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Anxious Middle

Todd C. Ream | Jerry Pattengale
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A01=Jerry Pattengale
A01=Mark Noll
A01=Todd C. Ream
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American Christianity
American higher education
Author_Jerry Pattengale
Author_Mark Noll
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Baylor University
Bonhoeffer
Category1=Non-Fiction
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Christian colleges
Christian formation
Christian higher education
Christian universities
COP=United States
Creation and Fall
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discipleship
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Indiana Wesleyan University
Language_English
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Samford University
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Wheaton College

Product details

  • ISBN 9781481318501
  • Weight: 272g
  • Dimensions: 140 x 216mm
  • Publication Date: 15 Aug 2023
  • Publisher: Baylor University Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • Language: English
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Description
In the 1990s, Christian colleges and universities experienced a record boom in students and employees. However, less than twenty years later Christian institutions experienced new challenges spurred on by four major changes: first, the "Great Recession" of 2008 and widespread debt; second, declining birthrates in certain regions of the United States; third, the passing of the Affordable Care Act, which raised the question of whether Christian institutes were required to cover contraceptives; and fourth, the Supreme Court's decision to legalize gay marriage, which brought issues of employment to the forefront at certain Evangelical institutions. Yet despite mounting challenges, most Christian colleges and universities are still stronger now than at any point in their respective histories by almost any measure.

With The Anxious Middle, Todd C. Ream and Jerry Pattengale engage the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a model for navigating our tumultuous times. The authors argue that if the present age is defined by what Bonhoeffer calls in Creation and Fall the "anxious middle"—somewhere between Eden and the Apocalypse—the challenges faced by Christian higher education must be recognized as both existential and practical. To confront them while still embracing any opportunities afforded by occasional cross breezes, Christian colleges and universities would be wise to employ a fourfold approach to planning informed by Bonhoeffer's work as well as historic and contemporary examples: institutions should be articulate about their missions, imaginative in advancing them, collaborative in deploying them, and strategic in sharing them. 

Trustees, administrators, faculty members, and others concerned with the future of Christian colleges and universities will find in The Anxious Middle a planning process applicable to organizational levels ranging from the campus-wide to the departmental or the programmatic. The result is an understanding of Christian higher education not merely focused on surviving but thriving between Eden and the Apocalypse.
About Jerry Pattengale | Mark Noll | Todd C. Ream
Todd C. Ream is Professor of Humanities in the John Wesley Honors College and Executive Director of Faculty Research and Scholarship at Indiana Wesleyan University, and is Senior Fellow for Programming for the Lumen Research Institute. He also serves as the Senior Fellow for Public Engagement for the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and as the Publisher for Christian Scholar's Review.

Jerry Pattengale is University Professor at Indiana Wesleyan University, and the codirector and cofounder of the Lumen Research Institute.

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