"Why Should I Choose a Christian (Evangelical) College?"
By Daniel L. Akin

In June 1977, I was on a summer mission trip to the Papago Indians in Sells, Ariz. I was 20 years old, and the Lord had begun a significant work in my life only nine months earlier. I was saved as a young boy at about the age of 9 or 10, but like far too many teens, I had not walked closely with the Lord during those years. It is the single biggest regret of my life. But in the fall of 1976, after graduating from high school, God got really active in my life — up close and personal and painful. He also brought into my life a group of young people from the Ash Street Baptist Church in Forest Park, Ga., who reached out to me in spite of the fact I had not been all that kind to many of them in junior high and high school.

Now I found myself on an Indian reservation in the hot desert of Arizona (highs often hit 115!) sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with children in backyard Bible clubs and evening revival services. While I was on that mission trip, God, in His grace and goodness, touched my heart and called me into the Gospel ministry. I have often shared that there was a brief time in my life when I doubted my salvation, but there has never been a time in my life when I doubted my call. Please do not try to analyze this theologically! I cannot make sense out of it either.

After returning from that mission trip, I did what I imagine most persons have done in a similar situation. I sought the wisdom and guidance of my pastor. His counsel was clear and concise. I had two options as he saw it: 1) Go to college somewhere and get a degree in something like history, and then go to seminary. His recommendation was Southwestern Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas, though at the time I had no idea what a seminary was or did. 2) He told me there was a small Bible college in Dallas, Texas, named after W.A. Criswell and led by Paige Patterson. In 1977 neither name meant a thing to me. He said if I wanted to begin my preparation for ministry immediately, then this is what he would suggest that I do.

On reflection I can say without hesitation that was some of the best advice I have ever received. My life was set on a very definite course, and that Christian college experience had a major shaping influence on who I am and what I believe.

When Southern Seminary Magazine editor Peter Beck contacted me about writing this article, he asked me to write on “why someone would/should choose a Christian college.” I have adjusted the question slightly by adding the word “evangelical,” though the change is actually massive in its implications, as I will attempt to show at the end of this article.

There are a number of good reasons why anyone who claims Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord should consider choosing a Christian college. Let me address several.

First, it will put you in an environment of a nurturing and caring community of fellow believers who will love and support you as you enter into an important transition period in your life — a time my colleague Ted Cabal calls the “danger zone” of life. This is a very appropriate designation.

Leaving home and going off to college is an exciting and exhilarating time of life. It is also a time of change and vulnerability. You are now very much on your own. No one tells you when to get up or go to bed, what to eat, when to study, or when to go to church. You will, as never before, be influenced by those you study under, room with and “hang with.” Being around people who believe Jesus Christ should be the center of your life and who trust the Bible as God’s divinely inspired Word and the roadmap for life is invaluable for your own spiritual development. It can help you walk safely through these crucial and formative years of your life.

Second, a Christian school will help you develop a Christian worldview to provide a foundation for the way you think and live. We all have a worldview — a particular way of looking at life and thinking about life. Our worldview determines how and what we think about the ultimate questions of life: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? Does my life have meaning and purpose? What’s it all about? Is there life after death?

In contrast to a secular institution that will often attempt to answer these questions from a human-centered perspective, a Christian worldview will have a different starting point. It will begin with God and His revelation in Holy Scripture. It will inform us that we were specially created by God and in His image. It will inform us that God has a purpose for us in a personal relationship with the Son of God, Jesus Christ. It will inform us that this divine purpose culminates in our perfection (glorification) and an eternal home in God’s presence. What we believe will determine how we live. Cultivating a Christian worldview will enable us to think and live for the glory of God. A Christian school can help us achieve this.

Third, what we believe and how we live is as much caught as taught. A Christian school enables a person not only to learn from godly men and women but to be with godly men and women. In my own experience in a Christian college, I learned a great deal by lecture, but I learned even more by life. The impact of persons we grow to admire and look up to is life-shaping and life-changing, for good or bad. A Christian school has far more potential for good than bad. Having role models who follow Christ will inspire us to follow Him as well.

Fourth, a Christian school will provide an environment that should more readily encourage regular and faithful attendance in a local church while in college. Few things have been more damaging to the spiritual lives of those who “go off to college” than the absence of a vital connection to a local church during those important years. Sleeping in on Sunday morning too often becomes a common college ritual, and the spiritual fallout is devastating. Developing your own spiritual disciplines, including regular church attendance, often needs the encouragement and the accountability of others. A Christian school can be exactly what the spiritual doctor ordered in this instance.

Fifth, a Christian school affords opportunities to get involved in ministry and missions on a local and global scale. Sharing the Gospel and serving others in the inner cities of Illinois or India, California or Chad will change you forever. It will foster humility and gratitude, compassion and courage. Again, what takes place outside the classroom is just as important as what takes place inside.

