Last fall I published a post here entitled “Last Word on College Rankings.”
Almost instantly, I got an email from a friend at Bethel. The subject: “LOL.” The one-line message: “Wanna bet?”
“It is the last word,” I emailed back, “until I write about it again.”
“Again,” apparently, is today.
Don’t worry: I’ve got too much grading to catch up on to write a long post. And I’m not going to beat the dead horse that is the U.S. News Best College ranking system.
But I did want to use a recent article from a different news medium to point out that if it’s generally pointless to rank colleges, it’s particularly futile to attempt such an exercise with Christian colleges.
Over the weekend, Fox News’ website published an article by David Unsworth: “America’s top Christian colleges and universities.”1 Now, I don’t dispute his opening claim that “some of the world’s leading faith-based institutions of higher learning are located in the United States.” And if you have to single out as “noteworthy” just eleven of the “approximately 600 Christian colleges across the U.S.,” most of Unsworth’s choices are pretty non-controversial. By reputation, among other markers, Wheaton, Westmont, Taylor, Calvin, Messiah, Gordon, Biola, and (yes) Bethel are commonly held up as exemplars of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. And one that isn’t — College of the Ozarks — does stand out because of its commitment to debt-free education.
Nor is it surprising that CCCU social media shared the Fox story this morning; Unsworth also lists California Baptist, Dordt, John Brown, Point Loma Nazarene, and other CCCU members on a longer, bullet-point list of “Other Christian universities.” But:
1. The CCCU’s is not the only Christian approach to higher education. Much as I like that model — which emphasizes the integration of (usually evangelical Protestant) faith with broad, deep, and rigorous learning under the guidance of Christian faculty — I’ve pointed out before that there are others, which offer their own distinctive strengths. For example, by honoring their religious heritages and seeking religious diversity on their faculty and student bodies, Lutheran “colleges of the church” seek a “third path” that (in the words of Lutheran scholar Darrell Jodock) “invites everyone on its campus to endorse its educational values and to appreciate the theological principles that undergird them, even if they do not personally subscribe to the Lutheran faith.”
There are two such schools on Unsworth’s list (St. Olaf and Augustana), but they’re not spotlighted — and there’s nothing to help prospective families understand the differences. For that matter, you’ll also find Sewanee, Southern Methodist, Texas Christian, and Ohio Northern (connected to mainline denominations, but not “Christian” in the way that CCCU schools are) alongside Liberty, Union, and The Master’s University (schools that, in various ways, have deemed the CCCU insufficiently conservative). Whether these schools are “top Christian colleges and universities” — depends entirely on what you expect from such institutions.
2. It’s an entirely Protestant list. And for all that (unexplained) diversity, it’s most notable that the article doesn’t name a single Catholic institution of higher learning.
I get that Catholics who habitually visit the Fox News website may be distrustful of Jesuit and other Catholic universities whose religious convictions primarily seem to inspire the pursuit of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice. But no mention of “faithfully Catholic” schools like Catholic University of America, Franciscan University of Steubenville, or Christendom College?
3. It’s riddled with errors and omissions. Even if you focus on the “noteworthy” schools that get a bit of a write-up, there’s hardly anything there that’s helpful. You’d do better to read Wikipedia pages for each school.
I mean, I’d love to have more people consider Bethel, but Unsworth’s capsule about us features points that are incorrect (“daily morning prayer chapel service”), utterly inconsequential (“its own university hymn”), and need much more context to understand. For example, there are a dozen things about Bethel unnamed by Unsworth that I’d emphasize to parents and prospective students before I’d try to unpack what our Covenant for Life Together means.2
But what really concerns me is that families seeking “America’s top Christian colleges and universities” will come to this slipshod article and have no idea the crucial information it omits entirely. Several of these “noteworthy” schools — Bethel included — have recently gone through waves of budget cuts that have led to the elimination of positions, programs, courses, etc. And it would take a whole other post to help people understand even a few of the reasons why they should question Liberty University’s “commitment to providing a world-class education based on Christian values.”
If only someone would write a book helping Christian families to navigate the college search process…
I have no idea why someone who usually reports on Latin America was tasked with writing this particular article.
At least we get some details. Unsworth singles out Ouachita Baptist… and tells us nothing other than its size, location, Southern Baptist affiliation, and the fact that it’s named for a neighboring river.
Just reread his article. Three things stood out. 1) there’s no discussion of methodology to build the list (and leave off others), 2) he describes Liberty without mentioning why they’ve been in the news, 3) he’s their Latin American reporter.