“There is an enormous vacuum where until a few decades ago there was the substance of education. And with what is that vacuum filled: it is filled with the elective, eclectic, the specialized, the accidental, and incidental improvisations and spontaneous curiosities of teachers and students. There is no common faith, no common body of principle, no common moral and intellectual discipline. Yet the graduates of these modern schools are expected to have a social conscience. They are expected to arrive by discussion at common purposes. When one realizes that they have no common culture, is it astounding that they have no common purpose? That they worship false gods? That only in war do they unite? That in the fierce struggle for existence they are tearing Western society to pieces?”

Walter Lippmann
Journalist, Columnist, Political Commentator (1889-1974)
Pulitzer Prize Winner (1958, 1962), Harvard graduate (1909)
Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science,  1940

My friend and former colleague, Professor Johannes Froneman, at what is now known as North West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa, has co-authored an article on the demise of Christian higher education at his institution. While the history of Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education is tangled up with the politics of apartheid (little in South Africa is not), the decision to “kill” this major Christian university had more to do with leftist ideology and power politics than any attempt to correct former injustices or broaden access to a publicly funded institution. And for Christian institutions in North America, the tragic story of the loss of the Christian character of Potchefstroom-North West University is a good reminder how government funding has a way of turning from “helping the kids” to killing an institution’s soul. Read more »

I’ve told many prospective student’s parents who are considering sending their children to Behemoth Pagan U for career training (and ideological purification) that higher education is nothing, nothing, like they may have experienced in their youth.  Confirmation of that fact is supplied in spades in a post by my friend over at Right Mind. This post should be forwarded to every family with children approaching college age, but especially those who don’t think universities are brutal religious battlegrounds. Education is a religious act. It is about giving direction to the hearts and minds and souls of the next generation. Parents who think higher education is just about career preparation have already lost the war. And the likelihood is that they’ll lose their children, too. Read more »

Watch a video of New Saint Andrews College’s 17th Convocation

The  new academic year at New Saint Andrews College began with a bang last weekend (August 13-15)! We had a delightful “Welcome Weekend” with student orientation on Friday, Convocation Saturday morning, and an all-student-family-faculty-staff picnic Saturday afternoon. The College’s alumni also hosted a dessert social Saturday evening. Then gathering together for worship on the Lord’s Day at Christ Church and Trinity Reformed Church just brought the greater mission and vision of Christian higher education into sharper focus for all of us in a glorious way. It was all quite a Read more »