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An Introduction to the College's Classical Christian Vision
Roy Alden Atwood, Ph.D.
President and Senior Fellow of Humanities
Welcome to New Saint Andrews, a classical and Christian college, enjoying its 14th academic year with its 2007-2008 classes.
This year marks another important step forward in our College's short history and in the reformation of Christian higher education. Building upon our strengths and singular focus on classical Christian education at the undergraduate level, the College has launched two new graduate programs in Trinitiarian Theology & Culture and Classical Christian Studies. These new Master's level programs provide opportunities for graduate students to specialize in these fields of study so strategic for the advancement of the kingdom of God and to work closely with some of the leading scholar-teachers in these fields. These new graduate programs at New Saint Andrews also provide a unique opportunity for those holding or seeking leadership positions in the church or in classical education to experience advanced theology and classical Christian studies in the rigorous and inspiring climate of our Christian academic community. And to top it off, the new Master's programs are under the able leadership of Dr. Peter Leithart, the College's Dean of Graduate Studies.
Both the undergraduate and graduate programs at New Saint Andrews grow out of our vision for the reformation of Christian higher education. Rather than follow today's dominant paradigm which actually grew out of a radical break with the Christian academic tradition extending back to the founding of the first universities in medieval Europe, New Saint Andrews seeks to build on that tradition.
The Classical Christian Tradition
Higher education was universally classical and Christian prior to the late 19th century. For nearly a millennium classical Christian colleges and universities shaped young adults’ lives and characters through personal mentoring with godly professors and rigorous academic study. Classical Christian higher education tutored men and women in the Christian worldview and immersed them thoroughly in the Scriptures and the great works of Western civilization, which had been radically transformed by the Gospel.
After completing their undergraduate studies, generations of classically educated Christian graduates went on to teach or labor in various callings, to specialize or “master” various professions or disciplines with further study (hence a Master’s degree and the need for our new graduate program), or to pursue vocational training through apprenticeships with reputable Christian craftsmen, businessmen, and professionals. This classical Christian academic tradition nurtured virtually every great Christian scholar, civic leader, and pastor from Augustine to Kuyper.
The Modern Secular Academic Paradigm
The Reformers of the 16th century church like Luther and Calvin did not consider the church utterly corrupt and beyond restoration, but believed they were calling the church to repentence and revival, calling her back to a more biblical way of life. The "radical Reformers" (associated with the Anabaptist tradition), however, wanted to start over from scratch, from zero, believing the church had virtually died in the Middle Ages. In education, Reformed Protestants held on to the classical Christian model, with minor modifications along the way, that had nurtured the church fathers. It was not until the late 19th century, that a "radical Reformation" of education began among secularists who rejected the classical Christian heritage and wanted to establish education solely on new, secular "Enlightenment" principles, starting from scratch, starting from zero.
America formally started to abandon its classical Christian heritage in 1862 with passage of the Morrill Act, which established federally funded land-grant universities. These novel government institutions replaced classical Christian education with a new paradigm built on supposedly religiously neutral vocational-technical training at the undergraduate level. And the “modern” secular university was born.
Institutions caught in the grip of this new paradigm—preoccupied with vocational-technical training, degree choice, paper credentials, dormitories, intercollegiate athletics, recreational facilities, and government financial aid—soon found their academic standards, spiritual integrity, and student morals plummeting. Colleges pressured students to choose career paths prematurely and provided little or no spiritual or intellectual preparation to face a culture increasingly hostile to the Christian faith. Not surprisingly, many historically Christian colleges drawn into the vortex of the new paradigm ended up being apostate longer than they were faithful. And the decline of higher education, not just Christian higher education, was on.
Today, academic standards have fallen so far that most graduates of our best classical schools—good as they are—and even of our best universities today could not meet the basic admissions requirements of the classical Christian colleges of the 18th or 19th centuries.
Reforming Christian Higher Education
The academic "radical Reformation's" abandonment of the classical Christian paradigm of education has left the church and the academy impoverished. New Saint Andrews is therefore committed to the reformation of Christian higher education, to recovering the classical Christian heritage that served the church faithfullly for hundreds of years. We believe the reformation and revival of the classical Christian paradigm, with its high academic standards, strong emphasis on Christian character and the "paideia of the Lord," and biblical understanding of Christian vocation, will restore vitality and integrity to Christian scholarship and to the church. As an academic institution, the College devotes singular attention to providing a deep and broad classical liberal arts education from a Trinitarian worldview that will prepare students for lives of faithful service in every sphere, every calling, every vocatio.
