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Andrea Sterk and Howard Louthan presented 4 historical vignettes on this topic at Engaging the University: Student Mission and the Christian Mind.

They began their presentation by placing some of their own story as Christians in higher education in the context of the ambivalent relationship between followers of Christ and philosophy/culture.

The first example being the contrast between Tertullian (c155-230, Carthage, Tunsia) and the Alexandrian School in engaging the pagan intellectual world.  Tertullian is famous for his remark, What then has Athens to do with Jerusalem?  He argued for Christiantity over and against pagan culture.Whereas Clement of Alexandria (d. c.215) took the best of Hellenistic philosophy for use in the Christian context:  Let me benefit from the fruit of Greek erudition.  Origin of Alexandria (185-c254), a genius, polymath, apologist is well known and controversial as he developed a pattern for reading Scripture which involved the literal, moral, and spiritual meaning.  He drew his allegorical method from Plato and was critiqued in his time by nonbelievers (e.g., Porphory in Against the Christians) and believers for years afterward (e.g., the Originist controversy involving St. Jerome in 390).  In Letter to Gregory (235), he applied the Israelites spoiling of the Egyptians during the exodus to the work of Christian academics/apologists.

Secondly, Andrea and Howard considered Academic Vocation as Christian Mission through the example of Cyril and Methodius, Apostle to the Slavs, who in 836 responded to the call to missionaries for Moravia.  They were part of a revival of education and learning in Byzantium during a reprieve in the advance of Islam.  While in Moravia, they invented an alphabet for the slavic tongue, a precursor to Cyrillic; translated the Scriptures, and began the education of native priests.  But a change in rulers led to their imprisonment and the casting out of their disciples, who precipitated literary and cultural flowering as they traveled from Belgrade to Bulgara to Macedonia developing primary and secondary education based in Slavonic. 

Bartolome' de las Casas served as the third figure of interest, one which crossed cultures and took risks.  Bartolome' (1484-1566) argued for the intrinsic dignity of new world natives during a time in which the justification of conquest was advocated by academics which considered the natives inferior and predisposed to slavery.  As a Dominican bishop he chose to live in the muck of the new world, advocated for the natives, and compelled a response by the pope and later the emperor which brought a greater perspective with regard to justice in the new world.

Lastly, Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), informed by the 16-17th century Jesuit tradition which sought to learn the culture and language of those whom they were seeking to win for Christ in Asia, served as an example of Learning as a Tool of Mission.  Jose de Acosta, SJ (1540-1600) had stated, For how do you expect to win a nation for Christ if you do not . . . live there permanently?  Alessandro Valignono (1539-1606) noted the urgency in distancing from the Western colonialism of the Portugese and established the principle of cultural accomodation.  During Ricci's tenure the Jesuits were allowed to enter China, the Chinese Emperor honored the Jesuits with a plot of land to bury their dead, and the native Christian population rose from 0 to 2,500.  The genuine love of learning, curiosity which led them to learn the language, and their moral way of life were compelling.  They did their homework and serve as an example of engaging the academy on its own terms through hard years of study and doing one's homework.

Lessons:
1.  Engage the issues and culture of the University on its own terms using the best tools which it has to offer.
2.  Don't assume hostility on the part of all non-Christian academics, culture war language is very unhelpful.
3.  Stay away from the in-fighting, instead support and cooperate with Christians pursuing academic careers.
4.  Academic vocation is a Christian calling/ministry
5.  Encourage academically gifted Christian students in your movements to pursue University careers and see this as ministry!
6.  Note that all heroes have serious flaws.  History is not a straight forward story of virtue and vice.  It is full of contradictions and inconsistencies.  Sam Wineberg, in Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts, comments

The awareness that the contradictions we see in others may tell us more about ourselves is the seed of intellectual charity.  For the narcissist sees the word -- both the past and the present -- in his/her own image.  Mature historical thinking teaches us the opposite, to go beyond our own imiage, to see beyond our brief life, and to go beyond the fleeting moment in history in which we have been born.  History educates in the deepest sense.  Of the subjects in the secular curriculum it is the best at teaching those vitrues once reserved for theology -- humility in the face of our limited ability to know, and awe in the face of the expanse of human history.

Another historian gave a response to the presentation.  He asked delegates to also consider models of Christian faculty which go beyond the pioneer phase.  Secondly, he challenged us to beware of the dangers of a conversion of the elites which suppresses some elements of the Gospel.  As we learn the language and become part of the culture of the University, we are in danger of loosing the scandal and horror of the Gospel which is the cross of Jesus Christ.  A strong set of cautions to hold in tension with a great set of models with helpful insights in engaging the University.