaching, learning, scholarship, curriculum, student life, administration, and governance that is rooted in the historic Christian faith. In this volume, twenty-nine experts from a variety of fields, including theology, the humanities, science, mathematics, social science, philosophy, the arts, and professional programs, explore how the foundational beliefs of Christianity influence higher education and its disciplines. Aimed at equipping the next generation to better engage the shifting cultural context, this book calls students, professors, trustees, administrators, and church leaders to a renewed commitment to the distinctive work of Christian higher education—for the good of the society, the good of the church, and the glory of God.

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“Christian Higher Education, skillfully edited by David Dockery and Chris Morgan, is a work both magisterial and invitational, welcoming the reader into a deeper understanding of the history, need, nature, and purposes of Christian higher education and the implications for the student and broader society. It will serve as a great encouragement and guide for all those interested in the holistic formation of a new generation.”

Cherie Harder, President, The Trinity Forum

“In passion, vision, and lifelong commitment to bring theologically sound, biblically faithful, and culturally relevant thinking to bear on Christian education, David Dockery has few peers. In this volume, Dockery, Chris Morgan, and colleagues sound a clarion call to those who serve in Christian higher education by inviting them afresh to understand and fulfill their mission as the theologically informed, Christ-centered, worldview-transforming academic arm of the church.”

J. Randall O’Brien, President, Carson-Newman University

“This wonderful collection of essays, edited by David Dockery and Chris Morgan, is a superb exploration of both the theological roots and implications of Christian higher education within the evangelical tradition. Unusual in breadth and scope, it provides helpful insight for the new adventurer as well as the serious and seasoned scholar. A gift indeed at such a time as this!”

Stan D. Gaede, President, Christian College Consortium; Scholar in Residence, Gordon College

“Higher education across the world is at a tipping point. After years of celebrated glory and praise, institutions of higher education have been besieged over the past ten years or more by unrelenting criticisms ranging from the cost of attendance to the cost of operation. Paramount among these criticisms and striking at the very heart and soul of higher education is the question of its purpose and utility. Nowhere are these disparagements more unsettling than to those of us in Christian higher education. What is needed is a fresh understanding of the purpose of higher education and the role and place of Christian higher education. In this book, David Dockery and Christopher Morgan have gathered a remarkable cadre of evangelical scholars to reflect on the issues posed by the current turmoil. Is the Christian university to be differentiated from secular universities merely on the basis of the ‘personal piety’ of the faculty and students? Or is it on the activism spawned by nuanced theological speculations? This work presents a unified and renewed understanding of the Christian university based on a grounded reading of church history and evangelical thought. There is much here for the reader to ponder.”

J. Michael Hardin, Provost, Samford University

“In Christian Higher Education, David Dockery and Chris Morgan present essential qualities for Christian institutions. This book will become required reading for boards of trustees, cabinets, academic departments, and faculty retreats. The volume is laid out with a clear recap of why maintaining a biblical foundation is crucial for any Christ-centered academic institution. In establishing a strong desire to create an environment where biblical teachings flow through the rest of the college atmosphere apart from classes and chapel, institutions shape well-rounded and holistic education. Next, the contributors detail the particular beauty of the humanities, arts, and STEM fields. They conclude with a thorough and convincing description of why it is necessary to be adaptable today in the fast-changing landscape of higher education without losing the fundamentals. No book of this type would be complete without an inspiring chapter on the importance of diversity and inclusion as a kingdom imperative. The book ends noting that spiritual formation—a primary focus for any Christian institution—can be a form of discipleship and that leadership development is inseparable from discipleship. I could not agree more wholeheartedly.”

Shirley V. Hoogstra, President, Council for Christian Colleges and Universities

“In this important new work, David Dockery and Chris Morgan lay out a powerful vision for Christian higher education. As one who has recently cast my lot into this world, I was encouraged and challenged to learn from this helpful array of voices. Few realize all that is involved in higher education, and walking through the historical, biblical, and theological implications is both instructive and inspirational. I highly recommend this volume for higher ed starters (like me) and long-term veterans seeking to be faithful in the work of Christian higher education.”

Ed Stetzer, Billy Graham Distinguished Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism, Wheaton College

“With an array of insightful thinkers and penetrating essays, Christian Higher Education draws together some of the best minds at the vanguard of faith and higher education. I highly commend this readable book to anyone who cares about the life of the mind and the life of faith. It represents a timely and much-needed voice in these challenging days.”

D. Michael Lindsay, President, Gordon College

“In Christian Higher Education, David Dockery and Chris Morgan seek to restate for the postmodern and multicultural world of the twenty-first century the classic theological and historical foundations of the enterprise of Christian higher education. Drawing on the disciplinary expertise and practical experience of over twenty fellow scholars and teachers, this collection of essays explores the implications of the Scriptures, the creeds, and the church’s mission for the vocation of the evangelical teacher-scholar in the classroom, as well as within the academy, the church, and the world. Given the study questions and suggested readings at the end of each chapter, the balance of the theoretical background and practical application, and those core elements that apply to all evangelicals regardless of culture, gender, class, or ethnicity, this volume provides a valuable introduction for a class of new faculty or board members entering the world of evangelical higher education.”

Shirley A. Mullen, President, Houghton College

“I am pleased to recommend David Dockery and Christopher Morgan’s excellent Christian Higher Education. This comprehensive collection of essays on evangelical education across the disciplines deserves a place on every Christian educator’s bookshelf.”

Thomas S. Kidd, Distinguished Professor of History, Baylor University

“In Christian higher education, we err if we seek to find our path forward without reference to the rich church tradition and the evangelical legacy. It is also a truism that the work of Christian higher education demands unrelenting attention. We all know that there are many ‘Christian higher ed corpses,’ schools that were originally Christian but then slipped away. These stand to warn us against complacency lest we too lose our institutions to the romantic ideas prevalent in our contemporary, post-Christian culture. I thank David Dockery and Chris Morgan for this book that urges us to form Christian minds and lives in such a way that our students will think, live, and serve Christianly throughout their lives. The various writers have dealt with this quintessential subject with great dexterity and exemplary scholarship. I salute the contributors and commend this book heartily to all involved in the work of Christian higher education.”

