1. Higher Education As Spiritual Formation Dr. David Brisben John Brown University

2. Why Higher Education? A modern heresy “To get a good job, get a good education” To realize economic potential (The Abandoned Generation) To question this assumption is the new heresy

3. Challenging the educational heresy! Higher Education started as a Christian endeavor Christian university not an inferior copy of state university Harvard Yale Princeton Brown William and Mary By 1860, church founded @ 200 colleges

4. Higher Education as Christian Life and Mission For what purpose? To know and love Jesus Christ NOT Bible colleges, liberal arts (classical education) was means to know and love Jesus Christ Does the contemporary church think of a bible college education or a liberal arts education as the better means to know and love Jesus Christ?

5. Biblical understandings that fueled the Colonial Christians commitment to higher education Triune God created the universe Triune God delights in his creation Humans created to develop the creation Humans created to enjoy fellowship with the creator

6. Triune God created the universe God expresses his glory (presence) in his creation (Psalm 19) God expresses his personality in his creation (Genesis 1, Job 40) God expresses his wisdom in his creation (Job 37-39) Humans created to know and understand the creation the way the Creator knows and understands his creation (Genesis 2)

7. Triune God delights in his creation God takes pleasure in creative activity (Genesis 1:4,9,13, etc.) God creates the functional and the beautiful for his pleasure (Genesis 2:8-9) God created humans to experience this same intense pleasure (Gen. 1:26, 2:7) Sight Smell Touch Taste Thought

8. Humans created to develop the creation Humans created to fill earth, to tend it, and to subdue/develop it (Gen. 1:28, 2:4) Creation starts in a garden (Gen. 1), ends in a garden city (Rev. 21-22) Culture building is God’s idea

9. Humans enjoy fellowship with the Creator As Eloihim, God stands above and apart from his creation (Gen. 1) As Yahweh, God is close to and present with his creation (Gen. 2) As Yahweh, he shapes and forms our first human parents As Yahweh, he places Adam in the garden to enjoy it, understand it, preserve it, and develop it As Yahweh, he brings Adam and Eve together to experience intellectual, emotional, and physical intimacy Understanding, enjoying, preserving, and developing the creation were not simply ways to reflect the Creator, but ways to enjoy his presence, to enjoy fellowship with him

10. Higher Education as spiritual formation Not only does this understanding of God and his creation make higher education useful for vocation, but vital for spiritual formation.

11. Participating in God’s creative activity Beings who engage in meaningful work (2:6) Beings who procreate, nurture, and fill the earth with new life (1:28) Beings who create and enjoy beauty (2:9) Beings who study and understand the creation (2:19-20) Beings who exercise responsibility and volition (2:16) Beings who communicate (2:19, 23) Beings who relate intimately (2:18,24) Beings who rest (2:2) Beings who find pleasure in creative activity (1:10.18,21,25,31)

12. Discussion How does my discipline enable students to participate with and enjoy God in his creative activity? What would my discipline look like if sin had never entered the world?

13. To participate in God’s redemptive activity Bless the nations (Gen. 12:5) Ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18-20) Make disciples (Mt. 28:18-20) Heal the sick (Mt. 10:8) Counsel/comfort the broken-hearted (2 Cor. 1:4) Restore justice (Lk. 4:18-19) Feed the hungry (Mt. 25:34-36) Visit the prisoner “ “ “ Care for the needy “ “ “ Give to the poor “ “ “

14. Discussion How does my discipline enable students to participate with and enjoy God in his redemptive activity? How has sin affected my discipline?