Changing Patterns of Church College Identity and Mission

This article, presented at the conference on 'The Church Dimension of Higher Education' held at Canterbury, 4-6 September 2000, suggests that church sponsored colleges in the UK are currently experiencing a problem in surviving as distinctly 'Christian' bodies. Secularisation, the desire to be inclusive and pluralist, as well as other factors, such as merging with larger institutions, have distanced some colleges from their original aims. Survival has often driven secularisation. After examining some of the claims that church colleges make about their religious identities, the article argues in favour of a continued role for such colleges as rigorous academic institutions whose programmes are informed by Christian insights and values. Church related colleges need to continually redefine how their mission is best expressed in the light of changed circumstances and agendas.