Pastor Coolguy

It’s funny to think about how expensive education is. These repositories of knowledge called Universities that provide the key to a better future. First they require you to leverage that future in the form of student loans. 30k later and half a Masters degree (the 1st 20k was from those good old undergrad years) and I am just now figuring that out. By the time I am done with my education I could possibly spend over $100,000 for a fancy peice of paper, a little prestige, and the ability to teach others while they wallow in their own debt and wonder how to buy their kids groceries. Sadly, getting a “Christian” education is even more expensive than a secular one because “Christian” mean “private” which means $$$. It seems that Darwin was right on some accounts; a persons education and the future of Education as a whole is based on the fittest or fattest wallet.

I wonder what the world would be like if someone were to offer free non-merit based higher education. Would the local economy go up? Would gas prices go down? Would colleges have gang signs etched into the toilet seats and graphic art on the bathroom stall wall? Would the Biola bubble burst and unsaved kids might actually meet Jesus in the classroom?

Ah, but that is why we have scholarships! So us underprivileged sons of the middleclass working man can attend a fancy University and better ourselves while looking forward to a bright future of paying off student loans (because we all know that scholarship money is pretty much just enough of a nibble that entices us to enroll) and looking for work that has nothing to do with the degree we obtained. How does acquiring debt prepare me for the mission field? How does a monthly payment of hundreds of dollars make me a better Pastor (or God forbid the underfunded, unappreciated, degenerate Youth Pastor)? How does buying overprice textbooks help me learn more about the free gift of grace?

Maybe we should charge for discipleship. Or at very least require a minimum donation. Good old Dietrich Bonhofer got it right in his book on Christian economics. “…. a nation became Christian and Lutheran, but at the cost of true discipleship. The price it was called upon to pay was all to cheap.” Raise those prices, we got a great product to sell, everlasting life and how to use it. For a limited time only we will throw in a 10% discount because you are a grad student.

A Tongue and Cheek Blogg by Josh Carroll

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