The Online Encyclopedia tentatively called “COLLEGEPEDIA” Project
Welcome to the homepage of the “COLLEGEPEDIA” project, an initiative to create a Christian online encyclopedia.
If you are interested in being a part of this effort, please fill up this form. Note: If you submit the form more than once, please use the same email ID.
History bears witness to Christianity’s transformative influence, in concert with the wisdom of the Bible, in molding the very essence of the modern world, reflecting all that we still hold in high esteem today. This fact has been attested by many historians and is the thesis of the two books by Dr. Vishal Mangalwadi, https://www.revelationmovement.com/about/ “This Book Changed Everything – Volume I: The Bible’s Amazing Impact on Our World (2019)” and “The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization (2011)”
Today, we are witnessing the rapid decline of a once great Western Civilization that has been ravaged by the consequences of rejecting the truth of God’s revelation. It has become necessary for a Third Education Revolution.
As Dr. Mangalwadi writes in the introductory chapter “Towards A Third Education Revolution” of the book “The Third Education Revolution” (Sought After Media, 2021), authored collectively by 30 diverse contributors,
“For a thousand years the church has sent students to the universities.
It is time for universities to send students to the local church.”
Where at one time, Truth (Veritas in Latin) was the soul of the Western university, we now have universities that are swamps breeding corrupt politicians, civil servants, businessmen, journalists and judges. In turn, the schools are raising an amoral citizenry leading to societal decay, violence and corruption in every sphere of human existence. The Enlightenment’s pledges of swift advancement precipitated an era of intellectual and moral “endarkenment,” hastening the transition of the postmodern world into the era of Post-Truth.
Dr. Mangalwadi continues:
“Secularization forced the university to give up the hope of finding truth because it precluded the supernatural, spiritual dimension of reality. Language and logic, imagination and intuition are matters of the spirit. Pragmatism has enslaved universities to agnosticism. You are required to affirm that your beliefs are only relatively true; your ethics are adjustable; no one should trust you; your media spins stories 24/7 to manipulate your audience.”
Europe’s first education revolution was inaugurated by Charlemagne, the Frankish king and later Roman emperor, who heralded a transformative era beginning in 800 AD. Under Charlemagne’s reign, a profound metamorphosis occurred in the understanding of faith, influenced by the teachings of English clergyman Alcuin of York, who emphasized the voluntary nature of religious belief, and therefore required the education of all people to enable them to make a moral decision. An epoch of profound intellectual growth ensued, known as the Carolingian Renaissance, which spurred unparalleled advancements in scholarship, literature, and the arts.
Charlemagne’s educational initiatives, whose seeds were sown by his advisor Alcuin, culminated in the establishment two centuries later of the world’s first university at Bologna in Italy (1088) followed soon by many renowned universities such as Oxford in England (1096).
A second education revolution became necessary when the priests and scholars suppressed the truths revealed by the Bible and pagan rationalism and myths began to percolate into the ethos of Christendom through the Scholastic movement.
“Europe’s Second Education Revolution commenced five hundred years ago in 1520 with Martin Luther’s publication of an Open Letter to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate.”
While Roman Catholic institutions had historically educated priests, Luther argued for universal education, asserting that every child of God, as His holy priest, required schooling to fulfill their divine calling. This shift, rooted in the biblical concept of the kingship of all believers, gradually transformed feudal Europe. Luther’s advocacy for liberty, grounded in biblical principles, laid the groundwork for the West’s pursuit of freedom, which engendered the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, which acknowledged the Creator’s endowment of inalienable rights to every human being.
Much of this history has been forgotten or distorted by post-truth historians. Despite the enduring benefits of the Bible’s impact on Western Civilization, the pervasive societal decay fueled by postmodernism mandates a decisive and urgent response from the body of Christ.
The first step in empowering the ecclesia church to initiate the third education revolution is the creation of a new online Christian encyclopedia.
The vision of launching an online Christian encyclopedia was initially introduced by Dr. Ashish Alexander within a chapter titled, “Collegepedia: A New Knowledge Ecosystem“, of the book “The Third Education Revolution“.