Sixth, a Christian school will teach a curriculum with a Christian focus and in a Christian manner. Loving God with our mind will be facilitated more readily in a Christian faith community.

Seventh, for those who sense, as I did, God’s call to ministry, a Christian school allows one to begin preparation very quickly. The enthusiasm and passion you have to answer God’s call on your life has an immediate outlet. You graduate from high school, and in three months you are immersed in Greek, hermeneutics, church history and of course English (something almost all high school graduates desperately need). Soon, you are taking Hebrew, theology, worldviews and preaching, and you are just now turning 20. When I went to Bible college, I thought it could not get any better. It was an awesome and incredible experience. In fact, to be completely honest, my college experience was in many ways more significant than either my time in seminary or graduate school. It gave me the tools I would need later to confront and answer ideologies that challenged and sometimes ridiculed the truthfulness of the Bible and the Christian worldview.

There was and is another tremendous benefit as well. Instead of having only three years of ministry preparation through seminary, I received seven years of preparation by also attending a Christian college. The benefits of this were significant for me, and it has even greater possibilities when a school has an Advanced Master of Divinity program like we have at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. This program of study allows for no duplication of studies done on the undergraduate level except where the student thinks he or she needs it.

For example, my son Jonathan is a student at our Boyce College. As a college student he has already taken two and a half years of Greek, two years of Hebrew and one and a half years of Theology. When he comes to Seminary he will take at least two more years of each and possibly three! When Jonathan graduates with his Master’s degree, he will most likely have five years of Greek, five years of Hebrew and four years of theology. Couple this with annual mission assignments to Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines (countries to which he has already traveled) and other places, and you have a dad (me) who is thrilled with the educational experience of his son and the difference it will make as he serves the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ in the assignment God has for him.

I am a huge fan of the Christian college. My own life was impacted by it, and I am now seeing that same reality lived out in the lives of my own sons. It is something I would enthusiastically commend to parents and their children, but with one word of warning.

As I conclude, let me now explain why I asked to include the word “evangelical” in the question this article addresses. Sadly, having the name Christian (or for that matter Baptist) associated with a school or organization can be misleading and even false. Patricia Ireland is now the head of the YWCA, and she makes no claim to be a Christian, and for that matter neither does the YWCA, for the most part.

In choosing a Christian college, parents of prospective students need to make sure the school truly is Christian. It should be Christian in conviction. It should have a confessional statement detailing what it believes and the faculty, should be required to teach “in accordance with and not contrary to” and “without mental reservation or hesitation.” There should be no equivocation on the bedrock essentials of the faith such as historic Trinitarianism, the deity of Jesus Christ, the full inspiration of the Bible, salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, the exclusive nature of the Gospel, divine creation, eternal rewards and judgment and the miracles of the Bible. A student should ask lots of question and lots of questions, meet faculty personally and find out where they stand on these crucial issues. Any hesitation in answering your questions should sound a warning bell in your soul.

The departure of numerous Baptist colleges from their state conventions over the past two to three decades simply followed their departure from biblical Christianity many years earlier. The word Christian and Baptist had altogether lost its meaning.

A school should also be Christian in conduct. Moral issues often serve as theological indicators. After all, what we believe will determine how we behave. Make sure the school is a strong advocate of the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. Make sure they believe in the sanctity of marriage, and that sex is a good gift from a great God that is to be enjoyed exclusively within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman as designed by God. Such a conviction will determine the school’s position on premarital sex, extra-marital sex and unnatural sex. It will determine the school’s view on cohabiting and influence its view on “petting” in courting or dating relationships.

Make sure the school sees the wisdom in taking a strong stand against the use of drugs, alcohol and tobacco. The first is illegal, and all three are harmful and destructive to the body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19-20). Unfortunately, some Christian schools are beginning to waffle at these points. They also are moving off the list of schools I would recommend.

I have often said I would rather my sons go to a secular, pagan state college or university than to a pseudo-Christian school. The latter has the potential to deceive and seduce, the former does not. At a so-called Christian school they may let down their spiritual and intellectual guard and get knocked off course. In a clearly secular environment, the enemy does not hide behind pious words and a Christian veneer. He is on full display in an all out frontal assault, and my guys know they better keep their spiritual and intellectual fists up.

Three of my four sons will be in genuine Christian colleges (the fourth is doing fine at a state school) this fall. One of them studies at Boyce College, the other two will study at Union University in Jackson, Tenn. I have had the opportunity on a daily basis with Jonathan and on a regular basis with Paul (Timothy begins this fall at Union) to see the impact a real Christian school can have. I have not been disappointed in the least. Choosing an evangelical Christian school is a wise move for parents who love their children and want God’s will to be accomplished in their lives.

Daniel L. Akin is currently President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was formerly the Senior Vice President for Academic Administration, Dean of the School of Theology and Professor of Christian Preaching.