My middle child, a daughter who is pursuing a dance career in New York City, has hooked me up with a wonderful institution in that great city. That institution is The King's College, a four-year liberal arts college which finds itself, after decades spent in New Jersey and Westchester County, New York, now ensconced in The Empire State Building. This is truly Christianity at the crossroads of the world. The vision of King's is unlike any institution of higher learning in the US. Its goal is to influence the marketplace of ideas and enterprise with conservative Judeo-Christian values, what they believe are the enduring and better ideas that secular liberalism has attempted unsuccessfully to sweep into the ash heap of history.

 I recently visited the campus to speak to and meet some of the students. I have also spent some time with their president J. Stanley Oakes Jr. What I found was a faculty and student body unafraid to debate contrasting ideas and worldviews and more importantly, unafraid to penetrate the institutions that espouse them. In fact, a King's education requires it. King's frequently invites secularists and anti-Christians to speak on campus. On other occasions King's students or professors are invited to join a debate in a city church, boardroom or lecture hall. Articles on The King's College have recently appeared in The New Yorker and The Village Voice Magazine, articles have also appeared in The New York Post, New York Daily News and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Many Manhattan critics lampoon and criticize its mission. King's welcomes the attention. Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has spoke to an event at the college. Despite the opposition, The King's philosophy embraces a return to civil discourse based on ideas, ideas they believe are both superior and enduring. For a self-described vision of The King's College go to www.tkc.edu.

 A normative view of a Christian College might envision Bible classes, training for new pastors and missionaries and lots of chapel services. If this is what you imagine The King's College to be, you would be wrong. King's has an entirely different vision, founded in a simple idea: Christianity for the marketplace, lived out in the secular power centers. It is bold and adventurous and attracts bold and daring students from all over America and from many foreign countries. King's also turns away nearly 50% of its applicants in keeping with it's goal of high academic standards. While the average grade at Harvard is an A-, the average grade at King's is a C. Some students do not make it. SAT scores are among the highest of any Christian college in the nation. Many King's students intern in law offices, media companies, newspapers and magazines, on Wall Street, in the arts and in business. The most popular major at King's is something called PP and E. It sounds like an electric utility, but it is in fact politics, philosophy and economics. This is down to business Christianity, fulfilling King's self-described mission to be a juggernaut of great ideas, rather than an ivory tower of spirituality withdrawn from the world. It is reminiscent of the Apostle Paul in the marketplace at Athens where the populace was “forever discussing everything new,” rather than the monastic model of withdrawal from the world and a split between sacred and secular.

 Currently King's has about 230 students, having rebuilt its student body after the move from Briarcliff Manor, New York. Their commitment is to grow slowly and selectively to an eventual capacity near 2000. King's is seeking a permanent campus somewhere in the city. Their ultimate goal is to possess the quality of students reminiscent of the Ivy League. To maintain their sharp intellectual commitment to conservative, Judeo-Christian values, there exists no tenure for faculty. To lose focus at The King's College is to be fired. From what I have seen, they are building this institution in just the right way.

 If you believe our culture is hungry for ideas that endure and principles that work, then the time for institutions like The King's College is now. The failure of secular liberalism is vast, devastating and well-documented. What we need is an alternative force of equal intelligence, sober assessment of the challenge before us, and preparation for service. For intelligent and motivated Christian students, you can do no better than King's. Going to college in New York City is not for everyone. But for those who want to understand and change American culture, there can be only one place to begin, New York City. For that one reason alone, The King's College deserves our attention and support.

John Pendleton