As I've written before, Clearnote Fellowship has founded Athanasius College and this coming fall our first students will start classes. The program and teachers are excellent and we invite inquiries from men and women who see the benefit of going through college or university in a community with a good Reformed church that has a vital ministry on the campus of Indiana University and deep integration of undergrad and grad students in our family life.
Central to the vision of Athanasius is cross-registration at Indiana University...
We believe the off-in-a-leafy-neighborhood-in-a-small-town or up-on-a-holy-hill model of Christian colleges such as Wheaton, Calvin, Grove City, Taylor, Westmont, Hillsdale, and Covenant is wrongheaded, leading Christian profs to think they must provide the danger they deem necessary for the individuation of the students from their parents.
For years, we have asked ourselves, "What's the point of paying Christian profs to undermine their students' faith?" This is the norm within the legacy Christian colleges of yesterday and we believe the time of reform has come. Why pay Hillsdale profs $100,000 to convert our children to Objectivism, R2Kism, or Roman Catholicism?
Yet we recognize it's of the essence of the work of college or university to lead students to face the world.
Children from Christian homes who go off to university (or college) should understand their work is not to pursue "excellence" or training for a profession, but rather the maturity of thought and life Scripture commands in 1Corinthians 14:20(KJV): "In understanding, be men."
Incidentally, T. C. Hammond's short book of the same title
Because Athanasius students will also take courses at Indiana University, IU will provide plenty of danger and the profs of Athanasius will guide students through that danger with Christian wisdom, zeal, and love. They will not seek to undercut their students' faith, but to build it up and make it strong. As our Dad always said (after a lifetime of work on college and university campuses that began in Cambridge, Massachusetts), "The problem with Christian colleges is that you don't know who the enemy is. On secular campuses, the enemy is clear."
So, young men and women, fathers and mothers: check out Athanasius College. Make your application today and be in on the beginning of this Christian college we pray will be a strong witness within Indiana University and an instrument of reform and leadership for the Reformed church across the country. The men and women of Athanasius will have Christian professors who call them to orthodox Christian faith and practice—not heterodoxy or heresy.
In a word, our professors will profess. Faith.
If you'd like to visit Clearnote or you want more information, please send an e-mail to Stephen Baker or Brandon Chasteen.
Tim serves Clearnote Church, Bloomington, Indiana. He and Mary Lee have five children and big lots of grandchildren.
Want to get in touch? Send Tim an email!
