Educational Integrity: The Integration of Faith and Learning

Introduction

Evangelical scholars frequently use the phrase “the integration of faith and learning” to articulate a distinctively Christian approach to the various academic disciplines. Frank Gaebelein likely coined the term in the 1950s, though it was longtime Wheaton College philosopher Arthur Holmes who helped to popularize the phrase about two decades later in his classic work The Idea of a Christian College (1975).[1] There has never been a uniform definition of this phrase, nor a clear consensus on how to integrate faith and learning. A half-century ago, Holmes identified four different ways to define faith-learning integration.[2] The landscape has only become more complicated since then. Despite nuances, “the integration of faith and learning” remains arguably the most common way for evangelical educators to speak of our unique task, often coupled with the related theme of Christian worldview formation. 

When the International Alliance for Christian Education (IACE) launched this journal in 2023, we settled on the name Integration: A Journal of Faith and Learning. This is a topic about which we have strong convictions. David has been speaking and writing on the integration of faith and learning for much of his career, and especially since the time he became a university president in the mid-1990s. Nathan has been speaking and writing on this topic for nearly fifteen years, and his views on this subject have been shaped significantly by those of David. We are both theologians by training, and we feel that part of our respective callings is to frame the task of Christian higher education in light of Scripture and the best of the Christian intellectual tradition.[3]

In this essay, we want to offer an account of the integration of faith and learning. Our desire is not necessarily to say anything new on this topic, but rather to define what we mean by this debated phrase and commend integration as an enduringly faithful model for Christ-centered educators. As we do so, we will periodically draw upon our past writings on this topic, restating them here for a fresh audience. Our hope is that this essay is a useful resource, especially for new faculty and administrators who are wrestling with how to think Christianly about the task of higher education.

A Contested Concept

Though the integration of faith and learning is a common emphasis in evangelical higher education, its embrace is by no means universal. Over the past two decades, the concept has been debated regularly in conferences, books, and essays in scholarly journals.[4] Patrick Allen and Ken Badley note the debate is complicated because the integration of faith and learning is both a family of models as well as an ill-defined slogan that is ubiquitous among evangelical educators.[5] Not surprising, as they reflect on the various models, some evangelical scholars want to refine the language to avoid the slogan, offering alternatives like “faith-based learning,” “faithful interaction,” “creation and redemption scholarship,” or “Christ-animated learning.”[6] Other scholars raise questions about the language of faith-learning integration while opting to retain the term.[7]

We will focus our attention on some of the most common critiques. One concern about the integration of faith and learning is that it unintentionally fosters dualistic thinking, resulting in an artificial distinction between the sacred and the secular.[8] Another critique is that faith-learning integration too often focuses upon the professor’s piety to the detriment of robust Christian thinking about their subject matter.[9] Still others argue that integration assumes too negative a posture toward secular approaches to scholarship, reflecting more of a “culture war” mentality than a critical engagement rooted in faith, hope, and love.[10] Most observers agree that a professor’s theological perspective or denominational tradition necessarily colors the way she approaches integration.[11] Some go a step further and reject integration entirely because of the Reformed assumptions of many of the model’s most noteworthy advocates.[12]

While we have learned from these debates and appreciate some of the alternative terminology, we continue to value the language of the integration of faith and learning as a helpful way to capture the task of Christ-centered teaching and scholarship. Faith and learning have always been closely linked: the earliest universities in medieval Europe, most of the early colleges in North America, and contemporary evangelical schools such as those that partner with IACE. As David has written elsewhere, “The conjunction of faith and learning is the essence of a Christian university; this joint mission defines the distinctive difference in a Christian university education.”[13] Since this is the case, it is important to understand how best to relate faith and learning. 

William Hasker’s oft-cited 1992 article “Faith-Learning Integration: An Overview” advances a helpful definition of the integration of faith and learning. According to Hasker, “Faith-learning integration may be briefly described as a scholarly project whose goal is to ascertain and to develop integral relationships which exist between the Christian faith and human knowledge, particularly as expressed in the various academic disciplines.”[14] For this definition to be useful, we need to understand two key concepts. First, what is integration and what does it imply about human knowledge as it relates to the academic disciplines? Second, what is encompassed within faith, that seemingly simple word? It is to these two concepts that we now turn our attention. 