• Because a student becomes like his teacher, our professors must be well qualified, with personal integrity, spiritual maturity, good standing in the church, a love of students, and excellent academic and professional credentials and experience.
• Because education is not an impersonal transfer of data, but a personal, comprehensive nurturing of a way of life, our approach to student learning involves a close-knit, small group environment with a limited number of students and faculty supported by several strong churches and a lively community.
• Because dorms are notorious breeding grounds for immaturity, irresponsibility, and sexual sin, we refuse to build dorms, and instead encourage students to board with Christian families or to share apartments with fellow students as responsible, accountable adult members of the wider community.
• Because recreation and sports have become idols in our day and serious distractions to student learning (though bodily exercise still profits a little), our college concentrates exclusively on education, and welcomes individuals, families, and communities to organize sports and recreation activities as they wish.
• And because all our vocations are simply too important for mere training, we give our students the firm foundation of a rigorous classical Christian college education that is an essential prerequisite to the pursuit of advanced studies or apprenticeship with a respected Christian professional mentor, and to lifelong professional leadership (not just an entry level job).
In short, New Saint Andrews College is a classical Christian college devoted to reforming Christian higher education and breaking free from the dominant secular paradigm. We can’t promise students jobs when they graduate (and neither can voc-tech schools, of course), but we do promise to prepare them to be intellectually, spiritually, and culturally faithful spouses, parents, citizens, workers, and church members serving in Christ’s Kingdom for generations to come. That has always been the higher calling of Christian higher education—and of New Saint Andrews.
A True Classical Christian College
However, the idea of a classical Christian college requires additional explanation today.
New Saint Andrews is first and foremost a Christian college uncompromisingly devoted to the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness in the light of God’s infallible Word—the ultimate fount of knowledge and wisdom. The College embraces the historic Christian faith, summarized in the great creeds and confessions of the Protestant Reformation. New Saint Andrews teaches that every book, class, student, instructor, and social event—everything we do and think—is subject to the sovereign rule of the Lord Jesus Christ. Education that isn’t Christian to the bone and lived out faithfully in the details of our lives is just so much head-stuffing in the name of the state or secular science or some other idol of our day. For that reason, New Saint Andrews is dedicated to being a Christian college where the historic, biblical faith is embraced as a comprehensive, festive way of life for all areas of life.
New Saint Andrews is also a classical college. The College offers a curriculum and pedagogy rooted in the biblical and classical worlds, refined by the Christian schools and earliest universities of Medieval Europe, and revered by colleges and universities in America until the end of the 19th century. New Saint Andrews, like all the great colleges prior to their corruption by modern philosophies of education and their confusion of vocational-technical training for genuine education, offers only the classical liberal arts at the undergraduate level. New Saint Andrews’ time-honored curriculum concentrates on the classical languages, literature, history, theology, philosophy, and music of Western culture, which is where, in the providence of God, Christianity arose and grew to maturity. And our graduate programs are similarly rooted in this classical Christian tradition in theology and the liberal arts. New Saint Andrews is therefore devoted to the study of the West’s classical heritage from a Christian worldview and is, in this sense, a classical college.
And New Saint Andrews is a true college. Our close-knit community of Christian scholar-colleagues share a common biblical foundation, academic vision, and religious worldview. Unlike secular colleges or universities where paper credentials determine the qualifications of the faculty, and where professors share little more than office space, New Saint Andrews is defined by the character and common Christian vision of its faculty, united by its belief in the integration of all knowledge in Christ, and driven by its zeal for reformation in all of life under our Triune Creator and Redeemer. Unlike enrollment-driven colleges, our faculty members define the size and scope of the College. Each year the New Saint Andrews invites a limited number of new students to join our faculty in the pursuit of truth, beauty and goodness. We want the College to be characterized by its close knit, personal community of Christians diligently pursuing biblical wisdom and knowledge. So our classes--and the College--are small by design and distinguished by voluminous reading, lively discussion, and iron-sharpening-iron challenges. The College is also part of a larger, vibrant church community in Moscow blessed with faithful families and gifted individuals. In this sense, New Saint Andrews is a true classical and Christian college.
Welcome to New Saint Andrews
So welcome to New Saint Andrews. We invite you to visit the College through the pages of this web site and to visit in person any time (for information about directions, transportation, or lodging link to Visiting the College here). We extend a special invitation to all prospective students and their families to visit during our fall or spring Prospective Student Weekends, designed to give you the fullest possible picture of life at New Saint Andrews.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please write us at info@nsa.edu or call at 208-882-1566.
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