Why We Focus on Reaching the University

Why We Focus on Reaching the University

by Dr. Corey Miller, Ratio Christi President and CEO

Ratio Christi is one of the most strategic ministries in the country. Why? One reason is location, location, location. Because of its location in moving not just the country, but the entire world.

The primary institution where Ratio Christi works is a place from which to move the world. The university is perhaps the single most influential institution shaping civilization. It is the gatekeeper of thought upstream shaping culture downstream. From it come our doctors, lawyers, business and political leaders, journalists, pastors, k-12 educators, and even future professors. The challenge is for the church to realize this; that no greater service can it render both to itself and to the cause of the gospel with which it is entrusted than to try to recapture the universities for Christ, on whom they were all originally founded.

We’re told that “Ideas have consequences.” 9/11 wasn’t about power, but ideas. World War II wasn’t about power, but ideas. Ideas shape the world, for good or for evil. They can be deployed constructively or destructively. Victor Frankl, the Austrian holocaust survivor, neurologist, and philosopher, poignantly stated that “The gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Majdanek were ultimately prepared not in some Ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.” Hitler said, “give me the textbooks and I will control Germany.” Abraham Lincoln said, “the philosophy in the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”

The American population is roughly 330 million people, of which 1.6 million are professors educating, inspiring, and mobilizing nearly 22 million current students, the future leaders of the world. While professors constitute a half of a percent of the US population, they wield enormous weight in their research & teaching with input into nearly every aspect of society. Ratio Christi reaches students and professors.

As goes the university, so goes the culture. As goes the U.S. university, so goes the world.

Failure to reach the university, the whole university including the professors and administrators, is the greatest omission of the great commission. It is just that influential. The strategic location of the university should be at the forefront of Christian mission. It is for Ratio Christi.

If you desire to influence culture by sharing the Gospel on university campuses, consider joining our team. We are seeking full time Campus Ministers.

To hear more on why we focus on the university, check out this video:

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