In this book, Mike Higton provides a constructive critique of Higher Education policy and practice in the UK, the US and beyond, from the standpoint of Christian theology. He focuses on the role universities can and should play in forming students and staff in intellectual virtue, in sustaining vibrant communities of inquiry, and in serving the public good. He argues both that modern secular universities can be a proper context for Christians to pursue their calling as disciples to learn and to teach, and that Christians can contribute to the flourishing of such universities as institutions devoted to learning for the common good. In the process he sets out a vision of the good university as secular and religiously plural, as socially inclusive, and as deeply and productively entangled with the surrounding society. Along the way, he engages with a range of historical examples (the medieval University of Paris, the University of Berlin in the nineteenth century, and John Henry Newman's work in Oxford and Dublin) and with a range of contemporary writers on Higher Education from George Marsden to Stanley Hauerwas and from David Ford to Rowan Williams.

• Introduction


• I


• 1: Paris


• 2: Berlin


• 3: Dublin and Oxford


• 4: Contemporary Theological Voices


• II


• 5: An Anglican Theology of Learning


• 6: The Virtuous University


• 7: The Sociable University


• 8: The Good University


• 9: The Negotiable University


• Conclusion

Mike Higton is Academic Co-Director of the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme (part of the Faculty of Divinity in the University of Cambridge), and Senior Lecturer in Theology at the University of Exeter. He has served as Head of the Department of Theology in Exeter, and before that as the director of the Theology programme in the Department of Lifelong Learning. He is the author of several books, including Christian Doctrine, Difficult Gospel: The Theology of Rowan Williams and Christ, Providence and History: The Public Theology of Hans W. Frei.