Three “Great” Priorities for Christ-Centered Higher Education, Part 3

NATHAN A. FINN 

Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of four blog posts. The material was originally presented at the fourth annual IACE Faculty Development Conference, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, May 22-24, 2024. You can read the first two posts here and here.

The Great Tradition is the second “great” priority that animates Christ-centered higher education. The Great Tradition, sometimes also called the Christian intellectual tradition, is the best of the church’s theological, ethical, and spiritual reflection over the past 2000 years.

The Great Tradition is anchored in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; it was summarized in the various versions of the regular fidei circulated in the early church, it was codified in the great ecumenical creeds of the Patristic era; its substance has continued to be affirmed by orthodox believers in every Christian tradition; its shape can vary somewhat as it is translated into different contexts among different people groups.

The Great Tradition is what Richard Baxter called “Catholick Christianity” or “mere Christianity.” C. S. Lewis famously picked up on the latter term and popularized it in the mid-twentieth century with his World War II radio broadcasts were published under the title Mere Christianity (1952).

IACE is an alliance of evangelical institutions. Though many pundits believe evangelicalism in the USA is primarily a political identity, I argue that evangelicals are at our best when we see ourselves as a renewal movement within the Great Tradition of orthodox Christianity. Evangelicalism is an interdenominational and trans-confessional movement, united primarily around a shared commitment to the gospel, a high view of biblical inspiration and authority, and the need to share the gospel with others.

As an example, I’m a Baptist who loves my own denominational tradition and even write sometimes about the importance of Baptist history, identity, and distinctives. But I also have great sympathy for the Augustinian theological tradition as it has been articulated by theologians such as Augustine, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, and J. I. Packer. Furthermore, I’ve been deeply shaped in my view of cultural witness and Christian mission by British Anglicans such as William Wilberforce, C. S. Lewis, John Stott, Michael Green, and Christopher Wright.  

Evangelical faculty members enter the river of the Great Tradition from their respective ecclesial or confessional “docks,” which we sincerely believe represent the Scriptures faithfully. However, it is important our students understand that our respective “boats” aren’t the only ones in the water. We are all Christians first, and because of this, we want to mine the depths of the Christian intellectual tradition, in all its glorious diversity across centuries and ethnicities and geographies, and bring it to bear in our teaching and scholarship.

If we are to approach the faculty task as Christian teachers and scholars, then we must articulate and sometimes reimagine our disciplines as part of the church’s Great Tradition. Here are some questions I think faculty can consider as they reflect on the implications of the Great Tradition for the task of Christian higher education:

· Where does your discipline most closely align with, or at least echo, orthodox Christian faith and practice?

· Are there Christian ideas that are, or at least have been, central to the story of your discipline?

· Are there places where your discipline has “lost the plot” and needs to stand corrected in its presuppositions, priorities, or implications?

· What sort of pedagogy helps students to think about your discipline Christianly?

· What does it look like when faith-and-learning integration is understood at least in part as putting your discipline in faithful dialog with Christian theology and ethics?

· What role should ongoing theological and ethical formation play in faculty development?

Nathan Finn is professor of Faith and Culture and executive director of the Institute for Transformational Leadership at North Greenville University.