Part 2 of Vinoth Ramachandra‘s Engaging the University (21:22) is packed. After exploring the broad topics of funding’s push toward instrumentalism, the fragmentation of campus academic life by global communication, and the lack of “any coherent master narrative for a central point of reference . . . to evaluate the relationship of . . . parcels of knowledge to other parcels or to weigh their relative importance,” Ramachandra considers three challenges which Christians face in engaging the university:
- Evangelistic/pastoral challenge: “There are many outstanding thinkers in our university with a global influence who have never been exposed to a robust Christian faith which they can respect intellectually either because they’ve never come across Christians in their universities who love God with their minds and engaged them in serious thinking about God or they have never been exposed to the best Christian learning in their particular academic field of study.”
- Comment: As a campus minister for the past seventeen years, I found Ramachandra’s exploration of Jonathan Rowles’ loss of faith during World War II particularly convicting. Please continue to share with the Emerging Scholars Network how we may pray for, encourage and equip you (and your colleagues) in this area by email and/or commenting below.
- Raising a Christian voice not only with intellect, but also with charity: [Read more…] about A Mission to the University: Part 2 of Engaging the University