When your kids were young you wouldn’t let them play outside without keeping an eye on them. You went to their soccer practices, stayed in touch with their teachers, checked on their grades, and called their friends’ parents when they wanted to spend the night. You made them clean their rooms, go to church, and brush their teeth. But in August of their 18^th year you will cut them loose and send them off to college. What will you be sending them to?

This coming August I’ll be looking at freshman classes full of kids born in 1990. Some high school seniors have already made their college choices while others won’t make them until the first day of classes! Now is when many are taking their first serious looks at where they want to go to school next year. This article is for them and their parents. The question is simple: are you choosing for the right reasons?

Most students and their parents will look at a school’s prestige and degree programs when making decisions about where to go to college. It makes sense: go to the best school you can find to learn about the career that interests you most. But will you also be going to a school where some teachers oppose your religion, some students oppose your morals, and statistics say you are likely to lose your faith?

I teach at a traditional Christian university, but this is no recruitment pitch. The statistics I’ve seen show that young people raised in the church who drift away from God are most likely to do so in their college years. This often begins subtly—late Saturday nights having fun with friends and no encouragement to get up for Sunday morning services. More frightening than this statistic, however, are the statistics regarding the hostility Christian students will face on college campuses, chiefly from their teachers. In a recent scientific survey, the Institute for Jewish and Community Research attempted to find out how wide spread anti-Semitism is in American universities. The results were shocking. Only three percent of college faculty were hostile toward Jews. The surprise was that 53 percent of college and university teachers admitted to having negative feelings toward evangelical Christians (twice that of almost any other religious group). And while intolerance against other groups and minorities would not be tolerated in a university setting, prejudice against committed Christians is not only ignored but sometimes rationalized as an appropriate behavior.

It gets worse. Not only will Christian students face persecution from their teachers, they may face prosecution from their schools as well. A group called the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) defends Christian kids who are brought up on charges of violating school policy or who are failed in a class because of their beliefs. Recent cases involving the ADF include a lawsuit against Georgia Tech for enforcing speech codes that forbid students to make negative comments about homosexual behavior, and a case at Missouri State where a social work major was told she would not be allowed to graduate if she continued to have beliefs that discriminated against homosexuals. These are only a few instances of prejudice against Bible believing Christians in American universities. Apart from the ADF, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) claims to be overwhelmed with its monitoring of college and university attacks on the beliefs of Christian students.

And of course these are only the attacks that will come from official channels. In the dorms Christians students may face open drug use, open sexual behavior, coed living quarters (even coed bathrooms in some instances), and they will certainly face wild, alcoholic parties and binge drinking. They may be forced to be roommates with students who claim to be bi- or homosexual (and prosecuted if they request different roommates or dorm rooms). Although desperately in need of Christian influences, secular universities will challenge young people’s faith more than any other experience they’ve had—and their parents won’t be there to support them.

You parents were careful about raising your kids, especially in their spiritual training; don’t stop now by turning them over to institutions bent on teaching them to walk away from their faith. Don’t send your kids to a school until you know what they’re getting into—and you can bet no student recruiter is going to tell you what “really goes on” in college dorms and classrooms.

Students and parents must take inventory. Will you keep the faith in these places? Are you strong enough? Christian groups on campuses all around the country are fighting to bring the light to a spiritually bankrupt and hostile people. They need your help, but they don’t need people who come in only to fall and make the work more difficult with a failed witness. |L

OTHER COLUMNS:
November 8, 2009 - Why I believe in God
October 25, 2009 - Commuting in days of evil
October 11, 2009 - Poets and don’t know it
September 27, 2009 - How Hollywood proves abortion is wrong
September 13, 2009 - Significance
August 30, 2009 - Dance alternatives
August 16, 2009 - Gluttons for gossip
August 2, 2009 - Truth from Twilight
July 19, 2009 - Visitor-friendly churches
July 5, 2009 - The Shack
June 21, 2009 - When forgiveness fails
June 7, 2009 - Re-imagining Education (Part Six)
May 24, 2009 - We are not alone
May 3, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part five)
April 26, 2009 - Conviction
April 12, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part four)
March 29, 2009 - An evangelistic proposal
March 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part three)
March 1, 2009 - He makes me sick
February 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (Part Two)
February 1, 2009 - Spiritual insecurity
January 18, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part one)
January 4, 2009 - Church and politics
December 21, 2008 - Heaven’s music
December 7, 2008 - The church and marriage
November 23, 2008 - God and the president
November 9, 2008 - A time for courage
October 26, 2008 - Likes and dislikes: the Prince Caspian movie
October 12, 2008 - What’s that noise?
September 28, 2008 - Modesty matters (part two)
September 14, 2008 - All it takes is some TLC
August 31, 2008 - Modesty matters (part one)
August 17, 2008 - What would you fight for?
August 3, 2008 - Staying through the credits
July 20, 2008 - Honor to whom honor
July 6, 2008 - Tyler Perry and the movies you’re missing
June 22, 2008 - The peaceable kingdom
May 25, 2008 - Another generation grew up
May 25, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part two)
May 11, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part one)
April 27, 2008 - What is truth?
April 13, 2008 - And the geek shall inherit the earth
March 30, 2008 - A charactered God
March 16, 2008 - The college choice (part two)
March 2, 2008 - Good news can be hard to hear
February 5, 2008 - Ten suggestions for a godly standard of living
January 20, 2008 - Expelled: that “Bueller” guy’s pro-God movie
January 6, 2008 - Choosing a lifestyle
December 23, 2007 - Teachable TV?
December 9, 2007 - Owners or stewards?
November 25, 2007 - Christians teaching Christians to change TV and film
November 11, 2007 - My money is God’s business
October 28, 2007 - Navigating under the radar
October 14, 2007 - The things God values
September 30, 2007 - Movie moments
September 16, 2007 - God’s economics
September 2, 2007 - The best books to read
August 19, 2007 - There’s a rat in ‘separate’
August 5, 2007 - The art of reading
July 22, 2007 - Atheist chic
July 8, 2007 - Why books matter: the sequel
June 10, 2007 - Books: why they matter
June 3, 2007 - The non-impact of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”
May 27, 2007 - The universal gospel
May 13, 2007 - Loving Muslims through culture
April 29, 2007 - Hope
April 15, 2007 - God in the dark
April 1, 2007 - The gospel goes to the movies
March 18, 2007 - What the Bible movies can teach us
March 4, 2007 - What will you hurt for?
February 18, 2007 - Why Heroes . . .
February 4, 2007 - Give peace a chance
January 21, 2007 - When fairy tales are true
January 7, 2007 - WYSIWYG lives
December 31, 2006 - What’s coming next?
December 17, 2006 - Mercy, mercy
December 3, 2006 - Proof of evolution!
November 19, 2006 - Hungering for God
November 5, 2006 - Violence and government, war and peace
October 22, 2006 - The mighty meek
October 8, 2006 - The Battlestar and the Bible
September 24, 2006 - Soap for the soul
September 10, 2006 - Right vs. cool
August 27, 2006 - The painful truth
August 13, 2006 - More Lies Hollywood Tells
July 30, 2006 - Christian counter culture
July 16, 2006 - The lies Hollywood tells