John Senyonyi, Vice Chancellor, Uganda Christian University

“Drawing on some of the best minds within the community of Christian higher education, David Dockery and Chris Morgan have assembled a volume that will be of tremendous help to faculty, administrators, trustees, and those who simply want to develop a broader, deeper understanding of our sector of university life. I’m inspired, challenged, and grateful for the scholarship reflected by the contributors to this work.”

Andrew Westmoreland, President, Samford University

Christian Higher Education

Faith, Teaching, and Learning in the Evangelical Tradition

Edited by David S. Dockery and Christopher W. Morgan

Christian Higher Education: Faith, Teaching, and Learning in the Evangelical Tradition

Copyright © 2018 by David S. Dockery and Christopher W. Morgan

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Tyler Deeb, Misc. Goods Co.

First printing 2018

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are from The New American Standard Bible®. Copyright © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.

Scripture references marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture references marked NKJV are from The New King James Version. Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4335-5653-1 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-5656-2 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-5654-8 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-5655-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Dockery, David S., editor. | Morgan, Christopher W., 1971– editor.

Title: Christian higher education : faith, teaching, and learning in the evangelical tradition / edited by David S. Dockery and Christopher W. Morgan.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017038397 (print) | LCCN 2017041286 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433556548 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433556555 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433556562 (epub) | ISBN 9781433556531 (hc)

Subjects: LCSH: Education (Christian theology) | Evangelicalism. | Christian universities and colleges. | Theological seminaries. | Education, Higher. | Postsecondary education.

Classification: LCC BT738.17 (ebook) | LCC BT738.17 .C485 2018 (print) | DDC 378/.071—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017038397

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-02-11 10:58:36 AM

To our

teachers and students

who have taught us much

about faith, teaching, and learning

Contents

Preface

Part 1 The Theological Shape of Christian Higher Education in the Evangelical Tradition

 1  Christian Higher Education

An Introduction

David S. Dockery

 2  Knowing and Loving God

Toward a Theology of Christian Higher Education

Nathan A. Finn

 3  The Authority of Holy Scripture

Commitments for Christian Higher Education in the Evangelical Tradition

John D. Woodbridge

 4  The Study of Holy Scripture and the Work of Christian Higher Education

George H. Guthrie

 5  Made in the Image of God

Implications for Teaching and Learning

John F. Kilner

 6  Foundations of Christian Higher Education

Learning from Church History

Bradley J. Gundlach

Part 2 Faith, Teaching, and Learning in the Evangelical Tradition

 7  The Christian Worldview for Faith, Teaching, and Learning in the Evangelical Tradition

Christopher W. Morgan

 8  Faith and Teaching

Donald C. Guthrie

 9  Faith and Learning

Laurie R. Matthias

10  The Importance of Research for Teaching and Learning

David W. Pao and Chrystal L. Ho Pao

11  Teaching and Learning in the Humanities

Gene C. Fant Jr.

12  Teaching and Learning in the Sciences

Glenn A. Marsch

13  Teaching and Learning in Mathematics

Paul R. Bialek

14  Teaching and Learning in the Social Sciences

Eric L. Johnson and Russell D. Kosits

15  Teaching and Learning in Philosophy

Chris L. Firestone

16  Teaching and Learning in Music and the Arts

Don P. Hedges

17  Teaching and Learning in Education

Karen A. Wrobbel

18  Teaching and Learning in Adult and Professional Programs

Timothy L. Smith

Part 3 Faith, Teaching, and Learning

Applications and Implications for the Campus, the Church, the Marketplace, and the World

19  Faith, Learning, and Catechesis

S. Steve Kang

20  Faith, Learning, Worship, and Service

Taylor B. Worley

21  Faith, Learning, and Living

Felix Theonugraha

22  Teaching, Learning, and Leadership

Katherine M. Jeffery

23  Faith, Learning, and the World

Greg Forster

24  Faith, Ethics, and Culture

Micah J. Watson

25  Faith, Teaching, and Learning in Service to the Church

Thomas H. L. Cornman

26  The Importance of Intercultural and International Approaches in Christian Higher Education

Peter T. Cha

27  Missions, the Global Church, and Christian Higher Education

Bruce Riley Ashford

Contributors

General Index

Scripture Index

Preface

Christian Higher Education: Faith, Teaching, and Learning in the Evangelical Tradition provides a multiauthored, symphonic, and theologically shaped vision for the distinctive work of Christian higher education. More than two dozen scholars and practitioners have joined with us to put together this volume, which we trust will be both informative and helpful for administrators, board members, donors, church leaders, faculty, staff, students, and parents. We believe the book offers guidance for those who are new to Christian higher education as well as for those who are seeking to understand better how Christian educators think about teaching, learning, scholarship, and service and about how the whole academic program relates to the church, culture, and society. Each chapter has been written by a person with considerable experience in his or her particular field. At times, we have allowed some tensions between the authors and disciplines to stand, which we trust will help readers get a glimpse of academic and student life among the various faculty and staff members who serve institutions in the evangelical tradition.

The idea for the book began with a conversation on the campus of Trinity International University, where a number of the contributors serve. The initiative for moving forward with the project came from several of the authors but particularly Karen Wrobbel, Don Hedges, Laurie Matthias, Paul Bialek, Chrystal Ho Pao, and Brad Gundlach. The volume, however, includes representatives from about a dozen different institutions, which we believe strengthens and enhances the book.

We are grateful to our friends and family members who have provided prayer support and encouragement along the way. We want to thank Justin Taylor, Jill Carter, and David Barshinger, as well as their colleagues at Crossway, for supporting this project. We also express appreciation to Lisa Weathers for her valuable assistance. In addition, we are thankful for the labors of Elliott Pinegar and Maigen Turner. We offer this work with the prayer that it might be used to extend important conversations regarding the meaning and mission of Christian higher education. Our hope is that the volume will be edifying for our readers while providing a beneficial resource for campuses in this country and around the world. Ultimately, we pray that the project will serve campuses and churches well, that it will be used to advance the gospel, and that our great and majestic God will be honored and glorified through our efforts.

