Christian Higher Education, 9:336–360 Copyright C  2010 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1536-3759 print / 1539-4107 online DOI: 10.1080/15363759.2010.492738 HUMAN FLOURISHING: THE CONTEXT FOR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IN CHRISTIAN HIGHER EDUCATION RICHARD LANGER, M. ELIZABETH LEWIS HALL, and JASON McMARTIN Biola University, La Mirada, California, USA Although character formation has always been a central goal of education, ef- forts to promote character education in schools have, in the last century, always been hampered by an inability to adequately define character. We offer the con- cept of the flourishing life as the appropriate context for defining and developing character. This concept, which includes a robust understanding of character, has historically prevailed in Western thought. We first recover some of the historical discussion, and then consider essential elements of the good life in light of this historical discourse and the findings of the social sciences, including the focused work on the flourishing life coming out of positive psychology. Finally, we con- sider some implications of a well-formed understanding of human flourishing for Christian higher education. In 1966, more than 80% of incoming college freshmen endorsed “developing a meaningful philosophy of life” as their top value (Astin, 1998). “Being very well off financially” lagged far behind, with only 45% of the freshmen endorsing this value as essential or very important. Forty years later, these two values have basi- cally traded places, with “being very well-off financially” topping the charts, and “developing a meaningful philosophy of life” lag- ging far behind with only a 48.1% endorsement (Liu, Sharkness, & Pryor, 2008). Presumably this change is a reflection of deeper things. Identifying one’s top value in life is a very fundamental question, rooted in a deeply embedded though perhaps unarticu- lated vision of what constitutes a good life. These students are pur- suing financial well-being, one must assume, because they believe it is the key to personal well-being. To put the matter simply, they are not seeking a “meaningful philosophy of life” because they al- ready have a philosophy of life: seeking financial well-being. They have not come to college to find a philosophy of life; they have come to college to get on with one. Address correspondence to Elizabeth Lewis Hall, Biola University, Department of Psychology, 13800 Biola Avenue, La Mirada, CA 90639. E-mail: liz.hall@biola.edu 336