Higher Education (2012)

As the academic year begins, now is the time to consider anew what it is that Christians of all traditions are doing when they participate in, and themselves establish and run, universities and colleges. A recent publication of Mike Higton, A Theology of Higher Education (Oxford UP, 2012, 336pp.) may help us consider these questions.

About this book the publisher tells us that it offers

A clear affirmation of the public worth of higher education

A Christian theological account of secular and religiously plural universities

Detailed engagement with the history of the Western university

Interactions with British and American literature on Christianity and higher education

Practical examples and policy recommendations

In this book, Mike Higton provides a constructive critique of Higher Education policy and practice in the UK, the US and beyond, from the standpoint of Christian theology. He focuses on the role universities can and should play in forming students and staff in intellectual virtue, in sustaining vibrant communities of inquiry, and in serving the public good. He argues both that modern secular universities can be a proper context for Christians to pursue their calling as disciples to learn and to teach, and that Christians can contribute to the flourishing of such universities as institutions devoted to learning for the common good. In the process he sets out a vision of the good university as secular and religiously plural, as socially inclusive, and as deeply and productively entangled with the surrounding society. Along the way, he engages with a range of historical examples (the medieval University of Paris, the University of Berlin in the nineteenth century, and John Henry Newman's work in Oxford and Dublin) and with a range of contemporary writers on Higher Education from George Marsden to Stanley Hauerwas and from David Ford to Rowan Williams.