Transcript
Dr. Albert Mohler: Hello and welcome. I’m Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Boyce College. With me is Dr. Dustin Bruce, who’s the dean at Boyce College. I get so many questions from parents in particular, and also young people and pastors, asking me some basic questions involving the choice of a college or how a young person and the parents of young people should think about these things. I thought it might be helpful to have an opportunity like this where we talk about just those things and hope to help folks as we do so.
Dr. Dustin Bruce: Yes, sir. We’ve had well over a hundred questions submitted in advance. I’m going to ask you some questions that have been submitted, and then we’ll have others who are contributing to questions along the way. So, just to get us started, Dr. Mohler, speaking in general terms, what are some key aspects that parents ought to be looking for in terms of a college education?
Dr. Mohler: I think it’s really interesting just to define what a college education’s about. Most people think of it as a four-year degree, usually a baccalaureate degree, a bachelor’s degree of one sort or another that equips someone for a trajectory, whether it’s a job or entry into a profession or into graduate study.
But it’s more than that and always has been. As a historian, I want to point out that every single civilization has had to figure out how to get people from adolescence to adulthood. What we have in Western civilization, and it has become a model that spread throughout much of the world, is a model that seems to work. That’s just an acknowledgment that over time, this is a model that’s gained dominance. It’s a model greatly encouraged by Christianity. The origin of the university in the Middle Ages, in the medieval period, was explicitly within the control of the Christian Church and under the sponsorship of the Christian Church.
By the way, the university was the universals. It represented the good, the beautiful, and the true. Even in the professions of medicine, law and theology—with theology, the queen of the sciences—it was understood to be a Christian way of studying both God and God’s world.
The emergence of the modern university, the modern college system, has a lot to do, first of all with young men because that was how the model was developed. How in the world do you get young men, say at 17 or 18, into a workable adulthood? There are a lot of things they need to know. There’s a lot of attention they need. A lot of that needs to be a residential custodial attention. It’s also an attention with others of their own age under the direction of a faculty. So that is the origin of the college. The college was a residential place where young men would come to study with teachers in the company of one another and learn what was necessary, not only in terms of the curriculum.
The curriculum is central. But to learn together life in such a way that they emerge on the other side of it ready to assume full adult responsibilities. So that’s just really key. In other words, the original college idea was they enter as boys and leave as men. Clearly there’s something broken with the current system.
We’re co-educational now in the sense that we also want to welcome young women. But as I often point out, there isn’t a civilization in human history—this isn’t an original thought with me, I just try to distill it from others, but folks like Pitirim Sorokin, years ago, pointed out that there isn’t a society on earth that’s had a major civilizational crisis with girls becoming women. Every society has had a crisis in boys becoming men. So that’s at least a part of what the college needs to be about.
Dr. Bruce: That’s very helpful. We’ve had a lot of questions about both Christian and secular state universities, but a question that has come up time and time again from parents is: how do we know if a college that we are looking at that claims to be a Christian college is actually teaching biblical truth across the curriculum? I’ve had many comments like, “I know that there are Christian colleges that claim to be Christian that really are not.” So how can parents think about this?
Dr. Mohler: I’m working on an article right now raising the question, are we seeing the end of the Christian college? And by that I mean the movement. I would say number one, who’s controlling it?
The differences between somehow generically Christian institutions have an independent self-perpetuating board of trustees. I see that as very dangerous. Or a church directly related school. In other words, our trustees are not chosen by us. Our trustees are elected by the Southern Baptist Convention. The churches of the Southern Baptist Convention elect our board of trustees. That is actually an incredible strength in keeping a school sound and Christian because it is under the control of a church, under the control of a denomination that can yank the cord, pull the plug. So that’s really important.
A confession of faith is really important, but it’s not just a confession of faith that’s in the catalog, but this is the substance of what is taught. That’s a big issue right now because it’s not just that we want to hire a faculty who will agree to teach these things and not conflict with them. We only hire the people who believe them.
That’s really crucial. That gets more complicated with the curricular expansion. So I just want to speak candidly. I know how to hire people on the basis of demonstrated Christian conviction who are going to teach out of a demonstrable Christian worldview. But I don’t know how I’d do that if I had to hire professors for architecture for an architecture school. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I’m saying it’s pretty close to impossible. That’s why if you’re going to have all those programs, you’re going to have to have a category of not really holding to all of this, but teaching with respect to the fact this is what the institution stands for.
