Saturday, February 05, 2011

Denominational Colleges?

I read an interesting article in which several Christian college presidents were interviewed. The interviewer asked them if they are seeing an increase in students outside their denomination attending their colleges. Most said they did see a very marked increase. I thought about this a lot and would like to make the following observations.

First, taking the "con" side, I wonder if the students from other denominations understand and accept the college's statement of faith and follow it. Are the colleges finding that they are straying away from their statement of faith to "please" these other students?

On the other hand, taking the "pro" side, do the other students add a diversity? And is it too narrow-minded and exclusive to keep these students out?

My conclusion is that it isn't a bad idea to let them in but schools need to be careful that they don't drift too far from their original belief anchors. The case in point to me is Fuller Seminary which is about 20 minutes from me. I've watched Fuller since 1966 when I started dating "Fuller guys." I've watched a once-fantastic seminary collapse into nothingness. Fuller started as a nondenominational evangelical seminary. But so many voices began to compromise it. I think Fuller is a good example of what can happen when such a cross-section of students attend. In the "old" days, most evangelical students were on the same page but today that simply is not true. So, colleges and seminaries might need to rethink their admissions policies and voice clearly the doctrines that they expect their studnets to follow.

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