State of Institution Address - Fall 2011

 August 29, 2011

August H. Konkel

President

Providence is a Christian academic community in the evangelical tradition that teaches people to grow in knowledge and character for leadership and service. With Saint Anselm we believe that Christian education is fides quarerens intellectum, “faith seeking understanding.” Providence is a community of learners discerning the life of Christian faith in a modern pluralistic and democratic society.

The Christian life is a pilgrimage of learning to think, live and serve as a Christian in the church and in the world. The mercies of God, according to the apostle Paul, compel us to offer our bodies as a sacrifice that is living, holy, and well pleasing to God (Rom. 12:1-2). This is possible only by a renewal of our minds in which each day the person of faith makes careful examination to know the will of God for the circumstances of that day, to know what will be good and well pleasing to God, what will lead to a worthy end. This is the logical service of the Christian; it is to be persons renewed in the image of God, those learning to conform to Christ.

According to the Apostle, learning to think, live and serve as a Christian is not fulfilled in following a prescribed set of rules. Every day has a new set of circumstances; the moral requirements and priorities of activities must always be tested. Such renewal of thinking each day requires a sober self-assessment (Rom. 12:3). This cannot happen by comparison with other people, not even with other Christians. There is one standard and measure found in the faith given to all. Christ is the measure of Christian character; his calling comes to each one according to the unique gifts he has given each individual.

Providence University College

The mission of Providence has always been the provision of a Christian university education, which is not the same thing as a university education offered by professing Christians. In 1948 Providence stood alone among Christian schools on the prairies in offering theological degrees chartered by the province; its name became Winnipeg Bible Institute and College of Theology.

Providence subsequently was chartered by the province to offer all such degrees important to the fulfillment of its mission. In June of 2009 the University of Manitoba Senate instructed its registrars to recognize all such degrees as a minimal requirement for entrance into graduate programs. In June of this year the Senate confirmed that ruling for the Bachelor of Education program; in that same month the Manitoba Legislative Assembly amended the Providence by-laws to change the name to University College. For Providence students this is as significant as becoming a College of Theology in 1948. Providence does not offer less Bible and Theology because of this, nor has it reduced the Biblical and Theological requirements of students. Students  are now able to use their Providence degree for post baccalaureate programs rather than having to obtain a second degree as was the case in Manitoba up to 2009. 

David Johnson has quite appropriately called our attention to an article by Patrick Keeney in the National Post, in which he addresses the question of the role of the university in a democratic society. It is necessary to be critical about the function of the university:

Democratic societies have always entertained competing conceptions of the university. But at the heart of our current dilemma lies a straightforward conflict between a view of the university as an institution designed for the preservation and dissemination of scholarship and education, with that of a training school, which focuses on providing students with skills relevant to employment and the economy.

Simply put, is the university an educational institution or a vocational one?

As a society, we need to be vigilant in defending the ideal of a liberal education. This ideal goes back to the Greeks, who believed that a liberal education is the most appropriate kind of preparation for freeborn citizens. The basic premise holds that education consists of developing the mind through humane learning, and that all educational activities should be subordinate to that end. Various writers have defined this ideal, but Leo Strauss pithily captures its essence: "Reading with care what the best minds had to say about the most important questions."

Universities do have a role in preparing students for a vocation. Universities are at the forefront of advancing technology. But even the most successful know life is more than technology; Steve Jobs, in a reflective moment after the launch of the iPad, said this about Apple’s DNA: 

Technology alone is not enough. It's technology married with the liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the results that makes our hearts sing.

Nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices...that need to be even easier to use than a PC, that need to be even more intuitive than a PC; and where the software and the hardware and the applications need to intertwine in an even more seamless way than they do on a PC.

We think we are on the right track with this. We think we have the right architecture not just in silicon but in the organization to build these kinds of products.

According to the April report to the board from the registrar’s office, business and media have the highest number of majors at Providence University College. But universities are more than just learning to make a living; often that requires nothing more than a few months of training in a community college. A Christian university is about learning how to live, learning to do the will of God on earth as it is in heaven. 

Providence University College is not just another university. If it were so, it would have no reason to exist nor could it exist. If Providence is not a Christian university, it can offer nothing more than other universities with far less resources and at a much greater cost. Providence is morethanU. University may be described as the best minds speaking about the most important questions. Christian education is learning to think God’s thoughts after him.

