Online education is increasingly popular with Christians.  Christian parents aren’t stupid. They know that too many residential Christian colleges are not only failing to fulfill their biblical role, but are positively corrupting their young charges with the faddish -isms and ideologies of our secular age and charging an arm and a leg for the privilege. So Christian parents are taking their dollars and their children elsewhere. They’d rather have their kids undereducated online than maleducated and spiritually undone on campus. Thankfully, those aren’t their only two options.

According to a recent  Inside Higher Ed article, a number of Christian colleges and universities are booming online. For example, just a few years ago the late Jerry Falwell hoped Liberty U would eventually grow to 25,000 students, but now thanks to its online programs, Liberty boasts more than 40,000 students. Such growth is not necessarily something to pleased about.

The growth of online classes and enrollment at Christian institutions  indicates that Christians are choosing a form of education that stresses the downloading of  information. What is missing from online education is the formative-character of authentic Christian education (Eph. 6:4, Luke 6:40), as described in Smith’s book, Desiring the Kingdom. Online programs may add convenience and reduce costs for information acquisition, but they remain severely limited in their ability to give the personal mentoring Christian students need to grow spiritually and to mature in their Christian character and identity as biblically expected. As online programs grow, Christian institutions will find it increasingly difficult to hire spiritually qualified faculty whose Christian character we’d actually want our students to imitate.

New Saint Andrews limits the size of its faculty and student enrollment as one way to protect the inescapably personal character of Christian higher education. We place a premium on our faculty’s spiritual integrity and Christian character, because a student, when mature, will be like his teacher, according to Jesus (Luke 6:40)! If, as president, I can’t say with all honesty that I want my own children and grandchildren to be like our faculty, then I need to do some faculty housecleaning or find a new job. Until online education makes learning as personal as the face-to-face classroom/out of classroom experience, online programs won’t be something that Christians should flock to. The alternative to bad and expensive Christian colleges is not an inexpensive and impersonal information download. Jesus expects more from our teachers than that.