Contributors, including two Baptist college presidents, say such education should equip students in every field of study to engage the culture with a distinctively Christian worldview. The journal is published by Southern Seminary, Louisville, Ky.

In the journal's editorial, editor Paul R. House asserts Christian colleges and universities must avoid the twin dangers of viewing their mission as either "a glorified Sunday school" or "a smaller version of a state university." Instead, House argues for Christian higher education that is "even more committed to academic excellence than the best intentioned state university or secular liberal arts college" while steeping the study of every academic discipline in the most important of all knowledge, "an accurate understanding of God's inerrant Word."

A faithful Christian college, House maintains, demonstrates academic excellence; unwavering biblical fidelity; vibrant, Christ-honoring leadership from faculty members; and Christian ethical standards on such issues as alcohol consumption and sexual activity.

"Sadly, some Christian colleges depart from their specifically-Christian mission," House writes. "Many say they are doing so in order to stay afloat. If so, they have forgotten one important fact: it is better to cease to exist than to cease to matter. Those who continue to matter will continue to exist. They will fulfill their promise and keep their promises."

Bob Agee, president of Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, renders an examination of the upheaval in contemporary Southern Baptist higher education. Being a Christian college, he notes, means more than a structural relationship with a denominational body and required chapel services or religion classes.

"Education is not really complete if it does not address the serious faith issues which undergird all of learning and becoming," Agee writes.

The journal also includes an edited version of the inaugural address of David Dockery, president of Union University, Jackson, Tenn. Dockery expounds a mandate for Christian higher education from the "Great Commandment" of Jesus found in Matthew 22:36-40. "Learning to think Christianly impacts our homes, our businesses, our health care agencies, our schools, our social structures, our recreational activities, and, yes, our churches too," he states. "To love God with our minds means that we depart from secular mind-sets in the way we live and love, the way we worship and serve, the way we work to earn our livelihood, and the way we learn and teach."

Evangelical theologian Carl F.H. Henry contributes an article which probes the biblical mandates and models for education while lamenting "many Christian colleges now neglect their duty to exhibit a Christian world-life view on a curriculum-wide basis." In the academic arena, the Christian is to be "not only a bearer of truth but a carrier of hope," he writes. "Loosed from its transcendent anchor, the world is at a loss for both truth and hope."

A Christian university must be committed to academic freedom and confessional fidelity, notes D.A. Carson, research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Ill.

Carson outlines the priorities of a Christian university as including teaching the Bible "worldviewishly" while being diligent to fight "a universal tendency for Christian universities to drift toward the dominant voices in the culture." "Can there be a Christian university? Of course," Carson concludes. "But there is a great deal of work to be done, many things to be learned, and many commitments to undertake if we are to establish excellent ones that grow and endure for long periods of time, bringing glory to God, strength to the church, and grace to the

broader culture."

Ted Dorman, associate professor of theology at Taylor University, Upland, Ind., contributes an article advocating a return to the principle of "faith seeking understanding" as a model for Christian higher education. Christians, he argues, must not consign their faith to an intellectual "ghetto," conceding ground to the counter-biblical notions such as neo-Darwinian evolutionary naturalism.

A regular feature of the journal is the "SBJT Sermon." In the Christian higher education issue, R. Kent Hughes, pastor of College Church, Wheaton, Ill., provides an expository sermon titled, "Sovereign in His Temple," based on Luke 19:45-48.

The "SBJT Forum," another regular feature of the journal, addresses the question, "How does one integrate faith and learning?" The journal's panel of forum participants for its inaugural year include Carson; Southern Seminary's assistant professor of Christian ethics C. Ben

Mitchell; Craig Blaising, Southern Seminary's Joseph Emerson Brown professor of Christian theology; and Scott Hafemann, professor of Greek at Wheaton (Ill.) College.

The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology is published quarterly. Subscription information may be obtained at 1-800-626-5525 ext. 4413.

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