To Think Christianly: A History of L'Abri Regent College and the Christian Study Center Movement

About this book

2020 ECPA Top Shelf Book Cover Award In the late 1960s and on into the next decade the American pastor and bestselling author Francis Schaeffer regularly received requests from evangelicals across North America seeking his help to replicate his innovative learning community LAbri within their own contexts. At the same time an innovative school called Regent College had started up in Vancouver British Columbia led by James Houston and offering serious theological education for laypeople. Before long numerous admirers and attendees of LAbri and of Regent had launched Christian "study centers" of their ownoften based on or near university campusesfrom Berkeley to Maryland. For evangelical baby boomers coming of age in the midst of unprecedented educational opportunity and cultural upheaval these multifaceted communities inspired a generation to study pray and engage culture more faithfullyin the words of James M. Houston "to think Christianly." In this compelling and comprehensive history Charles Cotherman traces the stories of notable study centers and networks as well as their influence on a generation that would reshape twentieth-century Christianity. Beginning with the innovations of LAbri and Regent College Cotherman elucidates the histories of The C. S. Lewis Institute near Washington DC R. C. Sprouls Ligonier Valley Study Center in Stahlstown Pennsylvania New College Berkeley The Center for Christian Study at the University of Virginia The Consortium of Christian Study Centers which now includes dozens of institutions Each of these projects owed something to Schaeffers and Houstons approaches which combined intellectual and cultural awareness with compelling spirituality open-handed hospitality relational networks and a deep commitment to the gospels significance for all fields of studyand all of life. Cotherman argues that the centers mission of lay theological education blazed a new path for evangelicals to fully engage the life of the mind and culture. Built on a rich foundation of original interviews archival documents and contemporary sources To Think Christianly sheds new light on this set of defining figures and places in evangelicalisms life of the mind.