This class is based on the recent book titled The Scandal of the Evangelical College. It argues that despite heady claims about Christ-centeredness, many Christian colleges are deeply secular institutions. Paradigms intended to “integrate faith and learning” often ironically exacerbate secularization. Even “spiritual” dimensions of the Christian college presumed to keep it safe from secularity are problematic, since the American evangelical culture from which the college receives its spiritual cues—and from which it accepts its donors’ money—is itself captive to a set of sub-Biblical economic, social, and political assumptions. Much of this drift to secularization is caused by the absence of the church in the imagination of the evangelical college. Therefore, the remedy proposed by this book is that the defining mission of the evangelical college should be to summon, equip, and renew the church. 

Session 1: The Scandal Defined 

Session 2: The Disintegration of Faith and Learning 

Session 3: The Evangelical Scandal 

Session 4: Educating the Church 

Recommended reading: Martin Spence, The Scandal of the Evangelical College: Why Christian Higher Education Fails the Church (Wipf and Stock, 2025) ISBN: 978-1666789287, is available in the Calvin University Campus Store and online. 

Subject: education, history 

Martin Spence has a doctorate in history from the University of Oxford. He writes on British and American religious and cultural history. He is the academic director of the Calvin Wayfinder Project, and director of worship at Fuller Avenue Church. He is originally from Suffolk, England.