The Church Sabotaged Higher Education

One might wonder why reformers like Luther, Knox, and Calvin managed to reshape civilization without ever attending a Christian worldview seminar, or why the likes of John Owen and Jonathan Edwards never fell prey to the modern affliction known as the sacred-secular divide. How did these men command intellectual and cultural influence across every sphere of life without first being re-educated into what now passes for Christian engagement?

The church’s retreat from the public square has been well-documented—a self-imposed exile from which it is only now beginning to recover. For many modern Christians, the notion that Christ’s dominion extends over every inch of creation is not merely enlightening but somewhat scandalous. It shatters the fragile pieties upon which they once stood—a paradigm shift of significant proportion. The prevailing assumption is that godliness consists of little more than enduring the world’s corruption while awaiting a celestial escape. In this mindset, the sum of Christian duty is reduced to private devotions and Sunday obligations. But this brand of pietism is no more than secularism’s pious twin—both conspiring to banish religion from public life.

The church could not disciple the nations because it had confined itself to prayer closets and padded pews

This misconception was laid bare during the Fauci-sanctioned lockdowns, which exposed a glaring deficiency in political theology across much of the church. Many congregations, lacking a coherent doctrine of the state, scrambled to justify their compliance with tyrannical edicts—often by misapplying scripture in the service of submission. One must ask: how did it come to this? How did the faith that built Western civilization degenerate into an impotent relic, offering no framework for understanding the world beyond the sanctuary doors?

The Faucian embargo merely revealed what had long been true: the church could not disciple the nations because it had confined itself to prayer closets and padded pews. Theology, once the intellectual bedrock of Christendom, had been exiled to the realm of personal piety, treated as a curiosity best left to scholars and clergy. In this retreat, doctrine was no longer the force shaping civilizations but a niche pursuit—an arcane hobby indulged in by those with an eccentric taste for the abstract.

This was not always the case. Theology was once the queen of the sciences, a prerequisite for any serious intellectual or vocational pursuit. One could scarcely separate it from other fields of study, for it was theology that lent coherence to the whole. This principle birthed the university itself—a place where diverse disciplines converged under the unifying banner of truth. At its core was the conviction that true knowledge begins with reverence for God and acquiescence to His revealed logos, both in Scripture and creation (Prov. 1:7). Strip theology from the equation, and the intellectual foundations of every other discipline erode, leaving them rudderless and compromised.

Christian philosopher Vishal Mangalwadi argues that theology’s exile away from public life began with the rise of seminaries. As the church ceded its influence in the public square, theology was quarantined within clerical institutions, while the university, now severed from its moorings, became easy prey for the creeping advance of secularism. The result? A world where the church’s apathy has been more potent in discipling the nations in chaos than the schemes of the godless ever could.

To return to our opening question, the key to the reformers’ and Puritans’ intellectual force lies in their education. They did not ponder theology in isolation, detached from the broader currents of thought. Rather, they saw all of life as subject to the sovereignty of Christ and pursued learning accordingly. Their impact was so profound precisely because they were not mere products of seminaries; almost without exception, they were men of the university.

“History bears very clear testimony that Calvinism and education have been intimately associated. Wherever Calvinism has gone it has carried the school with it and has given a powerful impulse to popular education. It is a system which demands intellectual manhood. In fact, we may say that its very existence is tied up with the education of the people.” --Lorraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. Pg 396

John Calvin, initially enrolled at the University of Paris for the priesthood, later pursued law at Orléans and Bourges before returning to Paris, where he immersed himself in ancient languages and classical thought. The result was a rigorous Christian liberal arts education that equipped him to become one of the most formidable architects of Western thought. John Owen, the towering Puritan intellect, was an Oxford fellow. John Knox studied at the University of St. Andrews. William Perkins, the influential English Puritan, was trained at Christ’s College, Cambridge. Martin Luther earned a degree in the classical liberal arts at the University of Erfurt. Jonathan Edwards, the great American Puritan, graduated from Yale. Even among the Dutch reformers, Wilhelmus à Brakel—one of the leading figures of the Nadere Reformatie—was educated at the University of Utrecht.

The pattern is clear. These men did not see theology as a cloistered discipline but as the foundation of a comprehensive intellectual vision. Their education was not an exercise in narrow specialization but an encounter with the breadth of human knowledge, ordered under divine truth. These men were not merely theologians; they were polymaths who applied theology across disciplines. They embodied the original purpose of the university—an institution where knowledge was unified under truth which is divine. Their sermons and writings extended beyond soteriology, shaping philosophy, politics, and public life. They advised monarchs and statesmen, their ideas influencing the levers of power. The reason popes and emperors scorned them was not due to some abstract theological quibble but because their ideas had the force to reorder nations. Their theology was no academic parlor game; it was the intellectual bedrock upon which societies stood or fell.

There is no field of study or realm of life untouched by theological underpinnings.

Modern Christians, by contrast, often find themselves ill-equipped to interpret the world through the lens of truth. This is no accident. Theology has been methodically severed from the whole of life, leaving entire nations to be discipled in an atheistic framework that scorns Christianity as incompatible with reality. The tragedy is that many Christians themselves have absorbed this propaganda and suffer the destructive consequences of their intellectual surrender.

The essence of the Christian liberal arts is to restore theology to its rightful place—as the capstone of knowledge, the key to understanding the cosmos and our place within it. Theology matters for everything.

There is no field of study or realm of life untouched by theological underpinnings. Every discipline—language, literature, mathematics, science, law, history, philosophy, and music—rests on a theological premise that shapes its purpose and application. There is no neutral ground. In every pursuit of knowledge, worship is always taking place; the only question is who or what is being worshiped.

At New Saint Andrews College, theology is not merely an academic subject—it is the foundation of every discipline. Students are taught to see God’s purpose in every course and His sovereign hand throughout history. His glory is woven into every fabric of thought and study. When students reckon with this truth, they are freed to explore, pioneer, and build. Theology is not an optional lens; it is the only framework through which true learning takes place.

If you seek an education that equips you to think critically, lead courageously, and shape culture, apply to New Saint Andrews College today: nsa.edu.