A recent book has been published by Bloomsbury, Christianity and the University Experience, where also a recent review of the book was published in the Times Higher Education.
The book contains evidence of both the impact of University on Christian students as well as the impact of faith on their University experience. Clearly faith cannot be ignored in the University context, it’s completely integral to the whole student experience both for Christians and those of other faiths or none with whom they interact.
Another observation from the review of the book is that what we have here is a “snapshot” of the state of Christian students’ in the academy, and not a full scale longitudinal survey. Nevertheless, the evidence for faith being present among students in the academy is shown to be clearly strong, including the day to day study and social environments.
WHERE NOW FOR CHRISTIAN STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY?
Looks a very interesting book from the writeup. My experience of Southampton in 1970s was similar: faith among students was strong, varied, non-sectarian.
However now I would seek one further piece of information: How do the Christian students see their faith relating to their subject and vice versa? When I was a student I tended to keep them in separate compartments, with the only influence of my faith being on my *conduct* as a scholar and not on the *content* of my topic (Electronics Science).
Nowadays I am keen to see Christ as Sovereign over – or the Abrahamic Blesser of – the theoretical content of each topic. Partly because I have moved to ‘softer’ topics like human factors in information systems, sociology and business. But I would also see it as relevant to my old topic of electronics.
It is for this reason that C-A-N- has been promoting ‘Shaping Our Disciplines for Christ’.