What They're Saying

A Christian University

“Today there is an intense interest, almost an obsession some would say, in diversity and pluralism. Within the worlds of higher education, a Christian university serves the great good of diversity and pluralism by being a different kind of university. It does not mimic the false pluralism and diversity that pretends our deepest differences make no difference. Rather, it engages within the bond of civility the differences that make the deepest difference.

“Today the Christian university is in crisis. At least in many institutions, there is a dying of the light. The crisis is often described as a crisis of secularization. But that, I would suggest , is not quite right. The secular, the saeculum, is the world of God’s creation and redeeming love. The crisis of the Christian university is more accurately described as a crisis created by the ambition to imitate other kinds of universities that false claim to be universities pure and simple. It is a crisis created by competing to belong to the second tier, or even the third tier, of schools that do not aspire to be Christian universities. It is a crisis created by envying excellence divorced from truth. Enough can never be said in favor of excellence, but it is small comfort for a Christian university to be recognized as being moderately good at being what it did not set out to be in the first place.

“The crisis is most accurately described, I believe, as a crisis of faith. The question that those who lead a Christian university must answer, and answer again every day, is whether the Christian proposal limits or illumines the university’s calling to seek and to serve veritas–to seek and to serve the truth.”

Richard John Neuhaus, “A University of a Particular Kind,” First Things (April 2007), 34-35.