How Do Evangelical Colleges Keep the Faith? | Religion & Politics

In the past 100 years, American higher education has gone through profound changes. These shifts include a pronounced move toward secularism, a profusion of new students with help from the GI Bill, the growing inclusion of women, the gradual decline of segregation, the rise of campus activism, the skyrocketing popularity of collegiate sports, and the advent of online coursework, among many others. For state universities and secular private colleges, these changes have come alongside a variety of everyday institutional pressures. For evangelical and fundamentalist schools, they have come alongside both everyday pressures and the strict demands of worldview maintenance.

While researching his new book, Fundamentalist U: Keeping the Faith in American Higher Education, historian Adam Laats of Binghamton University sequestered himself in the archives of six evangelical and fundamentalist institutions around the country—Biola University, Bob Jones University, Gordon College, Liberty University, the Moody Bible Institute, and Wheaton College. When he emerged, he had learned a great deal about how these institutions navigate the many religious, cultural, political, and institutional challenges specific to their particular breed of American higher education. Eric C. Miller spoke with Laats about these schools, which continue to play an important role in American public life. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed. more…

Very interesting comments about Christian education in general. Of especial interest to us are observations concerning fundamentalist Christian education.

— dcsj