Alleman, Nathan F., 1975-2024-07-172024-07-172023-082023-08August 202https://hdl.handle.net/2104/12822Administrators at Christian colleges and universities must tend both mission and market, as commodification and competition threaten the formational capacities of these faith-based institutions of higher learning. Consumption, or the use and exchange of goods, services, and relationships can account for these distractions – and their implications on neighbor-love, a central telos of Christian higher education. However, minimal scholarly and practical attention has been given to the confluence of Christianity, consumption, neighborliness and higher education. Guided by the macro-theological prophetic tradition and the micro-sociological theory of symbolic interactionism, this qualitative study was thus guided by the following research question: How do administrators at Christian institutions understand, critique, and reimagine consumption, and what do their imaginations and implementations reveal about the formation, practices, and aims of neighborliness in college? Socio-theological analysis of semi-structured interviews with 15 participants across nine Christian colleges and universities revealed administrators’ truth-telling, lament, and hope related to material and spiritual formation. Study administrators’ accounts coalesced as a narrative of Christian higher education as both a formative institution and as a business enterprise, where theological and organizational distinctiveness were variously pursued. Attention to consumption and neighborliness in Christian colleges and universities, then, can illuminate institutional and administrative movement toward either excellence or idolatry.application/pdfEnglishThesisNo access – contact librarywebmaster@baylor.edu2024-07-17