What are you getting with a secular college education?

by Linda Piepenbrink

When I attended a state university for my higher education, I got my money’s worth of liberal professors and humanistic teaching. Most memorable were my lesbian French teacher, my evolutionist anthropology teacher, and my pro-abortion philosophy professor. My “marriage and family” sociology professor had little regard for men or marriage, instead promoting careers and independence. Many of the girls in my co-ed dorm slept with their boyfriends, and one of my roommates smoked pot for recreation. As a journalism major, I wrote articles for the more conservative campus newspaper, which included covering rock concerts, movies, a popular gay bar, and an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases. Little by little, my moral worldview weakened, and I slipped into the quicksand of secular thinking.

Some Christian parents send their teenager to a secular university hoping their son or daughter will maximize the chances of one day securing a good-paying job or getting into graduate school. They assume a person raised in a good Christian home can attend a secular college or university for the academics and come away unscathed, with faith and biblical foundations intact. This assumption is naive. College students are not fully mature—spiritually or mentally—and secular campuses are increasingly places where students are encouraged to break free from their “narrow minded” thinking.

It’s time to reevaluate the purpose and goal of higher education for Christians. What values do you want your college-age teen to adopt after leaving home and launching into adulthood? What quality of marriage partner do you desire for your son or daughter? What are the guiding principles of the college you’re considering for your young person? How you answer these questions is important, because where a person goes to college can set the course of his or her life for years to come.

What’s Wrong with Secular College?

No choice you make is neutral because no college is neutral. Although conservative professors exist on secular campuses, many Christian students are not prepared to handle the well-honed arguments of their highly educated liberal professors, who typically lack tolerance for the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Richard Rorty, a humanist professor, writes: “When we American college teachers encounter religious fundamentalists, we . . . do our best to convince these students of the benefits of secularization.”

College students naturally tend to trust their professors. “I use that trust to effectively brainwash them,” admits one secular physicist. “ . . . Our teaching methods are primarily those of propaganda. We appeal—without demonstration—to evidence that supports our position. We only introduce arguments and evidence that supports the currently accepted theories and omit or gloss over any evidence to the contrary.” Apparently, such tactics are working. The Barna Research Organization has reported that more than half of teens from Christian homes end up denying the faith by the time they finish secular college.

Some colleges use freshmen orientation, formerly a time to help students find their classes and the campus bookstore, to indoctrinate new students on issues of sex, race, and gender. Right from the start, students may be pressured to view minorities as victims, animals as “persons,” and the murder of pre-born babies as a woman’s right. Homosexuality is actively promoted as normal. Syracuse University, for example, has its own university-funded Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center, a Reel Queer Film Festival each spring, and Delta Lambda Phi, a fraternity founded by gay and bisexual men. The hundreds of women’s studies courses that are taught nationwide promote feminist activism and tend to criticize the biblical understanding of marriage. They also may open the door to goddess worship or wicca (a pagan religion) and can lead to lesbianism. Far from teaching that sin brings consequences, secular humanistic teaching extols the basic goodness of man and denies the existence of God.

The influence of friends also should not be overlooked. Forty-four percent of students on college campuses can be classified as binge drinkers, according to a survey of more than 10,000 students at 119 four-year colleges. The study showed that college students who are sports fans are among the heaviest drinkers; their alcohol-related problems often result in sexual violence, academic difficulties, and injuries. In secular colleges, few if any rules exist to limit rebellious behavior. “You can do whatever you want with whomever you want whenever you want,” says one student who attended a secular university. Some busy students who boast about how little sleep they get still make time to sleep around.

Acceptance of indecency is reaching new levels. While co-ed dorms, with men and women separated by wing, are the norm on secular campuses, Wesleyan University (founded by Methodists) also offers “gender-blind” dorm housing where your roommate can be a member of the opposite sex.

The Value of Christian College

Considering the faith-eroding influence of non-Christian friends, liberal faculty, and humanistic foundations, a secular college clearly is not a neutral choice. Because the driving force behind a Christian college is to influence the next generation to adopt a biblical worldview, a good institution will prepare and equip students to become ambassadors for Christ.

A Christian college offers unique opportunities for students to make lifelong Christian friendships in a protective environment. “I’m really glad my boyfriend and I chose to go to Maranatha together,” says Melissa Greenwood. “Although we’ve known each other since second grade, we got to know each other better here by spending time together in devotions, prayer, and eating meals together.”

The instructors in a conservative Christian college like Maranatha have advanced degrees and a passion for helping students grow in their personal walk with God. They also provide a biblical understanding of Christian conduct and ethics. Lee Brock, who completed a medical degree at the University of Wisconsin, says his undergraduate training at Maranatha kept him from being duped later by the subtle arguments for euthanasia, which are based on the view that everyone is autonomous and that death can and should be a human decision. “Why shouldn’t old people have the right to make their own decisions?” he was told. “But then I realized we are not autonomous. I have a responsibility to the God who created me. I don’t have the right to make my own decisions apart from Him.”

Isn’t a Christian upbringing and schooling enough to protect a student against the godless teaching encountered in secular college? Not necessarily, says Caleb Stein, who graduated with both an undergraduate and master’s degree in Biblical Studies and is now in seminary. “As an 18-year-old going into college, I really didn’t know what I believed or why. I could parrot back what I learned in Christian high school, but that was just the basics,” he says. “Going to Christian college gave me opportunities to dig into the Scriptures in Bible classes and learn what I believe and why, which has had a profound impact on my life.”

A college education that reinforces biblical principles such as love, honesty, and discipline, is crucial for success in future leadership. “Secular education gives you the academics without the moral code you need to be a leader and a person of integrity in a world that, in a sense, has lost all integrity,” says Nik Lingle, who is preparing for the possibility of law school by taking a humanities major and history minor at Maranatha. “When you come to a higher caliber Christian college like Maranatha, you get the academics and the character.”

Sometimes smaller Christian colleges have an advantage over larger universities because they can offer students more opportunities for involvement and experience in their chosen field. Lydia Hickok, who double-majored in Speech Education and English Education at Maranatha, credits her training and multiple directing opportunities for the “dream job” she has now as a high school theater and English instructor. In her first semester of teaching, she directed a production, designed the lighting plan and costumes, and built the set, saving the school $1,000. “Because I had so much exposure to theater in small recitals and large plays at Maranatha, it was easy to carry that experience over to teaching,” she says. “I don’t think anyone would have had as many directing opportunities at a major university because there are just too many people.”

Because students learn to think abstractly during their college years, this formative time shapes the rest of their life. As for me, it took a decade after I graduated from college and some heart-rending events, along with the grace of God and biblical teaching, to get my focus back where it belonged—on Christ. How much better it is when students make the right choice in their youth and have more time to serve the Lord!