An experienced evangelical educator sees challenges ahead—but opportunities too.
Of the approximately 900 religiously affiliated colleges in the United States, over 200 maintain some sort of evangelical identity. In his memoir Academically Speaking: Lessons from a Life in Christian Higher Education, seasoned educator Rick Ostrander recounts his vocational journey while offering reflections on evangelical higher education. Nathan Finn, executive director of the Institute for Transformational Leadership at North Greenville University, spoke with Ostrander about the challenges and opportunities facing evangelical colleges.
You are still in the middle of your career in Christian higher education. Why write this memoir now?
I wanted to write about two topics. One is the world of Christian higher education, which I want both insiders and outsiders to better understand. The other is the importance of trusting God amid uncertainty. I have spent my entire adult life in Christian higher education, working in a variety of contexts. But there have also been some unexpected and even unwanted twists and turns. I’ve learned throughout that God is faithful and I can trust him.
Mark Noll published his seminal book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind 30 years ago. What, in your view, is the current state of the evangelical mind?
There were two fronts Noll and others wanted to address. One was advancing Christian voices within the academy. We have seen progress in the number of Christian academics, including tenured professors in non-Christian institutions.
I see less progress, though, on the second front: cultivating an evangelical mind in local churches. Evangelicalism is marked by an inherent populism, which can work against scholarly voices. And political polarization seems to have magnified these anti-intellectual …
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