Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, not John Stone Street. Throughout this month, hundreds of thousands of graduates will walk across stages and begin a new stage in their own journey of life. Many will sit through boring, pointless, or otherwise uninformed graduation speeches in the process that are unhelpful microcosms of what happened to them in the classroom. Perhaps the greatest commencement address of the modern era was given in nineteen seventy eight by renowned Soviet dissident Alexander Soltonitsyn.
His prophetic voice to that year's Harvard graduation class stressed the importance of civil courage in the pursuit of truth. The trajectory of Harvard commencement addresses ever since, however, has been quite inconsistent. This year, in fact, grads will hear from the late-night comedian Conan O'Brien. I guess he'll at least be funny. Henry Adams once quipped that the transition from President George Washington to President Ulysses S.
Grant was sufficient evidence to refute Darwin's theory of evolution. The same could be said of Harvard commencement speakers. As Harvard alum Charles Kessler quipped, so much for natural selection. Important to understanding this time of year and all that it means is the choice of words we use to describe these events. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word graduated as an adjective goes back to the 1600s, and it simply means to have received or hold a university degree.
Yet, to have merely graduated lacks special significance. Consider the growth and the number of college graduates in America today, driven by the massive expansion of higher education institutions, degree modalities, and the seemingly endless supply of federal financial aid. One could also add in the rising chorus of concerns about students using AI to complete their assignments. about great inflation or about declining academic standards, all of which make college degrees much more attainable, but also less distinctive. According to recent data between 1993 and 2023, the number of US college graduates among adults age 25 and older skyrocketed by 75%.
So today, over 38% of Americans age 25 and older are college grads. That compares to just 20% in 1990.
Now, none of this is meant to discredit by any means what so many have done to earn their college degrees, but it does seem clear that an undergraduate degree today is not the same marker of distinction that it once was. Framing graduation as a commencement, now that points to a higher purpose. To commence, after all, means to begin, to enter. Unfortunately, for so many, what's not clear is what exactly they are supposed to begin, or where exactly they're supposed to enter. As one Duke University student put it years ago, quoted by Steve Garber in his book, The Fabric of Faithfulness: We've got no idea what it is that we want by the time somebody graduates.
This so-called curriculum is a set of hoops someone says students ought to jump through before graduation. No one seems to have asked how do people become good people. After 10 months of rigorous worldview training in a cohort setting with like-minded colleagues, the Coulson Fellows Program does not graduate fellows. We do not celebrate with a commencement where they're asked to commence into a new stage of life. Instead, Chuck Coulson determined that they would be commissioned, and therein lies a whole worldview of difference.
The Colson Fellows Program provides key distinctives that help Christians develop a Christian worldview and to engage their world with clarity, confidence, and courage. As noted in an article in The American Mind, this fellowship model has many virtues that are worth extolling. Quote, the fellowship is small enough to be genuinely formative, the curriculum is focused enough to produce actual knowledge, and the community that emerges, the fellowship in the deepest sense, that persists long after it's over. That is a great description of the experience that Colson Fellows have. Through scripture, serious study, and a committed learning community, participants in the Colson Fellows program move.
Beyond just understanding a Christian worldview to living it out, to inhabiting it here and now for the good of their neighbors and to the glory of God. In his book, How Now Shall We Live, Chuck Colson made a claim that lies at the heart of what the Colson Fellows program is all about. Quote, our calling is not only to order our own lives by divine principles, but also to engage the world. We're commanded both to preach the good news and to bring all things into submission to God's order by defending and living out God's truth in the unique historical and cultural conditions of our age. End quote.
And so, the Colson Fellows Program culminates each and every year with a commissioning. Colson Fellows are charged to go into their spheres of influence as redemptive agents for this cultural moment. The language of commissioning is both appropriate and essential to the purpose of the program, and Colson Fellows accept that charge with confidence, knowing that Jesus promised in his great commission to his disciples, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. To learn more about the Colson Fellows program, go to colsonfellows.org. That's colsonfellows.org.
For Breakpoint, I'm John Stone Street. Today's commentary was co-authored with Andrew Carrico. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. And for more resources or to share this commentary with others, go to breakpoint.org. Scripture offers us the capital T true truth account of the world as it actually is.
If this is the story of the world, there is a storyteller. In a world that says live your truth, Christians have the responsibility to live out the truth. Truth Rising the Study explores the true story of the world through creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. You'll see this cultural moment through the bigger story of reality written by God. Start this free study today at colsoncenter.org/slash study.
That's Colsoncenter.org slash study.
