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A Christian college sponsors Christian student activities and seeks to lead the

students to Christian discipleship. Student response to this appeal and participation in these activities must be voluntary.

A Christian college conducts a Christian chapel program. Wise men of our day are saying that the need of modern education is integration. Specialized education has made progress, real and valuable. Science has performed miracles and transformed the physical world in which we live. Other branches of learning have made corresponding progress. The student entering the modern college or university is greeted with a wealth of opportunity, wonderful in richness and variety. But this very wealth presents a problem. Where can he find the integrating principle, the philosophy of life which will enable him to relate the various branches of learning? Does not this problem suggest the opportunity of the Christian college to clear away the ivy and open again the chapel door? Here the student should find himself and find God and truth and guiding principles of successful living. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." Here knowledge can be transformed into wisdom.

If the chapel is to perform this high service, its program must be honest, sincere, and intellectually respectable. The chapel is no place for narrow dogmatism or obscurantism. We will accomplish nothing by setting it over against classroom instruction. Open the chapel doors that all truth may enter boldly and unembarrassed. Let science and philosophy and literature and religion all speak here. Let this room be a place of light, merciless light. There let it be understood that nothing should be taught in any classroom that cannot stand the light of this room. This is the essential meaning of integration, that every branch of learning shall make its contribution and that all learning together shall help the student attain to the full stature of knowledge and wisdom.

What Is a Church-Related College?

A church-related college is one that has official connection with a religious

denomination. The nature of that official connection varies in different colleges and

denominations.

In the American Baptist Convention the colleges are not owned by the Convention. After long and careful study, the Convention has established a working relationship with the colleges that meet certain standards in their Christian program and which agree to certain terms of denominational cooperation.

In most of the Baptist colleges of the South, the state Baptist Convention exercises control by electing the college trustees. In some colleges the Baptist Convention elects a majority of the Trustees and the alumni elect a minority.

In at least one state, Missouri, the Baptists petitioned the legislature to issue

a charter giving the trustees power to name their successors. The legislature wrote the charter that way because that was the way the Baptists wanted it. The charter, approved by the General Assembly of the State of Missouri in March, 1849, says: "Whereas the United Baptists in Missouri and their friends are desirous of endowing and building up a college in the State, and for that purpose have already secured pledges ..

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now, therefore, Be it enacted by the General Assembly... That (Trustees by name) shall be, and they and their successors in office are hereby constituted a body politic and corporate, and shall have the perpetual succession and a

common seal

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The Board of Trustees shall have full power to fill all vacacies which may occur in their own body by death, resignation or refusal to act

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Another method of control by the Baptist state Convention is to adopt rules governing the conduct of institutions that share in the funds of the Convention. The operation of these rules does not give the Convention direct control of the colleges, but it

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does give the Convention control of the funds from the churches which are allocated

to the colleges.

Another method of control is for the Convention to adopt resolutions or motions instructing the trustees of a Baptist college to take certain actions. The unwisdom of such Convention action seems apparent. It should be assumed that the trustees are better informed about college affairs and more competent to act intelligently than could be possible for a Convention mass meeting.

This seems so simple and obvious as not to need repeating, but it is a strange thing how many people from the outside can tell all about how to run a college. The average person is willing to confess some ignorance on all subjects except this. It is amazing how many pastors feel competent to stand up in a Baptist meeting and tell how to run a college. It will be the part of wisdom as well as Christian charity if we exercise more trust and confidence in the devoted and intelligent Christian men who have dedicated their lives as administrators and teachers in our Christian colleges. We face the problem of the shortage of good college teachers and we talk about the sacrifices required of those who enter the teaching profession, the long years of expensive preparation, the financial burden incident to the relatively small salaries. These fac tors are important, but I believe it to be equally inportant that many highly intelligent and talented Christian young people hesitate to become teachers in our Christian colleges because their self-respect makes them unwilling to become the target of cruel and irresponsible criticism.

Who Decides What the Teachers Shall Teach?

The only person who can decide is the teacher. In mathematics, the teacher will know the truth which he has discovered in his study of the subject. This he will teach. If he is an honest, self-respecting man, no amount of pressure or influence from any

ource can make him depart from the truth as he has learned it. In philosophy, socio-
ogy or economics, the same intellectual integrity must prevail. It is true that these
re not exact sciences like mathematics, but the competent and honest teacher must
resent the truth as he sees it, not as represented in some resolution or command.
f in mathematics, philosophy, sociology and economics, then why not in religion?

n religion, the effective teacher must teach that which he believes. He must be ready
it all times to confront the searching question which the Master Teacher addressed to
Pilate, "Sayest thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee?" We should not be
afraid of the expression "academic freedom." There can be no honest teaching with-
but such freedom. It means freedom of study and research and freedom to teach what
study and research reveals. Where, then, is the safeguard? It is in the selection of
the teacher. Here is the greatest responsibility and opportunity of the college presi-
dent and dean, to find potentially great teachers and then to create and maintain a situ-
stion in which those teachers can perform their service. Dr. Frederic W. Boatwright,
fifty-one years president of the University of Richmond, said that Dr. Lyman Abbott
once remarked to him that any college president had earned his annual salary if, during
the year, he had discovered and enlisted one good teacher for the college.

Practical Significance of Church-Relatedness

The ultimate test of the significance of church-relatedness is in the actual performance of the college. Church members give financial support to Christian colleges because they believe the colleges to be effective agencies for the promotion of Christianity. Are they right in that belief? Are Christian colleges effective promoters of Christianity in the same sense as churches, foreign and home missionaries, hospitals and orphanages? Yes, but each in its own way. à college is not a rescue mission.

It is an educational institution and it must accept responsibility of maintaining standards

that will command and deserve respect in the field of education. In like manner, a good Christian hospital must first be a good hospital meeting the highest standards in the field of medical care. The surgeon in such a hospital does not perform a Baptist operation, nor does the nurse administer Christian anesthetic. The physical methods of treating disease are the same as in another hospital, but the difference is in the Christian motivation and purpose of those who give the treatment and in the "something extra" in direct Christian influence and testimony which accompanies the treatment.

The function of Christian colleges is to educate ministers for the churches, doctors and nurses for the hospitals, missionaries for home and foreign fields, Christian men and women for leadership and service in every vocation. These colleges will be justified by their product. Legal ownership and control is not the most important thing in the relation between churches and colleges. It is performance that counts. The Christian motivation and purpose must be in the minds and hearts of those who administer and teach in the colleges. We have had too much noisy performance of the religiopolitical demagogue shouting about "making our colleges Christian." This demagogue cannot make anything Christian, unless perchance he changes his tactics and goes to work upon himself. The colleges are made Christian by the Christian men and women who administer them and who teach in their faculties, and I want to pay tribute to these men and women. I do not know a more dedicated group of Christians anywhere in our denomination. They have their limitations and frailties, but they also have their virtues and the time has come to say so.

Church-State Relations of the Church-Related College

11 hat contribution can this Conference make to the current discussion of churchstate relations as applied to church-related colleges? It is a theological question call

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