Atheist professors, Christians, faith, logic and God's grace.

It goes without saying that universities are populated with very liberal professors extremely hostile to Christianity.  How should, can a 18 year old freshman student who is a believer in Christianity and the Bible make it through a university education?

Here's an interesting blog post which addresses this question.

For one the writer says logic is on the side of Christians.   For instance, the usual lines of attack against Christians are somewhat predictable.

"I'm a liberal, pacifist, atheist, and if you don't like it, you can leave," the professor said as he began the first day of Renaissance history at the University of Colorado. Joni Raille, who grew up in a conservative Christian home, was taken aback and wondered what her professor's bluntness had to do with Renaissance history. I asked her if she ever considered dropping the course. "No," she replied, "I can learn from anybody, even if he is an atheist." A few days later, Joni's professor began speaking of religious changes within European Christian culture. He wrote a Bible verse from the Gospel of Matthew on the board. "How many of you are Christians? Raise your hand!" Joni felt singled out. But she, along with four other students, raised their hands. The professor probed further. "How many of you read the Bible everyday? Keep your hand up." Joni kept her hand up. She was the only one. "What, are you going to be a nun or something?" Joni smiled, and politely said, "No." The professor smiled back. "C'mon Joni, I think you would look good wearing a religious habit like a nun." Not being equipped to confront these attacks cause many Christian kids to abandon their faith.

Some parents who raised their sons and daughters in the church fear that their student will leave the faith while in college. There is some reason for their fear. As Cathy Lynn Grossman wrote,

Seven in ten Protestants ages 18 to 30—both evangelical and mainline—who went to church regularly in high school said they quit attending by age 23, according to the survey by LifeWay Research. And 34 percent of those said they had not returned, even sporadically, by age 30. That means about one in four Protestant young people have left the church.

The attacks and goals of undermining faith in God are quite deliberate by some.

Bill Savage, distinguished senior lecturer in English at Northwestern University, sees no problem with students walking away from their narrow-minded faith. Savage wrote,

For the foreseeable future, loyal ditto-heads [conservative parents] will continue to drop off their children at the dorms. After a teary-eyed hug, mom and dad will drive their SUVs off toward the nearest gas station, leaving their beloved progeny behind.

And then they all are mine.

And as the late Princeton philosopher Richard Rorty said, "We try to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic, religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own."

What are Christian kids to do?  For one, realize logic and truth are on the side of a Christian worldview.

Stephen Guise left the small, evangelical Johnson Bible College in Tennessee to attend the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, to study business. He was required to take Philosophy 101. Stephen says that having a foundation of logical principles and Bible doctrine before entering the course helped him maintain his faith. The professor often played a Socratic role and allowed the students to discuss among themselves the issue of whether truth is relative or absolute. "The class was always exciting," Stephen recalled. "I was the only outspoken believer in God, and so it required a little courage to speak up." Stephen questioned his teacher, "Your statement, professor—'There is no absolute truth'—is that statement absolutely true?"

Many students find they don't need to get into heated argument or even say much at all in defense of their faith. They merely apply the law of non-contradiction to criticism. Sometimes they ask a simple question of clarification. An agnostic professor might say, "When it comes to matters of faith or God, you can't be certain about anything." A student like Stephen may think, Are you certain about that? A professor of sociology will say, "The religious must accept the reality and goodness of gay marriage, because we can't tolerate a lack of tolerance." A student who knows the logical principle of non-contradiction may ask, "Why are you being so intolerant of intolerance?" An atheistic lecturer may say, "You should reject belief in God, because you can't know anything is true unless it is scientifically verifiable, tested, and proven." But has her theory been verified, tested, or proven? Was it proven in the lab? If so, when? Where is the data? Because if this professor's statement is correct that her theory (which is really a philosophy) has been proven in the lab—scientifically verified and tested—then why should we believe it is true?

