The Need for Christians in University

“The story is told of a conversation between two of the most celebrated German liberal Protestant theologians of the nineteenth century, Albrecht Ritschl and Adolf Hamack. The more conservative sections of the German Protestant churches had recently gained some significant political victories. Ritschl's advice to Harnack is reported to have been something like this:

‘Never mind about the politics; get on with writing the books that will change the way people think. In the long term, that is what will be of decisive importance.’

As one looks at the sustained gains made by liberalism in German Protestantism up to the eve of the First World War, the wisdom of Ritschl's advice is clear: to win the long-term victories, you have to influence the way in which a rising generation thinks...

[W]hat if we were able to look ahead to a day when we would have financiers who knew as much about the Christian faith as they did about economic theory? And more than that: not simply that they knew about both, but were able to relate them, and bring them together in such a way that we could talk about ‘evangelical economic theory’? You can extend this list as long as you please. My point is simply that we need to make connections with what is going on in the real world, and allow the gospel to bear on the issues that are facing those who live and work in our complex modem culture. We cannot allow the gospel to be squeezed out of that culture because it is seen to be of no relevance on account of our failure to make those connections in the first place.”- Alister McGrath, The Christian Scholar in the 21st Century