Christian Liberal Arts Education

Improved Essays
A Christian liberal arts education more completely prepares its graduates for life than does other education tactics, especially over a general liberal arts study. These universities seek to prepare a student for all aspects of life—wherever and whatever they may be—as a loving, Christ follower. This methodology differs greatly from those used by other institutions for higher learning. A liberal arts degree in the non Christian world focuses on laying a foundational education that will prepare the student for whatever future job they pursue, even if it is outside of his or her chosen major. This allows students as well informed people to succeed in all of the nuances of their employment so that they are not only trained to do one specific job, …show more content…
A Christian liberal arts education keeps the main idea of this objective—a well-rounded education to prepare graduates for the rest of life—and transforms it to include the goal of teaching students to live, rather than to work. A Christian education seeks more than preparation for a future vocation, and through the liberal arts, this is accomplished in teaching ethics, biblical knowledge, and diverse classes to teach students skills, knowledge, and practices that will be valuable later in life. The overarching purpose of the Christian liberal arts education is this: to prepare students for the rest of their life with God as the focus for their service to the church and the world. The main differences between this form of education and its secular variant are the goals they seek and the practices they form. The term liberal arts originated in ancient Greece as the study of the trivium and the quadrivium—the seven subjects that would “liberate” you from lack of knowledge and the lower class status that often accompanied an uneducated life. Liberal arts …show more content…
Collegeboard defines liberal arts schools as “Colleges that can prepare you for a variety of careers or graduate study” (Types of Colleges. Collegeboard). In the secular world this is the main focus of liberal arts educations, to be applicable in multiple vocational settings. While it is true that some general liberal arts schools such as Amherst College, one of the most academically renowned liberal arts colleges, still seek virtuous life: “Amherst College educates men and women … so that they may seek, value, and advance knowledge, engage the world around them, and lead principled lives of consequence” (Amherst.edu), this education is incomplete. A “principled life of consequence” is a far cry from the goal we as Christians were given in Titus: “In all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine, dignified, sound in speech which is beyond reproach…” (Titus 2:7-8 NASB). God has called Christians to seek a greater good than the ambiguous principled life many others schools claim, and much different than the pursuit of money that others want. The Christian perspective develops the goal of living a life of virtue and changes it to the broader goal of living rest of your life as to the best of your abilities as a determined follower of Jesus,

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