Religious Heritage
Bluffton University was founded (as Central Mennonite College) by the General Conference Mennonite Church and became affiliated with the Mennonite Church USA when it was created in 2002 by a merger between the GCMC and the Mennonite Church. It has been a member of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities since 1991.
The Mennonite church is an Anabaptist denomination committed to nonviolence, social justice and voluntary service.
Bluffton has been open to non-Mennonites since its founding and members of the denomination now make up a minority of students.
Historian Perry Bush, in his centennial history of the college, argues that Bluffton's distinctive religious orientation has been to avoid both secularization and generic American evangelicalism. While many other denominational colleges adopted the latter, Bluffton leaders "refused to separate Mennonite ethical principles from the doctrines they held in common with other evangelicals. They refused to treat peace and service as if they were add-ons, 'nonessentials,' extra-chrome options. Christ's theological and ethical teachings were all of one piece, Mennonites have insisted, and a proper Christian college would be built on the firm integration of the two."
Evidence of this focus can be found in the high percentage of Bluffton graduates "devoting lives to service occupations: teaching, medicine, social work, church ministry, and the like."
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