Consider the question, “How can the resurrection of Jesus change higher education?” From a Christian standpoint, the resurrection of Jesus Christ has already changed higher education. In fact, the Christian vision for life and learning decisively inspired the idea of a university, starting in medieval Europe through cathedral and monastery schools. Without the resurrection, there is no force to the Christian worldview. As the Apostle wrote:
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures … And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins … But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 17, 20).
This is no small matter, as C. S. Lewis observed in God in the Dock: “One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.” If Christ rose from the dead, the foundation and fountain of Christianity, Christ is singularly accredited as Lord of history. To not follow him would be utter folly.
History and Religion
“Christianity sticks its neck out on history,” as noted historian Herbert Butterfield wrote. It is a historical religion par excellence. Its teaching is news, not just views, and certainly not mystical ruminations divorced from fact. The news is that Jesus died on a Roman cross, was buried, and three days later appeared in space-time history to many people over a forty-day period. No other religion is based on the resurrection of its divine founder. In Christian Apologetics, I offer two chapters defending the miracle of Christ’s resurrection against objections and according to the best reasoning and evidence. My conclusion is that the documents that support this claim are reliable and factual, and that Christianity cannot be explained without the resurrection of Jesus. A dead Messiah who stays dead cannot account for the doctrines, practices, or endurance of Christianity.
But how does the resurrection of Jesus pertain to higher education today?
Christianity is a religion of creed, confession, and education, since it affirms the Bible as God’s written communication to humankind. The knowledge of God and his ways is available through the Bible. Thus, its contents need to be translated into all languages and its truth explained, defended, and applied in every area of life. Christianity has thus fostered literacy around the world and has contributed to the life of learning in countless ways. The founding statements of Yale, Harvard, and Princeton all affirm the institution’s goal to make Christianity’s truth known to the world through its teaching.
What happened, given the secularization of higher education?
The historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus—and for the entire Christian worldview—hasn’t gone away because of the Enlightenment or because of secular trends in the West. Nietzsche, to the contrary, God is not dead—or even on life support. Several scientific arguments from cosmology and biology attest to a divine design, as Stephen Meyer has persuasively argued in Return of the God Hypothesis. A mindless universe of mere matter is just not up to that intelligent task. A host of Christian philosophers, such as J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, and other intellectuals have made the case for Christian theism at the highest academic levels.
A merely nominal Christian college or university—where mere lip service is given to biblical faith—should drop the name “Christian.”
Resurrection and Higher Education
As a Christian philosopher, I believe the resurrection of Jesus is a settled fact of history with eternal implications. For colleges and universities that confess the Christian creed, that means that all their curriculum should honor the reality of the resurrection and the worldview of Christianity in which it is best understood. A merely nominal Christian college or university—where mere lip service is given to biblical faith—should drop the name “Christian.” At Cornerstone University, where I teach, we endeavor to teach every subject from a Christian worldview, and we are not ashamed of it. But what of non-religious schools?
While state-sponsored universities should not advocate for any religion, given the establishment clause of the First Amendment, they can allow for teaching about the meaning and significance of Christianity in their curriculum, and they should not hinder the free speech of Christian faculty to express their religious convictions where appropriate. Sadly, secular schools usually attack Christianity as the source of nearly every problem in the West: racism, sexism, homophobia, and more.
What is omitted is that the Christian worldview motivated the university to exist in the first place and supports our most cherished values of human dignity, universal human rights, representative government, and more, as Tom Holland argues in Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World. Further, without the resurrection and the expansion of Christianity and Christian ideals in the West—and beyond—Christianity would not exist, and these values would not have come to define what civilization is or should be.
So, this Easter—or Resurrection Sunday—let us consider whether or not Christ rose from the dead and, if he did, what implications this should have for our institutions of higher learning.
Image: “The Resurrection of Our Lord” by Slices of Light on Flickr
I have long felt that we are on the cusp of another Great Awakening.
The first one, which became the intellectual underpinning of the American Revolution, had started with a Diphtheria epidemic in the 1730s, and I thought that Covid would start another one.
Education needs God…
“Sadly, secular schools usually attack Christianity as the source of nearly every problem in the West: racism, sexism, homophobia, and more.” As someone whose academic degrees are from secular universities, and whose professorial career has been spent at a state university, I think this is way over blown. Sure, there are a few professors in the social sciences and humanities who are guilty of this but it is by no means “usual.”
I should have also mentioned Alvin Plantinga as a Christian philosopher who defended the faith at high academic levels.
Great read. Thanks for sharing Dr. Groothuis!
Cardinal Newman’s book, The Idea of a University is still one of the best known and most cogent explorations of Christianity’s relationship with higher learning.