The crisis in Christian education is that there are an awful lot of schools who are admitting an awful lot of students because they can pay the bills, not because they come from Christian homes and have any kind of demonstrated Christian commitment. A lot of schools that are hiring faculty who are willing to be Christian-ish, but their commitment to Christ in terms of even participation in a local church and leadership in that body is not a requisite issue. And then look at the students who are there. Look at the culture, look at what’s taught in the classroom.
So I want to tell people that to know Boyce College, you need to come sit in a classroom, see what’s taught. You need to look at the students and just get the culture of the institution. I’m thankful that there are some really wonderful faithful Christian schools out there. I think they are relatively few in number. I think we lose more than we keep, and I see that as a great tragedy, but given the trajectory of higher education, that’s more the norm.
Dr. Bruce: I think even looking at an application tells you a lot, right? If you apply to Boyce College, you need a pastoral affirmation. You need a credible testimony. Colleges that want to be really Christian are going to ask for similar things.
Dr. Mohler: One of the things that happened in the 20th century is that you had some schools that said, “We’re going to be evangelistic in accepting non-Christian students.” That can sound sweet until you recognize you’ve just changed your student body. We don’t operate that way. We want students who’ve already made a credible profession of faith in Christ and are identifying themselves as Christians, because otherwise you have students who are going to operate from a very different worldview in both life and in thought. We’re just not going to do that.
Dr. Bruce: Stepping back for just a minute, we’ve had a number of parents that have asked questions related to how they help their soon-to-be college student choose a career or a major in college. A really important question that a lot of parents are seeking guidance on.
Dr. Mohler: It’s a really important question, but I want to help parents and young people lower the stress. I really don’t think it is all that important that a young person know what he or she’s going to major in in college when they come. I changed my major radically after my first year in college. So if you’d asked me why I’m going to college, I would’ve given you one clear convictional answer and a year later it would be a very different convictional answer. I’ve stayed in that trajectory. The Lord made that very clear during that year, which I’m very thankful for. But I just want to tell parents, look, the average college student changes major at least once.
Increasingly about half do twice. In most cases, it’s a shift from here to there. It’s not a shift from there to there.
There are some programs you do need to know and make a commitment to upfront. Mechanical engineering is one. Pre-med is one, nursing is one, because then you end with a credential degree that is necessary to get to the next thing.
But for most students, it’s not that way. Whether you major in business marketing or some kind of leadership or whether you major in something related particularly to the Christian worldview, they’re all going to be mixed together and the major will work its way out.
Our concern is to prepare young people, their hearts and their hands in such a way that we are producing a generation of young Christians who are fully convictional and growing up right on time and ready for deployment. But if I could do anything for parents and for students, I would say, especially in that first year, it’s a good thing that a student takes an array of classes and says, “Wow, I didn’t know it, but my interest really was sparked here.” We do want to make sure they grow up and that they graduate with a degree that’s going to help them to get to the next stage in life. But in most cases, the employer never really cares what the major was.
Dr. Bruce: Sticking to the degree theme for a minute, a great question from a parent: So Christian colleges make sense for students who want to pursue a career in ministry, but why should a student pursuing a non-ministry major consider a Christian college?
Dr. Mohler: That’s a good question. I would say first of all, it is because regardless of what Christians study, we believe in the unity of all truth. The unity of all truth is in Christ. It’s not just that we are teaching history and they’re teaching history, it’s that we teach history. We’re teaching history with more than what they’re teaching because we not only have to teach it as a discipline, we have to put it in the context of Christian learning and in the context of the biblical worldview. That’s a first thing.
The other thing I would say is, look, I want to tell parents the most dangerous aspect of college. I’m going to say this carefully, and I didn’t premeditate this, but I think the most dangerous thing about college is not just what happens in the classroom. It’s what happens in the dorm. It’s the student body. And the student body distinction between a Christian college that’s really Christian, and really serious, and any other form, it’s radically different. I think particularly, let me just say openly at this stage in life from say 18 to 22, this is absolutely crucial.
Now I want to go further and say we don’t offer every program, so if someone wants a pre-med degree, they’re going to need to go to some other school. Either a Christian university that would offer that kind of pre-med degree—I don’t think that many of them left, but there are some—or a state university, and I’ve got some advice about that.
