‘Be brave, be whole, be rooted’

In July, the Institute for Christian Studies (ICS) in Toronto will have a new president, Dr. Beth Green. Green is currently serving as Chief Academic Officer and Provost at Tyndale University in Toronto.

“If you ask me who I am, I’m a teacher,” says Green, who is looking forward to being back in the classroom. ICS is a small graduate school with about 50 full- and part-time students in its Philosophy Apprenticeship and Educational Leadership programs. The president’s role includes some teaching and supervising of graduate students, as well as administrative, fundraising and leadership duties. Green fondly remembers the seven years she spent teaching high school in England before completing a DPhil at Oxford University. She says she still approaches challenges as a teacher would.

“I’ve realized if I’m leading a committee meeting or if I’m having a one-to-one, [whether] I’m checking with someone, or if I’m speaking to a donor, I think about it like curating a learning experience,” says Green. “I think, fundamentally, it’s about relationships.”

Green, who has previously served as Program Director of Education at Cardus, has always been interested in understanding how education from a Christian worldview impacts students. She cites ICS Senior Member emeritus Calvin Seerveld and ICS alumni David I. Smith and James K. A. Smith, as well as other reformed thinkers such as Gloria Stronks, as important influences on her research.

A unique education

Green’s own school experience began in a farmhouse dairy in Reddish, U.K., where she was one of three students enrolled in an independent, self-funded Christian school. Her parents, both teachers, were among the founders of Covenant Christian School. Green says they believed “that not just certain bits of the school curriculum are sacred, but the whole of it could be taught through that lens.” She describes them as “hipsters” influenced by Dutch Christian Reformed educators and thinkers such as Harro Van Brummelen.

Green says her non-denominational Bible-based education was very unique in England, where Christian schools tend to be Catholic or Church of England-run and don’t integrate faith into every aspect of learning. At the post-secondary level, most U.K. institutions of higher learning that were once Christian are now secular.

“I would have loved the opportunity to go to a Christian university as a young person. I guess I could have come to America or Canada, but it wasn’t on my horizon then in the 90s,” says Green.

When Green eventually came to Canada in 2015 to work for Cardus, it was because she wanted a closer look at the educational ecosystem that had inspired her parents all those years earlier. Compared to England, she says, “Canada has a really well-developed sector of Christian schools that have really paid attention to what it looks like to have a curriculum that is Bible-based and reflects a Christian worldview.”

A new chapter

Green, who attends St. Luke’s Anglican Church in Burlington, will be stepping into leadership at ICS during a pivotal time in the organization’s denominational alignment. In February 2025, ICS formally discontinued its longstanding relationship with the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) in response to the denomination’s decisions on human sexuality. Current ICS president, Ron Kuipers says the disaffiliation prompted a number of CRCs to stop supporting ICS, but many continue to include ICS in their giving.

“We are also encouraged by new engagement beyond the CRC and by renewed commitment from long-standing friends,” says Kuipers. “These are hopeful signs, but they also underscore how essential continued generosity will be as we steward this next chapter of our mission.”

Kuipers describes this next chapter as one marked by “growing public engagement, expanding partnerships and quiet confidence about our mission.” One of these areas of growth has been through ICS’s Free to be Faithful program, a lifelong learning initiative launched last May that includes online book clubs and non-credit courses for learners outside of the academic world.

The launch event in Grand Rapids, Michigan featured a conversation between philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff and historian Kristen Kobes Du Mez and drew 500 in-person attendees and more than 3,500 online registrants. The two ICS free online book clubs called “Big Reads” have had 500-1000 registrants each. At press time, the Free to be Faithful courses, which cost $400 for non-credit registrants and $1500 for those earning credit toward an ICS degree, have had 187 registrants across six courses.

“Free to be Faithful is our effort to create a hospitable intellectual and spiritual space for Christians who are seeking depth, courage and clarity in a polarized cultural moment,” says Kuipers. “We especially seek to be a gathering place for Christians who may feel alienated and isolated within their religious communities of origin.” The Free to be Faithful website describes it as a “movement.” When CC asked Kuipers where the movement is going, he said, “toward a more spacious and resilient public Christianity, one capable of deep theological reflection without fear.”

Words of blessing

CC asked Kuipers if the appointment of Green signals a shift in ICS’ focus to centre on equipping K-12 educators. But Kuipers explained how each of ICS’ three streams of study – philosophical apprenticeship, educational leadership and lifelong learning – are “distinct but mutually reinforcing expressions of one calling: forming wise and faithful Christian thinkers for the sake of the church and the world.” He added, “Dr. Green’s experience in educational leadership brings fresh energy to that stream, while also deepening our commitment to the formation of everyone we serve: K-12 educators, graduate students, pastors, lay leaders and church members.”

Green also sees her appointment as a way for ICS to live fully into all three parts of its mandate. When asked what her deep hope is for ICS grads, she said: “That they would be brave, be whole, be rooted, be excellent, be curious and be community.” She sees ICS students competing at the highest intellectual levels, without sacrificing their humanity, and forming a truly countercultural academic community.

Green will commence her ICS presidency with the knowledge that she now leads the very institution that produced many of the educators who were so formative for her own research and education. For that full-circle moment, CC couldn’t resist reaching out to Green’s childhood school for a comment:

“We pray for every blessing for Dr. Green as she begins this new chapter,” wrote Emma Jeffrey on behalf of Covenant Christian School, “and pray for God’s guidance in the years ahead.”