Dear Dr. Craig, I believe that you're a graduate of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, so I imagine you must have some thoughts about its

recent closing. Could you share your thoughts with us? Bill, United States. I am not only an

alumnus of TEDs, but my first teaching job was in the Philosophy of Religion Department at Trinity. So it feels very strange to

realize that the school is no more. The signs of decline were evident even before the school

terminated the philosophy of religion department in the late 1980s.

A couple of years ago, at a conference at Trinity,

Ken Keithley, a theologian and educator at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary,

told me ominously that because of a huge demographic shift in the United States, many small colleges and seminaries

would be shutting their doors over the next 10 years. Now that has come to pass with Trinity

itself. Therefore, I've asked Ken to write a guest question of the week, sharing his reflections

on this tragic event. My wife, Penny, and I are both graduates of Tennessee Temple University.

It was an independent evangelical school that once stood proudly in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

When we attended in the 1970s, it was a thriving institution with more than 4,000 students.

I was honored, years later, to give the inaugural address at the installation of one of its presidents.

So when Tennessee Temple finally closed its doors in 2015, it felt deeply personal, a part of our story and of so many others

was gone. This spring, I felt that familiar ache again. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School,

affectionately known by its acronym Ted's, announced it would be closing its Deerfield, Illinois

campus, and merging operations with a Canadian university. The news marks yet another chapter in the ongoing story of Christian colleges

and seminaries shuddering their campuses. But this one cuts deep. Ted's isn't just any school.

It's been one of the most influential institutions in the evangelical world over the past six decades.

With the closure of Ted's, along with others like the King's College, Clark Summit University,

it's part of a larger trend affecting all of higher education.

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