The Commons Spring 2019: Graduation Edition | Page 2

President’s Welcome
T
HESE STUDENTS have been
with us at NSA for four years.
Each of them has spent about 40
hours a week on school—that means we
have a total of 179,200 hours (just over
20 years) of New Saint Andrews College
education under those black robes. What
has it all been for?
One answer: truth. Our culture has a
disgust for that word. In just about ev-
ery area of life it is being sent back to the
kitchen. And as culture turns its back on
truth, society becomes even more frac-
tured—each has turned his own way, as
it goes. It is no longer just the coastal
cities with this problem. I have been fly-
ing around the country talking to high
schools and colleges, and some of them,
even Christian institutions, are going
the way of the world. Every time I get
on a return flight, I am reminded that
I am returning to a rare place. Our stu-
dents love the truth.
That is why we study the liberal arts—
the tradition is the great source of man-
kind’s search for who we are and what
we should do. Epicurius, Aristotle, Gal-
ileo, Calvin, Spurgeon, steer us toward
the truth. But the tradition frequently
veers off course, and we do not shelter
students from mankind’s most mistaken
ideas. In fact, we have them dig deep-
er into atheistic and pagan ideas than
most other college students, spelunking
the likes of Nietzsche and Goethe and
Darwin. This is one of the great skills
of our students—to extract God from
Nietzsche. That is, they recognize that
all truth is God’s and it can be drawn
up from all kinds of places. It is like the
2 THE COMMONS
Exodus story: when Pharoah finally ex-
pelled the Israelites from Egypt, the Is-
raelites took with them Egyptian gold
and silver and clothing, and “thus they
plundered the Egyptians.” We plunder
the ancients for the gold of God’s truth.
This is a matter of skill. Like all col-
leges, we train our students with an eye
toward vocation, but ours do it through
the crucible of a rigorous liberal arts ed-
ucation. Our graduates are flourishing
in the workforce—we have a 100% job
placement statistic. If you have been
looking, within the past 10 years the
workforce is waking up to the fact that,
in general, college students are less and
less prepared. They want students—like
ours—who can actually think, who can
learn at a rapid rate. If you talk with any
of these 2019 graduates, you will see
why the workforce wants them.
Under the leadership of Moses and
the skill of the Israelite workers, God’s
tabernacle was constructed in the des-
ert, and so God dwelt among them.
That is what we are after—God with us.
However, this takes more than skill and
leadership. The same Israelite skills un-
der the leadership of Aaron were used to
create the golden calf. How many skilled
leaders do we see today, pointing to a lie
and declaring, “Behold, the gods who
will bring you out of Egypt!”
Leadership and skill are crucial, but wis-
dom is essential. Wisdom is the difference
between Aaron and Moses, between God
turning toward us with a smile or a sword.
Leadership and skill rose up to play while
wisdom spoke to God on the mountain-
top. That is why our mission says while
we are creating leaders who shape culture,
we want them living faithfully under Jesus
Christ. We want them to be wise.
God told Moses on his way down from
the mountain, “Now leave me alone so
that my anger may burn against them
and that I may destroy them.” In our day,
we do not even need God to come and
destroy us—we are doing that ourselves.
We do need more Christians like Moses,
however, who plead for God’s mercy and
then lead us to the promise land. And
that is what our 2019 graduates are here
for. That is what all the hours of educa-
tion have produced. They are taking the
truth, the gold they have collected over
the past four years to build God’s temple
in this American desert.
Dr. Benjamin Merkle
President