Soli Deo Gloria

David S. Dockery and Christopher W. Morgan

Part 1

The Theological Shape of Christian Higher Education in the Evangelical Tradition

1

Christian Higher Education

An Introduction

David S. Dockery


Challenge and change characterize the world of Christian higher education in the early decades of the twenty-first century.1 Faculty and staff live with a new global awareness; students have never known a world without advancing technology, terrorism, and intercultural appreciation. A look around the globe points to a shift among the nations that will influence the world for decades to come. Anyone interested in the future of Christian higher education will want to keep an eye on cultural and global trends, for our work never takes place in a vacuum, and this observation does not begin to address the changes in higher education itself in terms of focus, funding, philosophy, methodology, and delivery systems.

This volume on Christian higher education seeks to focus on matters of faith, teaching, and learning in the evangelical tradition as they pertain to today and the future. Christian higher education involves a distinctive way of thinking about teaching, learning, scholarship, subject matter, student life, administration, and governance that is grounded in the orthodox Christian faith. Our vision for Christian higher education is not just about an inward, subjective, and pious Christianity, as important as that is. Christian educators recognize that the Christian faith is more than a moral faith of warmhearted devotional practices, for the Christian faith influences not only how we act but also what we believe, how we think, how we teach, how we learn, how we write, how we lead, how we govern, and how we treat one another.2 While this chapter serves as an introduction to the meaning and history of Christian higher education, the remaining chapters enable us to better understand how our theological commitments influence our approach to teaching, learning, scholarship, and Christian practice.3

It is our hope that a more full-orbed understanding of a theologically shaped vision for Christian higher education will help us to engage the culture and to prepare a generation of leaders who can effectively serve both church and society. Our approach begins with an understanding of the self-revealing God who has created humans in his image. We believe that students created in the image of God are designed to discover truth and that the exploration of truth is possible because the universe, as created by the Trinitarian God, is intelligible.

These beliefs are held together by our understanding that the unity of knowledge is grounded in Jesus Christ, in whom all things hold together (Col. 1:17). The Christian faith then provides the lens to see the world, recognizing that faith seeks to understand every dimension of life under the lordship of Jesus Christ. We now turn our attention to a brief survey of a Christian approach to education through the years, a model that today we would refer to as Christian higher education, looking to the past to find guidance for today and tomorrow.

Christian Education through the Years

Beginning in the second century, important learning centers arose in Alexandria and Antioch as well as in Constantinople. These centers focused on catechetical and apologetic instruction for Christian converts. Alexandria’s approach helps us to understand the shape of education in the early church as exemplified in one of the first great Christian scholars, Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–ca. 215).

Clement of Alexandria: The Teacher

Clement became the leader of the school of Alexandria in 190, a position he held until after the turn of the century, when persecution forced him out of Egypt into Cappadocia.4 His principal literary works produced during this time were a trilogy: Exhortations, Tutor, and Miscellanies. The three works follow a pattern in which, according to Clement, the divine Logos first of all converts us (which is the focus of the Tutor) and finally instructs us (which is the focus of his rather unsystematic work titled Miscellanies).5

For the most part, Clement’s reflections are philosophical, ethical, and even political. His works are grounded in the divine Logos, the Word of God who was incarnate in Jesus Christ. Just as Clement looked to the past in drawing from Moses, Israel’s great leader, from Plato, the great philosopher, and from Philo, the Jewish philosopher who preceded him in Alexandria, so we today can look to Clement as a source and guide for the challenges of our day. Clement, without compromising the need to analyze and refute aspects of the pagan culture around him, became a master of the philosophical currents of his day.6 Clement, who reflected significant insight into Plato and Aristotle, developed an ambitious and complex philosophical model that mapped out all the sciences and their specialties under the broad headings of the theoretical, physical, and natural sciences.

Clement serves as an instructive guide for us in our context because of his wide range of learning, his love for philosophy and literature, his cultivation of an intellectually serious Christian faith, and his engagement and interaction with trends and issues of his day. Clement’s overarching concern was to develop a view of the world and of life from the vantage point of wisdom in which he understood and interacted with the various strands of contemporary thought and culture. Clement’s impact, as a pioneer of serious Christian thinking, cannot be underestimated. Even though his writing was at times unsystematic, he nevertheless presented a coherent and consistent explication of the importance of Christian thinking and ethics for the challenges of his day.7

Clement’s work also delved into wide-ranging issues such as economics, business, the management of wealth, concern for the poor, and a variety of social issues. Prior to the time of the Renaissance, he could be characterized as a renaissance person, a singular source for liberal arts thinking. Ultimately, however, Clement was a teacher, taking seriously his calling as an educator. His favorite designation was “tutor” (paidagogos), also the title of his middle work.

His appreciation for art and music provided an opportunity for him to interact with the arts of the third century. Clement’s writings pointed to Christ as most noble minstrel while observing that men and women are the harp and lyre. Clement’s work contrasted the beauty of Christianity with the hopelessness of pagan poetry and philosophy. Ultimately, Clement pointed to the source of all life in God by maintaining that men and women are born for God. Full or ultimate truth, Clement claimed, is found in Christ alone.8 Clement prepared the way for the educational advancements in the thought of Augustine.

Augustine and Aquinas

Augustine, the father of the Christian intellectual tradition, located the source of knowledge within the person, based on his understanding that truth was a gift of God’s grace granted through faith. This knowledge, or potential knowledge, is developed by education that actively works in and through reason, memory, and will. Education takes place by engaging the Christian tradition, the wisdom of the ages that enabled the development of the liberal arts tradition.9 Augustine encouraged personal discovery and active engagement of students in the disciplines of study. For Augustine, the love of learning reflects our desire for God, and the love of wisdom exemplifies loving God with our minds in fulfillment of the Great Commandment (Matt. 22:37–39).