If you look at the state universities, you have to divide that between the elite state universities that operate as public Ivies, as they call them: University of Michigan, University of Florida, University of Texas at Austin, University of California. They think of themselves, not so much as a state university, but as a state version of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the Ivy League, et cetera.
Then you have big comprehensive state universities, and you have regional state universities. By the way, I think for a lot of Christian families, if a Christian college like Boyce is not the answer to the question, I think in a lot of ways those regional state universities can be an answer to the question because you can do the pre-med degree, you can do the engineering degree, and it can be in a better context than some of these other institutions.
Dr. Bruce: Following along with that, it’s the “who with.” It’s not just the faculty that’s first. It’s who’s going to be down the hall, who’s going to be the friends.
Dr. Mohler: I tell people, look, as parents, I want you to take a look at the entering class of which your son or daughter is a part. There is a fairly good chance you look at the other parents who are here. You’re going to share grandchildren with some of these folks. I would choose that pool carefully. I think this is a context in which a lot of good things can happen. I’m not saying that can’t happen even at an elite university, but that’s where I would say to parents, you need to be concerned regardless of where your young person goes to college. You need to be as or more concerned about where they’re going to go to church while they’re in college.
Dr. Bruce: Related to that, a number of parents have indicated their children are very interested in going into a STEM field or one of those fields that you just find more options among state or secular universities. So they’ve asked what are some ways that a Christian student can go into a secular or state university and pursue faithfulness to Christ in that particular context.
Dr. Mohler: I respect the question, and I got into that a little bit in the previous question, which is, I would choose the culture of the institution. I would choose, as best you can, what you know of the faculty in the curriculum. I would think the church of which a young person is a part becomes absolutely crucial.
To give an example, I was talking to someone the other day in Alabama and they’ve got a young person at one of the regional state universities there, and they’re part of a gospel church there. That’s a great thing. Here we have a school like Western Kentucky University down in Bowling Green, and there are others around the state, but we’ve got some good churches there. We have a trustee of this institution who’s a wonderful, faithful pastor who’s a pastor of a church there with a lot of students. I’m not doing an advertisement for WKU. I’m just saying I think that in many ways is a better context in terms of the STEM fields.
I think there’s another interesting question: What if you have a student who’s qualified to go to an elite institution?
I’ll just tell you, elite institutions are a part of that elite academic culture, and I just want to issue all kinds of flashing red lights. But I’m not saying don’t go. I’m saying just really know what you’re getting into. That’s where the local church becomes, I think, just so central.
I’m not saying don’t go to Harvard, but I’m saying if you get in Harvard, you need to recognize what you’re up against. You need to recognize that keeping sane and faithful in the midst of that is going to be a very difficult thing. I’ll say that right out loud.
So just understand that. I also think we’ve got to be counter-cultural as Christians to the extent we don’t think that’s the great goal. Our great goal is faithfulness in our children, measured by scripture, measured by gospel. If there’s the opportunity to go to Princeton, that might be a great opportunity. It might also not be.
Dr. Bruce: We did have parents ask about, is it still a worthwhile endeavor to send a student to an elite institution if they have those types of credentials?
Dr. Mohler: The gain in that is that you leave with a degree and a set of connections and you’ve at least got one threshold. Doors will open. This is a difficulty, I think, for all of us because this is the way higher education works: it’s inflation all the way along.
I was talking to a major law school professor just in recent days, and he told me that, and he mentioned a southern state, and he said, “In that case, in that major city, in this southern state, you’ve got leading law firms and half of their hires are from Harvard, Yale, or another Ivy League institution because that’s a competitive advantage.” Well, that’s the way the world works. But you gotta realize what the cost is in that.
I’m thankful we’ve got dear friends of this institution. I’ve got dear friends who went to schools like that, went to law schools like that, went to medical schools like that, and emerged on the other side incredibly faithful Christians. They’re very dear friends, I’m very thankful for that. They’re the first people also to speak about the relative gains and loss.
Dr. Bruce: I think they’re glad they did it.
Dr. Mohler: But I know some of them wouldn’t send their children to do it.
Dr. Bruce: We have faculty here who have degrees from elite institutions like Harvard, many, and they would say going to graduate school in a place like that is a different experience than an undergraduate. Just absolutely. In terms of the formative nature of the undergraduate.
