June 12, 2024 • 47 mins
Dr. Finny Kuruvilla joins President Johnson to discuss his vision for Sattler College and the story behind its founding. He shares how childhood and college experiences inspired this vision. His father started a Bible college in India and Dr. Kuruvilla led Intervarsity Christian Fellowship on his campus. He describes how studying twentieth century revivalists and watching Harvard students lose their faith inspired Sattler’s distinctive 3 C’s (cost, core, and Christian discipleship). They also discuss mission drift in universities and how Sattler College can stay true to the original mission.
Learn more about what makes Sattler College unique.
Mentioned in this episode:
- The Two Tasks – Dr. Charles Malik’s address on the importance of Christian academia
- Luther W. New Jr. Theological College – College in India founded by Finny Kuruvilla’s father
- The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind – Book by Mark A. Noll
- Caesar and the Lamb: Early Christian Attitudes on War and Military Service – Book by George Kalantzis
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Zack Johnson (00:04):
All right, it is Thursday, April 18th and I'm
here with Dr FinnyKuruvilla.
Can you say your last name,just for the record.
Finny Kuruvilla (00:13):
I normally anglicize it as Kuruvilla, but
Kuruvilla would be how youpronounce it in Malayalam, but
Kuruvilla is fine, Kuruvilla,all right.
Zack Johnson (00:21):
I've had intense debates about how to pronounce
your last name with many people,but I'm going to read your bio,
sure, and then you're going toadd something.
Finny Kuruvilla (00:28):
No, I think it's funny how a lot of names
get used and misused and allpronunciation is kind of
arbitrary anyway, right?
So in the end I think we shouldbe more chill with our
pronunciation.
So you don't take extremeoffense.
Zack Johnson (00:41):
Yeah, I don't take offense at all.
Great Well with that.
Dr Kuruvilla holds an MD fromHarvard Medical School, a PhD in
chemistry and chemical biologyfrom Harvard University, a
master's degree in electricalengineering and computer science
from MIT and a bachelor'sdegree from Caltech in chemistry
.
He is a co-founder and the leadportfolio manager for Eventide
Funds, a socially responsibleand values-based investing firm.
(01:02):
Founder and the lead portfoliomanager for Eventide Funds, a
socially responsible andvalues-based investing firm.
From 2008 to 2016,.
He was a principal at ClarisVentures, a leading healthcare
and life sciences venturecapital firm.
From 2005 to 2008, dr Kuruvillawas a postdoctoral research
fellow at Harvard and MIT, theBroad Institute in medical
(01:24):
genetics.
Prior to his research, drCuravillo was a resident
physician and clinical fellow attwo Boston area hospitals
Brigham and Women's Hospital andChildren's Hospital of Boston,
where he cared for both adultand pediatric patients.
Anything to add or subtract orcorrect there?
No, it's good, pretty good,good, we've had corrections to
(01:46):
bios at mid-pod there.
No, it's good, pretty good,good, I've had, we've had
corrections to bios atmid-podcast here.
So, okay, it's good.
So Dr Caravilla has been apracticing Christian for many
years.
He has a keen interest inbiblical interpretation and
church history for the purposeof fostering a strong and
vibrant church.
Today.
His interests includeanti-Nicene Christianity,
Reformation and Anabaptisthistory and the great awakenings
(02:07):
of the 18th and 19th century.
He is the author of King JesusClaims His Church and it doesn't
say this but also the founderof Siler College, which is what
I would love to talk about today.
But thanks for being here withme today.
It's great to be with you.
Yeah, I was hoping to get youon eventually this year, so I'm
excited to have you here.
So usually I kick it off.
(02:29):
Tell me about I mean, we justheard your bio, which is hard to
condense your life into a bio.
Could you share with us yourgeneral life story in like five
or ten minutes and how you gothere?
Finny Kuruvilla (02:40):
Sure, I'd love to.
So I was born and raised inSouthern California, in the LA
area, los Angeles area.
Probably the most significantinfluence on my life would be my
dad.
So my dad came to the UnitedStates a little bit after my mom
.
They both were born and raisedin South India, came first to
(03:01):
Minnesota, not far from whereyour family is, and I was
conceived in Minnesota but bornin LA, in the Pasadena area
specifically, and my dad used towork for World Vision, which is
a pretty large Christianhumanitarian, relief and
development agency, and life waspretty hard for us.
(03:22):
We did not have a lot of money,life was very tight financially
, and so a lot of my youth, myvery young youth, was actually
spent with my dad, who would goaround doing part-time
janitorial jobs while he was astudent at Fuller Seminary,
which is a seminary in Pasadena,and I would go around with him
(03:44):
when he would clean the toiletsand the bathrooms and all that.
My mom was working a low-leveljob at Bank of America.
She started off just as ateller clerk down in Pasadena as
well, and I watched my parentswork really hard and scrape
their way up from pretty lowsocioeconomically up into the
(04:07):
middle class.
It took 10, 15 years or so, butI watched them and that made a
big impact on me watching themgo through that.
But more formatively, in the mid80s, my dad decided that he was
going to quit his job at WorldVision and go back to India to
start a Bible college in NorthIndia.
So they grew up in the South,where there is a higher
(04:29):
percentage of Christians, butthey decided to go up to the
North, to an area that is very,very unreached with respect to
Christianity, and his idea wasto start a Bible college that
would train national Indiancitizens to be trained to be
effective at doing discipleshipand church planning in North
India, particularly in areaswhere there's not been a church
(04:52):
ever before so Hindu, muslim orBuddhist areas and so he's been
at that since the 1980s.
There's now a network of about700 churches that are all
connected to this college.
It's called New TheologicalCollege, and so my youth was
spent traveling with him, firstwatching him go speak to raise
(05:12):
money and support to get thefunds to get this off the ground
, to then watching it belaunched, built and created, and
then watch it be sustained andgrowing.
So that was a huge part of mylife growing up from, I would
say, age eight to 10, all theway to when I graduated high
(05:34):
school, and then I moved out ofthe house and went to the dorms.
So that was a massive influenceon me and shaped a lot of my
thinking and my vision for life.
When I was in college, I gotinvolved in InterVarsity
Christian Fellowship.
That was very formative as well.
I think that was a place whereI started to own my faith.
In college I had a very strongChristian upbringing, for
(05:56):
obvious reasons, but evendespite that, everybody has to
go out to a point where theyhave to own their faith and
really make it their own, andone of the things that I
committed to do, which I did forfour years, was on Friday
nights I would lead a smallgroup of people to do evangelism
, and we would go to variousparts of Pasadena and do
(06:16):
evangelism slash homelessministry.
A lot of our outreach was tohomeless.
I learned a lot in those years,and so I started college in 91,
graduated in 95.
And that was a prettyinteresting time because we
started off college with onlyemail.
There was no worldwide web.
But right when we graduated theweb came out, and so all of the
(06:39):
impact of the web and all ofthe internet came to bear for me
in graduate school.
So I came here to med school in95.
And while I was in medicalschool I increasingly developed
a passion for the revivalists,particularly Charles Finney and
(07:00):
John Wesley.
I got totally enamored withthem I still am, primarily
because of how they shaped bothEngland and America in such
powerful ways.
Wesley's influence was alsoconnected to a university,
oxford in his case, charlesSonney's was not, but they had a
(07:22):
lot of common elements in theirthinking and their theology
even, and so I ended up spendinga lot of my free time while I
was doing med school and my PhDjust reading a lot of church
history, and that was what gotme on the train of looking at
church history.
So during that time, I thinkwas also when the church got
(07:43):
blindsided by the web, bysexuality, by the pornography
epidemic.
All those things happenedduring my, I would say, my
graduate school years and for meit was an amazing time to be a
student of church history whilewatching the world change in
very profound ways, and I stillthink we're in the middle of
(08:05):
that change.
I don't think we found the endof that impact of how,
particularly the convergence oftechnology and sexuality, are
changing us in very profoundways.
So that was my passion projectand it culminated, actually, in
editing some sermons of CharlesFinney that came out You're
named after yeah, I was namedafter him, right, and although I
(08:27):
don't have the E like he doesin his name.
And then, after all that did, myresidency and my fellowship
here and during those years waswhen I started off by planting a
small house church with anothercouple of good Christian
brothers Was probably too youngto be doing that, didn't really
(08:48):
know enough about what I wasdoing and how old are you.
So that was in 2004.
So I was 29.
So, yeah, I think I was stilltoo young, even though I knew a
lot, but I hadn't receivedenough, I would say, mentorship
and teaching and even watchingmy dad do all the church
planting that he did, I stillthink I was too young.
(09:08):
So there's a lot to be said forgood training and mentorship
through that, learned a lotthrough that and then eventually
saw some weaknesses in thatmodel and made plenty of
mistakes, but saw a lot ofweaknesses there and then
eventually moved out to attend aconservative Mennonite church.
(09:32):
So that was in 2008.
We were there for about fouryears as quite faithful
attenders of the congregationand used that time to study
Anabaptist history and reallythrow myself headlong into that
enterprise, learned a lot there,loved a lot of what I learned
but also saw some weaknesses insome of the expressions of at
(09:53):
least modern-day conservativeAnabaptism, and then started
Followers of the Way withMatthew Milione in 2013.
So we actually just hit our11th anniversary there in 2013.
So we actually just hit our11th anniversary there.
To come to Sattler and thejourney there while I was in my
MD-PhD years, I was in an RA.
(10:13):
Harvard calls it a tutor.
They tend to use differentterms than most people use, but
it's basically an RA where youlive in the dorms and you help
mentor undergraduates and helpthem deal with life, also advise
them academically, but it'smore of a.
(10:33):
I would call it more of asocial and emotional mentorship
as opposed to academic.
There is some academics there,but I was there for seven years
living in one of the Harvardundergrad houses called Mather
House.
It's one of the houses rightalong the Charles River and I
learned so much about educationthere and about what works and
what doesn't work.