Eight centuries later, Thomas Aquinas emphasized sense experience as the primary source of knowledge. While Augustine’s approach to education was influenced by Plato, Aquinas was partial to Aristotle. For Aquinas, reason reflects on the data of the senses, for nothing is ever in the mind that is not first in the senses. Reason enables understanding and discernment, informing the will and giving guidance for life. Aquinas favored a teacher-centered, didactic approach to education.10

During the medieval period, Christian education flourished in the monastery. The monastic educational model emphasized a life of study, prayer, meditation, and work. The curriculum was largely built around the study of Holy Scripture, particularly the Psalms, and the rule of faith as articulated in the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. Reading, writing, grammar, and music were also included, forming the trajectory for the trivium (grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy). The trivium and quadrivium, the core of the liberal arts curriculum, were significant for shaping the cathedral school and the medieval university. Philosophy, physics, ethics, and ultimately theology, the queen of the sciences, completed the expectations for students in the medieval universities.11

From Pre-Reformation to Post-Reformation

The contribution of Desiderius Erasmus to education can be characterized as the work of an innovative pioneer moving beyond tradition and supplying impetus for Reformation and post-Reformation studies. His brilliance paved the way for the direction of Christian education for the decades that followed. A prince among the Renaissance humanists, Erasmus was at the same time a conceptual and reforming theologian. A scholarly biblical critic and pious moralist, Erasmus offered multiple contributions to education worthy of appreciation. He was the premier Renaissance scholar of his day, with an emphasis on the original sources and the study of ancient texts.

Erasmus made an important break with the medieval scholastic approach to theology and the study of Scripture but not in a reactionary manner. The break came about through a combination of Christian commitment, Renaissance scholarship, and the implementation of John Colet’s educational model. The genius and ability of Erasmus as biblical scholar and moral theologian served as a model for Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon, John Calvin, and other Reformers.12

Luther and Melanchthon shaped education in Germany in the sixteenth century with their emphasis on the priesthood of all believers, which not only encouraged Bible reading for all but also stressed literacy and education for all. Melanchthon, more than Luther, shaped educational theory as a leader at Wittenberg University. As the curriculum organizer and systematizer of theology, Melanchthon was known as the Praeceptor Germaniae (“Teacher of Germany”). His work brought about significant changes in the German educational system.

Post-Reformation educational models led to the rise of the modern university at the University of Halle (1694). Halle began as an educational center focused on serious study coupled with warmhearted piety, in reaction to the rationalistic scholasticism that characterized some aspects of the post-Reformation period. Soon, however, the educational agenda was dominated by Enlightenment priorities.13 Higher education for the past three hundred years has lived with the tensions of post-Enlightenment philosophies such as rationalism, empiricism, existentialism, phenomenology, Marxism, and recent radical feminist epistemologies. For these reasons, among others, Christian higher education needs to reclaim and advance the Christian intellectual tradition. The University of Halle provided the first example, of many that followed, where piety alone was unable in and of itself to sustain the essence of Christian higher education and the great tradition of Christian thinking.

Building on the Best of the Christian Tradition

As we have seen from our brief survey, our efforts to advance authentic Christian higher education are greatly shaped by those who have gone before us. These influences and influencers have not only shaped us but also reflect who we are. We recognize significant variety in our heritage, but we must not think that there is unlimited variety without boundaries or without a core. As Nathan Finn expounds so clearly in his chapter in this volume, we need to recognize that there is a core and there is a center to which we must hold. Coupled with the contributions found in the chapter by John Woodbridge, Finn’s insights lead us to acknowledge that there are nonnegotiables to our faith. Building on these recognitions, it is important for us to clarify our confessional commitments and to reappropriate the best of our evangelical heritage,14 and this requires us to know something about that heritage, which Brad Gundlach has so capably introduced in this volume.

The richness of the Christian tradition can provide guidance for the complex challenges facing Christian higher education at this time. We believe not only that an appeal to tradition15 is timely but also that it meets an important need because the secular culture in which we find ourselves is at best indifferent to the Christian faith and because the Christian world—at least in its more popular forms—tends to be confused about beliefs, heritage, and the tradition associated with the Christian faith.

The world in which we live, with its emphasis on diversity and plurality, may well be a creative setting for us to see what Thomas Oden refers to as a “paleo-orthodoxy” for the twenty-first century.16 Here we ground our unity not only in the biblical confession that “Jesus is Lord” but also in the great confessional tradition flowing from the early church councils. The so-called postmodern world could indeed become a rich context for recovering a classical view of the Christian tradition.17 The current educational emphasis on the interrelationship of all things allows us to speak intelligently of the Christian message historically and globally. Such historical confessions, though neither infallible nor completely sufficient for all contemporary challenges, can provide wisdom and guidance when seeking to balance the mandates for right Christian thinking, right Christian believing, and right Christian living.

At the heart of this calling is the need to prepare a generation of Christians to think Christianly, to engage the academy and the culture, to serve society, and to renew the connection with the church and its mission. To do so, the breadth and the depth of the Christian tradition will need to be reclaimed, renewed, revitalized, and revived for the good of Christian higher education.18

Confessional Foundations

Reconnecting with the great confessional tradition of the church will help us to avoid fundamentalist reductionism on the one hand and liberal revisionism on the other. Fundamentalist reductionism fails to understand that there are priorities or differences in the Christian faith. Fundamentalism often fails to distinguish between saying no to an inadequate confession of the deity of Christ and saying no to the wrong kind of movie. It fails to prioritize doctrines in a way consistent with the emphases of Scripture. Liberal revisionism, on the other hand, in its attempt to translate the Christian faith to connect with the culture, has often wound up revising the Christian faith instead of translating it.19 To borrow words from the apostle Paul, we are then left with “no gospel at all” (Gal. 1:7 NIV). So we learn from the apostle Paul, who was willing to address opponents coming from different directions in Galatia and Colossae, calling the churches back to the truth of the Christian faith.