Dr. Mohler: Absolutely. So that’s a really good point. I go back to the first comment I made. There’s a strategic opportunity in the ages a 18 to 22. There’s also a strategic vulnerability. That’s part of the reason why we do what we do at Boyce is because we want to lean into the opportunity and lean away from the vulnerability.
So I would say if a young person’s really intent on, let’s say, doing a degree in one of those schools, I would really look at a graduate degree rather than the undergraduate simply because you’ll be so much more formed.
Dr. Bruce: I would mention many Christian colleges have opportunities now for exceptionally gifted students. We started the Augustine Honors Collegiate a number of years ago for students who are more academically interested to pursue that path and receive a top-notch education, engage with the world of ideas.
Dr. Mohler: We’ve got graduates of Boyce who are lawyers and all kinds of things, all over politics, including working in the most famous offices in the land. That’s a fantastic thing. But we also understand, and this is against the grain of higher education, we want to be, we want to check ourselves on this. We’re also just incredibly proud that our graduates get married and are faithful and have children and raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and are faithful in the local church. So I think that’s just counterintuitive. The elite institutions not only don’t care about that, they actively disregard that. They consider it, if anything, an eccentricity, if not worse. We consider that success or failure.
Dr. Bruce: Going back to specifically Christian colleges for a moment, a number of parents, as you might expect, just express some questions related to their concern that a number of Christian colleges, at least in certain departments, might be pushing progressive ideology, liberal versions of Christianity. So how could you help a parent think through whether a or how to discern whether or not a Christian college might be sort of woke or liberal?
Dr. Mohler: I’d say a couple of things. Number one, look at what the faculty do. Look at what they write. Look at how they publicly message, look at the leadership of the institution and are they holding the institution accountable.
I want to say as president of a school, higher education is infected with all kinds of viruses. You gotta be watchful about these all the time. The test of an institution is whether when it’s presented with a challenge, it deals with it. We make all that very clear. We talk about it all the time. So in other words, if the institution lowers its voice when it says we’re not woke, that’s going to be a problem. You need to say it really loudly and make it count throughout the institution.
But I’ll tell you something else. Look for the student body. Look at the student body. You’re going to see who is drawn to that institution. I tell people if you want to understand who we are, come to a chapel service. I don’t just mean what’s preached, that’s central. But I mean, look at the students. Look at how they sing. Look at how they sit. Look at how they hear preaching. Look at how they relate to one another. Even look at how they’re dressed. I mean, just in terms of all the things Christians should be concerned about.
Dr. Bruce: I have questions here from parents who are concerned that attending a Christian college, their student will be sort of stuck in a Christian bubble. So there would there be more opportunities for evangelism and that kind of thing in a secular context? How might you guide a parent?
Dr. Mohler: It is the biblical tension. I remember when I was a boy hearing “in the world, but not of it,” and trying to figure out what that means. I will tell you that I find it implausible that students at Boyce College are unaware of the world. I think it’s absolutely implausible. The world is very much around us, right? Most of them are active in the world in one way or another, at least in the secular sphere. They’re going to churches that are filled with people who are working in the secular sphere. We offer all kinds of opportunities for ministry and evangelism and things like that in that same sphere.
But I’m afraid that if you turn this into institutional mission, you’re going to end up translating Christian higher education into some kind of social justice movement or something like that. I think the role of the college needs to be really important. It gets back to the fact that the body of Christ, visible in local churches, is where Boyce College students need to be most importantly deployed in ministry. Because we just trust that the local church, a faithful gospel Bible church, is going to do a better job at that than we could with an institutional strategy.
By the way, we’re deeply, deeply committed to the local church, which is we do not want students at Boyce College to have a primary identity as students at Boyce College. We want them proud of it. We want them wearing the shirts, wearing the caps. We want them happy as can be growing in Christ, but we want them to have a primary identity as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ faithful first of all in the local church, but also growing in faithfulness here.
Dr. Bruce: Moving to something very practical here for a moment, we’ve had several parents who have mentioned that in their household, the parents and the students have different ideas about where they should attend college. Several parents have just asked for advice on how to navigate the differences here when they see something as beneficial for their student, but their student wants to do something else.
Dr. Mohler: I didn’t see this one coming. I’m speaking here, I assume to a lot of Christian parents, I just want to say parents, a part of a responsibility of parents is to limit choice.