(10:58):
And, of course, I had a specialaffinity to the Christian
students there and saw a lot oftheir faith get shipwrecked
during college.
Very bright students, but theirfaith would often be pretty
severely harmed.
I myself had to take on studentloans when I was in college and
of course a lot of students do,although Harvard has very
generous aid for financial aidfor their students.
But I was at Caltech undergradbut I saw a lot of financial
(11:20):
issues there.
And then, finally, I just saw avery, very disappointing core
curriculum and I rememberchewing on this and thinking
about it so much during thoseyears and intersecting that with
a lot of the things that Ilearned from my studies in
church history, particularly inthe Great Awakenings, and asking
(11:42):
the question can it be donebetter?
And so it was in 2014, went tothe state of Massachusetts, the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts,and said, hey, we'd like to open
up a new college in Boston here, and little did I know how
involved it would be to getapproval there.
(12:04):
It took two and a half years toget approval from the state,
but that was the genesis ofSattler College, which at some
point we can talk more aboutsome of how that came to be, but
a lot of vectors pointed toSattler.
From my own experiences and thethings that I had learned over
the years that ultimately led tothe application to the
(12:26):
Commonwealth to get Sattler offthe ground.
Zack Johnson (12:29):
Yeah, and I'd love to talk about.
There are many things you couldhave started in life.
Why, why college?
And I mean, why is college?
I think I know you believe it'sa powerful change agent in the
world.
Why college as opposed tosomething else?
Finny Kuruvilla (12:50):
Yeah.
Zack Johnson (12:50):
And then after that I'd love to talk about the
vision and direction for thecollege.
But just why college?
Sure, yeah, Into some of theother stuff.
Finny Kuruvilla (13:00):
Yeah, College is such a unique four years of
life.
So for many people most peopleprobably it's the first time
they're living outside of thehome and they have to figure out
who they are, what they believe, what they're going to do.
Your parents aren't watchingyou day by day, and so that
space of latitude, combined withall the ideas that you're
(13:22):
exposed to, combined with thefriends that you choose, that
mix is very formative.
And I think most people startoff college.
Let's assume the typical caseof somebody who starts roughly
18, 19 years old.
They start off almost like apiece of clay and they're going
to get molded over those fouryears by that combination of
(13:45):
variables that I mentionedbefore.
And they're variables becauseyou can take a lot of different
classes that can shape you.
You can choose certain friendsthat are going to shape you, you
can make all kinds of choicesthat are going to make you who
you're going to be.
But that incubator, that nexusof all those forces, is college.
So I know I started off one wayand four years later I was a
(14:28):
very different person.
And it is amazing how you candiverge.
You can have, you know, theproverbial twin example.
You know two twins start andone can go one way, one can go
another, classmates on.
Shaping an identity isincredibly powerful, and one of
the theme verses I think forcollege should be from Luke,
where Jesus says everyone who isfully trained will be like his
teacher.
And it's really, it's true thatyou do become like the people
that you are trained by, andthat's true certainly in college
, but even beyond that.
And so as a way to give ahealthy space for development, I
(14:55):
thought it was really importantto start a college, and let me
elaborate on this.
So there are not otherfour-year degree-granting
institutions that I'm aware of,at least in America, that would
be strongly kingdom promotionalin terms of the values and the
ethos going to be genericallychristian.
(15:16):
There's some definitely places,a lot of good places there you
could get, say, a solidevangelical institution but
solid evangelical education, butwith respect to what I would
refer to as as a really strongtwo kingdoms type type uh form
formative experience.
I don't know of otherinstitutions that would give
(15:36):
this, at least at the four-yearlevel.
So so there's a vacuum there,and so what Could?
Zack Johnson (15:40):
you?
Yeah, I mean it's probablyworth talking about.
Yeah, that's a loaded.
The two kingdom is sort ofloaded.
What are some of the thingsthat come to this?
Yeah?
Finny Kuruvilla (15:50):
So, broadly speaking, I would point to the
Sermon on the Mount as thesermon that is defining of this
two kingdoms ethic.
I have a lot of sermons onlineabout this if anybody's
interested to go and go deeperon this.
But when you think about someof the distinctives of the
Sermon on the Mount, I meancertainly nonviolence and a love
(16:12):
your enemy based approach israre.
It's very rare that you wouldfind that consistently taught
from the top down at aninstitution.
When I think about positionslike faithfulness to Jesus'
teachings on divorce andremarriage, that's right in the
Sermon on the Mount.
That's right there, thinkingabout faithfulness, about
(16:33):
evangelism.
So when Jesus says you're thesalt of the earth and a city on
a hill, those are statementsthat he is using to tell the
disciples what their role issupposed to be, what their job
description is supposed to be,and he says that they're
supposed to be this prominentexhibit to the world so that
people will see the good worksof the disciples and praise the
(16:54):
Father in heaven.
So there's other elements,certainly, but those are three
of many that we could talk aboutthat even if you just take
those three, I mean, how manyplaces are actually consistently
teaching those three alone andmodeling and exemplifying that.
Again, there's not a lot, so wehave that, but then we want to
(17:14):
do it in a way that is trulyexcellent.
One of the things that a lot ofpeople think of when they think
of a, a bible college, is theythink, oh, that's second tier or
that's going to be like not asgood as as a place that's
secular or something, somethingalong those lines, and that's a
false dichotomy.
It doesn't need to be that,that at all.
We want to be producingstudents that are are top.
(17:38):
We want to be producingstudents that are top of their
peer group in terms of theiracademic accomplishments.
Christianity should make you abetter scholar, a better reader,
a better thinker, a betterwriter, because we have higher
stakes and we believe that allof those activities writing,
reading, scholarship are part offormation for ourselves and for
(18:02):
the people around us.
And so when we think about thenecessity and importance of that
and I don't just mean inbiblical studies, I mean in
immunology I just came out of animmunology teaching, an
immunology class I mean inlearning computer science and
learning history we want to beabsolute first rate in our
disciplines there, absolutefirst rate in our disciplines
there.
So the necessity of a placewhere there's really good
(18:23):
Christian formation in twokingdoms, sermon on the
Mount-based faith, excellence inacademics, and then making it
something where financially,it's going to be feasible for
people.
A lot of times people think,like how in the world can I
afford college?
I don't want to be in debt with$100,000 of payments that I've
got to make later.
That's not a good start on life.
(18:43):
I would also say that there'sso much more I can say to this,
but I would say that setting allof this in the matrix of people
who are committed to the faithand are committed to be
outstanding examples of peoplewho embody this faith in their
respective disciplines.
So we ought to be rubbingshoulders, students ought to be
(19:07):
rubbing shoulders with staffthat are really excellent at
taking their faith and living itout in their respective
disciplines and showing theworld and showing the student
body what it means to be anexcellent craftsman in the
discipline.
But it means to be an excellentcraftsman in the discipline but
then also to be an excellentChristian and to be showing.
Hey, what does it look like toraise a family in a city?
What does it look like to bedoing evangelism in a city.
(19:29):
What does it look like to bebringing people into this kind
of a life?
And so it's a tall order.
But I can't think of anothervehicle besides a college that
brings all those elementstogether.
And let me just say a little bitmore on this academic
excellence piece.
There's an author, his name isCharles Malick, who has a book
(19:51):
called the Two Tasks, and hesays that the two tasks that the
church has before it are savingthe soul and saving the mind,
and that if it fails in savingthe mind it's going to lose the
soul too.
And so a lot of times peopleput as the world of academics
and scholarship as like a niceto have, or wouldn't it be great
(20:12):
.
But it's not really integrallybound up with saving the soul.
But if you read his, it's avery short book I would
recommend it, it was a, it waslike a, an address to the inside
.
Yeah, I think that you went tothe kennedy school, actually to
to your old, your oldinstitution, right?
So so it's a.
It's an excellent uh bookletthat communicates.
There's other places that youcan find this, but it's an
(20:33):
excellent short place to find acall to the fact that if we are
really serious about winning theworld to Jesus, we better be
really serious about saving themind.
And we have seen consistentlythe church not take that
seriously.
Mark Noll is another example ofan author, the Scandal of the
Evangelical Mind, where hedecries what has happened there,
(20:54):
where we have shunnedexcellence with education and
with thinking and withscholarship, and we're going to
lose, and we have been losing.
Contrast that with the earlychurch, where the first 300
(21:19):
years is that it was led bythese pastor scholars, these
scholar evangelists, rangingfrom Justin Martyr, who was a
philosopher, to Origen, who wasone of the most erudite people
on the planet, irenaeus Tertulli.
These were brilliant people andthey demonstrated what it was
to save the soul and save themind.
And so a university or acollege we're a college, not a
(21:42):
university, but a college is anexcellent vehicle if one is
serious about the largerenterprise of the Great
Commission.
It's multifactorial, Iunderstand that, but we better
be serious about reclaimingexcellence in our scholarship
and our writing and our readingand our practices and our habits
and our life if we are actuallygoing to win the world, because
(22:04):
thus far as the church hasabdicated that, we have seen a
loss there.
So that's a lot on some of themotivation to start Sattler.
We're obviously in the earlydays, but I believe that if we
continue in this we can have avery significant impact in
helping fulfill the GreatCommission writ large.
Zack Johnson (22:24):
Yeah, and then I think I have two follow-up
questions to that.
There's a joke that goes aroundthat I've heard a couple people
say that a lot of currentinstitutions of higher ed are
powered their electricity by howmany times they can make their
founder roll over in his grave.
That there's this, there's thisidea that a college gets
(22:45):
founded and it can only hold onso long to the original, the
original mission, and so we'vetalked about mission drift
before some could call it that.
But then I've talked to peoplethat call that is basically
organizational change, likeadaptation, as a good thing.
It's like how institutionssurvive over time.
So are there any likedirections?
(23:07):
You would see this college,other colleges, mostly this one
go.
That would make you quoteunquote roll over in your grave
with the directions they wouldtake and things like that.