As we reflect further on these important matters, let us take a brief look at the key commitments found in the Creed of Nicaea, a confessional statement shared by all Christian traditions.20 The Creed of Nicaea (325) was drafted to refute the claim that Jesus was the highest creation of God and thus different in essence from the Father. What we often refer to today as the Nicene Creed was most likely approved not at Nicaea in 325 but at Constantinople in 381. While articulating the importance of the unity of the Holy Trinity, it insisted that Christ was begotten from the Father before all time, declaring that Christ is of the same essence as the Father.21

When we contend today that Christian higher education must be distinctively Christ-centered education, we are in effect confessing that Jesus Christ, who was eternally the second person of the Trinity, sharing all the divine attributes, became fully human.22 Thus, to think of Christ- centeredness only in terms of personal piety or activism resulting from following some aspects of the teachings of Jesus, while important, will be inadequate.

A healthy future for Christian higher education must return to the past with the full affirmation that when we point to Jesus, we see the whole man Jesus and say that he is God. This is the great mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). It is necessary that Christ should be both God and man. Only as a man could he be the Redeemer for humanity; only as a sinless man could he fittingly die for others; only as God could his life, ministry, and redeeming death have infinite value and satisfy the demands of God so as to deliver others from death.

Any attempt to envision a faithful Christian higher education for the days ahead that is not tightly tethered to the great confessional tradition will most likely result in an educational model without a compass. The only way to counter the secular assumptions23 that shape so many sectors of higher education today is to confess that the exalted Christ, who spoke the world into being by his powerful word, is the providential Sustainer of all life (Col. 1:15–17; Heb. 1:2).

As we seek to bring the Christian faith to bear on the teaching and learning process in the work of distinctive Christ-centered higher education,24 our strategy must involve bringing these truths about Jesus Christ to bear on the great ideas of history as well as on the cultural and educational issues of our day.25 In doing so, our aim will be to adjust the cultural assumptions of our post-Christian context in light of God’s eternal truth. We, therefore, want to call for the work of higher education in the days ahead to take place through the lenses of the Nicene tradition that recognizes not only the Holy Trinity but also the transcendent, creating, sustaining, and self-disclosing Trinitarian God who has made humans in his image.

A Connection to the Churches

A renewed vision for Christian higher education must not only connect with the best of the Christian intellectual tradition and our confessional heritage but must also seek a purposeful connection with evangelical congregations. Evangelical colleges and universities are decidedly not churches, but they remain connected with the churches. James Burtchaell in his massive study The Dying of the Light surveyed dozens of institutions across various traditions, focusing on nineteenth- and twentieth-century examples.26 His important work has revealed how many institutions from various traditions have seen the light of the Christian faith die out on their campuses. Burtchaell may well have been wrong about some of the particulars in his research, but his big-picture thesis holds consistently across the traditions and the decades. The moment an institution began to lose its connection with the churches is the day the light started to disappear on the campus. Evangelical institutions, while not churches, are an extension of the churches, the academic arm of the kingdom of God.

High-quality teaching and scholarship will be recognized in the academy, and these educational efforts can be done without neglecting our connection with the church. In his 1990 statement Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in the latter part of the twentieth century, called for Catholic universities to reconnect with the heart of the church. While some may think that John Paul II is an unusual model for evangelicals, I believe that we can learn from our Roman Catholic friends and seek to connect evangelical institutions with the heart of the church. Our dream calls for Christian colleges and universities to be not only Christ centered but also church connected. In doing so, we also want to be connected with the great confessional tradition through the years, including the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian Definition (451), and the evangelical confessional heritage. While none of these confessional statements are infallible, all are informative and helpful guides for us. Historical awareness will help us avoid confusing what is merely a momentary expression from that which has enduring importance for the sake of the churches. Tom Cornman explores this topic further in his fine chapter.

Academic Freedom, Church Connectedness, and Our Confessional Commitments

Let us emphasize that in essentials of the Christian faith there is no place for compromise. Faith and trust are primary issues, and we stand firm in those areas. Sometimes we confuse primary issues and secondary issues. In secondary issues, and third- and fourth-level issues, we need mostly love and grace as we learn to disagree agreeably. We want to learn to love one another in spite of differences and to learn from those with whom we differ.

We fail the church and the work of Christian higher education when we fail to distinguish essential matters from nonessential ones. In essentials, faith and truth are primary, and we may not appeal to love or grace as an excuse to deny any essential aspect of Christian teaching.27 When we center the work of evangelical higher education on the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we build on the ultimate foundation. We need also to connect with the great Christian intellectual tradition of the church, which can provide insight into who we are and guidance for our future.

The challenge for us is to preserve and pass on the Christian tradition while encouraging honest intellectual inquiry. We need to encourage intellectual curiosity and find ways to pass on the Christian intellectual tradition while promoting serious intellectual engagement in the areas of teaching, research, and scholarship. There is no place for anti-intellectualism on evangelical campuses. Evangelical education is called to be academically rigorous, grounded in the confessional tradition, seeking to understand the great ideas of history, and engaging with today’s issues. Evangelical higher education has been called to reflect on and think about how to advance these commitments and to engage the challenging issues of the twenty-first century.28

Therefore, we recognize the place of academic freedom within a confessional context.29 We recognize that exploration across the disciplines is to be encouraged, but some things may not be advocated within confessional commitments that bind us together as educational communities. We want to encourage genuine exploration and serious research while recognizing that free inquiry, untethered from tradition or from the church, often results in the unbelieving skepticism that characterizes so much of higher education today. The directionless state that can be seen as we look across much of higher education is often found among many former church-related institutions that have become disconnected from the churches and their heritage. We need a renewed vision for evangelical higher education that will help us develop unifying principles for Christian thinking, founded on the tenet that all truth has its source in God, our Creator and Redeemer.30

As we do so, we will likely struggle with many issues because there are numerous matters that remain ambiguous, matters for which we still see through a glass darkly. Some questions will have to remain unanswered as we continue to struggle and wrestle together. Yet we envision a distinctive approach to higher education, different from the large majority of higher education institutions in the United States.

