College Faith

#20: How Christian Study Centers Minister to University Students

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Today I’m concluding my four-episode series on campus ministries. My guest is Karl Johnson, the Executive Director of the Consortium of Christian Study Centers, a unique initiative to minister to students on campuses throughout the U.S.

In this podcast we discuss:

  • Karl’s struggle to integrate his faith and studies while at Cornell
  • Why and how Karl established a Christian Study Center at Cornell (Chesterton House)
  • “Residential ministry” as a focus of Chesterton House
  • What Christian study centers are and their core ministry to students
  • Where and how to find a Christian study center
  • The history of Christian Study Centers, going back to L’Abri founded by Francis Schaeffer
  • How study centers specifically serve undergraduate students
  • Christian study center Fellows Programs–a form of “intellectual hospitality”
  • How Christian study centers differ from and compliment other campus ministries
  • The Consortium of Christian Study Centers’ shared Statement of Faith (The Apostle’s Creed)
  • How the Consortium thinks about labels such as “conservative,” “progressive, ” and “Evangelical” Christianity
  • Some “heros of the Faith” Christian study centers tend to hold up to students
  • Forms of idolatry Christian students (and their parents) often fail to see while in college
  • How students should understand the relationship between their faith and the university
  • Some examples of how Christian study centers have engaged the university redemptively

    • Resources mentioned during our conversation:

    • Consortium of Christian Study Centers
    • Chesterton House at Cornell University
    • Octet Collaborative at MIT
    • Upper House at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
    • Christian Study Center of Gainesville at the University of Florida
    • Cambridge House Christian Study Center at the College of William and Mary
    • Ligoneer Ministries (an example of a non-university-based Study center)
    • Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
    • George Marsden, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship
    • Charles E. Cotherman, To Think Christianly: A History of L’Abri, Regent College, and the Christian Study Center Movement
    • James Davidson Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World
    • Veritas Forum
    • Hearts & Minds Bookstore

      • ...more
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      College FaithBy Stan W. Wallace
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