Finny Kuruvilla (23:17):
Yeah, there are , and I want to underline your
point there that it's amazinghow many colleges were started
with a religious motivation.
Harvard is an example, yale isan example, princeton's an
example, oxford is an example.
I mean, so many of theseinstitutions were started with a
religious motivation and adrive to train people who are
excellent Christians and thatmission is lost at some point or
(23:42):
another.
And you alluded to MissionDrift Peter Greer's book on that
, an excellent book and hehighlights Harvard as an example
of an institution that lost itsway.
I don't believe that is ahealthy adaptation at all.
What happens more often thannot is the original mission gets
clouded by, sometimes byfinancial goals that cause the
(24:06):
institution to chase directionsthat shouldn't go.
Sometimes it gets clouded bypoor governance, where people
who are put in charge might bethinking about publications or
research or grant money orsomething along those lines, and
not what the original missionof the institution would be.
Often academics can take overOften academics which is a good
(24:28):
thing we want excellence inacademics but that can sometimes
take over the larger goal,because sometimes you're
overwhelmed by the pressures tofollow a group of brilliant
faculty members that may want tosay hold up and publish or
(24:49):
something along those lines.
So there are a lot of competingvisions that can take over that
you have to constantly be onguard for.
This is especially true withcolleges where you have
pressures to have certain degreequalifications, accreditation
pressures, financial pressures,pressures to publish.
(25:11):
I mean there's all thesepressures that people feel, and
so much of success is knowingwhat to resist and what to say
no to and what to say like, hey,you know what they can do, that
Good for them.
That's not what our missionreally is, and so I would say,
as founder here, I would say Iwould turn over my grave if we
(25:32):
lost our founding precepts,which are a succinct description
of this two kingdoms faith thatI talked about before, where
right now that is a North Starthat we use in every single
person who's on the board andhas to sign every single year
that they believe in thosefounding precepts.
(25:52):
We want to see that besomething that as many faculty
and staff as possible areenthusiastic about promoting it,
and certainly students as well.
It's not a requirement there,but we hope that people are
drawn up into that and reallyembrace it and believe it.
So that's one thing I would sayis losing the founding precepts
(26:12):
.
A second thing that would causeme to roll over my grave is that
me to roll over my grave isthat if we just became I'll call
it just a typical college, atypical college that has people
come here and you take yourclasses, you flip through the
course catalog and choose yourclasses every semester and you
graduate, but you haven't hadthe experience of being
(26:36):
discipled.
And discipleship is a big word,it's a nebulous word.
I realize it's difficult there.
But when I say discipled I meandiscipled intentionally and I
mean being discipled towardthose Sermon on the Mount, two
kingdom values that arereflected in the founding
precepts.
Even if we had, say, a boardthat believed in the founding
(26:59):
precepts, that wasn't feltexperientially in a manner that
changed spiritual formation anddiscipleship of the students in
a profound way, I would be verydisappointed.
The moments that make me thehappiest are when I see people
of any major grapple with truetwo-kingdom Christianity and see
(27:21):
that expressed in the rhythmsof their life and their
evangelism.
We've had students who havebaptized, who have found
students who are non-Christiansand taken them through
evangelism and all the waythrough baptism and being part
of the church.
Those are the moments where Ithink, yes, this is what we're
all about is integrating thattogether, integrating excellence
(27:44):
in our disciplines with avibrant two kingdoms faith.
And so it's very easy to losethat and frankly, I think most
Christian colleges have lostthat where I think discipleship
has taken a backseat A lot ofpeople give lip service to it,
but I think it's functionallytaken a back seat, often to just
graduation and academics, andit's hard to do because there's
(28:05):
not a lot of places to do it.
We're having to fight for itand and figure it out and and um
not lose heart in that struggleof of pursuing that, that goal.
But I think we're in the earlydays of getting better and
better and better at it.
And then, finally, I would saythat if we can have a legacy of
(28:29):
students I mean, in the end, thestudent body is going to be our
legacy a legacy of studentsthat are in every nook and
cranny of the world, that areadvancing the historic faith
there's two kingdoms, so we'reon the Mount-based faith In all
their different disciplines,planting churches.
Man, that would be awesome andI would be so, so happy.
I'm saying now that what wouldmake me happy and I would be, I
(28:50):
would be so, so happy.
I'm saying now that what itwould make me happy and I would
make me roll over my grave, butthat would certainly make me
really excited and happy and sayit was all worth it.
Zack Johnson (28:59):
And then I think I wanted to follow up on this
idea that you know that when weI, we spend a lot of time
thinking about like who should,how do you build a community?
Are we trying to build acommunity that already has those
beliefs and comes to have themstrengthened, or can this?
Does there, does this be aplace that's like somebody would
(29:24):
bump into and say, like thatintrigues me, but hasn't had
time to study it?
I'm thinking like students andemployees how, like deep?
I know that the board signs onto him, I sign on to him as the
president here, but is itacceptable to have somebody come
and exist in this place, kindof when they hear that they're
(29:46):
like that's new to me.
I'm not really sure how I thinkabout that, nor do I have the
time to completely, I think,think, grasp all the intricacies
of it before showing up andworking here and things like
that.
Finny Kuruvilla (29:59):
We want to be a very welcoming place to people
who are intrigued but aren'tsettled in their convictions,
and one of the great challengesin life to walk out is you want
to be passionate to what youbelieve and you want to be
fighting for those convictionsbut at the same time, you want
to be welcoming and loving tothose that may not be there yet
and it may take many years forthem to get there.
(30:22):
I often think about my ownjourney and it took me years to
figure out a lot of these thingsand to build the convictions,
and so we want to remember andhave a lot of compassion and
just give space for people todevelop those convictions and
even if they don't, that's okay.
And even if they become,hopefully, just a better person,
(30:45):
a better Christian in some wayand they are enriched by the
people here and the environmenthere, hey, that's a great
outcome as well and I'mcertainly glad for that.
But we certainly want to sayand allow for people to be
intrigued and say like, yeah,I'm intrigued, I'm not where
you're at yet, but I want tocome to learn and have a good
(31:05):
attitude and come with an openmind and an open heart.
Zack Johnson (31:08):
Yeah, that's right , and come with an open mind and
an open heart.
Yeah, that's right, and Ialways, when I'm talking to
interested students, I alwayskind of remind them that it's
possible to be here with it, notfeeling like this is being
shoved down your throatconstantly, and I think that's
important, that just in my mind.
What you said aboutdiscipleship, even the idea of
(31:31):
getting someone to spend dailytime with God, I think is like
even like the key to.
I think the key to discipleshipand we spend a lot of time,
just you spend a lot of time tooin your classes Just can you
wake up every day and that'd belike one of the keystone moments
of your whole day is like the.
I just think the foundation ofdiscipleship.
It's not belief.
I mean, it's not exactly whatyou believe doctrinally, but
(31:52):
it's really.
Are you right?
Are you approaching god andyeah, the one of there's.
Finny Kuruvilla (31:57):
There's a a great hidden secret to to life,
which is that if you can have anunhurried time with god and
when I say unhurried I don'tmean that you're, you're um,
you're not cognizant that youmight have something later on,
but I mean a truly open spacewhere you can be with God, be
present in worship, in time ofthe word and in prayer If you
(32:20):
can bring all those thingstogether and lay bare your life
before God, truly lay it barebefore God, the power that that
space has for shaping you isunparalleled.
You're going to have half anhour hour a day, whatever it is,
where, in that space, god isgoing to speak to you in ways
(32:41):
that you never dreamed possibleand your heart is going to be
shaped in ways that you didn'tdream to be possible.
I sometimes feel like beggingpeople to learn this discipline
and I know it's hard and I knowtime management is really hard,
but that, as a space for God tochange us you know we say these
(33:04):
terms like Christianity is aboutchange.
You know, if anyone's a newcreation, if anyone is in Christ
, there's a new creation.
Old things have passed away,all things have become new.
Where does that happen.
It's being in Christ.
That's what it says, if anyoneis in Christ.
And how are we the most inChrist?
It's not when we'refrenetically chasing the subway
(33:24):
because we've got 10 things thatwe're doing.
We're barely cognizant even ofthe Spirit and His activity in
our life.
It's when we have thoseunhurried, restful moments with
God that we are in Christ, andthen the old things pass away
and the new creation emerges andblossoms in our life and it is
(33:44):
so, so exciting.
It's how I changed myself.
The pivotal point in my wholelife was when I was one day
sitting in my bedroom.
I was reading my Bible andthere was two chapters.
It was John 15 and Romans 8.
And I was reading thosechapters and just something
happened and I knew that.
I knew that.
I knew that God loved mepersonally and he had something
(34:06):
that he had for me personally anexpression of his love, not
just for people in general, butfor me personally.
An expression of his love notjust for people in general, but
for me personally.
And I still remember that day.
I got out of my bedroom and Ijust started jumping up and down
.
I was like dancing in the roombecause I was so excited that
God loved me and he spoke to me.
I didn't hear the voice audibly, but I like the way that one
(34:27):
author puts it, where he sayssomebody says did you hear God
speak audibly?
And he says no, it was muchlouder than that.
And that's the kind ofcommunication that when you know
God and you can hear God, youknow it.
It's even better than auditorycommunication because it's so
clear and it's so penetrant intothe interior of your being.
Zack Johnson (34:47):
So, yeah, amen to what you just said.
Yeah, one more question beforewe go into some free form here.
So you went to caltech secular.
Your undergrad a secular, youruh, your grad school is secular.
I, I same here secularundergrad and grad school.
So why, why are we prescribingsomething that we didn't choose
(35:13):
to do?
Um, I feel like there's alittle bit of a there's a little
bit in the world where if,let's say, a really christian
student gets into a really goodschool, it's like there's a
celebration, there's like anextreme celebration around that.
I'm assuming your parents wereextremely proud of you and so
how do you think about thatdynamic where there's all sorts
(35:34):
of decisions around schools andnow even I think a lot of people
are trying to even push back oncollege isn't worth it, yada,
yada, yada.
