xii THE FAITHFUL READER Theology meshes well with other areas of a liberal arts curriculum in a Christian university. Christian higher education should be marked with distinctive characteristics including a central role for biblical revelation and situating an academic’s own discipline with a theological framework. Brad Green writes on a commitment to biblical revelation, “At the heart of Christian higher education is the affirmation that God has spoken. The God of Scripture is a God who has revealed himself. This is a crucial affirmation, not a peripheral one, and a biblical doctrine of revelation has profound implications for a Christian understanding of education.”3 Furthermore, a theological framework must be constructed by drawing on a historical confessional tradition (e.g., Augsburg, Westminster, etc.) or an original document (e.g., Cedarville University’s Doctrinal Statement). The academic’s specific discipline is then engaged within those doctrinal commitments with the goal of a distinctly Christian body of knowledge. David Wells speaks of this intersection of theology and academic discipline as “coherence,” he contends for: a different kind of faculty… who, regardless of their discipline, are able to think theologically and to think of their own discipline within a larger theological frame. What is needed are not more specialists to break down further the coherence of what is learned, but for those who can once again build up this coherence within their own detailed knowledge of their specific field. The only way this coherence will be found again is if it is built upon biblical and theological foundations.4 In 1950, S. T. Ludwig made an impassioned plea for the role of the “church college” in a prospering society. He critiqued the “gaudy” initiatives that many churches and Christians attempt to influence society. Instead, he argued that “it is incumbent upon the church college to help establish a Christian pattern for the future that will raise the level of life and make our 3 Brad Green, “Theological and Philosophical Foundations” in David Dockery and Gregory Alan Thornbury (eds.), Shaping a Christian Worldview: The Foundations of Christian Higher Education, (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2002), 73. 4 David Wells, “Educating for a Countercultural Spirituality” in D. G. Hart and R. Albert Mohler (eds.), Theological Education in the Evangelical Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), 298–99.
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