A Research Of University Education And Faith Caring

Faith is the trust and pursuit of the highest values, which enrich and settle down the existing of people. It has been the main factor influencing human life so far. In the modern society where "relativism" and "nihilism" prevail, especially in the contemporary spirit-lacking China, the issue of faith is an unavoidable theme. Education, especially the universities, on behalf of the highest human wisdom, should do something in the era of faith crisis.Nevertheless, the modern university faces the challenge of the specialization and professionalism, as well as the threat of utilitarianism and instrumentalism. It is in the crisis of superficiality and parochialism. As a result of the prevalence of vulgar pragmatism belief in contemporary Chinese universities, students have banished the academic ideal and the virtue pursuit. The anti-elitist of university education not only has brought college students self-identity anxiety, but also the lower social recognition. College students are considered to be "vulgar Allies". The self-reflection of the college students and the criticism of the falling of elite values are pressing for the returning of university elite values and ideals. We have to reconstruct the college students’ spiritual home to care for their beliefs.The individual belief formation is a process of identification to worship, which is the integration and unification of the knowledge, emotion and willpower. Man’s unfinished characteristics and the alterability of faith provide the possibility of the belief-education. The religious origin of universities and the inheritance of the religious culture make universities inherently conservative and transcendental, which is the historical root of the university’s faith caring. The wholeness of university education is the realistic basis of faith education. The complexity of Chinese elementary education makes its value-education a "vacuum", which provides room for the higher education. Different from belief-education, the university’s belief-caring is a special kind of soul education and a broader mental journey.Western medieval universities were a place of the pursuit of knowledge and pilgrimage. It fostered the students’God-faith and truth-faith through replicating religious buildings and environment, introducing Christian literature and missionary methods, drawing lessons from religious abstinence way of life, as well as holding religious rituals and similar ceremonies and rituals. The modern universities cultivate the students’intellectual-consciousness and the belief in truth and virtue through the development of liberal education, the introduction of scientific research and the promotion of autonomy and equal community life. The contemporary universities believe in liberalism and pluralism. The education, which is characteristic of more open and inclusive campus, the general education, the flexible teaching methods, the modern life style and the sober, as well as rational rituals and ceremonies, provides the faith of "science and progress", together with the "ultimate concern" beyond the secular and the utilitarian.The ancient Chinese official universities provided students with the mission of "self-cultivation and being nice to other people", as well as the faith of moral ideal. They applied the following methods:the layout of "the combination of temple and schools", the humanistic education, the life-style combined with leisure, study and political involvement and the political rituals. The ancient academies were far away from the urban and full of various buildings. The monasticism life led by the mountain capital, the teaching in line with the imperial examination and the worship of the worthy predecessors offered students the belief of being sages who had the ideal of saving the people and the world. The modern Christian colleges provided students with a "Christian faith" by copying the European and American education patterns, improving the students’scientific and cultural level and undertaking the management with "carrot and stick approach". The universities of the Republic of China had the national belief and the academic belief. The president’s democratic school-running practice, the professor’s fearless pursuit of truth and their selfless virtues, and the academic life combined with revolutionary fusion, gave students ideological enlightenment and various faith choices. The Marxism was widely propagated and had the dominant place in the various options. The current Chinese universities take the Marxism and the Renaissance of China as their faith. They implement ideological and political education as the core of general education, the constructing of campus culture in an administrative atmosphere and idle life style far from academic to fulfill these ideas.Actually, the Chinese university faith-caring is an ideological civilization and enchantment. It imprisons the freedom of thought, while manufacturing power-worship. This ideological penetration has been instrumental concealed, which is the distorting of the university education. In order to enable students to gain a profound freedom, Chinese university faith-caring should pass through the ideological fantasies toward ultimate concern. The main content of the faith-caring is the formation of truth-faith and virtue-faith. University spirit rich in character is the basis of college students’faith-caring education. The substitution of liberal education for ideological education is the prerequisite. The mapping of campus buildings and cultural landscapes is the implicit curriculum. The mental communication is the realization of the university’s faith-caring.