There's a lot of that around.
So why, why the bit?
Why everybody studied biblicalstudies as opposed to go to get
into like a prestigious school,like work really hard for that
and maintain your Christianitythroughout that experience Is
(35:56):
there?
Is there a right or a wrong?
Finny Kuruvilla (35:58):
Yeah, One of the things that that I would say
to that is that the officialstats are somewhere around 70%
of students who start off as aspracticing Christians when they
begin college are no longerpracticing their faith by the
time they're done, across allinstitutions.
(36:18):
Yeah, that's a nationwidestatistic, so that's a steep
attrition.
And so what some people will dois they'll find somebody in the
30% who makes it through andlike you, like me, and they'll
say, see, see, it's possible.
Well, yeah, okay, sure, butwhat about the 70% who were the
negative examples that aren'tsitting here to talk about our
(36:40):
faith and have lost their wayalong the way?
And so I think it's veryimportant that we don't just
cherry pick examples here andthere and that we actually look
carefully at larger trends andwe ask and answer the question
what is going to be the mostfaithful and the best practices
for our children?
(37:00):
A good friend of mine has a sonwho got a full ride to go to
Harvard, and my friend is astrong Christian and he said I'm
not excited to see my son go toHarvard as an undergrad, and
the word he used, it had becometoxic and the worldviews were so
(37:21):
difficult for a young person toovercome, and it's gotten a lot
worse compared to when you andI were in school as well.
And so I think people who areaware of these issues ought to
be hesitant.
And it's not to say there's notcounterexamples.
There are plenty ofcounterexamples.
But I will even say, even forthe people that make it through,
myself included, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish I could have
(37:44):
gone back and had the kind ofcaliber education that Sadler
had.
I didn't get to learn Greekuntil I was done with my MD-PhD.
I didn't get to study Hebrewuntil years after that.
I didn't get to learn a lot ofthings until I was in my 30s and
some of them even my 40s.
And if I learned those thingswhen I was a teenager, in my 20s
(38:05):
, and I had a much strongernetwork of discipleship around
me, I would have been a muchstronger network of discipleship
around me.
I would have been, I'mconfident, a far more prolific
Christian and productiveChristian.
I spent a number of my years inmy 20s in a pretty bad place
spiritually.
I had made some bad choicesabout a number of things and I
(38:26):
was in a valley that, by God'sgrace, he rescued me out of that
, but I lost a good chunk of my20s at least six years of my 20s
for poor choices there.
Those are some of the bestyears of your life and I think
like, oh, I wish I could havethose years back.
I wish, I wish, I wish.
I would also say that Jesus usesthese compounding-like
(38:47):
metaphors when he talks aboutthe word of God.
And you know, compounding is,it's like compounding interest.
Einstein calls it the eighthwonder of the world, and the
magic of compounding is to getstart early.
Right, if you start late withcompounding, it doesn't work.
You got to start early and Iwould love for us to get as many
of our young people to startcompounding the Word of God into
(39:12):
their life at 18, 19, 20, andto allow that compounding
interest to grow exponentiallyas it does, rather than live
lives of having to backfill.
I'll tell you what happens moreoften than not to people who are
very smart they go on the ratrace and they go to a good
school.
They'll go to the Christianfellowship and they'll squeeze
(39:33):
in little bits here and there,but they're not particularly
competent biblically and theyhaven't learned discipleship,
evangelism A lot of the corethings that they should have
learned in their college yearsthey go to grad school or they
get really busy and they getmarried, children, and then they
wake up one day in their 40s or50s and they look around and
they say, like I haven't broughtanybody into the church, my
knowledge of scripture is weak,my discipleship structures and
(39:55):
frameworks are properlydeveloped.
Yeah, I have a nice house and anice car and all those things,
but what do I have to show forthe 20 years that I've spent,
other than having made a lot ofmoney?
The most influential andeffective people, ranging from
the John Wesleys to the Judsonsof the world they, early on,
make significant investmentsinto their life, and it's
(40:18):
usually in the college timeperiod.
And so I wish we had more timeto talk about the merits of why
investing into biblical studiesis essential for anybody who's a
Christian.
I don't care if you're going tobe a doctor or you're going to
be a computer scientist or ahistorian, a homeschool mom.
To learn that early is so, so,so important.
(40:42):
We could talk about that for awhole hour.
It will make the rest of yourlife so much more effective.
It'll make you a betterhomeschooler.
It'll make you a betterdiscipler.
It will make you a betterchurch member.
It'll make you better in somany other ways.
Why do we not want to makethose investments early on?
I think the risk of having yourface shipwrecked is there, but,
(41:04):
more importantly, the positivecause to give the proper
investment of time and energyinto all the subjects that we
emphasize so much here atSattler is really, really
important.
Zack Johnson (41:14):
So there's basically a risk of faith and
some sort of opportunity costthat is almost uncalculable.
Finny Kuruvilla (41:23):
Yeah, it is.
The opportunity cost is so highand I wish people understood
this across the country.
I wish Christians of allstripes understood this across
the country because thatopportunity cost is enormous.
Zack Johnson (41:35):
So maybe I mean I know we'll reiterate again the
value of biblical studies.
I don't think a lot ofChristian institutions would say
yeah, of course.
So why again?
Why new?
What's new about us that'sdifferent than other forms of
Christian higher ed?
(41:55):
And I know the answers to these, but I'd like to hear you talk
about them.
And why not just prescribe areally established Christian
college, ie, you know theWheaton of the or the?
There's some schools out therein California that are big.
There's.
There's really big schools thatexist and well-funded, um
(42:17):
established.
There's.
There's a certain risk ofsomething new that a lot of our
students experience, a lot ofour employees experience.
Finny Kuruvilla (42:24):
Yeah, I mean, time doesn't permit me to do
justice to the question, butjust at a high level, I would
say a couple of things.
I would say first do justice tothe question, but just at a
high level, I would say a coupleof things.
I would say first, the way thatwe teach fundamental texts,
doctrines, our biblical studies,our historic theology, I mean
these are such gems.
I don't think a lot of people,even who are here, appreciate
(42:46):
how differentiated they areuntil you compare with other
institutions, how differentiatedthey are until you compare with
other institutions.
Our communicative languageprogram is top-notch.
I was talking to somebodyyesterday who's a senior, who's
graduating, about our Hebrewinstructor, jesse Schumann, who
I think is one of the bestcommunicative Hebrew instructors
in the country.
I took seminary Hebrew and I hadto memorize a bunch of tables
(43:09):
and a bunch of paradigms and Ican tell you without any
hesitation, without anyexaggeration, basically
everybody who took that classforgot it within a few months
and couldn't hold on to theserandom tables and endings and
things like that because itwasn't taught properly.
I can tell you in teaching in acouple of the subjects
evangelism and some of theseother subjects that are so vital
(43:33):
where I watch students come inwho we do a little diagnostic
quiz on day one and moststudents do very poorly.
By the end of just thatsemester their confidence and
knowledge has increased manyfold from what they had in the
beginning.
The evangelism class we sendpeople out and a requirement of
that class is that every singleweek you're going to be going
(43:54):
out and doing real evangelismand writing reports on it and
learning.
I mean, how many institutionshave this all bound together in
the ways that they do?
A lot of the big colleges theyfall into even established
Christian colleges.
They fall into this unfortunatetrap where there's this
infatuation with a large coursecatalog and you think like oh, I
(44:17):
get to choose one of 10 optionsin Christianity A and one of 10
options in Christianity B andthey get a very random,
haphazard education that's notcomplete or well-structured.
One of the things that we'vetried to do at Sadler is develop
a corpus that'swell-architected and systematic,
(44:37):
and I know we try I talk to myfellow staff a lot on this
Instead of the random classesthat you can kind of grab here
and there.
I'm going to take one classabout Marley the King and one
class over here that's aboutByzantine architecture of fifth
century churches.
Okay, fine, those areinteresting subjects, but have
(44:59):
you actually built thatinfrastructure first before you
go off to these electives?
I actually think that one ofthe big mistakes that happened
in higher ed was moving awayfrom a more central core, which
the original colleges had theoriginal Harvards and Yales had
which was fewer classes butbetter classes and really well
(45:20):
architected classes that weresystematic, and that's what
you're going to get at SattlerThen again, very, very few
places elsewhere you would find.
Zack Johnson (45:27):
Right, well, we're coming up on like that 45
minute mark, but are there anyother topics or things that
you're passionate about, youwant to chat about?
I know you could go on it.
Finny Kuruvilla (45:38):
There's a lot of buttons you could push on me
here that would elicit moreconversations.
Zack Johnson (45:45):
You can poke them too, if you want.
I'm just kidding.
Finny Kuruvilla (45:49):
Yeah, I mean.
I would just say that I now, asmuch as ever in history, with
the intense polarization thatour society has, the intense
influence that algorithms have.
Algorithms are the new warlordsin our world that are driving
(46:09):
people to ever more extremepositions where they can't even
listen to the other side, likeonline algorithms.
Yeah, online algorithms I meanthey are even more so than
nation states affecting the waythat people think and act and
what they believe.
In this kind of climate andenvironment that we're living
now, there is no better time tolearn what a good, healthy
(46:34):
Christian education is that'swell-rounded, that learns how to
listen to both sides and canbring healing to a world that's
going to be ever more riddledwith conflicts.
We talk about Jesus' peacefulrevolution a lot here, and I
believe with all my heart thatthere has never been a time in
history where that's more neededthan the present.
Mm-hmm yeah.
Zack Johnson (46:51):
Graham, you have any questions?
I believe with all my heartthat there has never been a time
in history where that's moreneeded than the present.
Yeah, graham, you have anyquestions?
Yeah Well, the next big eventat Sattler is our it's actually
our commencement May 18th.
We have a it's here in Bostonat Converse Hall, at Tremont
Temple.
