Spotlight: The Great Divide (Christian University Quotes)
March 21, 2007
Why I think Trinity Western has not done a good job [as a Christian university] is because it has this idea that we know it all. God has given us revelation, we’re reading the scriptures correctly—no questions about that— and the bible is basically the ‘fallen-from-the-sky’ manual for right living. And, therefore, what we really should do as a Christian university is get people into the bible, suck all subject matter into the bible… not realizing that there may be other views of non-Christians that are as good or better because they have also been given reason by God. – Jens Zimmermann, English Prof
When I think of a CU as a safe place, I’m not talking about a place where your peers aren’t screwing everyone and getting drunk every night. I have a vision of a CU as a safe place where students can come and receive the benefit of wisdom from Christian academics who have wrestled and developed considered views about what it means to be an engaged, intellectual, authentic Christian. – Myron Penner, PHIL Prof
“I think the ideal Christian university is one that will send students away with a compulsion to embody to become the Kingdom of God, for people to walk with the sense that training as a chemist or a nurse can be a display of God’s glory. We need to ask ourselves, where does my passion fit into the purposes of God?” - Tim McCarthy, Student Ministries
I think Christian universities are unlike most universities because we’re not just concerned with competence, we’re concerned with character. And yet that’s not enough. The university, in working with students lives, needs to help students, with ever increasing competence and ever deepening character, to find their calling in life, and then make a commitment to something. – Jonathan Raymond
At the heart of the university enterprise is asking and pursuing the question, “why?” And I think that the best Christian universities are like the best secular universities in that both are equally committed to pursuing the question, ‘why?’ – Myron Penner, PHIL Prof
Professors have challenged me to ask questions rather than just blindly accept what I grew up with. However, instead of hindering my faith, asking these questions has helped me to more fully understand what I believe and why I believe it. - student
“I would see the ideal university very much in line with Dr. Raymond’s statement ‘higher, higher university’ with all the best of traditional research, transmission of knolwedge, but it is unique because it is critiqued from a Christian worldview. We see our scholarship an life of our community in light of our faith and understand truth about God and truth about ourselves from this point of view.”-Rob Rhea, Student Ministries
Because Trinity Western not steeped heavily in one specific tradition, there is a freedom to explore and appreciate the differences and similarities of the various sects of Christianity. I think Trinity does a wonderful justice to providing a Christian education without “shoving it down your throat.” -student
Now you go...
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