Since I first started posting in forums like this and/or interacting personally with Christians who are more conservative, I've noticed a bit of a pattern in the discussions when it comes to higher education. Many of these folks seem to have a view where the college experience, especially when it comes to science, is little more than students filing into a classroom, a professor basically reading from a script that he/she was taught as a student, telling the students what they must think, say, or do, and the students merely memorizing this script (some of whom go on to repeat it again when they become professors). IOW, the conservative Christian vision of college is more like an Orwellian brainwashing camp.
Even more, I see articles, speeches, and sermons from conservative Christian leaders warning their followers not to send their kids off to college. The fear is the kids will be exposed to the wrong sorts of ideas and influences, will be tempted to sin, and may even eventually leave the faith. It's far safer to home school and send them to a conservative Christian university. Or in extreme cases some conservative Christians recommend not sending females to any secondary schooling at all! The thought there is that she won't learn anything necessary for being a good wife, homemaker, or mother.
But overall I see an unmistakable tendency for conservative Christians to be very wary and suspicious of college, and that's something I've been thinking about for a while now. In my youth ministry, I occasionally meet kids who are about to graduate high school, want to go to a regular college, but their parents are forcing them (usually through financing) to go to a Christian college. (Now to be clear, I don't really have much experience with Christian colleges and I'm not intending to comment on them at all.) What saddens me is when I see a kid who is very excited about the prospect of learning at a large and/or prestigious university and experiencing something new and exciting, only to have that squashed by parents who are operating out of fear. And given some of the misleading depictions of what college is actually like (e.g., the movie God is Not Dead) that circulate in conservative circles, that makes it even more saddening to me.
I also wonder about the idea that college will turn their kids away from Christianity. In my experience, this fear is legitimate although misplaced.
From what I've seen, it's not the universities that are the cause of so many kids leaving the faith, but the specific sort of faith these kids are taught at home and in the church. They're taught by their parents, pastors, and leaders that certain beliefs are absolutely integral to Christianity and if you question even one of them, the whole faith crumbles. The kids adopt this mindset and set off to college where they find out that some of the things they've been taught by their church leaders aren't exactly 100% correct, and through the "you have to believe all of it or you believe none of it" mindset, they start down the path of questioning Christianity as a whole. And I do agree, it's at that point where the friends one hangs out with can be very influential. If the kid is hanging around non-Christians or anti-Christians who know their talking points, those people can be very persuasive. But it wouldn't even get to that point without the starting "all or none" mindset in the first place.
Anyways, I'm kind of rambling here, but what are your thoughts on higher education and Christianity? I went to a wonderful public university and got an excellent education that was about the exact opposite of the brainwashing camp described in the first paragraph. We spent a lot of time in the field, seeing first-hand the things we were studying; we did a lot of lab experiments to see for ourselves the processes our professors were talking about; we attended lots of conferences where we met scientists from many different fields and backgrounds and got to talk to them about their work (and sometimes see it). In sum, we weren't told to just learn something via rote memory without questioning. In fact, one of my most influential professors told us that we had to "learn to think like scientists" and by that he meant to not accept something just because someone says so. Look at everything critically, and if something doesn't make sense or doesn't seem to add up, check into it yourself and see what you find. He described a good scientist as a "curious skeptic".
So that's my experience. Not only did I not lose my faith, I came out with a stronger belief and appreciation for our Lord and His Creation. What I wonder is...why can't it be like that for more Christians?
Even more, I see articles, speeches, and sermons from conservative Christian leaders warning their followers not to send their kids off to college. The fear is the kids will be exposed to the wrong sorts of ideas and influences, will be tempted to sin, and may even eventually leave the faith. It's far safer to home school and send them to a conservative Christian university. Or in extreme cases some conservative Christians recommend not sending females to any secondary schooling at all! The thought there is that she won't learn anything necessary for being a good wife, homemaker, or mother.
But overall I see an unmistakable tendency for conservative Christians to be very wary and suspicious of college, and that's something I've been thinking about for a while now. In my youth ministry, I occasionally meet kids who are about to graduate high school, want to go to a regular college, but their parents are forcing them (usually through financing) to go to a Christian college. (Now to be clear, I don't really have much experience with Christian colleges and I'm not intending to comment on them at all.) What saddens me is when I see a kid who is very excited about the prospect of learning at a large and/or prestigious university and experiencing something new and exciting, only to have that squashed by parents who are operating out of fear. And given some of the misleading depictions of what college is actually like (e.g., the movie God is Not Dead) that circulate in conservative circles, that makes it even more saddening to me.
I also wonder about the idea that college will turn their kids away from Christianity. In my experience, this fear is legitimate although misplaced.
From what I've seen, it's not the universities that are the cause of so many kids leaving the faith, but the specific sort of faith these kids are taught at home and in the church. They're taught by their parents, pastors, and leaders that certain beliefs are absolutely integral to Christianity and if you question even one of them, the whole faith crumbles. The kids adopt this mindset and set off to college where they find out that some of the things they've been taught by their church leaders aren't exactly 100% correct, and through the "you have to believe all of it or you believe none of it" mindset, they start down the path of questioning Christianity as a whole. And I do agree, it's at that point where the friends one hangs out with can be very influential. If the kid is hanging around non-Christians or anti-Christians who know their talking points, those people can be very persuasive. But it wouldn't even get to that point without the starting "all or none" mindset in the first place.
Anyways, I'm kind of rambling here, but what are your thoughts on higher education and Christianity? I went to a wonderful public university and got an excellent education that was about the exact opposite of the brainwashing camp described in the first paragraph. We spent a lot of time in the field, seeing first-hand the things we were studying; we did a lot of lab experiments to see for ourselves the processes our professors were talking about; we attended lots of conferences where we met scientists from many different fields and backgrounds and got to talk to them about their work (and sometimes see it). In sum, we weren't told to just learn something via rote memory without questioning. In fact, one of my most influential professors told us that we had to "learn to think like scientists" and by that he meant to not accept something just because someone says so. Look at everything critically, and if something doesn't make sense or doesn't seem to add up, check into it yourself and see what you find. He described a good scientist as a "curious skeptic".
So that's my experience. Not only did I not lose my faith, I came out with a stronger belief and appreciation for our Lord and His Creation. What I wonder is...why can't it be like that for more Christians?
