“your God don’t have to go home, but He can’t come here”
I was an evangelical Christian when I went off to college. I joined a nondenominational campus Christian group as a freshman, went to some Bible studies, and attended church most every Sunday morning along with sometimes participating in a weekly Wednesday night worship service.
And already you’re judging me.
It has long been asserted among evangelical Christian circles that Christian viewpoints are often disdained and/or ridiculed in most college classrooms by professors. I remember when I was as a sophomore in my Exploring Religions class, hearing the professor opine about how the Hebrew word for God in the first few chapters of Genesis is grammatically plural in some instances, so he questioned how Christians could possibly believe in only one God (nevermind respecting the grammatical subtleties of a dead language from another culture, or even the author’s possible intentions). In other words: anyone that still held onto the idea of the existence of only one God after learning this was perhaps an idiot. This was his dismissive attitude all semester exclusively toward Christianity. And so it goes for Christian beliefs on a fair number of campuses: evangelical Christians often perceive belittlement regarding what they believe is the truth from their respective campus community.
But it’s not just me saying this.
An article published earlier this year from the Washington Post titled “Is There Disdain For Evangelicals In The Classroom?” may add legitimacy to what has long been observed anecdotally: a survey by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research (based in San Francisco) found that “53 percent of its sample of 1,200 college and university faculty members said they have ‘unfavorable’ feelings toward evangelical Christians.”
The article states, “The institute’s director and chief pollster, Gary A. Tobin, asked professors at all kinds of colleges — public and private, secular and religious, two-year and four-year — to rate their feelings toward various religious groups, from very warm or favorable to very cool or unfavorable. He said he designed the question primarily to gauge anti-Semitism, but found that professors expressed positive feelings toward Jews, Buddhists, Roman Catholics and most other religious groups. The only groups that elicited highly negative responses were evangelical Christians and Mormons.”
“Tobin acknowledged that his survey did not measure how professors act, only how they feel. But he said the levels of disapproval are high enough to raise questions about how evangelical Christians are treated.
‘If a majority of faculty said they did not feel warmly about Muslims or Jews or Latinos or African Americans, there would be an outcry,’ Tobin said in the article. ‘No one would attempt to justify or explain those feelings. No one would say, ‘The reason they feel this way is because they don’t like the politics of blacks or the politics of Jews.’ That would be unthinkable.’”
Wow. This is interesting stuff.
So what do you think, readers? Could this survey be indicative of a targeted intolerance problem with our professors? Do you feel that tolerance by college administrations and faculty is championed unless it’s regarding evangelical Christians? Or is this a non-issue, and our campuses do fine how they are? Or do you think this is an issue, but that evangelical Christians somehow deserve it? Why? Share your thoughts, your stories if you have them.
Intellectual freedom is one of the mantras of our nation and its educational heritage, and college is a place where all ideas should be given equal respect.
Posts
I’m not sure how most colleges are, because I went to a private art school, and there people were very open-minded. I will say that Christians there were very guarded and viewed even the slightest criticism or questions about their beliefs as a total attack.
I think it makes sense why the Christian faith (or any faith that is sort of inundated among American youth) might be questioned so strongly at that level. college is the first time most young adults leave their homes and move away, so it is the first time they are in a more independent environment where they are allowed to more wholly question their beliefs.
Nearly everyone I know who dropped their religious beliefs in college did so upon the realization that they didn’t truly have faith in their religion; it was usually something they thought they believed but then they lost faith when they had some real world experiences (fractured relationships, health problems, bills, seeing more social injustice), and then they maybe learned more about the history of their faiths, and upon learning of indiscretions within their church’s past, they came to question not the faith, but their own faith.
I’m not saying this is every college student’s experience, but the college environment, where I went to school, was treated as a place for open, honest discussion, where tough questions should be asked regarding subject matter, and where students were encouraged to really turn a sharp eye on their world.
So it makes sense to me that this report would say this, though I wonder if data is being twisted a little. sounds like A) loud-mouthed idiots screaming against Christianity because they’ve had some bad experiences, B) wounded-heart “victims,” and C) an extrapolation of events.
Personally.
But very interesting, none the less.
Kyle,
Your points are interesting, but I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing. I am more highlighting professors.
This data intrigues me in that professors don’t have unfavorable opinions of all religions, in fact, they have favorable views of a lot of them. Just not evangelical Christians and Mormons. As the statistician said, if a survey showed that a majority of professors had unfavorable opinions concerning Muslims or African Americans, there would be an uproar. But not when it’s evangelical Christians. Why?
And for my earlier questions…”Could this survey be indicative of a targeted intolerance problem with our professors? Do you feel that tolerance by college administrations and faculty is championed unless it’s regarding evangelical Christians? Or is this a non-issue, and our campuses do fine how they are? Or do you think this is an issue, but that evangelical Christians somehow deserve it? Why?”
Jim,
If I may chime in…. in my college experience professors take a dim view of evangelical religions because of the inerrancy view of the bible that most evangelicals insist on taking. Professors are taught and believe that no book is inerrant. They see evangelical Christian students coming to class trying to fit all the world’s information into the viewpoints of one book and that’s not how education works. In fact that’s the opposite of education. Why come to college if you think you have all the answers already? To prepare for a job? Nope. College is about ideas and being exposed to ideas.
