Christian Education (cont.)
Who We Are (cont.)
American Fundamentalist Practical Identity
We have an American Fundamentalist practical identity. Our common-sense realism encourages a balanced approach in peripheral theological matters that have divided orthodox Protestantism as well as a down-to-earth approach to the Christian life. Certain features of our Puritan heritage and of European pietism in general have given an introverted, mystical character to some Evangelicalism. Oddly coupled with this subjective “deeper life” inwardness is the emotional exuberance of Pentecostalism, with its emphasis on the experiential validation of truth.
These intuitional tendencies, too easily disregardful of doctrine, have merged in leftward evangelicalism with an intellectualism anxious to establish rational bases for faith and eager for the respect of liberal scholarship. Intuitionism and intellectualism have not been characteristic of historic American Fundamentalism, nor are they part of our defining identity. For our founder, Dr. Bob Jones Sr., success in the Christian life was largely a matter of obedience and good sense. Hence, our anti-rationalism and anti-charismaticism.
Liberal Arts Educational Identity
We have a liberal arts educational identity. After the turn of the last century, evangelicals began to found liberal arts colleges to provide a breadth of education comparable to what was available in secular institutions. They wanted a broader education for their young people than the Bible colleges could provide. Especially, they wanted an educational environment for their children where their faith would not come under attack.
The denominational liberal arts colleges had relaxed their founding beliefs and were embracing modernism. Our University charter reflects these concerns.
The general nature and object of the corporation shall be to conduct an institution of learning for the general education of youth in the essentials of culture and in the arts and sciences, giving special emphasis to the Christian religion and the ethics revealed in the Holy Scriptures. . . .
The governing assumptions of this opening statement are two:
- The first is that all truth is God’s truth and therefore that the pursuit of knowledge can be conducted in a way that honors the God of all truth.
- The second is that an acquaintance with a broad range of standard subject matters, including the most enduring of human intellectual and artistic achievements, makes the Christian more richly developed as a human being and therefore more attractive and valuable in the service of God.
Adverse to these values is the postmodern counterculture. Hence, our committed cultural traditionalism.
Concerns
These identities have raised a concern among people like us about the direction of public education. This direction is pervasively hostile to conservative Christian belief. It has borne fruit in the failing moral standards and general disorder in the public schools.
The grip of secular educational authorities on the content and purpose of state-run education has prompted Christians to educate their own young people in the lower grades and also in colleges and universities committed to their beliefs. Their purpose is not just the negative one of sheltering the students from spiritually destructive influences but also and more basically the positive one of forming their characters and lives after the example of Christ.
This concern sets us apart from the concerns of secular education, which tends to associate personal maturity with the disposition to question received ideas and to deny the possibility of certainty in the great questions of life. Our educational purpose is to nurture belief, not unbelief. The belief we desire to instill is not a naive untested credulity toward the truths of our faith but settled convictions justified by knowledge and experience as well as by the authority of Scripture. The contents of this belief are those age-old, simple but profound truths that have been the mainstay of Christians through the ages. The fountainhead of these convictions is an experiential knowledge of God from personal faith in the Savior. We may turn now to the biblical basis of our position.