So if you're listening and youwant to come and see that, come
(47:12):
on in.
We have a really good speaker.
His name is Dr George Kalanzas.
Coming Wrote a book calledTeaser and the Lamb Very
pertinent, very relevant to thatlast comment you made there and
come and visit Boston, ifyou're listening, and see what
we're about.
I think it's still hard for usto communicate through our
website what actually happenshere sometimes.
(47:34):
Thanks for joining and we'llhave you on again sometime.
All right, thanks for having me.
It's great to be with you, yep.
All right, it is Thursday, April 18th and I'm
here with Dr FinnyKuruvilla.
Can you say your last name,just for the record.
Finny Kuruvilla (00:13):
I normally anglicize it as Kuruvilla, but
Kuruvilla would be how youpronounce it in Malayalam, but
Kuruvilla is fine, Kuruvilla,all right.
Zack Johnson (00:21):
I've had intense debates about how to pronounce
your last name with many people,but I'm going to read your bio,
sure, and then you're going toadd something.
Finny Kuruvilla (00:28):
No, I think it's funny how a lot of names
get used and misused and allpronunciation is kind of
arbitrary anyway, right?
So in the end I think we shouldbe more chill with our
pronunciation.
So you don't take extremeoffense.
Zack Johnson (00:41):
Yeah, I don't take offense at all.
Great Well with that.
Dr Kuruvilla holds an MD fromHarvard Medical School, a PhD in
chemistry and chemical biologyfrom Harvard University, a
master's degree in electricalengineering and computer science
from MIT and a bachelor'sdegree from Caltech in chemistry
.
He is a co-founder and the leadportfolio manager for Eventide
Funds, a socially responsibleand values-based investing firm.
(01:02):
Founder and the lead portfoliomanager for Eventide Funds, a
socially responsible andvalues-based investing firm.
From 2008 to 2016,.
He was a principal at ClarisVentures, a leading healthcare
and life sciences venturecapital firm.
From 2005 to 2008, dr Kuruvillawas a postdoctoral research
fellow at Harvard and MIT, theBroad Institute in medical
(01:24):
genetics.
Prior to his research, drCuravillo was a resident
physician and clinical fellow attwo Boston area hospitals
Brigham and Women's Hospital andChildren's Hospital of Boston,
where he cared for both adultand pediatric patients.
Anything to add or subtract orcorrect there?
No, it's good, pretty good,good, we've had corrections to
(01:46):
bios at mid-pod there.
No, it's good, pretty good,good, I've had, we've had
corrections to bios atmid-podcast here.
So, okay, it's good.
So Dr Caravilla has been apracticing Christian for many
years.
He has a keen interest inbiblical interpretation and
church history for the purposeof fostering a strong and
vibrant church.
Today.
His interests includeanti-Nicene Christianity,
Reformation and Anabaptisthistory and the great awakenings
(02:07):
of the 18th and 19th century.
He is the author of King JesusClaims His Church and it doesn't
say this but also the founderof Siler College, which is what
I would love to talk about today.
But thanks for being here withme today.
It's great to be with you.
Yeah, I was hoping to get youon eventually this year, so I'm
excited to have you here.
So usually I kick it off.
(02:29):
Tell me about I mean, we justheard your bio, which is hard to
condense your life into a bio.
Could you share with us yourgeneral life story in like five
or ten minutes and how you gothere?
Finny Kuruvilla (02:40):
Sure, I'd love to.
So I was born and raised inSouthern California, in the LA
area, los Angeles area.
Probably the most significantinfluence on my life would be my
dad.
So my dad came to the UnitedStates a little bit after my mom
.
They both were born and raisedin South India, came first to
(03:01):
Minnesota, not far from whereyour family is, and I was
conceived in Minnesota but bornin LA, in the Pasadena area
specifically, and my dad used towork for World Vision, which is
a pretty large Christianhumanitarian, relief and
development agency, and life waspretty hard for us.
(03:22):
We did not have a lot of money,life was very tight financially
, and so a lot of my youth, myvery young youth, was actually
spent with my dad, who would goaround doing part-time
janitorial jobs while he was astudent at Fuller Seminary,
which is a seminary in Pasadena,and I would go around with him
(03:44):
when he would clean the toiletsand the bathrooms and all that.
My mom was working a low-leveljob at Bank of America.
She started off just as ateller clerk down in Pasadena as
well, and I watched my parentswork really hard and scrape
their way up from pretty lowsocioeconomically up into the
(04:07):
middle class.
It took 10, 15 years or so, butI watched them and that made a
big impact on me watching themgo through that.
But more formatively, in the mid80s, my dad decided that he was
going to quit his job at WorldVision and go back to India to
start a Bible college in NorthIndia.
So they grew up in the South,where there is a higher
(04:29):
percentage of Christians, butthey decided to go up to the
North, to an area that is very,very unreached with respect to
Christianity, and his idea wasto start a Bible college that
would train national Indiancitizens to be trained to be
effective at doing discipleshipand church planning in North
India, particularly in areaswhere there's not been a church
(04:52):
ever before so Hindu, muslim orBuddhist areas and so he's been
at that since the 1980s.
There's now a network of about700 churches that are all
connected to this college.
It's called New TheologicalCollege, and so my youth was
spent traveling with him, firstwatching him go speak to raise
(05:12):
money and support to get thefunds to get this off the ground
, to then watching it belaunched, built and created, and
then watch it be sustained andgrowing.
So that was a huge part of mylife growing up from, I would
say, age eight to 10, all theway to when I graduated high
(05:34):
school, and then I moved out ofthe house and went to the dorms.
So that was a massive influenceon me and shaped a lot of my
thinking and my vision for life.
When I was in college, I gotinvolved in InterVarsity
Christian Fellowship.
That was very formative as well.
I think that was a place whereI started to own my faith.
In college I had a very strongChristian upbringing, for
(05:56):
obvious reasons, but evendespite that, everybody has to
go out to a point where theyhave to own their faith and
really make it their own, andone of the things that I
committed to do, which I did forfour years, was on Friday
nights I would lead a smallgroup of people to do evangelism
, and we would go to variousparts of Pasadena and do
(06:16):
evangelism slash homelessministry.
A lot of our outreach was tohomeless.
I learned a lot in those years,and so I started college in 91,
graduated in 95.
And that was a prettyinteresting time because we
started off college with onlyemail.
There was no worldwide web.
But right when we graduated theweb came out, and so all of the
(06:39):
impact of the web and all ofthe internet came to bear for me
in graduate school.
So I came here to med school in95.
And while I was in medicalschool I increasingly developed
a passion for the revivalists,particularly Charles Finney and
(07:00):
John Wesley.
I got totally enamored withthem I still am, primarily
because of how they shaped bothEngland and America in such
powerful ways.
Wesley's influence was alsoconnected to a university,
oxford in his case, charlesSonney's was not, but they had a
(07:22):
lot of common elements in theirthinking and their theology
even, and so I ended up spendinga lot of my free time while I
was doing med school and my PhDjust reading a lot of church
history, and that was what gotme on the train of looking at
church history.
So during that time, I thinkwas also when the church got
(07:43):
blindsided by the web, bysexuality, by the pornography
epidemic.
All those things happenedduring my, I would say, my
graduate school years and for meit was an amazing time to be a
student of church history whilewatching the world change in
very profound ways, and I stillthink we're in the middle of
(08:05):
that change.
I don't think we found the endof that impact of how,
particularly the convergence oftechnology and sexuality, are
changing us in very profoundways.
So that was my passion projectand it culminated, actually, in
editing some sermons of CharlesFinney that came out You're
named after yeah, I was namedafter him, right, and although I
(08:27):
don't have the E like he doesin his name.
And then, after all that did, myresidency and my fellowship
here and during those years waswhen I started off by planting a
small house church with anothercouple of good Christian
brothers Was probably too youngto be doing that, didn't really
(08:48):
know enough about what I wasdoing and how old are you.
So that was in 2004.
So I was 29.
So, yeah, I think I was stilltoo young, even though I knew a
lot, but I hadn't receivedenough, I would say, mentorship
and teaching and even watchingmy dad do all the church
planting that he did, I stillthink I was too young.
(09:08):
So there's a lot to be said forgood training and mentorship
through that, learned a lotthrough that and then eventually
saw some weaknesses in thatmodel and made plenty of
mistakes, but saw a lot ofweaknesses there and then
eventually moved out to attend aconservative Mennonite church.
(09:32):
So that was in 2008.
We were there for about fouryears as quite faithful
attenders of the congregationand used that time to study
Anabaptist history and reallythrow myself headlong into that
enterprise, learned a lot there,loved a lot of what I learned
but also saw some weaknesses insome of the expressions of at
(09:53):
least modern-day conservativeAnabaptism, and then started
Followers of the Way withMatthew Milione in 2013.
So we actually just hit our11th anniversary there in 2013.
So we actually just hit our11th anniversary there.
To come to Sattler and thejourney there while I was in my
MD-PhD years, I was in an RA.
(10:13):
Harvard calls it a tutor.
They tend to use differentterms than most people use, but
it's basically an RA where youlive in the dorms and you help
mentor undergraduates and helpthem deal with life, also advise
them academically, but it'smore of a.
(10:33):
I would call it more of asocial and emotional mentorship
as opposed to academic.
There is some academics there,but I was there for seven years
living in one of the Harvardundergrad houses called Mather
House.
It's one of the houses rightalong the Charles River and I
learned so much about educationthere and about what works and
what doesn't work.
(10:58):
And, of course, I had a specialaffinity to the Christian
students there and saw a lot oftheir faith get shipwrecked
during college.
Very bright students, but theirfaith would often be pretty
severely harmed.
I myself had to take on studentloans when I was in college and
of course a lot of students do,although Harvard has very
generous aid for financial aidfor their students.
But I was at Caltech undergradbut I saw a lot of financial
(11:20):
issues there.