Dr. Alexander wrote,
“The idea for this online encylopedia project stems from the perennial Christian quest for the integration of all knowledge, especially in the face of our fragmented, postmodern world. In the 17th century, European scholars such as Francis Bacon, Johann Alsted and perhaps most importantly John Amos Comenius worked towards discovering and employing a rigorous scientific method of collecting and classifying all knowledge, and then making it available to all people under one umbrella (or between two covers). This gave rise to the great “encyclopedia movement” in the West, which culminated in the magisterial Encyclopaedia Britannica of Scotland. In our times, Wikipedia was the great disruption; an admirable and magnificent achievement. However, since it does not have the Christian concern of glorifying God but a rather vague concept of “neutrality” as its foundational principle, it ends up pandering to academic fads and political correctness…
This effort to build a fresh online encylopedia is thus to continue the godly concern for integration of all knowledge…
A renaissance of the “Christian mind” must offer the “light of life” (John 8:32) to a generation that cannot distinguish true from false, right from wrong, good from evil, or wisdom from folly. Our lost generation desperately needs a reliable bank of knowledge infused not with ideology, academic fads, or political correctness, but with wisdom, knowledge, and understanding that cultivate the “fear of the Lord.” That is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs1:7) and that education is dangerous that chooses not to graduate wise students. The proposed knowledge-bank would make high-quality information freely available. It will become a new ecosystem of learning, which helps students to synthesize all knowledge—sacred or secular— to uplift the mind, spirit and character. That is why the Third Education Revolution aims to create an online encyclopedia. It will cater to the practical educational and information needs so that students build their world-and-life view of everything.”
Currently, numerous online encyclopedias exist, with Wikipedia being the most prominent, alongside Encyclopedia Britannica, various Christian online wikis, and multiple other religious and secular wikis. Our approach avoids redundant efforts and unnecessary technological reinventions by leveraging the strengths of established platforms while innovating where beneficial for our objectives. Integration with existing wikis for access to valuable resources and literature is also considered within our strategy.
The main idea now is to mobilize God-fearing and godly scholars all over the globe to put their heads together and create a new knowledge ecosystem. We hope that this encyclopedia will also become a go-to source for all serious students across the world, at all levels of scholarship.
Under the guidance of Dr. Vishal Mangalwadi, Dr. Ashish Alexander and a host of other Christian scholars, our team endeavors to fulfill the vision of John Amos Comenius by establishing Collegepedia as a student-friendly repository of knowledge and wisdom. Through meticulous planning and collaboration, we aim to launch this transformative platform in 2025, leveraging the latest technologies and drawing from the expertise of global scholars and educators.
Explore our plans for content creation, technology platform, legal framework, and monetization strategies as we embark on this monumental journey to shape the future of Christian education. Join us as we invite potential stakeholders to become founders of this visionary project, launching the Collegepedia Encyclopedia and Wisdom Village at the forefront of the Third Education Revolution.
A working group (WG) is being established to manage the set up of all aspects related to the Collegepedia Project including the management and administration, legal issues, content creation and technology platform construction. If the Lord wills, the encyclopedia will be launched in 2025.
While the Technology platform is being built, the WG will partner with The International Forum of Professors and Scholars (IFPS), the TER movement www.thirdeducationrevolution.com and the Truth & Transformation networks www.truthandtransformation.org, to create sample contents and work out issues of importance to the project.
The IFPS (The International Forum of Professors and Scholars) grew out of an existing Professors’ Forum in Germany. It is being incorporated as a legal entity. One of its objectives is to stimulate the development of the Christian mind to create the curriculum and educational curriculum to be distributed through the Wisdom Village
The WG will develop various strategies for monetizing this gigantic effort. One of these is to use the content to create educational curriculum. Another is to create a worldview magazine based on the Encyclopedia entries, to serve opinion makers, public intellectuals, pastors, teachers, business leaders etc. A sample magazine will be created out of the first 100 sample entries.
The WG will also prepare a five-year budget to be submitted to the Founders (to be formed) and other potential donors.
The WG will invite potential stakeholders to meet as Founders in early 2025 to launch the Encyclopedia and the Wisdom Village (a virtual reality metaverse university and school). This could be synchronized with Davos 2025, which is scheduled for January 20-25. Efforts will be made to invite major donors to this gathering.
If you are interested in being a part of this effort, please fill up this form. Note: If you submit the form more than once, please use the same email ID.
You can make tax-deductible donations here
