Each September thousands of students begin their first year of college. Along with the many exciting opportunities these freshmen will experience, certain challenges await them. Some are not prepared for the level of freedom and number of choices they encounter. Others are not ready for the academic and social pressures. Yet the most unexpected challenges come to those who are serious about the Christian faith. Many students are shocked by the open hostility against Christianity expressed by some of their professors. It is not unusual for students to sit under professors who take great pleasure in ridiculing Christian beliefs.
One professor had the audacity to tell a student that she would give up her Christian beliefs after she studied Epicureanism. I told her that the professor would never say anything like that to a Muslim student about Islamic belief. Why? Because bashing Muslims could cost him his job. Christian bashing, on the other hand, is politically correct. Another professor was known to hold up a Bible on the first day of class and ask, "How many of you believe this book is the word of God?" After a couple of students raised their hands he would ask, "Do you want to know what I think of this book? This is what I think of it," and he threw the Bible out the window. In his recent book, "How to Stay Christian in College", J. Budziszewski suggests that most professors prefer a more subtle approach. "Instead of openly insulting Christianity, they patronize it - paying it the kind of compliments one pays to children and idiots. Or they use as-we-now-know statements: 'As we now know, there is no life after death.' These are often introduced by it-was-once-thought statements: 'It was once thought that moral laws were given to us by a God or gods, but as we now know, mankind gives moral laws to himself.'"
One primary reason Christian belief is challenged in college is that most professors are naturalists who either ignore the supernatural or treat it with contempt. These professors also wrongly assume that their commitment to naturalism has been proven by science. Budziszewski encourages Christian students to remember that, "our disagreement with naturalists isn't about whether God took millions of years to make us or only a short time; you can believe either way about that and still be a Christian. Our disagreement with naturalists is about whether God had anything to do with our appearance on the scene at all - whether we're 'intended' or 'accidental.'"
Christian students should also realize that a growing number of scientists (including naturalists) are admitting that scientific evidence indicates that living things are the result of intelligent design. Against incredible pressures, some of these scientists are even willing to acknowledge the anti-supernatural bias which drives current approaches to science.
In a candid moment, Harvard paleontologist Richard Lewontin admitted, "We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our prior adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
"This amazing confession," Budziszewski concludes, "is important because it shows that what naturalists call "science" isn't really science - at least not if science means following the evidence! Naturalists like to think of themselves as brave defenders of clear reasoning against irrational superstition, but actually naturalism itself is the superstition. It isn't supported by reasoning, but by blind hostility to the evidence of God."
It is this hostility toward evidence for God that surprises many freshmen. Unfortunately, many also blindly follow their professors' opinions. Like their professors (who give in to the pressures of politically correct ideas), these students cannot stand against the condescending ridicule of Christian belief. Unfortunately, most of these students are never exposed to the counter-arguments that come from the highest levels of academic excellence.
Gratefully, there are still a number of professors who have the integrity to think for themselves and follow the evidence. Yet their number is smaller than most realize and this offers added challenges to the college experience for Christian students.
In the days when there was widespread recognition that, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (Proverbs 1:7), parents did not have to worry about the assault on faith awaiting their young people in college. Those days, however, are long past. Now Christian parents and Churches are wise to prepare their youth for the challenging realities of college life. Budziszewski's book, "How to Stay Christian in College", is an excellent tool for this task.
Steven W. Cornell
Millersville Bible Church