We all know that institutions change. Even when started with clear mission statements, their mission drifts. Their values change, their practices change, and they change into something very different from what those pouring their lives and money into them at the beginning intended. The prominence of a chapel at the centre of a secular university is often more an embarrassing, bad joke than the statement of faith that the layout of the university originally intended. Even when started with orthodox Christian convictions, a generation or so later the institution tolerates and eventually espouses unorthodox views. We need historians (my preference) to help us understand this change. Here are some of my own reflections based on nothing else than my own experience over many years of study and ministry with different institutions on three different continents. As such, this is meant to speak into a conversation that needs to be had at Christian institutions in perhaps the most volatil