every kind of immorality that you can imagine. For example,
you may find nearly every campus bulletin board advertis-
ing free STD testing at the University Health Clinic, flyers
providing intricate explanations of abuse, stalking, and rape
posted in the bathroom stalls, and public service announce-
ments urging students to limit their alcohol consumption
playing on the campus televisions. This may sound like
the university is taking a proactive approach to curbing
unwanted student behavior, but in actuality, the school’s
permissive attitudes towards student sexual activity, alcohol
consumption, and drug use encourage the very behaviors
such efforts attempt to curtail. In other words, schools think
it’s normal for students to engage in premarital sex, drink,
and experiment with drugs, but they don’t want students to
do those things too much because doing so would tarnish
the school’s reputation! In short, the school sends students a
double message, and the posters, flyers, and announcements
I mentioned are simply to soothe student and parental fears.
As evidence for student disregard for moral decency, I
can cite the many emails that I receive from my university
that inform students of various types of campus criminal
activity; sexual abuse, suicide, robberies, and assault are far
from uncommon on most college campuses. In 2014, for
example, at my school of just under 10,000 students, the
campus police reported 453 criminal violations. In addition,
one should consider that crime is generally underreported.
However, even these basic statistics reveal college as far
different than the innocent places many envision it to be.
What a travesty that this is the environment for which many
schools are charging exorbitant fees!
Predictably, the faculty with whom I work don’t see the
connection between their own ideologies and the behavior
of their students. When I see—as I did recently—a large
group of young men loudly chanting “Beer and porn!” at
a visiting campus preacher or young women kissing each
other to distract from the preacher’s message, I wonder if
the Native American Literature professor understands that
his rabid anti-Christian proselytizing is partially to blame for
the behavior of these students. Of course, that same profes-
sor defended another student’s explicit in-class discussion of
erotica, so he probably saw the chanting of “Beer and porn!”
as a virtuous expression of free speech rather than a vice.
On my campus, and on many others throughout the country,
both students and faculty consider perversion normal.
In closing, I must say that as much as I feel burdened for
the state of college campuses, what concerns me more is the
church’s relative disinterest in America’s higher education
system. In general, we seem to be virtually unaware of this
horrific fact: if the church fails to wake up to the terrible real-
ity occurring on most college campuses, and if we fail to act,
every four years we should expect the hopeful excitement of
new college students to warp into the ill-educated minds and
hardened hearts of new liberal ideologues! Although many
Christians know that college campuses are “dens of iniquity,”
for far too long the vast majority of churchgoers have almost
entirely ignored this state of affairs. I understand perfectly;
after all, it took my own firsthand experience to impress the
truth on me.
If we want a revival on college campuses, we need a strat-
egy. We need the church to consider college campuses a seri-
ous and important place of ministry. Adopt a local school
and make serving a priority for your congregation, and
pray for America’s colleges and universities consistently! We
also need more well-equipped Christians to pursue higher
degrees so that a Christian perspective is well-represented
within secular college faculties. Serving Jesus on a secular
college campus is an incredibly difficult and honorable work,
and more people need to view it as such. Most importantly,
though, we need to engage with young people far earlier
and far better than we typically have done. A passion for
worldview instruction—the work of Renewanation—is an
absolute necessity! The people of God need to catch a vision
for this work so that we are preparing children to think and
behave as Christians. We need to diligently train young
people so they can detect error and courageously impact
culture; we need them to see beyond these schools’ impres-
sive exteriors into the corrupt heart of the matter!
Dear friends, the time for change is now: what can YOU
do to minister to your local schools? How can you address
the travesty of America’s colleges and universities? Are
you like those well-meaning but naïve groups touring my
campus, or are your eyes wide open so that when you see
those columned buildings and perfectly manicured lawns,
you see a mission field ready for harvest?
Editor’s Note: This article was submitted by a college
instructor known to Renewanation, who requested to
remain anonymous.
FOOTNOTES
1. Tobin, Gary A. and Aryeh K. Weinburg. “Political Belief and Behavior.” A
Profile of American College Faculty: 1.0 (2006). Web. 27 Dec. 2015.
2. Budziszewski, J. How to Stay Christian In College. Colorado Springs: Th1nk,
2004. Print.
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