C. S. Lewis was convinced that reason is on the side of Christianity. In his classic fictional work The Screwtape Letters, he describes a veteran, experienced demon named Screwtape who advises a young, naive demon named Wormwood on how to keep his patient (a Christian) out of God's (the Enemy's) hand:

Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don't waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future . . . .The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle on to the Enemy's (God's) own ground. He can argue too. . . . By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient's reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result?

Yet logic alone isn't enough.  Here's a great quote by Chesterton.

Logic is a friend to people of faith and can be an aid for students to maintain their faith. But it is not the only factor in maintaining religious convictions. Joni, whom I mentioned earlier, was convinced that the grace of God preserved her relationship with Jesus. "In so many ways," she said, "I really don't know how I got out of college in one piece." For Joni, her "logic flowed from her faith." She cited G. K. Chesterton: "You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it."

Young believers who persevere in orthodox or traditional Christianity love God with all their intellect but also with all their heart and strength as they love their neighbors as themselves. The inward witness of the Holy Spirit convicts them of the reality of God when life gets difficult. Logic and reason are tools that can certainly help prevent our sons and daughters from leaving the faith. But the most important means of preventing your child from leaving the faith is pointing them to spiritual conviction of Christ's grace.

I'm convinced we all exercise, place our faith in something.  Whether you're a Christian or not.  The question is what will one put their faith in and will it be the truth. Christianity has nothing to fear from rigorous intellectual debate.  The Bible which is a written account of truth has survived many an attack over the years yet it hasn't been discredited in the least.  I think that's because it is truth.

One of the least diverse places in America and an area you won't see liberals pushing for it - university faculties.

Our universities our known for being overwhelmingly liberal in their orientation. In some respects they are one of the least diverse places.  A sad commentary given their trade in ideas. That's an article which points this out.

Unless you believe that ever-expanding government programs and centrally planned economies are the solution to all of life's contingencies and social problems you will not likely get a faculty position in the humanities, social sciences, or education at an American college or university. A prevailing myth in America is that our colleges and universities are bastions of diversity. This is laughable. To believe the diversity myth one must ignore the fact that American higher education seems to care less about students being introduced to diverse ideas and perspectives. When American colleges talk "diversity" they only seem to mean it along the axis of race, gender, and class. The notion that a robust learning community requires students be exposed to multiple perspectives has no value in the modern academy. What matters today on most campuses is intellectual homogeneity—also known as tribal "group think."

 Two surveys, studies point this out. 

In the August issue the journal Inside Higher Ed, a large survey of psychologists reported the following:

“Just over 37 percent of those surveyed said that, given equally qualified candidates for a job, they would support the hiring of a liberal candidate over a conservative candidate. Smaller percentages agreed that a ‘conservative perspective’ would negatively influence their odds of supporting a paper for inclusion in a journal or a proposal for a grant.”

In another major study, research by Yoel Inbar and Joris Lammers demonstrates that social psychologists, for example, openly admit they would bypass conservatives in the hiring process. When the authors surveyed a large number of social and personality psychologists they discovered several not-so-surprising facts:

“First, although only 6 percent described themselves as conservative ‘overall,’ there was more diversity of political opinion on economic issues and foreign policy. Second, respondents significantly underestimated the proportion of conservatives among their colleagues. Third, conservatives fear negative consequences of revealing their political beliefs to their colleagues. Finally, conservatives are right to do so: In decisions ranging from paper reviews to hiring, many social and personality psychologists said that they would discriminate against openly conservative colleagues. The more liberal respondents were, the more they said they would discriminate.”

What's the moral of the story? It seems that there is proven discrimination against conservatives in America's colleges and universities and this will not likely change anytime soon without radical intervention. Will colleges and universities be as proactive in securing intellectual diversity as they have been for racial and gender diversity? Do we need affirmative action hiring programs for non-liberals and progressives because conservatives are not given access to faculty opportunities? If so, that's something that even President Obama might truly call “forward.” 

 This is certainly one form of diversity liberals won't get behind.