As you departed last semester for your holiday recess, we were made aware of a large grant, given by a foundation in Philadelphia, to help us fund this new center that focuses its resources on programs like these. Just to assure you, we didn’t have $3 million lying around to fund the center that we could have otherwise used for scholarships, nor would the foundation that gave us the money have given us financial aid funds were we to ask for those instead.

One of the most ambitious academic initiatives in our history, the Biola University Center for Christian Thought will become a vital piece in the continuing aspiration of Biola University to be a global hub for Christian intellectualism and an influential evangelical voice that addresses crucial cultural issues.

On Monday we dedicated the Center, a day I’ve long awaited. I hope many of you were able to be there.

Part of the significance of the Center is that it ties together so much of what Biola is and what we do. One of the keystones of Biola University is our belief in the integration of faith and learning and the applicability of a distinctly Christian, biblical worldview to all areas of scholarship and, indeed, all areas of life. At Biola we cling to and instill into our students the conviction that a Christian lens can be brought to bear in all manner of inquiry — in laboratory science, in studio art, in music performance or business management. Our belief in the sovereignty of Christ over all creation leads us to the conclusion that “Christian thought” isn’t just something that exists in Christian bubbles that have no interaction with the goings on of the wider world. No, our conviction is this: that everything which can be thought about can indeed be thought about Christianly.

The world needs a renaissance in Christian thought. The world needs us to “raise the game” of evangelical scholarship, to be people who can speak intelligently and biblically, from a posture of humility and worship, to the great mysteries and complexities of the world.

I believe that this new Biola University Center for Christian Thought, housed on the second floor of Rose Hall, is not only good for the broader world, but it is good for you. It will help to further sharpen the minds of many of our faculty. It will draw even wider attention to Biola as a leading university. It may be a magnet for more faculty and funding for other projects. We have high hopes in the direct and indirect results of the center.

Above all, my prayer is that the Biola University Center for Christian Thought is a place where its scholars are thinking Jesus’ thoughts after him, bearing witness to the Lord in our calling to be equipped to engage the mind as an act of worship.

My prayer is that every person who comes here grasps the fact that she or he is bearing witness to Christ by thinking deeply and Christ-likely about the big questions of our day.