we have succeeded at this very well. Many of our students come from very conservative
backgrounds, including fundamentalist Christian schools and conservative home schools. A
number of these very bright students have been taught to feel guilty for experiencing joy in
learning. But as they read the powerful and majestic Great Books, and learn to read the Bible not
simply as devotional material but as a work of theology and profound ideas, something happens
inside them. They are actually awed by the truth, goodness and beauty that they discover. They
come to realize that the better their minds are trained, the more of God's truth they can
understand and thus the better they can praise Him and serve Him. They also are humbled as
they discover bit by bit how big God really is and how frail we really are.
3. Engaging the culture
How should evangelicals engage the culture? What does it mean to be an educated
Christian in today's world? Some Christian colleges, following the standard American
curriculum, have arrived at unfortunate answers. Engaging the culture, they seem to be saying,
means not letting your Christianity prevent you from being the among the best sociologists or
psychologists as defined by the dominant culture. Don't compromise your Christian ethics, of
course, but learn everything your field has to offer and then replay it for your students with no
more than a veneer of Christianity. Pray at the beginning of class, perhaps. Tell students about
the church you attend.
Torrey is committed to helping the students actively and appropriately engage their
culture. The integration of Bible, theology, and the social sciences and humanities in Torrey
helps students truly get the point that all truth is God's truth, and therefore their truth.
While evangelicalism has done well at adapting its message to American culture, it has
done so too often with little regard, and sometimes