A Distinctive Vision for Evangelical Higher Education

The essays found in this volume are a part of the project that seeks to connect teaching, learning, and scholarship with evangelical theological commitments, doing so with the hope that we might, in Burtchaell’s words, keep the light burning at evangelical colleges and universities. To envision anything less would fall short of our calling as Christian scholars, teachers, and learners. We must not be naïve to the challenges that will be encountered along the way. Unfortunately, some in the churches will be satisfied with a minimal commitment to warmhearted piety that encourages campus Bible studies, kind relationships, and occasional mission trips. Certainly, we want to encourage and applaud such things but not as an encompassing vision for Christian higher education. Some of these things can be carried out on public university campuses among parachurch organizations. We want to see these things take place, but more importantly, we want to see evangelical institutions that are primarily concerned with Christian thinking and thinking Christianly, learning to think carefully, creatively, and critically, seeking to engage the academy and the culture. And as we do so, we need to be aware that some in both the academy and the culture will question the legitimacy of this project.

Evangelical higher education does not exist primarily to survive. Whether or not evangelical colleges and universities prosper is of less importance than their commitments to the distinctive mission of these institutions. We thus dream of evangelical campuses that are faithful to the lordship of Jesus Christ, that exemplify the Great Commandment, that seek justice and mercy and love, that demonstrate responsible freedom, that prioritize worship and service as central to all pursuits in life.31 Evangelical institutions must seek to build grace-filled communities that emphasize love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control32 as the virtues needed to create a caring Christian context where undergraduate and graduate education grounded in the conviction that all truth has its source in God can be offered. In sum, we hope to provide quality Christ-centered education that promotes excellence and character development in service to church and society.

A Focus on Students

We must constantly remind ourselves that we do what we do as Christian educators for the sake of the students. All activities, efforts, and programs, as we learn from the chapters by Felix Theonugraha and Taylor Worley in this volume, exist to serve the long-term interests of students in the spirit of Christian servanthood. The staff, faculty, and administration of evangelical institutions must seek to model servant leadership with the hope of developing a generation of students who themselves will be servant leaders.

We want to encourage student concentration in at least one field of learning, which will include students mastering the ability to express and articulate their own thoughts clearly while learning to appreciate, respect, understand, and evaluate the thoughts of others, resulting in the lifelong habit of learning that will prepare students for careers as well as for graduate and professional studies. Our goal is to prepare students for living a Christian life in contemporary society, to enable them to be kingdom citizens in our twenty-first-century world.

Student-life teams must seek to guide students in the development of priorities and practices that will contribute to their overall well-being and effectiveness intellectually, emotionally, physically, socially, and spiritually. Faculty have as their aim to stimulate students to think about issues of truth, values, and worldview, along with the questions of how subject matter bears on people’s lives, so that they are equipped for God-called vocation and service. Simultaneously, in our rapidly changing world we will need to continue exploring new educational delivery systems, given the economic challenges and the developing understandings of technology in the times in which we live.

Community and Christian Scholarship

We recognize that a commitment to rigorous and quality academics is best demonstrated by God-called evangelical faculty. Research should be encouraged in all fields, as David and Chrystal Ho Pao exemplify in their lives and as they write about in this volume. Still, classroom teaching, as capably noted by Donald Guthrie and Laurie Matthias in their essays in our shared project, must be prioritized and emphasized. Faculty in all disciplines, including librarians, should be encouraged to explore how the truth of the Christian faith bears on all disciplines, as our contributors in the middle section of this book seek to show. We want to affirm the Great Commandment (Matt. 22:37–39) as the guiding principle of Christian higher education as we seek to love God with our minds. This means that Christian higher-education institutions in the evangelical tradition cannot be content to display their Christian commitments merely with chapel services and required Bible classes. We desire to see students move toward a mature reflection of what the Christian faith means for every field of study. In doing so, we can help develop a grace-filled, convictional community of learning.

These commitments point to the constitutive belief that the world proceeded from a Creator by intelligent design and in that sense is a unified framework. We recognize that the affirmation of God as Creator is as important for a Christian worldview as the tenet of God as Redeemer. In so doing, we want to explore the implication of serious Christian thinking for all learning and living for a view of history, for international and intercultural competencies (as ably described by Peter Cha in his chapter), for stewardship of the environment, for technology, for sexuality and marriage, for the arts, for recreation, for concern for the persecuted church, for issues of religious freedom in this country and abroad, and for the global church around the world, as we learn from Bruce Ashford’s concluding chapter in this work.

All faculty members at evangelical institutions have the privilege and responsibility to pass on the Christian intellectual tradition as it informs and impacts all the various disciplines. We believe such a responsibility to teach, inform, and communicate these traditions is possible because all human beings, everywhere and at all times, are made in the image of God,33 as carefully articulated by John Kilner in his informative chapter. We believe this universality of humankind makes possible both teaching and learning.

Because we can think, relate, and communicate in understandable ways, since we are created in the image of God, we can creatively teach, learn, explore, and carry on research. We want to maintain that there is a complementary, and even necessary, place for teaching and scholarship. An evangelical institution, in common with other institutions of higher learning, must surely subordinate all other endeavors to the improvement of the mind in pursuit of truth. Yet a focus on the mind and the mastery of content, though primary, is not enough. We believe that character and faith development, in addition to guidance in professional competencies, are equally important. Furthermore, we maintain that the pursuit of truth is best undertaken within a community of learning that includes colleagues of the present and voices from the past, the communion of saints, which also attends to the moral, spiritual, physical, and social development of its students following the pattern of Jesus, who himself increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and humankind (Luke 2:52).

One of the things for which we dream as we envision faithful Christian academic communities involves the promoting of genuine Christian community and unity on our campuses. Just prior to his crucifixion, Jesus prayed for unity for his followers (John 17:21). The prayer was not only for Jesus’s immediate followers but also for Christians through the ages, which means his prayer still has application for us in our context. His prayer for believers today reflects the words of John 17, a prayer for unity and a prayer for truth, which brings a unique holiness and a holy uniqueness to Christ-centered academic communities.

