One of America’s largest Christian universities is preparing to open a law school where students will study not only the legal system but also the biblical principles its leaders say helped shape Western civilization.

Grand Canyon University in Phoenix announced that it plans to launch a College of Law as early as fall 2027, with a curriculum designed to “integrate the Christian worldview” throughout students’ legal education.

GCU President Brian Mueller told The Christian Post that the university believes understanding Scripture is essential to understanding the development of Western civilization and the American legal system.

“To understand Western civilization, to understand American culture and to understand the law that’s part of that, you really have to understand the Old and New Testament because that is where the foundation for Western civilization lies,” Mueller said. “It’s where the foundation for our legal system came from.”

Mueller said GCU wants to provide an approach he believes is missing at many universities.

“There’s a lot of universities that aren’t teaching that foundational aspect to what has created probably the most flourishing society in the history of the world,” he said.

Students attending GCU’s law school, he added, will receive “a firm foundation in the Old and New Testaments” and learn how they relate to Western civilization and the legal system.

The university hopes to welcome its first law students in fall 2027 or spring 2028. Before that can happen, however, GCU must receive approval from the Arizona Supreme Court, the Higher Learning Commission and the Arizona Board for Private Postsecondary Education. The American Bar Association will review the school after its first class graduates.

Mueller said the university is optimistic about those approvals and noted that Arizona is facing a shortage of attorneys.

“The Arizona Supreme Court is really behind this,” he said. “There’s a shortage of attorneys in the Southwest and in Arizona, especially.”

GCU has been working on the law school for approximately a year. Mueller said the curriculum has already been written, and the university is actively interviewing candidates to serve as dean.

The law school is one of two new colleges announced by GCU, which expects a record enrollment of approximately 141,000 students during the upcoming academic year.

The university is also launching a College of Construction and Industrial Technologies, expanding and rebranding its existing Center for Workforce Development. The program offers apprenticeships and degrees designed to prepare students for careers in construction, advanced manufacturing and other growing industries.

Mueller said the apprenticeship programs have been particularly beneficial for students who want to enter the workforce without taking on significant college debt.

“A hundred percent so far of the students that we’ve graduated have stepped right into a job,” he said, calling the opportunity to begin a career without debt “a huge blessing.”

While GCU has a significant online presence, Mueller said both new colleges are expected to operate primarily, if not exclusively, through in-person instruction.

For the College of Law, the goal goes beyond producing new attorneys. GCU hopes to prepare lawyers who understand how faith, Scripture and centuries of Western legal tradition intersect — and how those foundations continue to shape the law today.