Now, I’m not saying you wake up and say, “Hey Junior, you know you’re going here.” But I am saying you define reality, that’s a parental responsibility. You define reality, you know the child, and you’re paying the bills. Now we do not want students who don’t want to be here. Let’s make that very clear and thankfully it’s visible that they want to be here.
But I think earlier than parents think they need to start, you know, channeling that, and of course you’re working with every individual child, and there are gifts and abilities and interests and all those things, and callings. Some of that’s visible when they’re 14. Some of it’s not. So I would just say, I don’t believe it’s helpful to parents to say, “Hey, there’s an entire world out there of higher education. What interests you?”
I think limiting that in terms of the model. And but again, child by child. ‘Cause if the student is, you think, really committed to say a career in medicine, well that can be to the glory of God, and we want to encourage that. That also means you gotta go to school that offers that program.
And then you have to factor all those things in. But I would say I think too many parents allow their kids to think they’re the decider. I guess I’m saying in a healthy Christian home, parents are really the deciders, but you don’t want to, you’re not sentencing a child to college.
Hopefully there’s a relationship in which this is very healthy. But also, I also think young people need guidance from their own parents about the range of opportunities, because otherwise it’s simply exhausting.
Dr. Bruce: This is a question that I don’t think many parents were asking when I was looking at college all those years ago, but with the resurgence of the trades, we’ve had a number of parents ask that if their child plans to enter into a trade or maybe they desire to be a homemaker, what is the value of still attending a Christian college receiving that four year bachelor’s degree when they may plan to do something that doesn’t actually require it?
Dr. Mohler: Let me put it this way, and I hope my daughter doesn’t mind me citing her as an example. A mother of three. Wonderful Christian mom. Married to a wonderful Christian man. We have three incredible children, bring us great joy. My daughter is a stay-at-home mom. Very involved in the local church, but very involved in life.
She’s very well educated, has a very good, she’s very smart. She’s very much invested in history, political science, current events, the classics. Well that’s important raising three wonderful, bright children. So I think she’s using that college degree in every conceivable way. She leads a ministry to young women in the local church, and she leads that group. I think all that background’s really important. So forgive me for making it personal. I hope my daughter will forgive me for bringing her up here. But I think that makes a lot of difference. I don’t feel that I invested in a college education in vain because she’s not in full-time employment as a Christian, I want to say this is exactly what we hoped and prayed for. I think it’s the maximal use of a college degree.
She worked in a very admirable professional setting until she got married and had babies and now she’s a full-time mom. I think young men, you mentioned the trades, and it could be young men and young women, variously in the different trades in particular.
But look, we have a crisis in young men. Right now we have a huge crisis in young men. We have too many young men who aren’t employable. We have too many men who aren’t growing up in time. We have too many who aren’t married, too many who should be husbands and fathers, and they’re not. We have many who are underemployed and aimless.
This is a huge problem. I think the trades are a part of the answer that’s very dignified work. I think the scripture clearly dignifies that. I think that needs to be organized and so supervised and official. But I was talking to a dad the other day. He’s got a son who’s basically going to be an air conditioning technician. You know what, that’s a good living from the get go. Once you’ve got the whatever certification’s needed and you’ve done the apprenticeship and you’re in that, that’s the kind of thing that can be very good.
At the same time, I do think that same young man would also be matured and deepened in his discipleship if indeed he also has a baccalaureate degree. But I’m not saying it’s either or. I’m happy so long as that young man is right on the front lines, ready and his generation to be a faithful Christian. Let’s get the order right. Husband, father, and just deployed in every way to the glory of God. We are the people who don’t think that’s failure or setback. We actually think honest work in the trades is God glorifying and good.
Dr. Bruce: I had a student in my office just last week and he told me he actually loves working as a barber and that’s what he wants to do, but he understands that the business degree is going to help him run a successful barbershop or own it, and then own a chain of them.
Dr. Mohler: That’s right. The whole thing to the glory of God, Genesis one, taking dominion. That’s a fantastic thing. One other thought about the trades. We all understand how important that is. You look at the work of someone’s hands and so there are times in which the most important person on planet Earth for a family right now may be a plumber. You understand the necessity of that. I think we need to recognize as a college that the problem for Christian higher education and for the church is not that too many young men are going into the trades. That would be a great thing, is that too many young men are going into the basement playing video games.
That’s the big problem.
Dr. Bruce: Just another more practical concern. We’ve had a number of questions about cost, taking on debt. So oftentimes parents will say, “I’d love to send my kid to a Christian college, but it’s just so expensive.” So how can a family pursue a Christian education responsibly and how should they think about taking on debt?
