from the mom
For years I have listened to worried parents concerned higher education might somehow cause their children to lose their faith. Sadly, I often observed the best and brightest students discouraged from attending college because of fears that their encounters in a science or philosophy class might cause them to abandon their Christian faith.
Indeed, some early studies seemed to support this view, eventually making it a bygone conclusion in many Christian circles, particularly conservative ones.
A new study by faculty at the University of Texas at Austin has evidence to contradict this conclusion and to support a new trend: those who go on to higher education are more likely than their peers to remain faithful to their faith tradition.
Notably, today's college-bound students are looking less for answers to life's big questions than an advantage in the job market. They care less about education for education's sake than a degree. To someone with a Humanities degree who made a career of higher education, this is somewhat disturbing. I encountered a lot of valuable ideas in college, so it is easy for me to think everyone else should too.
However, if parents, godparents, and pastors are doing their jobs and discussing the big questions of faith and life, a student could reasonably arrive for their freshman year having wrestled with questions of faith, and not feel the need to focus their education on these issues. We can look around us and reasonably ascertain that youth are facing difficult subjects (sex, drugs, etc...) at a younger age. We really shouldn't be waiting until they are 18 to talk about these things; and questions of faith and community are not far behind.
It could also be said that for all the good they did as parents, parents in the 50s and 60s (the "Leave It To Beaver" parents) didn't do such a great job with open discussion with their adolescent children. As a result, Baby Boomers arrived and settled in their dorm rooms looking for answers to questions they didn't feel they could ask their parents. They were fodder for influence.
The second reason given in the study is that American colleges, even state universities, are less hostile to religion than they once were. Campus ministies exploded in response to the assault on religion, and this coupled with "tolerance" (arguably a double-edged sword) has led to increasing support for students of faith both in and out of the classroom.
The study did note that while students typically didn't feel their beliefs waned in college, often religious practice does. Late adolescence/early adulthood mark independence from supervision (though that is often lacking much earlier) and the first marked opportunity to deviate from familial expectations without serious repercussion. Mom and Dad no longer have control. Mark Regnerus (one of the researchers) hinted at this in an interview with Christianity Today. Youth may have made the mental deviation from their parents faith/values much earlier, but not had the chance to act on it until they are on their own. This makes it easy for Mom and Dad to blame that wretched Philosophy professor or the Christian college administration that didn't enforce their beliefs on young Johnny.
For some of these students, poor choices or a lifestyle that doesn't coincide with their "beliefs" will lead them to eventually abandon their faith. This can be frustrating for parents and pastors. However, it can't really be blamed on "college." Others will sow a few wild oats, recognize that this is unfulfilling and doesn't coincide with who they want to be, and move on to mature choices that reflect their faith. A third group will remain strongly convinced of their faith and live accordingly. I'm praying my children will be in this group.
As a parent, I can understand why some parents are fearful of higher education. However having worked with junior high through college-aged students in both collegial and church settings, I have yet to have someone tell me that they lost their faith due to a certain professor or a textbook or a program they underwent in school. My friends who abandoned their beliefs did so because they couldn't truly hold them and live the lifestyles they wanted to. For some that was enough. Others wanted to justify their actions and went on a quest to find information to support their decisions. If anything is to be blamed it is parents that taught them self-fulfillment at all costs and who failed to recognize any authority in their own lives. If parents don't obey authorities (the law, the Church) they ultimately set themselves up as the ultimate authority. Their children follow suit and whatever "I believe" (or "feel") becomes the test of faith. (This is a long diatribe that belongs in another post.)
I believe my faith was strengthened with learning, through the study of science, philosophy, literature, and history. I don't think it can be lost when students engage with real questions and are willing to make the life choices that set aside their base desires to attain to a life that demands the denial of self. To act like college might threaten their faith, is to hand our children an insecurity that makes them question if we really believe we have The Answer. If we do, why should we be afraid to have our children question it?
This post is being prepared for a public blog I contribute to. I would appreciate your thoughts and comments to be used to improve my writing (form and content). Thanks.
3 comments:
Very interesting thoughts. Of course, one counter-study does not a social trend prove, but I think you raise some very good questions.
I also wonder about the effect of sheer distance and novelty on behaviors and beliefs. You seem to suggest that behavior drives beliefs, and I think in most cases you are right, but is immoral behavior itself encouraged by going away to college? There are doubtless some who would go wrong anyway (or already secretly have) and others strong enough to resist temptation regardless, but I suspect there's a pretty broad swath of kids for whom it makes a big difference that their parents and pastor and fifth-grade Sunday School teacher no longer see them on a regular basis.
The college years as currently envisioned involve maximum freedom and minimum responsibility, and I think that's bound to have a bad effect on anyone's morals. (For that reason I suspect we'll strongly encourage our kids to pick a college close to home, even favoring secular over a distant Christian college, not so we can keep setting curfews, but so they can remember they are part of a faith community and what they do and think matters.)
Since you asked for it, a couple of stylistic things: Last sentence of paragraph 5 "questions are not far behind" seems a little clunky; a more parallel structure might work better, like "nor wait until they attend a comparative religion class to tackle questions about faith and practice."
Also, next paragraph, last sentence, not sure how someone would be "fodder for influence." Fodder is something cows eat, and influence doesn't seem like something that eats. A more consistent metaphor (which isn't coming to me at the moment) might be better.
Look forward to reading further discussion on this!
Q of C: Thanks for your comments. I am very unenamored of living on campus largely because college life doesn't often encourage responsible behavior which can hurt one's health, etc.... I spent one year on campus and hated being relegated to relationships with my peers. I took a babysitting job for the purpose of being around a family. The food plan and the abnormal hours (try going to bed at a reasonable hour in a dorm) are reasons I hope my kids will be able to be more independent and either live at home or in their own apartments with like-minded roommates. And I agree that it is healthy to remain a part of an ongoing church where people KNOW you and care about what you are up to.
However, I don't think it is "college" that encourages immoral behavior. I think late adolescence/early adulthood are "all about me" (at least in our culture). This leads to immoral behavior. The study referenced here found that those who didn't go to college were actually more likely to engage in immoral behavior (drugs, non-marital sex, excessive alcohol intake) and not continue in their faith than those who went on to higher education.
The definition of fodder I was going for was this one: 3.) raw material: fodder for a comedian's routine. I like it because I have yet to meet an academic who didn't love being handed a "blank slate" or "raw material" in the form of a human being who is willing to believe anything that they say. I think this happens less and less, but I think it did happen more in the 60s and 70s whenn otherwise intelligent parents didn't often talk with their teens like the subsequent generation is choosing to do. That's a generalization but I'm talking in generalities.-rlr
To beat a dead horse, or at least its feed: I did realize you're using "fodder" metaphorically, it just seems like even in a metaphorical usage it needs someone acting upon it, someone chewing it up as it were (like the comedian in his routine). So "fodder for the professors (however you wish to describe them)" would make sense, but not for "fodder for influence (which is too impersonal)." If that makes any sense. :-P
I agree completely on the unhealthiness of the way late adolescence/early adulthood is set up in our culture. The disparity in outcome favoring college graduates may simply be that college is currently one of the more responsible options (or the one more likely to attract people with some intentions of being responsible). There's no way of testing this, I suppose, but I'm betting there's also a big difference between students who are at college because they have a specific goal, and students who are at college because they couldn't think of what else to do after high school.
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