All Within the Context of the Christian Gospel

In his essay, “Lutheran Higher Education in the Twenty-first Century,” Mark Schwehn captures the heart of a Lutheran approach to higher education:

One must always operate with one eye on the God who loves the world and the other on the world that God loves. The more firmly for the Lutheran that the eye of faith rests upon God, the more fervently the eye of reason can acknowledge, celebrate, and seek to advance the best of secular learning and the best of university life. 1

At Concordia University, we do excellent, rigorous academics while also remaining faithful to the deep and enlivening Christian faith and ethos that guides this university. Not all Christian colleges and universities can operate in this middle space—in the tension between secular learning and Christian faith—but the Lutheran ethos at Concordia enables us to not just achieve this balance, but to excel at it.

A distinctly Lutheran ethos is not some lofty, intellectual goal, but it is a grounded, lived experience of God’s grace reaching and renewing all people. This is what it means to do all things in the context of the Christian gospel.

Those who work and teach with college students know very well the immense struggles people face today. It’s not just problems and challenges that are “out there,” but the real pains, losses, and hurts students bring with them when they come to campus. Concordia is a place where students can piece together the parts of their life that don’t make sense with faculty, staff, and university leaders who care deeply about students as individuals—as whole people created and loved by God.

The Christian gospel—the radical grace and love of God in Christ Jesus—is a very real, tangible experience of the in-breaking of God amid the chaos of human life. As a result, Concordia’s Lutheran ethos can build up resiliency, tenacity, and courage among its students. By addressing the problems of the world straight on, Concordia demonstrates its integrity and its deep and abiding hope by trusting in the salvific work of Jesus Christ.

At the heart of Lutheran theology is the theology of the cross. This is where God meets us. On the cross, Jesus deals with the root cause of human pain and suffering. This cost Jesus his life!

But the good news of the Gospel is that Jesus declares his victory over sin and death in his resurrection. As Paul eloquently proclaims, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:56 ESV).

As a result, a Lutheran university can realistically account for human mortality and finitude, while also maintaining a clear and persistent hope that God will indeed bring about a final and complete restoration of all that has gone wrong in the world. In other words, Concordia must be perceptive about and responsive to the hurts, pains, and stark realities of the world.

This attribute of a Lutheran university is extremely important for maintaining credibility intellectually and theologically, especially amid so much crisis and uncertainty in our society. Intellectually, we must engage with scholarship that addresses the deepest of human hurts. Theologically, we must also be realistic and honest about the brokenness, pain, and suffering in the world.

While we grapple with these challenges intellectually and theologically, the Christian gospel reminds us to trust in patient hope that God works in real space and time to bring healing, forgiveness, and restoration.

The Gospel of John shows with unmistakable clarity that God fulfills this hope—this aching for things to be right in the world—in Jesus Christ. John writes, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 ESV).

Story: Rev. Dr. Mark Koschmann, Associate Vice President for Faith & Ministry| Photos: Concordia University Marketing

Mark Schwehn, “Lutheran Higher Education in the Twenty-first Century,” in The Future of Religious Colleges: The Proceedings of the Harvard Conference on the Future of Religious Colleges, October 6-7, 2000, ed. Paul Dovre (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002).