And then, finally, I just saw avery, very disappointing core
curriculum and I rememberchewing on this and thinking
about it so much during thoseyears and intersecting that with
a lot of the things that Ilearned from my studies in
church history, particularly inthe Great Awakenings, and asking
(11:42):
the question can it be donebetter?
And so it was in 2014, went tothe state of Massachusetts, the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts,and said, hey, we'd like to open
up a new college in Boston here, and little did I know how
involved it would be to getapproval there.
(12:04):
It took two and a half years toget approval from the state,
but that was the genesis ofSattler College, which at some
point we can talk more aboutsome of how that came to be, but
a lot of vectors pointed toSattler.
From my own experiences and thethings that I had learned over
the years that ultimately led tothe application to the
(12:26):
Commonwealth to get Sattler offthe ground.
Zack Johnson (12:29):
Yeah, and I'd love to talk about.
There are many things you couldhave started in life.
Why, why college?
And I mean, why is college?
I think I know you believe it'sa powerful change agent in the
world.
Why college as opposed tosomething else?
Finny Kuruvilla (12:50):
Yeah.
Zack Johnson (12:50):
And then after that I'd love to talk about the
vision and direction for thecollege.
But just why college?
Sure, yeah, Into some of theother stuff.
Finny Kuruvilla (13:00):
Yeah, College is such a unique four years of
life.
So for many people most peopleprobably it's the first time
they're living outside of thehome and they have to figure out
who they are, what they believe, what they're going to do.
Your parents aren't watchingyou day by day, and so that
space of latitude, combined withall the ideas that you're
(13:22):
exposed to, combined with thefriends that you choose, that
mix is very formative.
And I think most people startoff college.
Let's assume the typical caseof somebody who starts roughly
18, 19 years old.
They start off almost like apiece of clay and they're going
to get molded over those fouryears by that combination of
(13:45):
variables that I mentionedbefore.
And they're variables becauseyou can take a lot of different
classes that can shape you.
You can choose certain friendsthat are going to shape you, you
can make all kinds of choicesthat are going to make you who
you're going to be.
But that incubator, that nexusof all those forces, is college.
So I know I started off one wayand four years later I was a
(14:28):
very different person.
And it is amazing how you candiverge.
You can have, you know, theproverbial twin example.
You know two twins start andone can go one way, one can go
another, classmates on.
Shaping an identity isincredibly powerful, and one of
the theme verses I think forcollege should be from Luke,
where Jesus says everyone who isfully trained will be like his
teacher.
And it's really, it's true thatyou do become like the people
that you are trained by, andthat's true certainly in college
, but even beyond that.
And so as a way to give ahealthy space for development, I
(14:55):
thought it was really importantto start a college, and let me
elaborate on this.
So there are not otherfour-year degree-granting
institutions that I'm aware of,at least in America, that would
be strongly kingdom promotionalin terms of the values and the
ethos going to be genericallychristian.
(15:16):
There's some definitely places,a lot of good places there you
could get, say, a solidevangelical institution but
solid evangelical education, butwith respect to what I would
refer to as as a really strongtwo kingdoms type type uh form
formative experience.
I don't know of otherinstitutions that would give
(15:36):
this, at least at the four-yearlevel.
So so there's a vacuum there,and so what Could?
Zack Johnson (15:40):
you?
Yeah, I mean it's probablyworth talking about.
Yeah, that's a loaded.
The two kingdom is sort ofloaded.
What are some of the thingsthat come to this?
Yeah?
Finny Kuruvilla (15:50):
So, broadly speaking, I would point to the
Sermon on the Mount as thesermon that is defining of this
two kingdoms ethic.
I have a lot of sermons onlineabout this if anybody's
interested to go and go deeperon this.
But when you think about someof the distinctives of the
Sermon on the Mount, I meancertainly nonviolence and a love
(16:12):
your enemy based approach israre.
It's very rare that you wouldfind that consistently taught
from the top down at aninstitution.
When I think about positionslike faithfulness to Jesus'
teachings on divorce andremarriage, that's right in the
Sermon on the Mount.
That's right there, thinkingabout faithfulness, about
(16:33):
evangelism.
So when Jesus says you're thesalt of the earth and a city on
a hill, those are statementsthat he is using to tell the
disciples what their role issupposed to be, what their job
description is supposed to be,and he says that they're
supposed to be this prominentexhibit to the world so that
people will see the good worksof the disciples and praise the
(16:54):
Father in heaven.
So there's other elements,certainly, but those are three
of many that we could talk aboutthat even if you just take
those three, I mean, how manyplaces are actually consistently
teaching those three alone andmodeling and exemplifying that.
Again, there's not a lot, so wehave that, but then we want to
(17:14):
do it in a way that is trulyexcellent.
One of the things that a lot ofpeople think of when they think
of a, a bible college, is theythink, oh, that's second tier or
that's going to be like not asgood as as a place that's
secular or something, somethingalong those lines, and that's a
false dichotomy.
It doesn't need to be that,that at all.
We want to be producingstudents that are are top.
(17:38):
We want to be producingstudents that are top of their
peer group in terms of theiracademic accomplishments.
Christianity should make you abetter scholar, a better reader,
a better thinker, a betterwriter, because we have higher
stakes and we believe that allof those activities writing,
reading, scholarship are part offormation for ourselves and for
(18:02):
the people around us.
And so when we think about thenecessity and importance of that
and I don't just mean inbiblical studies, I mean in
immunology I just came out of animmunology teaching, an
immunology class I mean inlearning computer science and
learning history we want to beabsolute first rate in our
disciplines there, absolutefirst rate in our disciplines
there.
So the necessity of a placewhere there's really good
(18:23):
Christian formation in twokingdoms, sermon on the
Mount-based faith, excellence inacademics, and then making it
something where financially,it's going to be feasible for
people.
A lot of times people think,like how in the world can I
afford college?
I don't want to be in debt with$100,000 of payments that I've
got to make later.
That's not a good start on life.
(18:43):
I would also say that there'sso much more I can say to this,
but I would say that setting allof this in the matrix of people
who are committed to the faithand are committed to be
outstanding examples of peoplewho embody this faith in their
respective disciplines.
So we ought to be rubbingshoulders, students ought to be
(19:07):
rubbing shoulders with staffthat are really excellent at
taking their faith and living itout in their respective
disciplines and showing theworld and showing the student
body what it means to be anexcellent craftsman in the
discipline.
But it means to be an excellentcraftsman in the discipline but
then also to be an excellentChristian and to be showing.
Hey, what does it look like toraise a family in a city?
What does it look like to bedoing evangelism in a city.
(19:29):
What does it look like to bebringing people into this kind
of a life?
And so it's a tall order.
But I can't think of anothervehicle besides a college that
brings all those elementstogether.
And let me just say a little bitmore on this academic
excellence piece.
There's an author, his name isCharles Malick, who has a book
(19:51):
called the Two Tasks, and hesays that the two tasks that the
church has before it are savingthe soul and saving the mind,
and that if it fails in savingthe mind it's going to lose the
soul too.
And so a lot of times peopleput as the world of academics
and scholarship as like a niceto have, or wouldn't it be great
(20:12):
.
But it's not really integrallybound up with saving the soul.
But if you read his, it's avery short book I would
recommend it, it was a, it waslike a, an address to the inside
.
Yeah, I think that you went tothe kennedy school, actually to
to your old, your oldinstitution, right?
So so it's a.
It's an excellent uh bookletthat communicates.
There's other places that youcan find this, but it's an
(20:33):
excellent short place to find acall to the fact that if we are
really serious about winning theworld to Jesus, we better be
really serious about saving themind.
And we have seen consistentlythe church not take that
seriously.
Mark Noll is another example ofan author, the Scandal of the
Evangelical Mind, where hedecries what has happened there,
(20:54):
where we have shunnedexcellence with education and
with thinking and withscholarship, and we're going to
lose, and we have been losing.
Contrast that with the earlychurch, where the first 300
(21:19):
years is that it was led bythese pastor scholars, these
scholar evangelists, rangingfrom Justin Martyr, who was a
philosopher, to Origen, who wasone of the most erudite people
on the planet, irenaeus Tertulli.
These were brilliant people andthey demonstrated what it was
to save the soul and save themind.
And so a university or acollege we're a college, not a
(21:42):
university, but a college is anexcellent vehicle if one is
serious about the largerenterprise of the Great
Commission.
It's multifactorial, Iunderstand that, but we better
be serious about reclaimingexcellence in our scholarship
and our writing and our readingand our practices and our habits
and our life if we are actuallygoing to win the world, because
(22:04):
thus far as the church hasabdicated that, we have seen a
loss there.
So that's a lot on some of themotivation to start Sattler.
We're obviously in the earlydays, but I believe that if we
continue in this we can have avery significant impact in
helping fulfill the GreatCommission writ large.
Zack Johnson (22:24):
Yeah, and then I think I have two follow-up
questions to that.
There's a joke that goes aroundthat I've heard a couple people
say that a lot of currentinstitutions of higher ed are
powered their electricity by howmany times they can make their
founder roll over in his grave.
That there's this, there's thisidea that a college gets
(22:45):
founded and it can only hold onso long to the original, the
original mission, and so we'vetalked about mission drift
before some could call it that.
But then I've talked to peoplethat call that is basically
organizational change, likeadaptation, as a good thing.
It's like how institutionssurvive over time.
So are there any likedirections?
(23:07):
You would see this college,other colleges, mostly this one
go.
That would make you quoteunquote roll over in your grave
with the directions they wouldtake and things like that.
Finny Kuruvilla (23:17):
Yeah, there are , and I want to underline your
point there that it's amazinghow many colleges were started
with a religious motivation.
Harvard is an example, yale isan example, princeton's an
example, oxford is an example.
I mean, so many of theseinstitutions were started with a
religious motivation and adrive to train people who are
excellent Christians and thatmission is lost at some point or
(23:42):
another.
And you alluded to MissionDrift Peter Greer's book on that
, an excellent book and hehighlights Harvard as an example
of an institution that lost itsway.