Christian post secondary institutions exist to educate citizens in the kingdom of God. While these institutions vary widely in terms of their specific missions, programs, denominational distinctive and course offerings, they all share the fundamental values of the Christian faith. These values are significant in different ways as applied to the objectives of different disciplines, but the values themselves are a constant of the Christian confession. Christian values in anthropological and social science studies questions must focus on an understanding of humans as persons created by God to represent him in this world. Many of the best minds today find no unique distinction or definition for humans as persons; humans are an animal dangerous to other animals. In business programs Christian values must be applied to functioning within economic systems and the regulations that govern them. Media and communications studies must deal with how information is gathered and presented, often in highly charged environments, and a media hostile to Christian values. Biblical and theological studies inform all of the other disciplines in providing an understanding of Christian values. ABHE member schools are rightly required to include a minimum of such studies in their programs. All Christians need to learn to interpret the values taught in scriptures before they can begin to apply such values to other disciplines of study or engagement in society.

The kingdom of God functions within the kingdoms of this world. Christians are to be in the world but not of the world (John 15:18-20). Christians should expect that their values will often be disdained by the world; if they are hated by the world, they know that the world first hated Christ. Servants are not greater than their LORD. Unfortunately in the western world, the servants are often not distinguishable from the world in terms of life values or even in world view. It is very difficult to participate in society without to some degree participating in its values, even when those values are repulsive. Modernism quite successfully seduced much of the Protestant Church and its practitioners to conform to the religion of modernism. Learning to live as citizens of the kingdom of God amongst the kingdoms of the universities is a challenge that demands careful thought; living the Christian life in a world devoted to human dominion of everything does not happen apart from theological discipline.

Providence Theological Seminary

It is now forty years since the founding of Winnipeg Theological Seminary. This was the first seminary on the prairies. I was one of the first students in the seminary. It was the availability of a seminary education on the prairies that enabled me to receive a theological education and that kept me in the pastoral calling. 

From its most humble beginnings Winnipeg Theological Seminary offered Bible, Theology and Pastoral preparation from the best of evangelical leaders. My theological education included courses from I. Howard Marshall, Gary V. Smith, Grant R. Osborne, John Whitcomb and many others whose names today are familiar to students from a publishing legacy that reaches across the Western world.

The Seminary has been distinguished by its counseling program; currently the program is offered in Otterburne and Calgary, and counseling faculty is divided between the two locations. The seminary has also increased its online and modular offerings, facilitating students that cannot relocate to Calgary or Otterburne. The seminary also offers three certificate programs that can be taken entirely by distance education.

The Doctor of Ministry program continues to be fully subscribed; it is limited by the number of full time faculty available to supervise theses. This program has been a significant influence of pastors around the world. Just this week I received the following note from Dr. John Clark, pastor of the First Congregational Church of Meriden Conneticut. Dr. Clark congratulated us on becoming a university college. He went on to say:

I call upon the education I was fortunate to receive while at Providence often. As a good UCC liberal pastor, I find the evangelical part of me to be a valuable tool as I continue in ministry. Providence gently moved me in directions I had not been to before. That is a good thing!

Anniversary celebrations for the Seminary are being planned for the winter semester. Since its founding several other seminaries have been established on the prairies and in B.C. Among these, the counseling and D. Min. programs continue to distinguish Providence as a resource for the Christian church. However the influence of Providence Seminary in Manitoba is significant, as well over 100 of the ministers in Winnipeg, many in leading evangelical churches, have received education at Providence. Providence continues to have one of the most distinguished publishing records in Biblical and Theological studies of Canadian schools, comparable with ACTS (Trinity Western university in Langely) and McMaster Divinity (Hamilton).

Providence for Education in the Kingdom of God

A survey of the 34 member schools of Christian Higher Education Canada will immediately indicate that Christian post secondary education is not a thriving enterprise. Schools struggle with maintaining enrolment, lack of financial resources, and various challenges in their respective provincial education systems. The president of one of the larger member institutions candidly acknowledged at the last annual meeting that there would need to be changes in costs and revenues to enable them to continue to be what they have been.

Finances

Providence has struggled over the last several years to project and achieve budgets that would not diminish program. As indicated in the latest Annual Report, Providence depends on tuition for about 40% of its revenue and on student related auxiliary services (mostly housing and food) for a further 21%. Government funding and donations make up an additional 30% (almost equally divided); other revenues include projects and public events.

With such a high dependence on enrolment revenues, budgets must be planned when revenues can only be projected. At this time Administrative Cabinet believes that the budget projections approved by the board in June will be realized. Actual revenue figures will be approximate until January 2012; it is anticipated that any budgetary adjustments this fall will be minor.

