About IFL

The Institute for Faith and Learning was founded in 1997 to assist Baylor in achieving its mission of integrating academic excellence and Christian commitment, and its goal of becoming a university of the first rank committed to its Baptist and Christian heritage. Since its founding, the Institute has developed several major programs in support of this mission, cultivating high-quality research, sponsoring conferences, and encouraging teaching faithful to the Christian intellectual tradition.

Vision: Romans 12:2 calls Christians to be transformed by the renewing of their minds, discerning what is good, acceptable, and perfect. We believe that responsiveness to this calling includes the integration of Christian faith and academic learning. Accordingly, we aspire to help Baylor become a center of excellence within the Christian academic community, bringing the intellectual, moral, and spiritual riches of the Christian faith to our students, culture, and world.

Mission: The mission of the Baylor Institute for Faith and Learning is to serve as a local, national, and international house of study that cultivates careful reflection, rigorous scholarship, and vital practice that substantively unite the life of the mind and the faith of Christians. Consonant with this mission, we aim to:

1. To study the role of religion in American higher education.

2. To encourage interested faculty members to develop ways to reconnect religious faith, as expressed in Christian intellectual traditions, to contemporary academic research.

3. To foster a community of scholars dedicated to the integration of faith and learning in teaching and scholarship.

4. To support Baylor's aim of becoming a university of the first rank while maintaining a faithful commitment to its Christian identity.

5. To inspire students, both graduate and undergraduate, to see the importance and vitality of Christian higher education, and to explore service to the academy as a Christian vocation.