I don't believe that is ahealthy adaptation at all.
What happens more often thannot is the original mission gets
clouded by, sometimes byfinancial goals that cause the
(24:06):
institution to chase directionsthat shouldn't go.
Sometimes it gets clouded bypoor governance, where people
who are put in charge might bethinking about publications or
research or grant money orsomething along those lines, and
not what the original missionof the institution would be.
Often academics can take overOften academics which is a good
(24:28):
thing we want excellence inacademics but that can sometimes
take over the larger goal,because sometimes you're
overwhelmed by the pressures tofollow a group of brilliant
faculty members that may want tosay hold up and publish or
(24:49):
something along those lines.
So there are a lot of competingvisions that can take over that
you have to constantly be onguard for.
This is especially true withcolleges where you have
pressures to have certain degreequalifications, accreditation
pressures, financial pressures,pressures to publish.
(25:11):
I mean there's all thesepressures that people feel, and
so much of success is knowingwhat to resist and what to say
no to and what to say like, hey,you know what they can do, that
Good for them.
That's not what our missionreally is, and so I would say,
as founder here, I would say Iwould turn over my grave if we
(25:32):
lost our founding precepts,which are a succinct description
of this two kingdoms faith thatI talked about before, where
right now that is a North Starthat we use in every single
person who's on the board andhas to sign every single year
that they believe in thosefounding precepts.
(25:52):
We want to see that besomething that as many faculty
and staff as possible areenthusiastic about promoting it,
and certainly students as well.
It's not a requirement there,but we hope that people are
drawn up into that and reallyembrace it and believe it.
So that's one thing I would sayis losing the founding precepts
(26:12):
.
A second thing that would causeme to roll over my grave is that
me to roll over my grave isthat if we just became I'll call
it just a typical college, atypical college that has people
come here and you take yourclasses, you flip through the
course catalog and choose yourclasses every semester and you
graduate, but you haven't hadthe experience of being
(26:36):
discipled.
And discipleship is a big word,it's a nebulous word.
I realize it's difficult there.
But when I say discipled I meandiscipled intentionally and I
mean being discipled towardthose Sermon on the Mount, two
kingdom values that arereflected in the founding
precepts.
Even if we had, say, a boardthat believed in the founding
(26:59):
precepts, that wasn't feltexperientially in a manner that
changed spiritual formation anddiscipleship of the students in
a profound way, I would be verydisappointed.
The moments that make me thehappiest are when I see people
of any major grapple with truetwo-kingdom Christianity and see
(27:21):
that expressed in the rhythmsof their life and their
evangelism.
We've had students who havebaptized, who have found
students who are non-Christiansand taken them through
evangelism and all the waythrough baptism and being part
of the church.
Those are the moments where Ithink, yes, this is what we're
all about is integrating thattogether, integrating excellence
(27:44):
in our disciplines with avibrant two kingdoms faith.
And so it's very easy to losethat and frankly, I think most
Christian colleges have lostthat where I think discipleship
has taken a backseat A lot ofpeople give lip service to it,
but I think it's functionallytaken a back seat, often to just
graduation and academics, andit's hard to do because there's
(28:05):
not a lot of places to do it.
We're having to fight for itand and figure it out and and um
not lose heart in that struggleof of pursuing that, that goal.
But I think we're in the earlydays of getting better and
better and better at it.
And then, finally, I would saythat if we can have a legacy of
(28:29):
students I mean, in the end, thestudent body is going to be our
legacy a legacy of studentsthat are in every nook and
cranny of the world, that areadvancing the historic faith
there's two kingdoms, so we'reon the Mount-based faith In all
their different disciplines,planting churches.
Man, that would be awesome andI would be so, so happy.
I'm saying now that what wouldmake me happy and I would be, I
(28:50):
would be so, so happy.
I'm saying now that what itwould make me happy and I would
make me roll over my grave, butthat would certainly make me
really excited and happy and sayit was all worth it.
Zack Johnson (28:59):
And then I think I wanted to follow up on this
idea that you know that when weI, we spend a lot of time
thinking about like who should,how do you build a community?
Are we trying to build acommunity that already has those
beliefs and comes to have themstrengthened, or can this?
Does there, does this be aplace that's like somebody would
(29:24):
bump into and say, like thatintrigues me, but hasn't had
time to study it?
I'm thinking like students andemployees how, like deep?
I know that the board signs onto him, I sign on to him as the
president here, but is itacceptable to have somebody come
and exist in this place, kindof when they hear that they're
(29:46):
like that's new to me.
I'm not really sure how I thinkabout that, nor do I have the
time to completely, I think,think, grasp all the intricacies
of it before showing up andworking here and things like
that.
Finny Kuruvilla (29:59):
We want to be a very welcoming place to people
who are intrigued but aren'tsettled in their convictions,
and one of the great challengesin life to walk out is you want
to be passionate to what youbelieve and you want to be
fighting for those convictionsbut at the same time, you want
to be welcoming and loving tothose that may not be there yet
and it may take many years forthem to get there.
(30:22):
I often think about my ownjourney and it took me years to
figure out a lot of these thingsand to build the convictions,
and so we want to remember andhave a lot of compassion and
just give space for people todevelop those convictions and
even if they don't, that's okay.
And even if they become,hopefully, just a better person,
(30:45):
a better Christian in some wayand they are enriched by the
people here and the environmenthere, hey, that's a great
outcome as well and I'mcertainly glad for that.
But we certainly want to sayand allow for people to be
intrigued and say like, yeah,I'm intrigued, I'm not where
you're at yet, but I want tocome to learn and have a good
(31:05):
attitude and come with an openmind and an open heart.
Zack Johnson (31:08):
Yeah, that's right , and come with an open mind and
an open heart.
Yeah, that's right, and Ialways, when I'm talking to
interested students, I alwayskind of remind them that it's
possible to be here with it, notfeeling like this is being
shoved down your throatconstantly, and I think that's
important, that just in my mind.
What you said aboutdiscipleship, even the idea of
(31:31):
getting someone to spend dailytime with God, I think is like
even like the key to.
I think the key to discipleshipand we spend a lot of time,
just you spend a lot of time tooin your classes Just can you
wake up every day and that'd belike one of the keystone moments
of your whole day is like the.
I just think the foundation ofdiscipleship.
It's not belief.
I mean, it's not exactly whatyou believe doctrinally, but
(31:52):
it's really.
Are you right?
Are you approaching god andyeah, the one of there's.
Finny Kuruvilla (31:57):
There's a a great hidden secret to to life,
which is that if you can have anunhurried time with god and
when I say unhurried I don'tmean that you're, you're um,
you're not cognizant that youmight have something later on,
but I mean a truly open spacewhere you can be with God, be
present in worship, in time ofthe word and in prayer If you
(32:20):
can bring all those thingstogether and lay bare your life
before God, truly lay it barebefore God, the power that that
space has for shaping you isunparalleled.
You're going to have half anhour hour a day, whatever it is,
where, in that space, god isgoing to speak to you in ways
(32:41):
that you never dreamed possibleand your heart is going to be
shaped in ways that you didn'tdream to be possible.
I sometimes feel like beggingpeople to learn this discipline
and I know it's hard and I knowtime management is really hard,
but that, as a space for God tochange us you know we say these
(33:04):
terms like Christianity is aboutchange.
You know, if anyone's a newcreation, if anyone is in Christ
, there's a new creation.
Old things have passed away,all things have become new.
Where does that happen.
It's being in Christ.
That's what it says, if anyoneis in Christ.
And how are we the most inChrist?
It's not when we'refrenetically chasing the subway
(33:24):
because we've got 10 things thatwe're doing.
We're barely cognizant even ofthe Spirit and His activity in
our life.
It's when we have thoseunhurried, restful moments with
God that we are in Christ, andthen the old things pass away
and the new creation emerges andblossoms in our life and it is
(33:44):
so, so exciting.
It's how I changed myself.
The pivotal point in my wholelife was when I was one day
sitting in my bedroom.
I was reading my Bible andthere was two chapters.
It was John 15 and Romans 8.
And I was reading thosechapters and just something
happened and I knew that.
I knew that.
I knew that God loved mepersonally and he had something
(34:06):
that he had for me personally anexpression of his love, not
just for people in general, butfor me personally.
An expression of his love notjust for people in general, but
for me personally.
And I still remember that day.
I got out of my bedroom and Ijust started jumping up and down
.
I was like dancing in the roombecause I was so excited that
God loved me and he spoke to me.
I didn't hear the voice audibly, but I like the way that one
(34:27):
author puts it, where he sayssomebody says did you hear God
speak audibly?
And he says no, it was muchlouder than that.
And that's the kind ofcommunication that when you know
God and you can hear God, youknow it.
It's even better than auditorycommunication because it's so
clear and it's so penetrant intothe interior of your being.
Zack Johnson (34:47):
So, yeah, amen to what you just said.
Yeah, one more question beforewe go into some free form here.
So you went to caltech secular.
Your undergrad a secular, youruh, your grad school is secular.
I, I same here secularundergrad and grad school.
So why, why are we prescribingsomething that we didn't choose
(35:13):
to do?
Um, I feel like there's alittle bit of a there's a little
bit in the world where if,let's say, a really christian
student gets into a really goodschool, it's like there's a
celebration, there's like anextreme celebration around that.
I'm assuming your parents wereextremely proud of you and so
how do you think about thatdynamic where there's all sorts
(35:34):
of decisions around schools andnow even I think a lot of people
are trying to even push back oncollege isn't worth it, yada,
yada, yada.
There's a lot of that around.
So why, why the bit?
Why everybody studied biblicalstudies as opposed to go to get
into like a prestigious school,like work really hard for that
and maintain your Christianitythroughout that experience Is
(35:56):
there?
Is there a right or a wrong?
Finny Kuruvilla (35:58):
Yeah, One of the things that that I would say
to that is that the officialstats are somewhere around 70%
of students who start off as aspracticing Christians when they
begin college are no longerpracticing their faith by the
time they're done, across allinstitutions.