Considerable progress has been made this past year in the use of Raiser’s Edge both in reporting and in donor development. Raiser’s Edge is under the direction of Martin Ward. Providence has also contracted the services of Raiser’s Edge Solutions Tech to analyze the data base and provide training webinars to various departments, especially as new staff are employed.

It is now several mouse clicks to generate reports on the demographics of donors and the status of various funds. Much more can yet be done in generating information mailings to specific constituent groups, and this will continue to be developed as the systems are better integrated.

A statistical and graph report of this past fiscal year indicates that over 30% of donations in operating revenue came from the board; almost 25% was allocated as general revenue, out of the total of almost $543,000. It is obvious that the board is the most highly invested group financially, indicating their commitment to the education of youth and church workers. The total number of donors to the Providence (operations) Fund was 601.

With a total enrolment of 500 students, each student is being supported by over $1000 of donation revenue in direct educational costs. Given that many of these are part time students, sound business practice requires that this dependence not be allowed to rise. The best-managed budgets in Providence history occur when the donation revenue is approximately $1000 for every full time student. Allowing this dependency to grow amounts to tuition discounting, which does not bode well for vitality and stability.

At present Providence cash flow is sustainable. The immediate challenge is that a number of costs for facilities development have come out of cash flow, and the corresponding grant revenues committed for them have not yet been received. A floating loan (overdraft) is used to cover this difference; when the grant money arrives, expected within weeks, the situation will be significantly relieved.

Providence is not seriously burdened with capital debt. In 2009, a loan of 1.3 million was taken as bridge financing for the Reimer Centre. This was more than the amount of bridge financing actually required; the amount provided for cash flow shortages at the time. That loan has now been reduced to $750,000; the goal is to reduce it by another $150,000 before it is capitalized, but most of those revenues have not yet been secured. To date the Reimer Centre donations have fallen short about $300,000 of the 4.5 million spent on the project. As often happens, the actual costs expanded from a projected 4 million to 4.5 million. 

While the total capital debt is under 2 million at present, the cumulated operating deficit is approximately $500,000. This is largely represented in the deficit of 2007-08, which was over $400,000. Provision will need to be made in future budgets to reduce this deficit. The good news is that the budget for 2010-11 shows a small pre-audit surplus of about $15,000, and donations in the first two months of this fiscal year are a little above average. Part of this is attributable to the mail strike in June.

After October 4 it will again be possible to pursue possibilities of increased government funding. The elections will be determinative of how that may proceed. There is also a prepared application for increased funding for the ELI program. That also has been held up by the impending election.

Facilities

Significant advances have been made in facilities. This past year a donation was received to cover perpetually all the maintenance costs of the Reimer Centre, outside of any major capital expense. Since the latter is not anticipated in a new building, the operation of the Centre does not require student support. 

The biomass heating system has been tested and is operational. Fuel for the biomass heating will be contributed by a furniture manufacturer in Winnipeg. The supply system has been examined and appears to be functional. It is expected that this will result in significant savings on natural gas; it also makes Providence one of the most green campuses in Western Canada.

Extensive renovations have been made to one wing of Bergen Hall. Almost all of this was donated by board members. Beds and desks are currently being made and are also being donated. 

Consultations with the R. M. of DeSalaberry on moving the lagoon to the Otterburne site have moved forward. An engineer’s report has been received and is now to be vetted by conservation Manitoba. Costs cannot be meaningfully projected until approval is given to the proposals for the conduits, the lift stations and the expansion of Otterburne storage. The municipality is being fully cooperative; the hope is that this might be covered under a long-term debenture. 

Services 

The most recent meetings with Sodexo indicate that the current revenue from students on the meal plan covers those costs. Deficits come from other expenditures such as subsidized employee meal cards and services at times of low volume. Since it is not reasonable to ask students on the meal plan to subsidize these other services, those fees should not be raised. (The same may not be true for your meal card.)

Student choices in housing continue to move towards independent living. Consideration is being given to converting another of the fourplexes to apartments. Both Providence House and Seminary House are a challenge to maintain. Future plans for housing facilities will give highest consideration to the choices students are making.

Financing Christian university education will never be easy. It is a select number of Christians that see the critical merit in learning how to live as a Christian while also learning how to make a living. For that reason enrolment will be a challenge in the foreseeable future, and that will always make both fund raising and financing a challenge. But it is a critical task that must be pursued; Providence has more to offer students now than at any time in its history as a Christian post secondary institution.

