In Defense of an Evangelical Christian Education

Lately there have been a few blog posts cri­tiquing the notion of evan­gel­i­cal edu­ca­tion and draw­ing atten­tion to some of the prob­lem­atic aspects — and even the poten­tial futil­ity — of such an undertaking.

I agree that this is an impor­tant issue and that so-called Chris­t­ian Edu­ca­tion faces a unique set of sys­temic chal­lenges — but I’d like to respond to such cri­tiques with my per­sonal expe­ri­ence at Wheaton Col­lege. This isn’t meant to be a com­pre­hen­sive defense of evan­gel­i­cal edu­ca­tion; nor am I claim­ing that my expe­ri­ence was typ­i­cal. But my time at Wheaton cer­tainly isn’t con­sis­tent with the head down, blind­ers on brain­wash­ing that many seem to think nec­es­sar­ily takes place at Chris­t­ian insti­tu­tions of higher edu­ca­tion. For example:

• At Wheaton I learned about the Doc­u­men­tary Hypoth­e­sis, the Syn­op­tic Prob­lem and the Two-Source Hypoth­e­sis.
• At Wheaton I dis­cov­ered the world of tex­tual crit­i­cism and the work of Bruce Met­zger and Kurt Aland.
• At Wheaton I heard Bono speak about debt reduc­tion and the AIDS cri­sis in Africa.
• At Wheaton I heard Tony Cam­polo speak about Christianity’s oblig­a­tion to engage with issues of social justice.
• At Wheaton I met an openly gay Chris­t­ian for the first time.
• At Wheaton I reg­u­larly heard women preach and teach — with authority.
• At Wheaton I heard mean­ing­ful dia­logue between Mus­lims and Chris­tians.
• At Wheaton I was intro­duced to Fer­linghetti, Tarkovsky, Der­rida, O’Conner, Gadamer, Lam­ott, Berry, Fou­cault and Brân­cuşi, among many others.
• At Wheaton I learned Greek from Scott Hafe­mann, Old Tes­ta­ment from C. Has­sell Bul­lock, New Tes­ta­ment from Nor­man Erick­son, Art His­tory from John Wal­ford, Paint­ing and draw­ing from Joel Sheesley and Tim Lowly, Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture from Roger Lundin, Leland Ryken, Sharon Coolidge and Jef­fry Davis, Phi­los­o­phy from Bruce Ben­son and Robert O’Connor, Writ­ing from Jill Peláez Baum­gaert­ner and Sharon Halvorsen Schreck, Polit­i­cal Sci­ence from Bud Kell­st­edt and a whole lot more that has sadly (for the most part) faded into past.
• At Wheaton I attended lec­tures and mes­sages given by C. Everett Koop, Arthur Holmes, John Stott, John Polk­ing­horne, Alis­ter McGrath J.I. Packer and many other notable Chris­t­ian thinkers.
• At Wheaton I heard Wyn­ton Marsalis and the JLCO per­form and Li-Young Lee read poetry.
• At Wheaton I walked in the foot­steps of Rob Bell, Bart Ehrman, William Lane Craig, Luci Shaw, Jim McDer­mott, Mark Noll and Wes Craven.
• At Wheaton I learned to think crit­i­cally and to freely engage with dif­fer­ing ideas and viewpoints.

All of this isn’t meant to express an arbi­trary alle­giance to my alma mater. There are many trou­bling issues that con­tinue to foment beneath the placid sur­face of “inte­grated faith and learn­ing” at Wheaton. But, though Wheaton is far from being a bas­tion of lib­er­al­ism — or even an out­post of pro­gres­sivism — it nev­er­the­less was, for me at least, an impor­tant way­point in my devel­op­ment as a Chris­t­ian and as a person.

Related posts:

Follow-Up: Can you be a Chris­t­ian and still believe … ? Defin­ing Evan­gel­i­cal Musi­cal His­tory in the Mak­ing Why I’m Not A Red Let­ter Chris­t­ian A Chris­t­ian Response To Tragedy

Tagged as: evangelical education, wheaton college