(36:18):
Yeah, that's a nationwidestatistic, so that's a steep
attrition.
And so what some people will dois they'll find somebody in the
30% who makes it through andlike you, like me, and they'll
say, see, see, it's possible.
Well, yeah, okay, sure, butwhat about the 70% who were the
negative examples that aren'tsitting here to talk about our
(36:40):
faith and have lost their wayalong the way?
And so I think it's veryimportant that we don't just
cherry pick examples here andthere and that we actually look
carefully at larger trends andwe ask and answer the question
what is going to be the mostfaithful and the best practices
for our children?
(37:00):
A good friend of mine has a sonwho got a full ride to go to
Harvard, and my friend is astrong Christian and he said I'm
not excited to see my son go toHarvard as an undergrad, and
the word he used, it had becometoxic and the worldviews were so
(37:21):
difficult for a young person toovercome, and it's gotten a lot
worse compared to when you andI were in school as well.
And so I think people who areaware of these issues ought to
be hesitant.
And it's not to say there's notcounterexamples.
There are plenty ofcounterexamples.
But I will even say, even forthe people that make it through,
myself included, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish I could have
(37:44):
gone back and had the kind ofcaliber education that Sadler
had.
I didn't get to learn Greekuntil I was done with my MD-PhD.
I didn't get to study Hebrewuntil years after that.
I didn't get to learn a lot ofthings until I was in my 30s and
some of them even my 40s.
And if I learned those thingswhen I was a teenager, in my 20s
(38:05):
, and I had a much strongernetwork of discipleship around
me, I would have been a muchstronger network of discipleship
around me.
I would have been, I'mconfident, a far more prolific
Christian and productiveChristian.
I spent a number of my years inmy 20s in a pretty bad place
spiritually.
I had made some bad choicesabout a number of things and I
(38:26):
was in a valley that, by God'sgrace, he rescued me out of that
, but I lost a good chunk of my20s at least six years of my 20s
for poor choices there.
Those are some of the bestyears of your life and I think
like, oh, I wish I could havethose years back.
I wish, I wish, I wish.
I would also say that Jesus usesthese compounding-like
(38:47):
metaphors when he talks aboutthe word of God.
And you know, compounding is,it's like compounding interest.
Einstein calls it the eighthwonder of the world, and the
magic of compounding is to getstart early.
Right, if you start late withcompounding, it doesn't work.
You got to start early and Iwould love for us to get as many
of our young people to startcompounding the Word of God into
(39:12):
their life at 18, 19, 20, andto allow that compounding
interest to grow exponentiallyas it does, rather than live
lives of having to backfill.
I'll tell you what happens moreoften than not to people who are
very smart they go on the ratrace and they go to a good
school.
They'll go to the Christianfellowship and they'll squeeze
(39:33):
in little bits here and there,but they're not particularly
competent biblically and theyhaven't learned discipleship,
evangelism A lot of the corethings that they should have
learned in their college yearsthey go to grad school or they
get really busy and they getmarried, children, and then they
wake up one day in their 40s or50s and they look around and
they say, like I haven't broughtanybody into the church, my
knowledge of scripture is weak,my discipleship structures and
(39:55):
frameworks are properlydeveloped.
Yeah, I have a nice house and anice car and all those things,
but what do I have to show forthe 20 years that I've spent,
other than having made a lot ofmoney?
The most influential andeffective people, ranging from
the John Wesleys to the Judsonsof the world they, early on,
make significant investmentsinto their life, and it's
(40:18):
usually in the college timeperiod.
And so I wish we had more timeto talk about the merits of why
investing into biblical studiesis essential for anybody who's a
Christian.
I don't care if you're going tobe a doctor or you're going to
be a computer scientist or ahistorian, a homeschool mom.
To learn that early is so, so,so important.
(40:42):
We could talk about that for awhole hour.
It will make the rest of yourlife so much more effective.
It'll make you a betterhomeschooler.
It'll make you a betterdiscipler.
It will make you a betterchurch member.
It'll make you better in somany other ways.
Why do we not want to makethose investments early on?
I think the risk of having yourface shipwrecked is there, but,
(41:04):
more importantly, the positivecause to give the proper
investment of time and energyinto all the subjects that we
emphasize so much here atSattler is really, really
important.
Zack Johnson (41:14):
So there's basically a risk of faith and
some sort of opportunity costthat is almost uncalculable.
Finny Kuruvilla (41:23):
Yeah, it is.
The opportunity cost is so highand I wish people understood
this across the country.
I wish Christians of allstripes understood this across
the country because thatopportunity cost is enormous.
Zack Johnson (41:35):
So maybe I mean I know we'll reiterate again the
value of biblical studies.
I don't think a lot ofChristian institutions would say
yeah, of course.
So why again?
Why new?
What's new about us that'sdifferent than other forms of
Christian higher ed?
(41:55):
And I know the answers to these, but I'd like to hear you talk
about them.
And why not just prescribe areally established Christian
college, ie, you know theWheaton of the or the?
There's some schools out therein California that are big.
There's.
There's really big schools thatexist and well-funded, um
(42:17):
established.
There's.
There's a certain risk ofsomething new that a lot of our
students experience, a lot ofour employees experience.
Finny Kuruvilla (42:24):
Yeah, I mean, time doesn't permit me to do
justice to the question, butjust at a high level, I would
say a couple of things.
I would say first do justice tothe question, but just at a
high level, I would say a coupleof things.
I would say first, the way thatwe teach fundamental texts,
doctrines, our biblical studies,our historic theology, I mean
these are such gems.
I don't think a lot of people,even who are here, appreciate
(42:46):
how differentiated they areuntil you compare with other
institutions, how differentiatedthey are until you compare with
other institutions.
Our communicative languageprogram is top-notch.
I was talking to somebodyyesterday who's a senior, who's
graduating, about our Hebrewinstructor, jesse Schumann, who
I think is one of the bestcommunicative Hebrew instructors
in the country.
I took seminary Hebrew and I hadto memorize a bunch of tables
(43:09):
and a bunch of paradigms and Ican tell you without any
hesitation, without anyexaggeration, basically
everybody who took that classforgot it within a few months
and couldn't hold on to theserandom tables and endings and
things like that because itwasn't taught properly.
I can tell you in teaching in acouple of the subjects
evangelism and some of theseother subjects that are so vital
(43:33):
where I watch students come inwho we do a little diagnostic
quiz on day one and moststudents do very poorly.
By the end of just thatsemester their confidence and
knowledge has increased manyfold from what they had in the
beginning.
The evangelism class we sendpeople out and a requirement of
that class is that every singleweek you're going to be going
(43:54):
out and doing real evangelismand writing reports on it and
learning.
I mean, how many institutionshave this all bound together in
the ways that they do?
A lot of the big colleges theyfall into even established
Christian colleges.
They fall into this unfortunatetrap where there's this
infatuation with a large coursecatalog and you think like oh, I
(44:17):
get to choose one of 10 optionsin Christianity A and one of 10
options in Christianity B andthey get a very random,
haphazard education that's notcomplete or well-structured.
One of the things that we'vetried to do at Sadler is develop
a corpus that'swell-architected and systematic,
(44:37):
and I know we try I talk to myfellow staff a lot on this
Instead of the random classesthat you can kind of grab here
and there.
I'm going to take one classabout Marley the King and one
class over here that's aboutByzantine architecture of fifth
century churches.
Okay, fine, those areinteresting subjects, but have
(44:59):
you actually built thatinfrastructure first before you
go off to these electives?
I actually think that one ofthe big mistakes that happened
in higher ed was moving awayfrom a more central core, which
the original colleges had theoriginal Harvards and Yales had
which was fewer classes butbetter classes and really well
(45:20):
architected classes that weresystematic, and that's what
you're going to get at SattlerThen again, very, very few
places elsewhere you would find.
Zack Johnson (45:27):
Right, well, we're coming up on like that 45
minute mark, but are there anyother topics or things that
you're passionate about, youwant to chat about?
I know you could go on it.
Finny Kuruvilla (45:38):
There's a lot of buttons you could push on me
here that would elicit moreconversations.
Zack Johnson (45:45):
You can poke them too, if you want.
I'm just kidding.
Finny Kuruvilla (45:49):
Yeah, I mean.
I would just say that I now, asmuch as ever in history, with
the intense polarization thatour society has, the intense
influence that algorithms have.
Algorithms are the new warlordsin our world that are driving
(46:09):
people to ever more extremepositions where they can't even
listen to the other side, likeonline algorithms.
Yeah, online algorithms I meanthey are even more so than
nation states affecting the waythat people think and act and
what they believe.
In this kind of climate andenvironment that we're living
now, there is no better time tolearn what a good, healthy
(46:34):
Christian education is that'swell-rounded, that learns how to
listen to both sides and canbring healing to a world that's
going to be ever more riddledwith conflicts.
We talk about Jesus' peacefulrevolution a lot here, and I
believe with all my heart thatthere has never been a time in
history where that's more neededthan the present.
Mm-hmm yeah.
Zack Johnson (46:51):
Graham, you have any questions?
I believe with all my heartthat there has never been a time
in history where that's moreneeded than the present.
Yeah, graham, you have anyquestions?
Yeah Well, the next big eventat Sattler is our it's actually
our commencement May 18th.
We have a it's here in Bostonat Converse Hall, at Tremont
Temple.
So if you're listening and youwant to come and see that, come
(47:12):
on in.
We have a really good speaker.
His name is Dr George Kalanzas.
Coming Wrote a book calledTeaser and the Lamb Very
pertinent, very relevant to thatlast comment you made there and
come and visit Boston, ifyou're listening, and see what
we're about.
I think it's still hard for usto communicate through our
website what actually happenshere sometimes.
(47:34):
Thanks for joining and we'llhave you on again sometime.
All right, thanks for having me.
It's great to be with you, yep.
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