Glanzer's Guide
Operational Christian Identity Guide
This comprehensive classification system provides a framework for determining the extent to which institutions prioritze and embrace their Christian identity.
Deciding where to apply for college is not easy. But Perry Glanzer's guide to Christian Colleges & Universities can help you navigate your journey. The directory of institutions contains each school's ranking data and key characteristics about required bible/theology classes, student groups, and more. Altogether, this guide can serve as a powerful resource to your quest for the best fit college.
How Ranks Are Determined
We calculated 11 distinct overall rankings where the sum of weighted, normalized values across 30 indicators of Christian academic values determined each school's overall score and rank.
| Ranking Factor | Indicator Weight |
|---|---|
| Mission: Classify Type of Mission Statement | 2 |
| Christian Identity Affirmed | 2 |
| Christian Affiliation Confirmed | 1 |
| Neither Identity Language Exists in the Mission Statement | 0 |
| Vice President for Mission, College Chaplain, or Reverend on the Executive Cabinet | 1 |
| Yes | 1 |
| No | 0 |
| First-Page Rhetoric: How Schools Identity Themselves on the First Page of Website | 1 |
| Explicitly Christian/Catholic | 1 |
| No Distinctive Christian/Catholic Language | 0 |
| "About Us" Rhetoric: Looked at the "About Us" Web Page | 1 |
| Explicitly Christian/Catholic | 1 |
| No Distinctive Christian/Catholic Language | 0 |
| Membership Requirement | 0 - 4 |
| Students | 1 |
| Faculty | 1 |
| Staff | 1 |
| President | 1 |
| Christian/Catholic Requirement for Governance | 1 |
| All | 1 |
| Some | 0.5 |
| No | 0 |
| Theology, Religion, Christian Studies, Bible, etc. | 1 |
| Theology, Christian Studies, or Similar Distinctly Christian Department Title | 1 |
| "Religion" Department Title | 0 |
| Required Bible/Theology Classes | 0 - 10 |
| Christian/Catholic Institute, Center, or Program | 1 |
| One or more | 1 |
| None | 0 |
| Chapel/Mass | 2 |
| Required | 2 |
| Voluntary | 1 |
| None | 0 |
| Student Groups | 1 |
| Exclusively Christian | 1 |
| Multi-faith | 0 |
| No Religious Group | 0 |
| Code of Conduct | 2 |
| Christian | 2 |
| Moral | 1 |
| Legal | 0 |
| Total | 27 |
Ranking Factors
Mission
Here, we used the following codes to classify the type of mission statement:
- Christian identity affirmed (2)
- Christian affiliation confirmed (1)
- N: Neither identity language exists in the mission statement (0)
Vice President for Mission, College Chaplain, or Reverend on the Executive Cabinet
As mentioned above, early HBCUs were often led by ministers. Although this reality may no longer be the case, we wanted to determine whether a minister or vice president for mission currently existed on the Executive Cabinet. Although these positions may exist at an institution and not be on the Executive Cabinet, because the decision to place this role on the Executive Committee suggests the person would have a higher level of authority to influence the direction of the university, we only scored those who were on the cabinet.
- Vice President/Minister on the Executive Cabinet (1)
- No Vice President/Minister on the Executive Cabinet (0)
First-Page Rhetoric We looked at the first page of the website to see how they identified themselves.
- Explicitly Christian/Catholic (EC): When we talk about explicitly Christian/Catholic language, we do not simply mean moral language (e.g., “come how to serve”). We only identified theological reasoning or language (1)
- No distinctively Christian/Catholic language (NC): (0)
“About Us” Rhetoric
We looked at the “About Us” web page, and used the following coding system:
- Explicitly Christian/Catholic (EC): (1)
- No distinctively Christian language (NC): (0)
Membership Requirements
We looked at their admissions pages and faculty/staff hiring pages to understand if their institutions require students, faculty, and staff to sign or affirm statements of faith or Catholic identity. Then, we used the following coding system:
- Membership Requirements for Students: A student must profess to be a Christian to attend (1)
- Membership Requirements for Faculty: A faculty member must profess to be a Christian to work at the institution (1)
- Membership Requirements for Staff (Y/N): A staff member must profess to be a Christian to be employed at the institution (1).
- Membership Requirements for president. The president must be a Christian (1).
- Christian/Catholic Requirement for Governance: Are there any church/denominational/order requirements for being on the governance board? All (1); Some (0.5); None (0)
Theology, Religion, Christian Studies, Bible, etc.
This marker refers to the name of the institution’s department that deals with religion, Christianity, Bible, etc. The major reason we use this marker is that it indicates an administrative decision to focus exclusively on theology (which indicates a focus on the Christian tradition) versus religious studies (which includes the study of non-Christian traditions and mirrors what would occur in a secular university). To put it another way, secular or secularized institutions do not have theology departments. They have religious studies or religion departments.
- Theology, Christian Studies, or Similar Distinctly Christian Department Title (1)
- Religion (0)
Required Bible/Theology Classes
We decided to use the number of courses instead of the total hours since we thought the number of courses is the most significant indicator of a particular commitment to the Christian faith identity. For example, Paine College requires one two-hour Christian course while all the other institutions that required courses required three-hour courses. That being said, Paine was the only exception.
- Required Christian Bible/Theology Classes (1 - 10)
Christian/Catholic Institute, Center, or Program
The center, institute, or program is not simply moral (e.g., focus on business ethics or social justice), but it focuses on fostering a Christian/Catholic identity (e.g., Bioethics Center versus a Center for Christian Medical Ethics).
- One or more (1)
- None (0)
Chapel/Mass
This section evaluates the presence of chapel or Mass on campus. We should note that this presence is only a small part of chaplaincy services; however, since secular institutions also have chaplaincy services, we decided to highlight this element.
- Required Chapel/Mass (2)
- Voluntary University Chapel/Mass available and privileged (1)
- No University-sponsored Chapel/Mass (0)
Student groups
One limitation with this coding is that it is not possible to tell if this is an administrative decision or simply a lack of religious diversity. Still, either way, it says something about the campus ethos.
- C: The religious student groups on campus are exclusively Christian (1)
- MF: Other religious groups (0). The approach to student organizations is like that of a state university.
- NRG: No student religious groups on the campus (0)
Code of Conduct:
We located the code of conduct and classified it as follows:
- C: “Christian”— the student handbook refers to explicitly Christian language (theological, biblical, Catholic social teaching) to justify a particular moral position (e.g., sexual conduct forbidden outside of marriage between a man and woman justified by Catholic theology or social teaching) (2)
- M: “Moral”—this community covenant does not use explicitly Christian language, but it takes moral positions that are uniquely Christian (e.g., sexual conduct forbidden outside of marriage) (1)
- L: “Legal”—this community covenant or student handbook code does not use explicitly moral or Christian language. Instead, it reads much more like a legal document found at pluralistic institutions (0)