미국 기독교 대학의 정체성 상실의 과정에 대한 연구

Abstract

This study aims to find some trends and their facilitative factors by reviewing the histories of a few distinctive Christian higher education institutions in America. This study will be useful to understand the present and to forecast the future of major Christian universities in Korea, because they established after the model of American Christian universities.The histories are the gloomy stories about the loss or weakening of Christian identity in the American universities and colleges. The loss or weakening of the Christian identity has many causes as following: First, the misuse of the principle of separation between church and state led to drastic restraint of the public religious activities on campus. A religious activity is limited to the individual and private area. Second, their rapid expansion forced them to be susceptible to the commercial power in the American higher education market. The more they expand, the more students they admit. Since the non-belief students are majority in campus, it became hard to maintain the Christian atmosphere in the campus. Third, the professionalism of the higher education led to weakening the basis on the liberal arts education for the students' character formation. The students are interested just in the subjects which have an edge in the job market. Fourth, the intense development of the research university forced the Christian scholars to devote themselves to research with giving up teaching their students. The Christian scholars are under pressure too heavy to meet their students and to train them. Fifth, as a result of emergence of multiversity, the Christian universities have lost the Christian educational vision for unifying their members. Last, the anti-cultural movement criticised the western culture as well as Christian culture and values. More and more students became non-believers, and they changed the Christian atmosphere on campus.