top of page
One of the challenges of higher education is finding a way to thrive amid significant differences. As part of a major, international, research university we must regularly wrestle through how to participate in a way that is winsome, gracious, prophetic and humble. Some Christian traditions, and some Christians at various times and places, have argued that we should retreat (cf The Benedict Option currently making the rounds in the US), or that we do not have anything to gain from being part of the secular world, or that the secular world is so radically broken, disenfranchised, and evil that we should avoid it at all costs—except for those forays which are specifically and narrowly evangelistic in purpose. Others would see no difference. St Augustine, that most influential of bishops who has profoundly shaped the Western Church, offered another approach that gives place to such secular spaces and calls for considered engagement, while recognizing that ultimately one’s identity lies elsewhere. We’ll look at his thinking on this matter and discuss the implications for the contemporary academy.
bottom of page