In the economy of God’s kingdom, after all, even seeming defeat can be used to spark movements so powerful they reshape the world.
Evangelicals have often had big plans for their academic institutions. Whether one considers colleges like Harvard or seminaries like Princeton, it is clear that Christians have regularly dreamed of creating schools that have outsize influenced in the church and culture.
There is little venture bearing grander promise than that of Crusade University, the brainchild of Baptist theologian Carl F. H. Henry. In the 1950s, Henry shared with his friend, evangelist Billy Graham, his hopes of founding an elite Christian research university. Henry believed that the iron was hot, that even as American culture walked away from Judeo-Christian thinking, evangelicals had an opportunity to strike back against the darkness and found the school that would propel their intellectual prospects forward.
Graham liked Henry’s bold thinking, and the two soon convened meetings of key evangelical leaders to discuss the idea. In November 1960, Henry shared his hopes for the school in a meeting held in Washington, D. C. at the Sheraton Park Hotel. In his characteristically decisive manner, Henry argued for the establishment of a research school, which in his view held “highest priority on the list of needs if we are to achieve a decisive evangelical “breakthrough” at the educational level.” He then unfolded a powerhouse statement on the potentiality of an excellent evangelical institution, carefully delineating all it would need to feature in order to exert maximum impact on the academy. Rarely has a Christian intellectual leader dreamed bigger than Henry, as the statement shows:
More important than all considerations of “where and when,” however, is the basic matter of the image of this University and the academic world. Such a school, if worthy of its purpose, must with thought and life at their highest levels in the rich context of the Bible. It must be (1) evangelical in urgency, (2) evangelical in doctrine, (3) committed to academic standards and moral purity—but, unless it is much more also it cannot generally qualify as a Christian University. Such an institution will not be too greatly interested in “the reputation of numbers,” but (4) will honor the importance of personal academic relationships between professors and students, and will guard even underclassmen from exposure to faculty novices. Its qualified teachers must be concerned for (5) the unification of all the university disciplines in the interest of a Christian world-life view which integrates the whole of life’s experiences area with an eye on tragic cultural crises of our times, they must (6) set forth the political, economic and social applications of Christianity, and thus expound a consistent criticism of an alternative to socialistic revisions of the social order. Beyond a deep sense of personal devotion to the Lord, the faculty must (7) grasp the history of thought and systematic orientation to Jesus Christ as the revealed center of history, nature, conscience and redemption, by bringing the “ancient mind,” the “medieval mind,” the “modern mind,” the “contemporary mind” under the judgment of divine revelation; besides interest simply in personal projects and literary excursions, such a faculty must be ready to (8) engage in corporate conversation, research and writing, each making some minimal contribution for the production of textbooks that will enable the evangelical enterprise to challenge the initiative of secular scholars, and to penetrate the collegiate world. If such a university is really to rise to its greatest potential, in its necessary dedication to evangelical standards of doctrine of life, it will seek also to (9) provide a platform for the ablest evangelical scholars of all traditions, in order to solidify the interdenominational, international witness of conservative Christianity.
Henry concluded the point by stating that “it is my conviction that the surrender of any one of these objectives will weaken the potential of a Christian university,” before noting that “the neglect of one or other of these imperatives by our presently existing evangelical institutions—sometimes because of lack of resources, sometimes because of lack of vision—is what renders the establishment of a Christian University doubly imperative.”
Henry’s statement amounted to his in-person magnum opus on the question of the Christian research university. Never again would he so vividly capture the unique prospect of a school like Crusade University, which he saw as a vital part of the “interdenominational, international witness of conservative Christianity.” The school never materialized, and at least part of Henry’s hopes for evangelicalism were frustrated.
Though Crusade exists only on paper in a few largely untouched archives, there is much for 21st-century evangelicals to analyze and ponder in Henry’s tour-de-force argument. His seventh point bears further comment. Henry did not merely wish for the school’s professorate to profess faith in Jesus Christ as savior; he wanted the brightest evangelical minds to conceptualize Christ as “the revealed center of history, nature, conscience and redemption,” a soaring statement that required mastery of philosophy and theology from every major intellectual epoch of history and demanded analysis of such thought from a rigorously theological perspective. Henry did not want only Christian educators; he wanted professors to teach every subject as if Jesus Christ really was the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end of all things.
This committee statement got lost in the shuffle, and it has never seen the light of day. It shows, however, that in years past, evangelicals staring a secular order in the face have not elected to play intellectual small-ball. Some hoped that the church would support a major project to offer academic witness. Some dared to foresee a moment when the church would not accept a straitjacket, but would seek to acquit itself with force and elegance as the repository of revealed truth, truth that bears on every question of life.
In 2016, the day for a grand project like Henry’s may have passed. It may be impossible to found and grow such a school. But it is also possible that the current and future generations of evangelical intellectual leaders might encounter Henry’s vision and find in it horsepower for fresh theological witness. In the economy of God’s kingdom, after all, even seeming defeat can be used to spark movements so powerful they reshape the world.
This material is adapted from Awakening the Evangelical Mind by Dr. Strachan and is used with permission of Zondervan Academic.