Integration as Restoration

In his 1996 book Integrity, Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter demonstrates that the English word “integrity” has been in use since at least the 1400s and points to a range of ideas such as wholeness, completeness, perfection, soundness, or incorruption.[15] The word has deep roots in English translations of the Hebrew Scriptures, especially the Proverbs, as well as English canon law into the time of the Reformation. Integrity has a moral sense, so we commend individuals who have integrity and criticize those who lack integrity. But integrity is also related to design. For example, when a bridge collapses, we may note that it lacked structural integrity because of some engineering flaw. Both senses of the word capture the idea that integrity is closely connected to the way things are intended to be.

We need to consider integrity from the perspective of a biblical worldview.[16] God created all things and declared his creation to be good. The original creation had an integrity—a wholeness or soundness—that reflected the eternal integrity of the Triune God. Things were the way they were intended to be. But when the first humans rebelled against God’s just rule by disobeying his commands, corruption was introduced into creation because of sin. It is important that we recognize that corruption was not part of God’s creational intent. To use the language of software design, corruption is a bug, not a feature, within God’s good creation. This corruption infects every individual, taints communal or corporate structures, and even mysteriously influences nature itself. Things are no longer the way they were intended to be.[17] The original integrity of creation has been fractured. Though in God’s common grace much of his creation continues to point us to the true, the good, and the beautiful, his creation is now fallen. 

God’s solution to the corrupting effects of sin is the saving work of Jesus Christ. The eternal Son of God took upon himself authentic humanity in the incarnation. Jesus of Nazareth lived a life of perfect integrity, which was wholly devoted to the Father in the power of the Spirit, reflecting the eternal integrity within the life of the Holy Trinity. Yet, this man of perfect integrity was crucified on the cross in the place of the corrupted ones whom he identified with in his authentic humanity. He experienced death, which is the total triumph of corruption. But death did not have the final word. On the third day Jesus rose from the dead, conquering corruption. The resurrection represented not only the restoration of Jesus’s own life, but also the beginning of the restoration of integrity throughout all of creation. When we are united with Christ by grace through faith, we experience that restoration as individuals. Jesus calls it being born again (John 3:3), and Paul says it means we are a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). The narrative of Scripture concludes with the new heavens and new earth, wherein integrity is fully restored. A redeemed people inhabit a redeemed creation that is ruled by the Redeemer for all eternity. Thanks be to God!

From the standpoint of a biblical worldview, integration is restoration—putting back together what has been fractured by corruption. Integration is rooted in Jesus Christ, the Lord of all creation and the one in whom all things hold together or cohere (Col. 1:17). The integration of faith and learning recognizes that every discipline and field and profession has been corrupted. The task of the Christian educator is to show how the pieces can be put back together again in a way that reflects God’s design for creation, acknowledges the saving work of Jesus Christ in restoring integrity to creation, and contributes to the authentic flourishing of God’s creation, especially his human creatures who bear his image. When we engage academic disciplines Christianly, we are restoring their integrity for the glory of God and the sake of authentic human flourishing.

My Faith and The Faith

Having discussed integration, we turn our attention to what can be a delicate topic: the difference between faith as subjective experience and faith as objective fact.[18] There is a tendency for faculty to think of faith-learning integration mostly in terms of their own personal piety. When we have asked many professors how they integrate faith in the classroom, the answers include praying before class, offering a devotion at the beginning of class, sharing the gospel with unbelieving students, offering spiritual counsel to students as part of the advising process, and encouraging students to attend chapel or participate in a campus ministry. At least two-thirds of the time, the faculty member never discusses how the content of the Christian faith relates to his academic discipline. Some are caught off guard or even become hesitant about this topic when asked directly.

We thank God for spiritually mature professors who are godly role models for their students. Students need to know that their professors love the Lord, love the church, and love the spiritually lost. But we also want to be clear: personal piety is not the integration of faith and learning, and piety alone will not sustain the high ideal of the Christian intellectual tradition. If a faculty member at an IACE institution teaches his or her classes as they would at a secular school but with a prayer or devotion at the beginning, this faculty member is not engaged in the task of intellectual discipleship however commendable their piety might be. 

