entry into a postmodern world with appreciation for multiculturalism,

knowledge of diverse narratives, and commitment to dialogical humility.

In his thorough analysis of Goshen College's church-relatedness,

historian Theron F. Schlabach suggests Goshen did not pass through the stages

toward secularization which Marsden has identified for American universities.

In its history, Goshen did not fuse establishment Christianity with

Enlightenment rationalism, nor did it assume there should be a "unified

national culture in which religion ought to play a major supportive part."²¹

Instead, says Schlabach, "Mennonites have seen their educational enterprise

as standing largely over against American thought and culture, not as a

transmitter of that culture."While Mennonite educators obviously have

drawn from Protestant educational models and interacted with streams of

modern, Enlightenment thought, Schlabach says, they have maintained

commitments to counter-values and counterculture.²²Goshen's president,

Shirley Hershey Showalter, observed that the Reformed model for Christian

higher education "tends to be cerebral and therefore transforms living by

thinking," while the Mennonite model "transforms thinking by living and by

one's commitment to a radically Christocentric lifestyle."²³

What this suggests, in pedagogical language, is an emphasis on

experiential learning or praxis, an ongoing process of action and reflection

which builds on both social analysis and cultural immersion. Such a pedagogy

21_{The quote is from George Marsden, "The Soul of the American University:A}
Historical Overview," in Marsden and Bradley J. Longfield, eds., The
Secularization of the Academy(New York:Oxford University Press, 1992):30.

22_{Schlabach, "Goshen College," 202-203.}

23_{Richard T. Hughes, "Introduction," in Hughes and Adrian, Models for}
Christian Higher Education, 5-6.

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