Dr. Mohler: That’s a very serious moral issue. It’s sometimes very justified in terms of timing, kind of like a mortgage. In terms of just timing, the ability to pay this off. You’re paying to use money in that respect in order to buy something that is needed now. You just take that as a part of your stewardship. Consumer debt is a tremendous moral problem, and a lot of Christians get into trouble with consumer debt. Educational debt is another category, and I would put it more in the category of the house mortgage than the consumer credit card to buy the TV. It’s a long-term investment that gains value over time. But my hope is that very few families have to go into any kind of long-term indebtedness for an education at Boyce College. It’s one of the reasons why we keep the cost so low. It’s one of the reasons we don’t play the tuition discounting game, which is the main game in higher education.
That is where you have a published price, but it really operates like Delta Airlines, don’t mean the brand, but it operates like an airline in which there are 90 seats on the plane and 75 different prices people pay. Because it’s just an algorithm based upon opportunity, purchase time, and all the rest. The airline’s just trying to get as much money as it can out of that airline cabin. It’s not the way we operate. We don’t say we have a $45,000 tuition bill and then we discount it down because that also encourages debt. ‘Cause most of those schools are saying, here’s a financial aid package. But an awful lot of that financial aid is actually debt. We don’t play that game.
Here’s how we do the budget. We figure out how much it’s going to cost to do what we believe we need to do. We add a small margin, which is one of the reasons why we have never had a year in the red. And then we just charge it as what it is. We don’t play the tuition discounting game. I’ll put our price up against anybody. Look, we could charge more and do the tuition discounting and probably have some things that I’d like to have. But I think that would be an abuse of our mission. That’s not what we’re here to do. The Lord’s enabled us to have this absolutely incredible campus, this incredible faculty and frankly, to keep things at a level of excellence. I think it’s a part of the financial management of the institution that goes into the costs. We want to keep them as low as absolutely possible. And then for people to see exactly what they’re buying, exactly what this is purchasing, so to speak. We want to make it as possible for Christian families to do that. I’ll say without any long term debt.
If it’s short-term debt, in terms how do we pay this scheduled with our family economy, that’s very different than long-term debt, which I want to help Christian families avoid at all costs.
Dr. Bruce: Related to that, a particular question that I get a good bit from families who are considering Boyce revolves around the fact that we don’t participate in federal loan programs.
Dr. Mohler: Say that again. We don’t participate in federal. Say it louder. No, we don’t, and we certainly don’t. We’re not going to, unless I’m not here. The board of trustees decides to do something different and that’s not going to happen. Well, excuse me, they’re not going to change the policy, I’ll put it that way.
This is a principle issue and it’s been this way since 1859. Most importantly, it’s been this way since the 1950s and sixties with this vast infusion of federal money into higher education that brings you under the supervision of the federal government. Now I’m going to make the argument the other way. So on the briefing tomorrow morning, I’m going to talk, I think it depends on how or events unfold. There could be something happening right now I don’t know about, but I think I’m going to be talking about Harvard University telling the Trump administration that it’s not going to sign the agreement concerning DEI and all these things. They’re saying because we’re a private educational institution and government shouldn’t tell a private educational institution what to do, and then the administration responds, “Well, you’ve got $9 billion of federal money going to you. Guess what, you’re a federal institution.”
I mean, because where you’ve got federal money going, federal jurisdiction follows. I know there are Christian colleges who say we have an exemption to Title IX or whatever. I don’t want an exemption from anything. I don’t want any coverage. I don’t want anyone to be able to show up here and say, “Hey, I represent the federal government or state government. And because of the money that flows through your budget, we’ve got a claim upon you.” There are only, as you know, a handful of Christian institutions that have not signed agreements with government in terms of student funding, loans, grants or scholarships, et cetera, or for that matter, just outright grants of money. We’re one of the few, and we do that by conviction.
Dr. Bruce: Well, changing gears a little bit, homeschooling has been on the rise. Particularly COVID saw that skyrocket. Several questions from parents have revolved around the lines of what are some ways that we can help prepare our student who’s been homeschooled to enter into the college context.
