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What We Believe

Believing, belonging, and becoming

Calvin University’s educational community is grounded in this primary belief:

We believe that we belong first of all to Jesus Christ.

This means that at Calvin, your passions, your dreams, and your talents will meet a heart and mind education grounded in firm Christian conviction and shaped in a strong Christian community. You will be challenged to expand your mind, mature in your beliefs, and cultivate a virtuous life that honors God by blessing your neighbor.

What we believe

Behind Calvin’s mission of equipping students to be agents of renewal in the world is a set of deep beliefs tied to the Reformed tradition of historic Christianity.

God and Creation
God, who is sovereign over all, created all things, and they were good. He gave human beings, made in his image, the responsibility of caring for this world.

Sin
Sin entered the world through humanity’s rebellion against God, tainting every aspect of creation. Nevertheless God graciously preserves the world, holding all things in his care.

Christ and Redemption
In his saving grace, God kept his promises by sending Jesus Christ to redeem all things through his death and resurrection. Jesus calls all people to salvation through faith in him alone.

The Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit continues God’s creative and restorative work in the world, gathering people from every tongue, tribe, and nation into the body of Christ and empowering them for service.

The Bible
The Bible is the authoritative, Spirit-breathed Word of God, fully reliable in leading believers to know God and to walk with Christ in newness of life.

Living our beliefs in community

In all we do at Calvin—in our teaching and learning, in athletics and the arts, in campus life and community activities—we aim to live Coram Deo, before the face of God. You won’t do this alone. You will share, test, explore, and deepen your beliefs in a community, as people who belong together as members of Christ’s body.

As a learning community rooted in the historic Reformed tradition of Christianity, we:

  • Are not afraid of new challenges
  • Seek to understand and apply the tradition's deepest convictions in new contexts
  • Joyfully pursue “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, what is admirable” as gifts to us in Jesus Christ.

We will ask you to wrestle with hard questions in a community that takes both Christian faith and Christian freedom seriously.

Faith shapes who students become

At Calvin, an education doesn’t only convey knowledge but also imparts virtues. We highlight the virtues taught by Reformed Christianity out of the conviction that while the skills you need for a job may change, the passions you will develop here can last a lifetime.

  • Justice: honoring the gifts and rights of each person
  • Courage: meeting controversy, challenges, and innovations with faith and love
  • Compassion: seeing the needs of others and recognizing God’s image in them
  • Discipline: becoming a good steward of God’s gifts, accountable and trustworthy
  • Humility: learning from all you encounter, offering your life as a pleasing sacrifice to God

Our invitation to you

We invite you to bring all that you are—mind, body, and soul—to Calvin, to join us in following and furthering God’s ways in His world.

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