Ask the Pastor — What Should We Make of the Current Higher Education Scene?

Dear Pastor,

Can you elaborate on the concept that University academia is inherently flawed and anti-Christian? I have always noticed that the Christians I know that have been to University tend to be more political leaning in one way, more sympathetic to humanistic ideas, anti-death penalty, more sympathetic to homo ‘rights’ etc etc.

Obviously you can be a Christian and be extremely infected with worldly ideas…which Universities of course specialise in propagating. What would be the practical alternative in an ideal world?

Thanks in advance,

Felix

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Dear Felix,

Thank you for writing.

The modern University system is flawed and anti-Christian because, in the great percentages of cases, it is owned and operated by the Cultural Marxists. As such, when you attend a University you are paying top dollar to be propagandized into one form of Marxism or another. Christian parents who pay to send their children to University are shelling out 20K a year for the privilege of having their children indoctrinated against Christianity. Christian Universities and Colleges are usually the worst because they take the same doctrines and teachings and cover them with a thin patina coating of “Christianity,” thus convincing students that the Marxist faith is, in point of fact, the Christian faith. Because this is so, I wouldn’t send my dog to modern Christian Universities – Colleges, never mind God’s covenant seed.

Second, there is the whole student debt angle. Many students graduate University with house mortgage type debt and a lousy degree. This insures that they will remain controlled and ineffectual as they are beholden to what jobs they can find and as they will be so consumed with working to pay off their debt that they will likely not take the time to ever think for themselves. Once you’ve interacted with professional Academicians one easily begins to see why our church and culture is in the shape it is in.

However, Felix, this is not anti-intellectualism on my part. It is, rather, anti-humanist intellectualism on my part. It is simply the case that by in large Christian intellectualism is dead on the vine. Harry Blamires made this point over a generation ago in his book, “The Disappearance of the Christian Mind,”

“We are all caught up, entangled, in the lumbering day-to-day operations of a [social] machinery, working in many respects in the service of ends which we as Christians reject. This situation, the present [schizophrenic] situation of thousands of thinking Christians is the end product of a process that began the day Christians first decided to stop thinking Christianly in the interests of national harmony; the day when Christians first felt that the only way out of endless public discussion was to limit the operation of acute Christian awareness to the spheres of personal morality and spirituality.

From that point, the spheres of political, cultural, social, and commercial life became dominated by pragmatic and utilitarian thinking.”

The only way the Christian mind will be recovered is to not marinate our children’s minds in the paganism that is typical of Universities, Colleges, and Seminaries Christian or otherwise.

Third, there is the whole Frat house – whore house college experience which emphasizes College as a Summer camp – Animal house experience. Hardly healthy.

Yes, I fully realize Felix, that exceptions to all this exist but the exceptions are indeed exceptions. We are floating in a sea of Academic Humanism.

What are the alternatives …

1.) Autodidact
2.) Education by Extension (College Plus)

In college plus one can get the Bachelor’s degree without being indoctrinated.

3.) Forget formal education and become Entrepreneur.

One more point on this score that you did not ask about but I want to mention. Christians, in order to overcome this current situation, simply have to get over the whole idea of “accreditation.” Educational establishments like to tote that they are “accredited.” Christian needs to start asking, “Yes, but accredited by who?” You see, the point I’m making is to ask why Christians think it is important that their children attend schools accredited by the humanist enemy who wishes to destroy us. Consider Gordon College. Recently, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges’ Commission on Institutions of Higher Education considered whether Gordon College’s ban on “homosexual practice” runs contrary to its Commissions Standards for Accreditation.

Why would Gordon College care? If the Cultural Marxists don’t want to Accredit our schools that should be a reason for rejoicing. Christians, should they desire to return to Academic and Intellectual respectability, simply have to give up trying to curry the favor of Humanist Accreditation agencies.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

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