Dr. Mohler: Let me give them a speak to homeschooling parents. Our own children were partly homeschooled, partly in a Christian consortium arrangement. Very much like a classical Christian school now. I just want to tell parents, look, we can’t tell in the classroom who was homeschooled and who wasn’t. That’s a good thing. In other words, don’t let anyone tell you that homeschool puts kids, for instance, at a social disadvantage. There’s absolutely no evidence on this campus for that. I think one thing homeschooling is, is I think most parents are doing it better. Then when homeschooling was a new thing and people are trying to figure it out, I think there are all kinds of supports and all kinds of curriculum and things that have made that better.
Look, if a kid is actively involved in a local church, that kid has social skills. So don’t worry about the stereotype that’s not there. But I would say I think the most important thing I could say to Christian parents is instill a love of learning in your child and an expectation of learning and do everything you can so that they fall in love with reading and are really good at reading and are really good at those tasks and learn how to do them to the glory of God.
I won’t just drone on about this, but I don’t worry about situations in which parents are asking these questions. I appreciate them asking the questions, but my guess is they’re probably doing the right thing already if they’re asking the question.
Dr. Bruce: Related to this, we had some parents ask how can they discern if their child is ready to attend college?
Dr. Mohler: Let me ask a parent who attended college where you ready. And the answer is no. I don’t mean to just dismiss the question because I mean, there could be young people that have a particular need or whatever, but you know what, I don’t think any kid is just genuinely ready. I don’t think any preacher is ready to walk into his first pastorate. You get ready real quick. I think that it’s just kind of like the Apostle Paul talking to Timothy about the soldier, the farmer, and the athlete. You know, when you’re in the action, it’s a completely different thing than anticipating the action.
So I will say to parents, I think you’ve got to trust the fact that your young person is going to be able to function on campus among peers and with faculty and in terms of these responsibilities, in such a way that they will grow in grace and in obedience to Christ. And grow up.
Look, almost every parent I know says the first year in college was absolutely transformative, you know, after the first year in college, there’s just a huge difference left on their own. They have to grow up a lot fast and, you know, I talked on the briefing this morning about the adulting crisis and a lot of that’s the fault to parents who let it happen.
But you have to eventually put a kid in a situation where they’ll grow up fast. And they do by and large. That’s to the glory of God. By the way, you want that where there’s support systems, right? One of the most important support systems here is what happens for college students in the dorm and on the hall with the system, we’ve got older students and I was talking to two of the young men who are resident directors, resident assistants, just in here, in the bookstore, as a matter of fact, at the early part of the week. I just thought, man, they’re obviously exactly what we’re looking for in this role.
They asked me to do something, which I did, and it’s a part of the culture of the young men in that dorm. So I did a short video for them that they asked for it, and it was sweet and it was great. You know, at my age, what a wonderful thing. Young men want to, you know, want to involve you in something like that. But I also was just talking with them and I realized this is exactly what we want to take place.
The camaraderie, the brotherhood, and I know the same thing happens in the women’s dorms. But not only that, we got adults all over the place.
You look up here, they’re on campus. They’re in church with students. They’re right here. That makes a whole lot of difference.
Dr. Bruce: Another college option that’s been on the rise recently, dual enrollment opportunities. We’ve had to expand offerings here to meet the and we’re about to expand them further. How can Christian parents think about balancing the benefits of these dual enrollment opportunities that are available to them with their desire for their students to have a full college experience, not rush through things too fast.
Dr. Mohler: Let me just say, I think the problem in this generation is not that young people are growing up too fast. So that’s kind of like a problem I could only wish existed. But no, I do think there’s everything good about dual enrollment. I mean, I did something similar to that as a young person. There wasn’t anything like dual enrollment, but there was an opportunity to study and test out a certain thing, right? So I entered college as a junior.
I was 17. That’s kind of academically impressive. It’s not sociologically all that healthy. I was not in a really healthy environment then the word really used that in my life to help concretize my sense of what I should do with my life.
But my point is this. I needed the college experience, not because I so much needed the hours as I needed, the learning and the college experience. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. When I ended up in the right place studying for the right reasons and with the right faculty and surrounded by the right students and deeply involved in a local church. I think I grew more in, say, a two or three year period than any other point in my life. I’m thankful for that. I didn’t mean to get too autobiographical, but I just want to say, look, I don’t regret at all, all the study I did that we would now call something like dual enrollment. I don’t regret that at all. That’s money in the bank, so to speak. But I’m thankful. I had some time. I started out as a history and political science major and I ended up what we would call a theology and philosophy major. It was then that year I all of a sudden understood in a new way, this is what I should do.
