The College is not the Church!

When a college is questioned about hosting a false teacher on a lectureship or workshop, or harboring a false teacher on the faculty, or fellowshipping those who have been marked, it may respond by saying, "The college is not the church!" We say, "Amen!"

Christian colleges are institutions organized by men in agreement with the rules and regulations of the law of the land. There is nothing wrong with one Christian, or a hundred Christians establishing and running a college.

Sadly, today modernism, liberalism, and immorality are constantly increasing on college campuses, even those operated by professing Christians. These bad influences stay with many of the students when they leave the school.

Brother Alan Highers said:

Through their influence on young people, the colleges also have an effect upon the church. It is not a question of whether this should be the case, or whether we approve. It is a face. Those who attend preacher schools, colleges, and universities operated by Christians, often become the elders, deacons, preachers, teachers, and leaders in congregations wherever they go. Therefore, like it or not, the educational institutions are a force for either good or evil upon the churches (Spiritual Sword, July 1991, Vol. 22, No.4, p.40).

A Christian college can be a wonderful place for individuals to receive an education in a Christian environment, but it can also be devastating to the church when colleges fail to exalt and honor the Word of God.

The church is authorized by Christ. "Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste" (Isa. 28:16). Jesus promised to build his church (Matt. 16:13­19). Christ is the savior and founder of the one body, his church (Eph. 1:22­23). The New Testament church was purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. "Take heed ... unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood" (Acts 20:28). Christ did not authorize the college.

Colleges have boards of directors to control the institution. They have presidents, vice­presidents, deans, administrators, and faculty. They are of human origin and, therefore, not on the same parallel with the church. Because they are directed by fallible humans, they make many mistakes. In schools claiming to be Christian, these mistakes may be glaring errors in Bible teaching. For political reasons colleges sometimes are pressured to make compromises. Need for money causes some universities to bend biblical principles ... don't drink whiskey, don't engage in ballroom dancing, don't bid Godspeed to a working of error, and such like.

If we have doctrinal compromises at college lectureships, we will soon have doctrinal compromises in congregational activities. If our young people drink at poisoned wells, they will soon become weak and sickly in their spiritual convictions. The good the schools can do when they are on the right crack is dwarfed by the harm they can do if they go astray (Alan Highers, Spiritual Sword, p. 40).

The administrations of these schools need to be aware of what is taught in the classrooms and the lectureships. Many schools operated by our brethren have let liberal teachers and preachers have access to the brotherhood through the college lectureships.

Colleges that want to be recognized as Christian must follow the rule of Christ and not the world.

The church gets its authority from Jesus who said, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth" (Matt. 28:18). Christians must have his authority for everything they believe and practice. "And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him" (Col. 3:17).

In a day when authority is rejected and liberalism is spreading like cancer, we have to face the fact that some of our colleges are in trouble. Apostasy in our schools is not surprising because the Bible teaches us that men would leave Christ and do their own thing. "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils" (1 Tim. 4:1).