Interdisciplinary Inclinations: Introductory Reflections for Students Integrating Liberal Arts and Christian Faith

Colleges and universities have become increasingly obsessed with careerism and specialization, urging students to hastily pursue the idols of affluence. The culture of "hire education" is overwhelmingly secular and pragmatic, and it avoids an existential reckoning with the sacred aspects of the liberal arts tradition. A Christian college education can provide a path to freedom, grounded in the realization that our lives are fragmented in countless and incalculable ways; therefore, it is the responsibility of teachers and learners to reintegrate the pieces of knowledge back into something whole and meaningful.Interdisciplinary studies are at the core of authentic "higher education." And a serous liberal arts orientation, especially one informed by a biblical vision of reality, provides the ideal curricular context for engaging students in faithful, integrative practices. Distinctively Christian liberal arts colleges and universities ought to be about the work of cultivating "interdisciplinary inclinations" that prepare students primarily for a calling (not a career) that is as broad as it is deep: "repairing the ruins" of our postlapsarian world, drawing all things together in Christ, and becoming a life-long learner according to the Great Commandment-with all one's heart, soul, strength and mind.