Friends: Christian faith and knowledge – along with truth, generally – have slipped off the radar screens of most American college and university curriculums. Next week ... seeds of revival. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #933

October 1, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

School Spirit, Part 1

By Bob Walters

“If the world hates you, keep in mind it hated me first …” John 15:18, NIV 1984

“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.” John 16:13, NIV 1984

Our E91 pastor Rick Grover mentioned in a sermon a few years ago that his son had headed off to a Big Ten college that was, Rick offhandedly said – accompanied by a nervous chuckle – “one of the largest Christian mission fields in America.”

What he was saying was, his son’s faith would be challenged. We all understood.

Let’s not reveal or pick on that particular school because the modern university academy – in toto and nationwide, big or small – does indeed comprise arguably the largest, most hostile, unchurched, uncomprehending, unsympathetic, unfaithful, and unknowledgeable Christian environment in our nation. At least, that I can think of.

College USA is now Satan’s favorite playground; Jesus need not apply.

Consider the trajectory. Virtually all early American colleges were formed as seminaries or religiously sponsored schools. After the Civil War, Land Grant colleges popped up across the United States emphasizing science, technology, engineering, and math. Religion and philosophy were supplanted by the empirical sciences.

By the 1920s, smaller Christian schools bloomed as havens of Christian thought, truth, and doctrine. In the 1930s the philosophy of public education began to stray from its Christian grounding, and in the 1960s Christian prayer and the Bible – by act of the U.S. Supreme Court – were expunged from public schools and most public places.

On college campuses in the later 1960s and 1970s – those of us of a certain age well remember – were violent protests over Viet Nam, establishment politics and Watergate, not to mention far-reaching and enduring racial, sexist, and sexual tensions. 

In the past decade we have witnessed a “breathtakingly rapid sprint” (LINK) of identity politics through virtually all our institutions – not just colleges and public schools, but government, business, sports, entertainment … even many churches and ministries.

The Woke virus seemingly traveled faster than Covid.  Colleges whose earlier mission was to teach “expert competence” (LINK) in a recognizable and marketable skill now focus almost entirely on identity politics, victimhood, and the condemning of oppressors.

Engineering? Computer science? Health care? Law? Education? OK, we will educate you, the colleges say, but have your politics right, first. If you don’t? Keep your head down and your mouth shut.  How about a nice degree in Gender Studies?

I don’t think it is possible to overstate the pervasiveness of anti-Christian bias on most of today’s college campuses, who administratively and among the broadest swath of faculty evince an overt hostility against exactly what Christianity provides: the reality of God, the truth of Jesus, the presence of the Spirit, and the authority of the Bible.

Oh … and the correct interpretation of “Love God, and love others.” Love itself is not the God, or rather, god, that the identity-first crowd thinks it is.  Love is the truth of God’s intention and purpose for creating us in the first place: in His image holding us up to His standards.  God’s righteousness flies straight into the face of Woke humanism.

Welcome to college. 

But all is not lost. Next week we will examine some encouraging seeds of revival.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes Rick’s son majored in Law Enforcement, faith intact. P.S. – the LINKs embedded in the column are both to the following article, referenced in previous columns: The Age of Incomplete Religions | Joshua Mitchell | First Things