In John 17:21–26, we read that Jesus prayed that his followers would experience and manifest a spiritual unity that exemplifies the oneness of the Father and the Son. In spite of our many differences, we belong to the same Lord and thus to each other. Yet far too often we are characterized by controversy, infighting, fragmentation, selfishness, and disunity.

We look not only to John 17 and Ephesians 4:1–6 but also to the Nicene tradition. Let us once again point to a future of Christian higher education characterized by oneness, holiness, universality, and apostolicity.34 We call for a universality that crosses all geographical, economic, racial, and ethnic lines. We appeal for a oneness that is founded on the person and work of Jesus Christ and the common salvation we share in him.

One of the things that authenticates the message of the gospel and our shared and collaborative work in Christian higher education is the way Christians love each other and live and serve together in harmony. It is this witness that our Lord wants and expects from us in the world so that the world may believe that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

Conclusion

As we envision a blessed future for the shared work of Christian higher education, we are in no way naïve to the multifaceted challenges and multilevel changes all around us: economic, technological, denominational, educational, and cultural. Our focus in this chapter and in this volume, however, is not on addressing all these issues. Rather, the contributors to this work have collaborated in an effort to focus on the central and foundational commitments needed to envision and sustain a faithful future for Christian higher education.

The challenges facing Christian colleges and universities cannot be neutralized simply by adding newer facilities, better campus-ministry opportunities, and improved student-life programs, as important as these things may be. Our twenty-first-century context must once again recognize the importance of serious Christian thinking and confessional orthodoxy as both necessary and appropriate for the well-being of Christian academic communities. We offer the Christian intellectual tradition to twenty-first-century Christ followers as a guide to truth, to that which is imaginatively compelling, emotionally engaging, aesthetically enhancing, and personally liberating.

We believe that the Christian faith, informed by scriptural interpretation, theology, philosophy, and history, has bearing on every subject and academic discipline. While at times the Christian’s research in any field might follow similar paths and methods as the secularists, doxology at both the beginning and ending of one’s teaching and research marks the works of believers from that of secularists. As George Marsden has observed, we recognize that some might consider our proposal “outrageous.”35

The pursuit of the greater glory of God remains rooted in a Christian worldview in which God can be encountered in the search for truth in every discipline.36 The application of the great Christian tradition will encourage members of Christian college and university communities to see their teaching, research, study, student formation, administrative service, and trustee guidance within the framework of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In these contexts, faithful Christian scholars will see their teaching and their scholarship as contributing to the unity of knowledge. Faculty, staff, and students will work together to enhance a love for learning that encourages a life of worship and service. The great tradition of Christian thinking helps all of us better see the relationship between the Christian faith and the role of reason, while encouraging Christ followers to seek truth and engage the culture,37 with a view toward strengthening the church and extending the kingdom of God.

The contributors to this volume are committed to a vision for Christian higher education that is unapologetically Christian and rigorously academic. It involves developing resources for serious Christian thinking and scholarship in all disciplines, not just theology, biblical studies, and philosophy. We believe the time is right to reconsider afresh this vision because of the challenges and disorder across the academic spectrum. The reality of the fallen world in which we live is magnified for us in day-to-day life through broken families, sexual confusion, conflicts between nations, and the racial and ethnic prejudice we observe all around us.

This vision helps us understand that there is a place for music and the arts because God is the God of creation and beauty. We recognize that the social sciences can make observations to strengthen society, families, and religious structures by recognizing the presence of the image of God in all men and women. Those who study economics can help address problems facing communities and society at large, as well as expand our awareness of how wealth is produced and good stewardship calls for it to be used. Political-philosophy scholars can strategize about ways to address issues of government, public policy, war, justice, and peace. Ethical challenges in business, education, and healthcare can be illuminated by reflection on the great tradition. The chapters by Greg Forster, Micah Watson, and Tim Smith amplify these themes.

Exploring every discipline from a confessional perspective—which affirms that “we believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth”—will both shape and sharpen our focus. The more we emphasize the pattern of Christian truth,38 the more important will its role become for teaching, learning, research, and scholarship. This proposal is rooted in the conviction that God, the source of all truth, has revealed himself fully in Jesus Christ (John 1:14, 18), and it is in our belief in the union of the divine and human in Jesus Christ that the unity of truth will ultimately be seen. What is needed is a renewed understanding and appreciation of the depth and breadth of the Christian intellectual tradition, with its commitments to the church’s historic confession of the Trinitarian God, and a recognition of the world and all subject matter as fully understandable only in relation to this Trinitarian God.39 While our approach to higher education values and prioritizes the life of the mind, it is also a holistic call for the engagement of head, heart, and hands.

It is our hope that the ideals and commitments called for in this chapter and expressed throughout this volume will not be culturally confined, for we believe that these are things that cannot be easily expunged without great peril to ourselves personally and to Christian institutions of higher education corporately, both in the present and in the future. In the midst of a confused culture and the postmodern ethos of our day, we need commitments that are firm but loving, clear but gracious, encouraging the people of God to be ready to respond to the numerous issues and challenges that will come our way, without getting drawn into every intramural squabble in the church or in the culture.40

New opportunities for partnership and collaboration need to pull us out of our insularity—particularly where we can serve together in social action, cultural engagement, religious freedom, and other matters involving the public square. We need to trust God to bring a fresh wind of his Spirit, to renew our confessional convictions, to strengthen our commitments to distinctively Christ-centered education, and to revitalize our connections with and service to the churches.

Let us pray that we can relate to one another in love and humility, bringing new life to our shared efforts in Christian higher education. We pray not only for renewed confessional convictions but also for a genuine orthopraxy that can be seen before a watching world,41 a world particularly in the Western Hemisphere that seemingly stands on the verge of giving up on the Christian faith. We trust that our collaborative efforts to advance distinctive Christian higher education in the days to come will bring forth fruit, will strengthen partnerships, alliances, and networks, and will extend the kingdom of God.

We invite our readers to join with us in asking God to renew our shared commitments to academic excellence in our teaching, our learning, our research, our scholarship, and our service, as well as in our personal discipleship and churchmanship. We gladly join hands together with those who desire to walk with us on this journey, seeking the good of all concerned as we serve together for the glory of our great God.

