An Introduction to Christian Study Centers

Christian parents often face a dilemma as their children approach the college years: secular schools possess greater academic and social prestige, are (sometimes) more financially viable, and often provide better career options, yet the culture and educational philosophy of Christian colleges are far more attractive. It is worth setting aside the arguments and matters of wisdom that surround these decisions and reflect on the mere fact of this pervasive conundrum. Why does this situation even exist?

Among many others, George Marsden[i] and James Burtchaell[ii] have told the sad tale in much detail. It is a complex history, full of philosophical shifts and social upheavals that defy simple explanation. Yet most Christians can see the big picture: America’s foremost universities, though founded by devout believers, have steadily banished serious Christian thought, welcomed and incubated a host of secular ideologies, and become factories of deformation for young students. God’s common grace remains—there is still much genuine good to be found in these institutions. Nevertheless, the story is one of loss, and it is right to grieve the current state of education in America.  

Christian study centers are a specific response to this crisis. Since roughly the 1970s, Christians in the academy have sensed a need to form small institutions to reinvigorate Christian thought and fortify the church’s witness in such a key cultural space. Often located in a house on or near a secular campus, study centers combine hospitality and intellectual formation, with some also serving as a hub of Christian community for the entire campus. A distinct calling of study centers is to cultivate the gifts of Christian faculty, giving them an outlet for intellectual comradery as well as the opportunity to think and teach like Christians in the study center community. The thirty-five or so centers around the country are not monolithic, but if you need a picture: they are like Christian colleges in a food truck, or like theology departments in exile. They aspire, like Daniel and his friends, to excel in matters of wisdom and understanding in a foreign kingdom (Dan 1:20). As a director of a Christian study center, I see our mission as twofold: to promote Christian thought and provide Christian hospitality.

Promoting Christian Thought

In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis notes that a distinct pathology of our age is our obsession with progress—with the future—along with an inability to live in the present and be thankful for the past. This mentality, which enthralls the academy, is especially debilitating for Christian thought, for buried in our past are vast intellectual riches that supply the wisdom we need in the present. Thus, study centers are called to excavate the riches of Scripture and the Christian tradition, dispensing to students the depth and perspective needed to not just stand firm but to flourish at secular universities.

To give but one example of a needed perspective: Christianity has always been attacked for being irrational, immoral, and indefensible. Ever since Paul was mocked in Athens—whether it is Celsus in the second century, Porphyry in the third, Voltaire in the eighteenth, or Bertrand Russel in the twentieth—the charge is the same: Christianity cannot satisfy the mind of any serious person. This cherished myth cannot withstand even a little exposure to history. A small dose of Augustine, Anselm or Aquinas, a sample of Pascal, Kierkegaard, or Lewis is enough to dispel this fable. And these are not anomalies: from the very beginning, says Robert Louis Wilken, “Christian thinkers welcomed debate, appealed to evidence and experience, used reason to weight, judge, interpret, and explain what was held to be true … thinking was part of believing.”[iii]

Revitalizing this ethos of “faith seeking understanding” is vital. God is glorified—and the church strengthened—when Christian scholars do excellent work and make significant contributions in the academy. But it is also essential when Christian thought is fiercely resisted, when students are subjected to what some have called “intellectual vandalism”—in which academics dismantle a student’s sincere but fragile religious convictions and offer no positive vision to replace them. It is true this charge can be overplayed, and the form it takes may be more pitying dismissal than outright hostility, yet the phenomenon is real and can be devastating. If a good defense is crucial aspect of any conflict, then study centers are also called, like Apollos in Acts 18, to greatly help Christians through their ability to powerfully refute various attacks on the gospel.   

Providing Christian Hospitality

Life cannot be reduced to thought; neither can thought flourish in an isolated and impersonal environment. This is why Christian study centers focus on hospitality as a core aspect of their ministry. In fact, it could be argued that the greatest threat to the church is not mainly ideological but arises from our dehumanizing social ecosystems wrought by an obsession with technology. God’s voice is not so much contradicted as crowded out—we cannot sustain any attention on Scripture, the natural world, or other people—nor can we sit alone and simply wait for God in silence (Ps 62:1). Students need countercultural spaces that prioritize personal presence and display a more humble and human way of living. Shared meals, long conversations, and a love of learning for its own sake are small but powerful means to recover our humanity and sense the presence of God.

Conclusion

John Milton described the goal of learning as an effort “to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright.” Education has always been a struggle, but American Christians labor amidst an additional layer of rubble—an academy that has completely abandoned the vision of its Christian founders for a promethean alternative. Christian colleges and strong campus ministries remain essential to the health of the church. Yet study centers are uniquely positioned, if God so moves, to play a key role in the repair of American higher education.

Please pray for those of us who are called to this important ministry of intellectual discipleship on secular campuses. And if possible, stop by a center and see it for yourself. If you would like to learn more about the development of the Christian study center movement, I would recommend Charles Cotherman’s book To Think Christianly: A History of L’Abri, Regent College, and the Christian Study Center Movement (IVP Academic, 2020).  

References

[i] George Marsden, The Soul of the American University Revisited (Oxford University Press, 2021).

[ii] James Burtchaell, The Dying of the Light (Eerdmans Pub Co, 1998).

[iii] Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought (Yale University Press, 2005), 164.

Richard Mounce leads the South Carolina Study Center, a Christian study center at the University of South Carolina. He holds a Master of Divinity and is completing a PhD in Systematic Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He lives in Columbia, SC, with his wife and four children.