STEM Education for the Sake of God's Glory

For many people, scientific rigor is not among the first things that come to mind when thinking about Christian higher education. There is an assumption in the wider culture that science—or other more technical endeavors—are not priorities in Christian scholarship. Some may even go so far as to say that Christians are anti-science, that to walk a life of faith and study science is to live a contradiction.

The assumption that Christians turn away from the more scientific, technical academic pursuits is disheartening. At its core, to study science, technology, engineering, and math is to dive deeper into the physical and rational laws that were divinely designed to govern the world around us—the world that was itself divinely designed for us to inhabit, explore, and steward. The curiosity and exploration that is fundamental to academia, and that births STEM study, is a reflection of how God created us to be: filled with a deep inner longing for truth. All scholarship is a search for truth, and every truth reveals more to us about the image of God. Therefore, every truth is worth seeking out, vitally including scientific and technical truths.

Christian colleges are, in fact, positioned to teach STEM subjects in a highly unique and valuable way, not striving to understand how the world works purely for the sake of understanding, but also to better know the One who designed it. To understand God’s creation and His intentional, ordered design is a divine calling. The wonder that can be found in the science lab, the curiosity provoked in the math classroom, or the understanding that dawns in the engineering lecture are all glimpses at a Creator who built it all and modeled us in His image, with logic, curiosity, and creativity. A STEM education at a Christian college is set apart in the way that it cultivates this attitude towards exploration: learning for the sake of God’s glory.

I am fortunate that my experience studying a science at a secular university allowed me to cultivate a God-glorifying attitude towards learning. My biggest anxiety in going to college was whether I would find good Christian community, and I had to work hard and step far out of my comfort zone to do so. I ended up with a group of Christian peers who were also working towards STEM majors, and by walking through my education with them and digging deeper into my own motivations for studying science, I developed a strong desire to know God better through my studies of the universe. I am incredibly thankful for my time in college and what these friends taught me, but I also recognize how much harder it was to find like-minded Christians at a secular university than it would be at a Christian institution. While my efforts were rewarded, it is a difficult barrier for Christian college students at secular institutions to overcome.

Over the past few years, I have learned that my early assumptions about Christian higher education were unfounded. As I have discovered through my time as a fellow at the CCCU, hundreds of Christian colleges across the country feature high-quality STEM programs, offering students a rigorous education in the sciences while helping them to develop a strong, faith-based perspective of their academic work. There are many more opportunities for Christian students wanting to study STEM than I realized, opportunities that I hope other Christian high schoolers are more aware of than I was. My research into Christian STEM programs has made me excited for the next generation of scientists and engineers as they learn about STEM with an attitude of wonder, founded in seeking out the glimpses of their Creator that He has planted throughout His Creation.

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