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I recently went to a planning meeting to discuss setting up a Christian University in the UK.
If anyone is interested in helping in working towards establishing a Christian university, then there are contact details on this website.
http://www.christianuniversity.org.uk/
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”—Proverbs 9:10
Don Carson has written an article “Can There Be a Christian University?”
http://s3.amazonaws.com/tgc-documents/carson/1997_can_there_be_a_Christian_university.pdf
Below is an a summary of some of the main points in the article.
“Vision
I shall proceed by articulating a number of theses.
(1) A university is a tertiary-level institution devoted to study and education in a plurality of fields at both undergraduate and graduate levels, controlled by some unifying vision....
(2) A Christian university is God-centered in the structure of its thinking and in the establishment of its priorities, cheerfully pledging allegiance to the Christian revelation, and in particular the focal point of that revelation, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the gospel he has proclaimed....
(3) A Christian university is passionately committed to the formation and maintenance of a Christian worldview....
(4) Because Christians recognize their finiteness and their sinful minds, the Christian university is called, whatever its prophetic voice, to humility of mind and the kind of communal care that fosters integrity and candor....
(5) Because of its God-centeredness, the Christian university will recognize that it is beholden to the church, to the world, and to the God who inhabits eternity…
(6) Because of its God-centeredness, the Christian university seeks to maintain a tension between a world-wide openness on the one hand, and cultural integrity and sensitivity at the local level on the other....
(7) Within the vision of the Christian university already laid out, it is entirely appropriate to provide both liberal arts education and professional training....
(8) A Christian university will rigorously reflect on academic feedom and confessional fidelity....
Some Priorities
(1) Teach the Bible.
(2) Teach the Bible worldviewishly
(3) Pursue excellence.
(4) Reflect hard and often on how to preserve the institution. The list of Christian universities that have over time become something quite different is depressing
(i) Develop a tradition of a theologically and practically informed Board
(ii) Chief academic officers responsible for hiring faculty must themselves be vetted in the most penetrating ways, not only for their own orthodoxy, but for their tolerances.
(iii) Encourage candor and integrity
(iv) Several studies have shown that faculty members have often been far less in agreement with the statement of faith they signed than one might have thought from the signature itself.
(v) Ensure that at least some of the top administrators are theologically informed orthodox, and current.
(vi) Christian universities with church-based connections have a variety of structural connections they may adopt that would enhance fidelity.
(vii) Pursue faculty members who have not only avowed agreement with the university’s position, but who delight in Scripture, and who are excited about the possibility of studying and teaching in an environment that takes Scripture seriously and tries to think worldviewishly.
(viii) In the course of time, bring together within the university scholars from diverse backgrounds to work out together not only what Scripture says on certain matters, but how what it says must impact this or that discipline.
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I previously started a topic on Christian Schools
http://www.affinity.org.uk/community/viewthread/106/
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