Ben Mitchell reminds us that Christian faculty should integrate vibrant faith, meaningful scholarship, and Christlike service.[19] But the integration of faith and learning is about bringing the Christian faith to bear upon teaching and scholarship. The faith is not one’s subjective experience, but an objective body of content about God and his ways that he graciously reveals to us authoritatively, truthfully, and sufficiently in the Scriptures and that has been passed down to us in the Christian intellectual tradition.[20] The New Testament refers to “the faith” over forty times, most famously in Jude 3, where Paul urges Jude to “contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.”

The integration of faith and learning is not the use of Christian lingo or even Scripture in the branding and marketing of an institution. The integration of faith and learning is not offering faith-based co-curricular activities such as chapel, discipleship groups, and mission trips. The integration of faith and learning is not requiring a certain number of Bible or theology or Christian worldview courses as part of the general education curriculum. The integration of faith and learning is not even the instructor introducing spiritual exercises into the classroom such as prayer, devotions, or evangelistic presentations. All of these are appropriate activities at Christ-centered colleges and universities. However, this is not what we mean when we talk about the importance of the integration of faith and learning.

To integrate faith and learning means to teach our disciplines from a perspective animated by the Scriptures and the best of the Christian intellectual tradition.[21] This means interrogating the core assumptions of the disciplines from the perspective of a biblical worldview and teaching students to do likewise. It also means framing or re-framing the disciplines in the context of the grand biblical narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. The unique vocation of Christian faculty is to think in a distinctively Christian manner about their disciplines and to teach in such a manner that they are inviting their students to do the same. 

Integration and the Disciplines

So, what does this look like in practice? Each discipline has its own story, so this means the integration of faith and learning looks somewhat different in each department.[22] Sometimes the story is a declension narrative. For example, most disciplines within the humanities, the arts, and the natural or medical sciences have deep roots in the Christian tradition, but anti-Christian worldviews have corrupted the way most scholars approach those disciplines today. For the Christian humanist, artist, or scientist, integration is about returning to the authentic roots of their disciplines, even as they engage fresh questions, create original works of art, or make new scientific discoveries or advances. The challenge is not defaulting to nostalgia or to simplistically reject scholarly nuance for the sake of easy answers.

In other disciplines, the story is one of illegitimate birth and adoption. For example, most of the modern social scientific disciplines were first conceived by thinkers with anti-Christian worldviews whose baseline assumptions were taken for granted. Most of the earliest social scientists certainly recognized the reality of corruption, but they misunderstood the reason for that corruption and rejected the proper means of restoring integrity. For the Christian social scientist, integration involves recognizing evidence of God’s common grace within their discipline’s story while completely reframing the discipline within the true story of the whole world.[23] The challenge is to figure out how to divorce helpful insights from their toxic worldviews and deploy them more faithfully.

Some academic disciplines are interdisciplinary fields that require a multifaceted story. This is true of the fields of business, leadership, education, and to some extent communication, all of which are influenced to varying degrees by the humanities, the arts, and the social sciences. Within these fields, the Christian educator must be both wise and nimble, highlighting what is rooted in, or at least is consistent with, a biblical worldview, while also discerning and challenging worldly thinking within the field that is incompatible with a Christian understanding of the world. The challenge is to not just default to virtues like moral integrity or excellence or professionalism as pale substitutes for overtly Christian engagement.