Questions for Further Reflection

1.  How will thinking carefully and Christianly about the relationship of faith, teaching, and learning influence the way you think about Christian colleges and universities?

2.  How do you think an attempt to reclaim the best of the confessional heritage and the Christian intellectual tradition might affect the way you understand Christian higher education?

3.  How might the truth of the incarnation of Jesus Christ inform your understanding of authentic Christian higher education?

4.  How does the Christian intellectual tradition shape and inform one’s understanding of the integration of faith and learning?

Sources for Further Study

Burtchaell, James Tunstead. The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998.

Dockery, David S., series editor. Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition. Projected 15 volumes. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012–.

———. Renewing Minds: Serving Church and Society through Christian Higher Education. Nashville: B&H, 2007.

Glanzer, Perry L., Nathan F. Alleman, and Todd C. Ream. Restoring the Soul of the University: Unifying Christian Higher Education in a Fragmented Age. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017.

Litfin, Duane. Conceiving the Christian College. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004.

Oden, Thomas C. The Rebirth of Orthodoxy: Signs of New Life in Christianity. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003.

Packer, J. I., and Thomas C. Oden. One Faith: The Evangelical Consensus. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

Towns, Elmer L., and Benjamin K. Forrest, eds. A Legacy of Religious Educators: Historical and Theological Introductions. Lynchburg, VA: Liberty University Press, 2016.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J., and Daniel J. Treier. Theology and the Mirror of Scripture: A Mere Evangelical Account. Studies in Christian Doctrine and Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015.

1. This introductory chapter reflects aspects of previous publications, which are used herein with permission of the publishers: David S. Dockery and Timothy George, The Great Tradition of Christian Thinking: A Student’s Guide, Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012); Dockery, ed., Faith and Learning: A Handbook for Christian Higher Education (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2012); Dockery, Renewing Minds: Serving Church and Society through Christian Higher Education (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2007); Dockery, Southern Baptist Consensus and Renewal (Nashville: B&H, 2008); Dockery and Trevin Wax, gen. eds., CSB Worldview Study Bible (Nashville: B&H, 2018); Dockery and Gregory A. Thornbury, eds. Shaping a Christian Worldview: The Foundation of Christian Higher Education (Nashville: Broadman, 2002); Dockery, “Toward a Future for Christian Higher Education: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future,” Christian Higher Education 15, nos. 1–2 (2016): 115–20 (https://www.tandfonline.com); Dockery, “Christian Higher Education in a Changing Cultural Landscape: Tradition as a Source for Renewal,” Faith and the Academy 1, no. 2 (2017): 27–30; Dockery, “The Thoughtful Christian,” Christ on Campus Initiative, ed. D. A. Carson and Scott M. Manetsch, accessed November 17, 2017, www.christoncampuscci.org/the-thoughtful-Christian.

2. See Dockery, Renewing Minds, 1–46.

3. See David S. Dockery, “Blending Baptist with Orthodox in the Christian University,” The Future of Baptist Higher Education, ed. Donald S. Schmeltekopf and Dianna M. Vitanza (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 83–100.

4. See Dockery, Renewing Minds, 73–94; David S. Dockery, Biblical Interpretation Then and Now: Contemporary Hermeneutics in the Light of the Early Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992), 82–86; also, R. C. Lilla, Clement of Alexandria: A Study of Christian Platonism and Gnosticism (London: Oxford University Press, 1971).

5. See Clement of Alexandria, Paidagogos; Protrepticus; Stromateis, in Fathers of the Second Century, vol. 2 of The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, Philip Schaff, and Henry Wace (1885; repr., Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994).

6. See Charles Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria (Oxford: Clarendon, 1886).

7. See Oliver O’Donovan and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan, eds., From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought, 100–1625 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 30–39; Eric F. Osborn, The Philosophy of Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975); James L. Kugel and Rowan A. Greer, Early Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 156–99.

8. See Paul Avis, ed., The History of Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988), 25–30.

9. See Mark W. Roche, The Intellectual Appeal of Catholicism and the Idea of a Catholic University (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003); John Mark Reynolds, When Athens Met Jerusalem: An Introduction to Classical and Christian Thought (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009).

10. See Joseph Wawrykow, “Thomas Aquinas,” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 842–43.

11. See Edward Farley, Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983); David H. Kelsey, To Understand God Truly: What’s Theological about a Theological School (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992).

12. See David S. Dockery, “The Foundation of Reformation Hermeneutics: A Fresh Look at Erasmus,” in Evangelical Hermeneutics, ed. Michael Bauman and David Hall (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1995); Elmer L. Towns and Benjamin K. Forrest, eds., A Legacy of Religious Educators: Historical and Theological Introductions (Lynchburg, VA: Liberty University Press, 2016).

13. See David S. Dockery, “New Testament Interpretation: A Historical Survey,” in New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, ed. David Alan Black and David S. Dockery (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1991), 41–72.

14. See David S. Dockery, “Evangelicalism: Past, Present, and Future,” Trinity Journal, n.s., 36, no. 1 (2015): 3–21.

15. See G. R. Evans, “Tradition,” in Fitzgerald, Augustine through the Ages, 842–43.

16. See Thomas C. Oden, The Rebirth of Orthodoxy: Signs of New Life in Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), 33–40.

17. See David S. Dockery, The Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement (Wheaton, IL: BridgePoint, 1995), 11–18.

18. See David S. Dockery, series editor, Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition, projected 15 vols. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012–); D. H. Williams, Evangelicals and Tradition: The Formative Influence of the Early Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2005); Stephen R. Holmes, Listening to the Past: The Place of Tradition in Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002).

19. See Alister E. McGrath, Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995).

20. See J. I. Packer and Thomas C. Oden, One Faith: The Evangelical Consensus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004).

21. See Timothy George, ed., Evangelicals and the Nicene Faith: Reclaiming the Apostolic Witness (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011).

22. See Donald G. Bloesch, Jesus Christ: Savior and Lord, Christian Foundations (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997).

23. See Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007); James K. A. Smith, How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014).