Safety... that's what it's all about isn't it?

I love Francis Chan. He has a way of cutting right to the heart of our safe Christianity. Check out this video to see what I mean.

The Real Purpose of Christian Higher Education

The other day a student who I’ll call Frank, came to my class late for the umpteenth time. “I am sorry,” Frank said, “I just can’t get past the bad habit of not getting up in time.”
“What will you do when you get a job?” I asked. “Oh, I’m never going to do that at my job,” he replied.
Higher education has become a means to an end. It has lost its primary function and meaning. Now, if you ask most students why they are in college they will very quickly tell you that it is to get a good job; to live the American dream. And with that college education has become a hurtle students must get over in order to get to the real business of “making a living” so that they can become successful consumers. I feel that higher education, especially Christian higher education has a higher purpose than that. It is not simply a means to an end but is an appropriate end in itself. The goal of education is education. Perhaps I’m idealistic. I recently read in Proverbs that “to get knowledge is better than gold…” (Prov. 16:16). I think our students are getting it backwards. If you ask most of them they will say the gold (money, car, house, stuff…) is more important than education. For many of them the acquiring of knowledge is just a necessary evil that one must endure in order to obtain the gold.
Are we raising up a bunch of pagans? Jesus said it clearly: do not worry about your stuff, “… the pagans run after such things…” The world sends a strong message that everyone ought to pursue stuff; that we should get more knowledge so they can have money to purchase more stuff. We in Christian higher education ought to be teaching our students that knowledge is good for its own sake.  Teach students to seek first the Kingdom of God (where true wisdom and understanding come from), and the other things will be added to them as a bonus. In other words, I would like to see us teach them to reverse the order that the world gives them. Knowledge is primary, all the other stuff is secondary.
In some ways, I believe this higher education’s  fault. I mean the acquisition of a good career is, for students and parents a great marketing plan to get students into college. Aren’t we in Christian higher education,  joining in on the world system when we treat education like just another consumer product, and students and parents like consumers.
The Kingdom of God is made up of those who produce disciples, not simply consumers of the latest products. When knowledge, understanding and wisdom are pursued for their own sake perhaps our students can become powerful producers instead of consumers.