Finally, we want to reflect on the role of biblical and theological studies in faith-learning integration. Teachers in these disciplines have a unique role to play at their institutions. They should offer resources to colleagues in other disciplines about how to think Christianly, ask the right questions, and engage from a perspective of biblical faithfulness and historic orthodoxy. Their posture should not be to serve as the “doctrine police” but rather as theological conversation partners and encouragers. Kevin Vanhoozer’s reflections on the role that theologians play in serving clergy can be adapted fruitfully for faculty in Christian colleges and universities.[24] We want to be clear: the integration of faith and learning is a theological task, and so scholars of biblical and theological studies are servants to faculty in all the other disciplines.[25]

However, within their respective fields of inquiry, faculty in biblical and theological studies should always be learning from the common grace insights of other disciplines. Such interdisciplinary engagement can help scholars in biblical and theological studies to enhance their articulations or refine their applications, though always in ways consistent with Scripture, which is our only fully authoritative rule for faith and practice. We believe the opportunities for this sort of strategic collaboration between theologians and scholars in other disciplines is a unique feature of Christian colleges and universities that is difficult to replicate in seminary contexts. Scholars of biblical and theological studies should remain receptive to the service of scholars in other disciplines. 

Some readers may well be wondering if we are suggesting one must be a theologian to integrate faith and learning. Our honest answer is “no—but also yes.” Let us explain. You do not have to be a formally trained theologian who has earned degrees in biblical studies, theology, or some similar discipline. It is common for faculty in a variety of disciplines at Christian schools to have earned one or more degrees from Bible colleges or seminaries. For some professors, this sort of educational background can be helpful. However, a formal theological education should not be a requirement, or even an implicit expectation, to serve on the faculty of a Christian college or university.

Though a theological education is not required, we should also remember that in an important sense every Christian is a theologian.[26] The only question is whether you are a good theologian or a bad theologian. Therefore, it is critically important for faculty to reflect theologically about their disciplines. Because this is not something most faculty were equipped to do in graduate school, we believe that theological formation is a critical component of faculty development, especially (but not exclusively) for professors who are new to Christian higher education. In addition to the works cited in note 22 and as a helpful resource in the important work of faculty theological formation, we commend Jacob Shatzer’s recent book Faithful Learning: A Vision for Theologically Integrated Education (B&H Academic, 2023, a book for which David wrote the Foreword and communicated some of the themes that are found in this essay).

Conclusion

We contend that the integration remains a valuable way to conceive of the unique vocation of Christ-centered higher education. Though no model is perfect, we believe an emphasis on integration continues to be needed precisely because of the artificial separation of faith and learning that has accompanied the secularization of higher education, even in many schools that began as church-related institutions.[27] If Colossians 1:17 is true, and if all things hold together in Jesus Christ, then the integration of faith and learning, or the bearing of the Christian faith upon both teaching and learning, is about the task of putting back together what has been torn asunder by the fall and its ongoing effects. Integration unearths, demonstrates, and defends the coherence of the faith and every academic discipline. The integration of faith and learning, understood in this way, remains the essence of Christ-centered higher education.

We want to conclude this essay with a word about the goal of faith-learning integration: to cultivate thoughtful Christians. We offer eight implications for thoughtful Christians, which we commend to you in your own journey of intellectual discipleship.[28]

  1. We recognize that the Christian intellectual tradition calls for rigorous thinking in every discipline and field. We are commanded to love God with our minds.

  2. We acknowledge the sovereignty of the Triune God over the entire created order, including every academic discipline and every aspect of the learning enterprise.

  3. We acknowledge that all truth, both revealed and discovered, has its source in God’s revelation of himself through Scripture and the created order.

  4. We believe that the pursuit of truth is best undertaken within a community of intellectual discipleship that also attends to the moral, spiritual, and social development of teachers and learners.

  5. We acknowledge that the unity of knowledge, rooted in love, informs and shapes all scholarship, teaching, and learning.

  6. We recognize that the goal of developing thoughtful Christians involves more than cultivating a deeper sense of piety. We desire to help people think in Christian categories and live in a manner shaped by such thinking. What ultimately is needed is a holistic renewal of both the mind and the heart.

  7. We recognize that integrating faith and learning extends beyond one’s personal experience. Faith includes a full commitment of the whole person to the Lord Jesus, which involves knowledge, trust, and obedience. Though faith is more than doctrinal assent, it necessarily includes affirmation of Christian teaching. Approaching learning from the perspective of faith includes not only the subjective faith by which we trust in Christ, but also the objective faith that we believe and confess.

  8. Even as we seek to bring faith to bear upon our learning and to encourage other Christians to think about life in Christian categories, we recognize that we still look through a glass darkly. We need a sanctified humility about our own beliefs and conclusions, as well as a sanctified tolerance regarding the beliefs and conclusions of other Christ-followers.


