Well, Rose and I finished reading Dr. John West’s new book “Stockholm Syndrome Christianity”, and we recorded an interview with him about the topics he discusses in the book. One of the topics he is passionate about is how Christian colleges can maintain their Christian identity. He worked at a college that slid into secular leftism. It’s hard on Christian students.

So, how can a Christian student avoid going to a college where they will face opposition from professors and administrators?

Here’s a recent article from Dr. West, that offers some questions that the student can ask before making a bad choice.

It says:

As a former professor at an evangelical Christian university, I am sometimes asked by concerned parents to recommend a good Christian college for them to consider for their children. Because the spiritual health of specific colleges and universities can change radically over time, and because there can be a wide diversity of views even among different academic departments on the same campus, it is not always possible to provide specific recommendations.

What I can provide are questions you can ask if you or your teens are seeking to find a biblically-faithful college or university. Don’t just rely on marketing materials produced by the college or university! Those materials will invariably stress how the institution integrates the Christian faith with learning in everything it does. These marketing materials may or may not reflect the actual situation on the campus. At the Christian university where I taught, the marketing materials became more and more explicitly Christian while the actual Christian faithfulness of the university was getting less and less.

If you know the right questions to ask, you can cut through the PR and gain a more accurate perception of what is actually going on. The following questions are a good place to start.

Here are the ten questions:

1. What are the statements of faith and behavioral expectations that all faculty, staff, and board members must sign and agree to abide by?
2. How many members of the theology or Bible departments belong to the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS)?
3. How many members of the philosophy department belong to the Evangelical Philosophical Society (EPS)?
4. How many members of the science faculty (especially the biology faculty) are skeptical of Darwinian evolution or supportive of the idea that nature shows clear evidence of intelligent design?
5. Does the college offer chapel services, and is attendance by students required?
6. How many speakers at chapel or official university-sponsored events during the past academic year addressed each of the following topics: (a) the trustworthiness and/or historical accuracy of the Bible; (b) biblical standards against sex outside of marriage and for sexual chastity and faithfulness; (c) biblical standards against transgenderism and homosexuality; (d) Christian teaching on the sanctity of human life, including abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia; (e) the persecution of Christians both inside and outside of the United States, and the importance of defending religious liberty; (f) positive Christian teaching on racial equality and reconciliation as well as critiques of unbiblical ideas such as “Critical Race Theory” and calls for racial/ethnic separatism and superiority (from both left and right).
7. Does the campus health center provide (a) abortion referrals, (b) referrals to Planned Parenthood, (c) referrals to LGBTQ groups, or (d) contraceptives to unmarried students?
8. What student clubs has the college approved?
9. What books are assigned in courses?
10. What are the policies regulating student speech?

And this is the one that stood out to me:

6. How many speakers at chapel or official university-sponsored events during the past academic year addressed each of the following topics: (a) the trustworthiness and/or historical accuracy of the Bible; (b) biblical standards against sex outside of marriage and for sexual chastity and faithfulness; (c) biblical standards against transgenderism and homosexuality; (d) Christian teaching on the sanctity of human life, including abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia; (e) the persecution of Christians both inside and outside of the United States, and the importance of defending religious liberty; (f) positive Christian teaching on racial equality and reconciliation as well as critiques of unbiblical ideas such as “Critical Race Theory” and calls for racial/ethnic separatism and superiority (from both left and right).

Before actually attending a college, it can be hard to know what is taught in the classrooms there. But the topics addressed by speakers at official campus events will tell you a lot about the viewpoints dominant among the faculty and administration. If campus speakers are not regularly being brought in to explain and defend key Christian beliefs under attack in our culture, that is another huge warning sign. Also pay attention to the point of view of the speakers being brought in. Just because campus speakers are addressing one of the topics above does not mean they are doing so in a way consistent with biblical teaching. When it comes to other topics, especially political topics where Christians disagree (for example, the best way to fight poverty, or American foreign policy), pay attention to whether the university hosts Christian speakers with a range of views, including those on the politically conservative side of the spectrum.

This one is also important to me:

8. What student clubs has the college approved?

The student clubs allowed on a Christian college campus will reveal a lot. For example, does the college have a club that promotes the agenda of the LGTBQ movement? More positively, does the college have a club devoted to pro-life issues or apologetics (such as a chapter of the national apologetics ministry Ratio Christi)? You might also want to look at the student newspaper

These two questions matter to me, because I work with groups like Ratio Christi in order to bring in Christian speakers to address some of the topics that he talked about in Question 6. It’s actually better to enforce orthodoxy through persuasion and evidence than it is to enforce it by writing rules on a page. If the apologetics speakers hold events, that will equip the students to think carefully about these topics, so that they don’t roll over for feelings and peer approval.

If this kind of concern affects you, then check out the article, and go over it with your child. There’s no sense sending your child into a difficult situation that will make it harder for them to get their education, without being indoctrinated.