Thy Kingdom Come

The values of the kingdom are also the essence of Christian prayer. Jesus taught his followers to pray that the name of the father might be held holy, that his kingdom might come, that his will might be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:9-10). The call to kingdom citizens is to do the will of God; insofar as kingdom citizens do the will of God, to that extent the kingdom of God is present in this world. The prayer for the coming of the kingdom is not irrelevant to the present life of the Christian, but it is not a call to change the world. The kingdom belongs to God.

James Hunter has made this point in poignant manner in his review of past Christian social engagement in society. Christians have long had a healthy desire to change the world for the better, with roots in sound biblical and theological reasoning. They have believed that the means and ends of world-changing are to change the hearts and minds of enough people that the social order will finally come to reflect the values and beliefs that they hold. Hunter argues that cultural change at its most profound level occurs through networks of elites in common purpose within institutions at the centers of cultural production. Christianity in North America and the West is a weak culture; it is fragmented in its core beliefs and organization, without a coherent collective identity and mission, and often divided within itself with unabated hostility.

 The Christian community is not remotely close to a position where it could actually change the world in any significant way. Further, change through the exercise of power, if it were possible, is mostly disastrous. Resisting the dark nihilisms of the modern age with Christian activism embraces a power that often perpetuates such nihilism.

The kingdom of God in this world requires a faithful presence within the world. This is what Jesus taught us to pray. Christians must “never tire of doing right” (2 Thess. 3:13) and must let their magnanimity be manifest to all (Phil. 4:5). Christians must be committed to a community of faith that exercises the values of the kingdom as expounded by Jesus to his followers.

The apostle Paul describes this faithful presence as a renewal of mind (Eph. 4:23-24). The new mind stands in contrast to the deceived perceptions of those who are given over to all manner of decadence and in greed pursue every kind of corrupt activity (vv. 19-20). Those who have learned Christ turn away from such corrupt thinking in order to be continually renewed in righteousness and true holiness created as the very image of God. The apostle goes on to catalogue a list of values that reiterates those taught by Jesus (4:25-5:2). Such thinking must be learned; this again is a call to dedicated instruction, the kind that the church in part can exercise through those institutions that are established to be a resource to the church in the accomplishment of its mission.

Paul marvels at the mind of God in his plan for the world (Rom. 11:33-36). In a doxology concluding his reflection on the mystery of God’s work in creating Israel and the church as part of his plan of redemption, Paul quotes Isaiah in the poem of the incomparable God (Isa. 40:12-14). While those suffering in this world might wish to give him advice, the LORD of the star fields has a plan that defies human understanding. Paul turns this mystery into an application for transformation of human life according to divine values (Rom. 12:1-2). Living human bodies are to become a sacrifice to the divine, not being conformed to this world but being transformed by a renewed mind. In a modern world, where education controls so much of human values and culture, it is imperative there be Christian post-secondary institutions that can provide Christian thinking in every aspect of human research and endeavor.  

Learning to do the will of God on earth as it is in heaven rather than determining to change the world is not a new concept. Hunter quotes at length a famous letter written by an unknown “disciple of the apostles” to Diognetus, in all likelihood the tutor of Marcus Aurelius. Though somewhat romanticized, the letter provides an ideal picture of how Christian believers aspire to relate to the world.

Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities … and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonored, and yet in their very dishonor are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evil doers.

Christianity is not about establishing righteousness as a world order, securing justice in every society, or making peace in the world. These are a good that Christians care about and pursue, but ancillary to the primary good of God himself and the primary task of honoring him in faithfully representing his will on earth. The kingdom will come as God’s will is done on earth by the members of the church, in a society often completely confused, without any ability to even determine what is good.

Christian education must be Biblical and therefore must include Biblical studies in its mandate to students. Emerging adults and adults need an anchor in a surging sea of conflicted subjective values that constitutes western society. Such education must include knowledge of the Bible, knowledge of how to understand the Bible, and an understanding that the Bible represents a revelation of values that are part of the order of creation itself. But Christian education must be more than this; it must include an understanding of how Biblical values and truths must be integrated into every area of knowledge, all of which are a revelation about life and the world in which it is lived. It is one thing to be a teacher that is a Christian; it is quite another to be a Christian teacher, to know how to think, live and serve as a Christian in the church and in the world. The same can be said of a businessman, politician, scientist, parent, or any other vocation and role that can be named. 

As expressed in the exhortation of the unknown disciple to Diognetus, Christians must be in the world. Unfortunately Christians in the West have too little perception of how they have come to be of the world. They must learn to be salt and light in the world, understanding the values of the kingdom by which they live, knowing that God in his time will bring about the fullness of his kingdom.