The New Saint Andrews College Vision

A Classical & Christian Approach to Education

In the fullness of time, during the reign of Caesar Augustus, Jesus Christ was born in Palestine. He ministered to a people saturated in Hebrew traditions, who spoke Greek and embraced Greek thought-forms, and who lived under the dominion of Rome and its law. He was crucified on a Roman cross outside Jerusalem, David's city, and He rose on the third day according to the Hebrew Scriptures.

Christianity was established in this setting, and in the providence of God, it grew to maturity in the West. For this reason, New Saint Andrews College teaches and emphasizes the languages, history, and culture of classical antiquity.

The world of classical antiquity was that into which the Gospel was introduced. It was the world that was transformed by that Gospel and grew into what we call Western Civilization. That Gospel is part of our culture's heritage, along with the Western forms of rebellion that vainly strive against it. This cultural war—between what Augustine described as the City of God and the City of Man—continues down to our own day. For this reason, New Saint Andrews College teaches and emphasizes the history, philosophy, literature, and culture of Western Civilization.

Jesus Christ is Lord over this cultural war; He is the Lord of the West, and Lord of the whole world (Matt. 28:18). He is the Word of God, the One in whom dwell all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3). Every thought, including every academic thought, must be taken captive to Him (2 Cor. 10:5).

For this reason, New Saint Andrews College teaches and emphasizes, above all else, a right understanding of Christ's lordship over every area of human endeavor. This understanding demands careful instruction in discerning the antithesis between truth and falsehood, between the City of God and the City of Man. Cultivating such discernment calls for focused hard work. It requires exposure to influential ideas, watershed arguments, and primary texts in history, philosophy, literature, and especially, theology. For this reason, New Saint Andrews College employs a rigorous pedagogy centered on reading and student- instructor interaction with what is read.

For these reasons, New Saint Andrews is a classical and Christian college committed by policy and practice to the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness through the rigorous study of classical antiquity, Western civilization, Christian culture, and the liberal arts in the light and freedom of the Gospel and under the sovereign authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.

New Saint Andrews understands this confessional and educational commitment as a foundation for academic freedom, not a restriction on it. The College's commitment to the promotion and protection of liberty of thought and free expression is not only consistent with the College's Christian worldview, but it cannot be consistently maintained without it. Further, the College does not see itself as distinct from other academic institutions in possessing such a faith commitment; every coherent institution has a body of ultimate commitments. The question is not whether New Saint Andrews defines academic freedom in line with an orthodoxy, but rather which orthodoxy will serve this foundational role. We believe that true liberal learning is encouraged and academic freedom is advanced when an institution declares its faith openly and honestly rather than by trying to keep them simultaneously operative and hidden.

At New Saint Andrews, the Triune God revealed in the Bible is our ultimate source and standard of truth, beauty, goodness, liberty, and freedom. Without Him, truth and freedom dissolve into relativism and chaos. We believe historic, biblical Christianity, as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, to be the only basis on which the search for truth and the exercise of liberty are meaningful or possible. Liberty is not the absence of the rule of law, but it is found in keeping the letter and spirit of the Law of God: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. 3:17). For this reason, the College encourages genuine liberal education and protects an environment of genuine liberty of thought and expression, within the parameters of the College's Statement of Faith (for faculty and administrators) and the Student Code of Conduct (for students).

For a summary of the College's mission and objectives, click here.

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