[1] Frank E. Gaebelein, The Pattern of God’s Truth: The Integration of Faith and Learning (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954).

 [2] Arthur F. Holmes, The Idea of a Christian College, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 45.

[3] For examples of our writings on a theology of Christian higher education, see David S. Dockery, “Blending Baptist with Orthodox in the Christian University,” in The Future of Baptist Higher Education, eds. Donald D. Schmeltekopf and Dianna M. Vitanza (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 83–97; David S. Dockery, Renewing Minds: Serving Church and Society through Christian Higher Education (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2007), 169–86; Nathan A. Finn, “Knowing and Loving God: Toward a Theology of Christian Higher Education,” in Christian Higher Education: Teaching and Learning in the Evangelical Tradition, eds. David S. Dockery and Christopher W. Morgan (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), pp. 39–58; David S. Dockery, “Toward a Theology of Higher Education,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 62.1 (2019): 5–23; Nathan A. Finn, “Academic Discipleship and the Baptist University,” Southwestern Journal of Theology 62.2 (2020): 35–51; David S. Dockery, What Does it Mean to be Thoughtful Christian? (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2022); Nathan A. Finn, “Theological Commitments of Distinctively Christ-Centered Higher Education,” Evangelical Review of Theology 47.3 (2023): 235–49. 

[4]  These debates are discussed at length in William C. Ringenberg, “The Faith and Learning Discussion in the Academy at the Turn of the Century—A Review Essay,” Christian Scholar’s Review 34.2 (2005): 251–58, and Ken Bradley, “Clarifying ‘Faith-Learning Integration’: Essentially Contested Concepts and the Concept-Conception Distinction,” Journal of Education and Christian Belief 13.1 (2009): 7–17.

[5]  Patrick Allen and Kenneth Badley, Faith and Learning: A Guide for Faculty (Abilene, TX: Abilene Christian University Press, 2014), 25–41.

[6]  See Carl E. Zylstra, “Faith-Based Learning: The Conjunction in Christian Scholarship,” Pro Rege 26.1 (September 1997): 1; Nicholas Wolsterstorff, Educating for Shalom: Essays on Christian Higher Education, eds. Clarence W. Joldersma and Gloria Goris Stronks (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 79–80 and 197–98; Perry L. Glanzer, “Why We Should Discard ‘The Integration of Faith and Learning’: Rearticulating the Mission of the Christian Scholar,” Journal of Education & Christian Belief 12.1 (2008): 43; Perry L. Glanzer, “Christ-Animated Learning: What do we Mean?” Christian Scholar’s Review Blog (August 19, 2020), available online at https://christianscholars.com/christ-animating-learning-what-do-we-mean/ (accessed November 14, 2023). 

[7]  This is the position of our colleague, Jacob Shatzer, in his essay “Faithful Learning: The Double-Edged Sword of Theology and the Disciplines,” also published in this issue of Integration: A Journal of Faith Learning (Winter 2024).

[8]  See Roger Olson, God in Dispute: “Conversations” among Great Christian Thinkers (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 190, and Susan VanZanten, Joining the Mission: A Guide for (Mainly) New College Faculty (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 113–14.

[9]  This is the burden of Harry Lee Poe, Christianity in the Academy: Teaching at the Intersection of Faith and Learning (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004). We address this issue below. 

[10]  This is the assumption of the contributors to Douglas Jacobsen and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen, eds., Scholarship and Christian Faith: Enlarging the Conversation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

[11]  For example, see Nathan F. Alleman, Perry L. Glanzer, and David S. Guthrie, “The Integration of Christian Theological Traditions into the Classroom: A Survey of CCCU Faculty,” Christian Scholars Review 45.2 (Winter 2016): 103–24.

[12]  For example, see Douglas Jacobsen and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen, “More than the ‘Integration’ of Faith and Learning,” in Scholarship and Christian Faith, 15–31.

[13]  Dockery, Renewing Minds, 99.

[14]  William Hasker, “Faith-Learning Integration: An Overview,” Christian Scholars Review 21.3 (March 1992): 234.

