Faith and Learning

David Dockery’s article “Integrating Faith and Learning in Higher Education” was both a brief history of the Christian roots in higher education and an exhortation to Christian educators and institutions to re-embrace this heritage in a post modern world. Coming from a Christ centered liberal arts institution, like Montreat, there was little in this article that I had not heard before.

Perhaps that realization was the most profound for me. It is sometimes hard to believe that there are serious educators and institutions which hold that their underlying world view assumptions have little or no impact on their ability to explore/teach a given academic discipline. As if the color glasses that a person wears is not going to impact their perceptions and conclusions. Exposing the fallacy of the compartmentalization of faith from knowledge/learning is an edification that a Christ centered intellect can bring to a higher education institution or academic debate that does not implicitly embrace the Great Commandment type mission statement. Montreat has repeatedly hammered into my head that the first responsible step of reasoning is to try (to the best of my ability) to recognize any preexisting assumptions that may influence how I would render an analysis to any given academic topic, political opinion, ethical dilemma, business situation, or personal decision. This kind of presuppositional world view thinking does, I hope, empower me to add a dimension of daily Biblical accountability to the totality of my personhood. In humility, I would hope that this kind of cognitive mechanism is the result of the Holy Spirit’s working through the Christ centered institution of Montreat. This brand of character development, as a part of learning is what (at least in part) David Dockery is trying to encourage in higher learning institutions.

Montreat’s honest, open and intentional integration of Faith into its learning process facilitates an interdisciplinary wholeness to the learning experience of its graduates. In theory, this should equip Montreat alumni with the faculties to succeed in the future learning that is, the rest of life. Higher education institutions which disparage this kind of integration fosters, at best, fragmented pieces of knowledge, which surely has little hope of becoming either wisdom or a congruently understood process of future learning; not to mention an intellectually consistent world view.