Sabine U. O'Hara

The Vocation of a Lutheran College—Living the Legacy of the Reformation in the Twenty-first Century

Sabine U. O'Hara

No. 26 · Fall 2007

O’Hara reflects on Luther’s understanding of education as Bildung — “becoming in the image of God” — through four key aspects: education must be relevant, education demands engagement with the community, education requires attention to place, and education demands engagement with the world. Drawing on her German upbringing, her work as president of Roanoke College, and on Darrell Jodock and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, she argues that Luther’s vision of a well-educated citizenry as the priesthood of all believers calls Lutheran colleges to messy, interdisciplinary, communal scholarship in service to the neighbor.