[15]  Stephen L. Carter, Integrity (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 16–18.

[16]  For a recent introduction to biblical worldview thinking, see Tawa J. Anderson, W. Michael Clark, and David W. Naugle, An Introduction to Christian Worldview: Pursuing God's Perspective in a Pluralistic World (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2017). Our own thinking about biblical worldview formation is reflected in Dockery, Renewing Minds, 47–69, and Nathan A. Finn, “Discipleship for a Digital Generation: Cultivating a Holistic Worldview through a Synthesis of Truth, Narrative, and the Affections,” in Know. Be. Live. A 360° Approach to Discipleship in a Post-Christian Era, ed. John D. Basie (New York: Forefront, 2021), 66–77. See also David. S. Dockery and Gregory Alan Thornbury, eds., Shaping a Christian Worldview: The Foundations of Christian Higher Education (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2002). 

[17]  We borrow this terminology from Cornelius Plantinga, who also discusses corruption as an analogy for sin in Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 52–77.

[18]  This section draws upon David S. Dockery, “Introduction—Faith and Learning: Foundational Commitments,” in Faith and Learning: A Handbook for Christian Higher Education, ed. David S. Dockery (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2012), 19–20, and Nathan A. Finn, “The Integration of Faith and Learning: More than a Prayer,” International Alliance for Christian Education blog (February 4, 2020), available online at https://iace.education/blog/the-integration-of-faith-and-learning-more-than-a-prayer (accessed November 15, 2023).

[19]  C. Ben Mitchell, “What Christian Universities Owe Their Students,” Integration: A Journal of Faith and Learning 1 (Summer 2023), available online at https://iace.education/journal-blog/what-christian-universities-owe-their-students (accessed November 15, 2023).

[20]  David has written often about the faith and its implications for Christian higher education. For example, see Dockery, “Blending Baptist with Orthodox in the Christian University”; Dockery, Renewing Minds, pp. 71–94; David S. Dockery and Timothy George, The Great Tradition of Christian Thinking: A Student's Guide (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012); David S. Dockery, “Toward a Future for Christian Higher Education: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future,” Christian Higher Education 15.1–2 (2016): 115–19. 

[21]  Space precludes an extended discussion on the place of Scripture in Christian reflection upon the disciplines. We would commend Keith Whitfield and Rhyne Putman, “The Bible and the University: Sola Scriptura and Interdisciplinary Engagement,” Southwestern Journal of Theology 62.2 (2020): 53–75, and John D. Woodbridge, “The Authority of Holy Scripture: Commitments for Christian Higher Education in the Evangelical Tradition,” also published in this issue of Integration: A Journal of Faith Learning (Winter 2024) . 

[22]  See Dockery, ed., Faith and Learning: A Handbook for Christian Higher Education for a collection of essays that applies the integration of faith and learning to a variety of academic disciplines. Two helpful multi-volume series that address a range of disciplines: Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition (Crossway, series editor David Dockery) and Christian Worldview Integration (IVP Academic).

[23]  We borrow this language from Michael W. Goheen and Craig G. Bartholomew, The True Story of the Whole World: Finding Your Place in the Biblical Drama, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2020).

[24]  Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2005), 244–56.

[25]  See Perry L. Glanzer, Nathan F. Alleman, and Todd C. Ream, Restoring the Soul of the University: Unifying Christian Higher Education in a Fragmented Age (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017), 225–43.

[26]  This is the premise of R.C. Sproul, Everyone’s a Theologian: An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust, 2014), and Jen Wilkin and J. T. English, You Are a Theologian: An Invitation to Know and Love God Well (Nashville: B&H, 2023).

[27]  See George M. Marsden, The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Unbelief (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), and James Tunstead Burtchaell, The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).

[28]  This list is adapted from Dockery, “Faith and Learning: Foundational Commitments,” 20–21.


David S. Dockery

President | International Alliance of Christian Education

President, Distinguished Professor of Theology | Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Nathan A. Finn

Professor of Faith and Culture, Executive Director of the Institute for Transformational Leadership | North Greenville University



David S. Dockery