Creation crisis in Christian colleges

Kurt P. Wise, Ph.D., Bryan College, Dayton, Tennessee

January 31, 2006
While many believers are committed to a Christian college education, escalating college costs are forcing these Christians to be very careful in their “shopping” for colleges (either for themselves or for their children). If one believes, as I do, that creation is foundational to all education, then an important criterion should be what the college professors teach about Genesis. 

Recently, both the Wheaton College student newspaper (this is a prominent Christian school near Chicago) and Chicago Tribune ran stories¹ about the age of the earth in Christian colleges. Now, controversy in Christian colleges is not new. Nor is young-earth versus old-earth a new conflict in the church, for it’s been with us for over two centuries. But, as the author of the Tribune article implied, this conflict might be getting worse.

So why is there a conflict? The rub comes from the fact that although 44–47% of the population seems to believe in something resembling young-age creationism,² probably more than 90% of Christian colleges and their professors do not. With the exception of Seventh Day Adventist colleges, it’s virtually impossible to find young-age creation taught at denominational colleges (Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, Nazarene, etc.), and some, such as (Southern Baptist) Baylor University, won’t even teach Intelligent Design.³  The Christian colleges which teach young-age creation are few and far between.

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