Features: August 2006

The Great Cloud of Witnesses by Frances Taylor Gench

Remarks to the 217th GA re: APCU by Gerald Gibson

Reflections from a Not-So-Rare Breed by Rachael Whaley

Presbyterians Being Reformed: Orienting Perspectives by Robert Bullock, Jr., Clifton Kirkpatrick, and Anna Case-Winters

Threats to the Dream by William McAtee

Four Presbyterian Characteristics: My Reflections by William Chapman

Pastoral Letter by Samuel Kobia

Past Issues

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June 19, 2006

Good evening. I’m Gerald Gibson, president of Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee, one of sixty-five Presbyterian-related colleges and universities. It is also my privilege to serve as a director of the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities (APCU). Under a covenant with the General Assembly Council, APCU works to strengthen ties between the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and its colleges.

One item of business that you as commissioners will perform this week will be to approve the list of related schools, colleges, and universities. Given the scope of your work here in Birmingham, this may appear to be a relatively small item of business. It will probably be part of a consent agenda, and you may return home without realizing fully the significance of what you have done.

Nevertheless, it is an important item of business, and not just symbolically.

Colleges are the oldest form of Presbyterian mission beyond the local congregation, dating to the early 1700s. The oldest Presbyterian college still in existence was established in 1775. By approving that list you will be affirming the importance that Presbyterians have placed on education since John Calvin’s time.

Of those sixty-five colleges and universities, U.S. News and World Report ranks more than half in the first or second tier of comparable institutions. Of the schools that U.S. News ranks as the country’s top fifty liberal arts colleges, only ten are church-related institutions, half of them Presbyterian.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and its colleges share a common goal of producing people who want to make this world a better place. It is this commitment to service that sets church-related colleges apart from many others.

My own institution—Maryville College—has the tag line: “Be Successful, Make a Difference.” It is a phrase that would apply to any Presbyterian college. For unlike those whose goal is preparing students for personal achievement, our colleges prepare students to be a positive influence in the world.

Presbyterian colleges:

• Challenge students to think carefully and critically about all matters of life, including religious, spiritual, and ethical matters;
  
• Equip students to examine and reflect on questions of faith, meaning, and value;
  
• Provide students with an understanding of not only our Christian tradition but also the diversity of religions and cultures that make up our world; and
  
• Offer students opportunities for worship, service, and fellowship in a community of integrity, respect, and scholarship.

By doing these things, Presbyterian colleges are well equipped to help the church accomplish its mission goals of:

• Leadership and vocation,
  
• Spirituality and discipleship,
  
• Justice and compassion, and
  
• Evangelism and witness.

In his book This We Believe—Eight Truths Presbyterians Affirm, the Rev. Stephen Plunkett declared that: “the life of the mind in the service of Jesus Christ has always been a distinctive hallmark of the Reformed tradition and one of the most exhilarating and deeply satisfying aspects of the Christian life.”

Presbyterian colleges affirm this truth every day.