But you know what? I’m very thankful for all what I had in the bank, so to speak. I don’t regret any of that.
Dr. Bruce: I don’t want to take chemistry again either.
Dr. Mohler: I understand.
Dr. Bruce: We’re about out of time, so one last question. Just to tie it all together, what should, how should a Christian parent understand the Christian college’s responsibility in terms of discipleship, worldview development, vocational readiness. What are some good expectations that a parent might have?
Dr. Mohler: I think there should be good expectations of all those areas, and so, but I’m going to isolate them out a bit. We need to be, in every way a buttress and a support for discipleship. The discipleship of Christian believers, young believers at those ages. But you know, we are a Baptist institution and we better not confuse the difference between the college and a church.
And so the primacy of the local church here is just so important, that that’s where the primary discipleship needs to take place. But we need to be very serious about that on this campus as a next, not as a substitute for the local church. You know, this is one of the reasons why the main activities on this campus are not parachurch ministries. They’re rather campus activities that direct young people into a local church.
So that’s that. But in terms of the Christian worldview, I mean, that’s why we exist. We exist to study all things to the glory of God and to teach all things to the glory of God. In such a way that they are comprehensively tied together in the wholeness of the Christian biblical worldview, and not only accountable to it, but flowing out of it.
And you said one other thing. So vocational readiness. Well, I mean, what is vocational readiness? So the answer is yes.
I’ll tell you, one of the big problems with young men in particular is that a lot of them, I say, are first of all are in the basement playing video games. Others are just kind of aimless and underemployed or unemployed. Clearly we want to create, educate, I should say, a generation of young men and young women who are ready for full deployment to the glory of God. But I think that has to be held up as an expectation in such a way that they grow into it.
Vocational readiness I think is more about moral and intellectual vocational readiness. Because I think most of our graduates, I’ll say this, I was talking to parents the other day in particular about young men. I think most of them don’t know what the job field is going to look like five or six years from now. I think there’s some structural reasons why we have to wonder exactly what that world’s going to look like. We want to produce young men who are able to be fully functional to the glory of God in whatever context that is. That’s good. So I know it used to be that the major, when I went to college. Major indicated what you’re going to do with your life. It still does to some extent, like I say, especially in majors that are required to get into a graduate program, to get into a profession, et cetera. But in the main, I think in the local church, you meet people and you know, they did a history degree here. And here’s what they’re doing now. They did a political science degree there. They majored in English here. There’s not a straight arrow in terms of what they’re doing, but they are fully, wonderfully to the glory of God deployed. That’s what we’re looking for.
Dr. Bruce: We’ve had a lot of great questions. Appreciate all those who submitted. I’ll just as we close, maybe offer one last quick word to parents that might encourage them as they’re pursuing this college decision as a family.
Dr. Mohler: The amazing thing about being a parent is that you love these children, your sons and daughters more than you ever thought you could, and there’s a sense in which you’ve been dreading this all your life. The moment in which they’re going to be somewhere else for a period of time. So I’m at the age of life where I simply want to say, you know, it’s right to the glory of God. You know, this is necessary to the glory of God.
You look at the wreckage and the society around us and you say, that’s not what we want. What we want is this. I hope it’s not gratuitous for me to say, you know, all this has gotta take place in sequence If you want to be grandparents, and I’m going to leave this. And our grandparent, our grandchildren are visiting and that is the sweetest thing. I know. You know what? That requires your young people to grow up on time and eventually that means marry the right person with the right convictions and then bring your grandchildren to the glory of God. You get the joy of seeing, seeing your children do the most remarkable things, and you’ll find the most amazing pride in that.
I think that’s downright biblical. I think every dad ought to want to be Abraham, and every mother in this sense, Sarah, and just watch what the Lord will do.
Dr. Bruce: Well, thank you for joining us. And I know this well. I appreciate
Dr. Mohler: I appreciate the conversation. I want you to know how thankful I am that you’re the dean at Boyce College and I think you’re indicative of the heart and the convictions and the commitment to shape that college.
I just want to say to parents, you know. I’ll just address you directly. God bless, God bless you. Thank you for doing the hard work of raising your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Don’t settle for any school that won’t see itself committed to be your partner in that. I’ll leave it at that to the glory of God.
Thanks for joining us.