Education is about exploring information, theories, and ideas outside of what we insist is truth. It’s being open to the possibilities out there, soaking up the information, and coming up with our own ideas about the world, culture, etc. The religions you list all have something in common. They don’t believe in the inerrancy of the Christian scriptures, not even Roman Catholics. I believe this is the key issue.
In many ways I agree with what Kyle has to say on this issue. However, I’m coming from a slightly different perspective.
Where I did my undergrad (which was the same place as Brad did, by the way; and he may have had different experiences and perceptions) I noticed there was a large percentage of Christian students who were intent on sharing or spreading their faith in a manner more assertive than I had ever seen before. As someone with a lapsed Catholic background, I found this intimidating on several occasions. I felt the possibility of being ostracized for my (lack of) beliefs as a real one, and lost the trust and friendliness of evangelical acquaintances over these differences. I was surprised by this. What I thought I knew about Christianity and human interaction were principles such as ‘love thy neighbor’. However, what I often encountered was closed-mindedness and an inability to relate to others.
Then again, where I went to school in the rural Midwest, I recall the shock and confusion among some students who had A) never interacted with anybody who wasn’t white, B) never interacted with anybody who wasn’t heterosexual, or C) never interacted with anybody who wasn’t their particular flavor of Protestant Christianity. I’m certainly no cosmopolitan, well-rounded, perfectly tolerant individual, and there were times when I was really stretched by things I encountered. Sometimes I grew from them, and sometimes I didn’t. Nobody’s perfect.
College is a place to learn and grow, to approach new problems with skepticism and reason (otherwise why attend?) but for a few the shock was too much. I don’t know if it was their faith or their upbringing that kept them from approaching new and different ideas with an open mind, but like Kyle I saw a lot of defensive people who couldn’t deal with challenges to their belief system. People who couldn’t think for themselves, people who couldn’t participate in debates because they wouldn’t listen to others, people who would bring their faith into discussions that had nothing to do with personal beliefs or religion in the first place. These were a small, yet vocal minority, and I think it is these few closed-minded people who give more Christians than deserve it a bad rap among academics. Yes, I’m going to make the claim that a very few individuals do create these types of issues, that these claims of academic discrimination are not unfounded.
Yet why is this? Why Protestant Christians over any other group? I think the answer lies in a little math. If I remember correctly, taken together, Protestants form a religious majority in this country. All other groups are smaller. In each group surely there are some vocal, closed-minded individuals, perhaps even in equal proportions. However, because the overall population of Protestants is larger, there is a greater chance that more of them will be present in a given college classroom. And perhaps the evangelical drive encourages people to be more vocal about their beliefs than those from other groups.
Of course I have encountered closed-minded people of other religions; I had a course on the history of the Middle East and there was a Muslim woman in the class who refused to do any of the reading because she ‘already knew it’. And yes, in the same way, people wrote her off because she refused to do the work with the rest of the class. Whether this was because of her faith or not, I don’t know.
Anecdotes of occasional mean-spirited professors aside, shouldn’t some honest discussions and challenges to faith provide a catalyst for growth in that faith, rather than a defensive reaction? If all ideas deserve equal respect, why do you seem unconcerned that Mormons also receive a negative response?
This is an interesting issue and I don’t think it’s going to go away any time soon.
MOI!
I’m very glad you “chimed in,” thank you for adding to this discussion.
You mentioned inerrancy of scripture and theories on the purpose of college. Before we get into a tangent about either of those two legitimate issues, I want to set them aside and focus on the main thing. They are worthy of discussion in a full post. Let’s not go there yet. Whenever those posts are written (and they will be), that debate can take off in full force. I imagine it will be glorious. =)
OK. So professors don’t like how evangelicals take a view that the Bible is truthful (another prof in the article gave other reasons, so there’s a variety of opinions). But do you see a problem that a majority of them have an unfavorable view of evangelical Christians as people? Again, if it were any other group (African Americans, Muslims, women), there would be outrage. And any attempt to justify that with why they have unfavorable opinions would be unthinkable with any other group. Why Christians?
Not agreeing with the views are a certain group is one thing, but perhaps holding an unfavorable opinion of them is another. I’m not sure I see them as being the same. I can see disagreeing with a group’s views, but having unfavorable opinions of them as people? That’s rough, especially when college professors should be held to a higher standard of facilitating and teaching, and giving equal respect to all students.
Veronica!
I also did undergrad at the same school as you and Brad. Just a bit ahead of you, that’s all. Thank you for writing!
I’ll start from the bottom of your post: I do think that it is equally astounding and wrong for professors to have a majority unfavorable opinions of Mormons as well. You have asked an excellent question though; since I am not a Mormon, I do not feel I could properly elaborate further on this from their perspective. I’d love it if a Mormon chimed in here, frankly. I hope that clears that up.
Do you think that Protestants and evangelical Christians are two ways to refer to the same group of people? I don’t know if they are or not, I’m not sure Anglicans would agree with that. But I’m not Anglican! (so again, I don’t know for sure)
And you make a darn good point about Protestants forming a religious majority in the country. I would be curious if that translated into meaning there are a majority of Protestants that go to college out of teen-agers, and so on and so forth. But again, are Protestants and evangelical Christians the same folk? I’m sensing that you believe they are. They certainly have a lot of overlap.
Brad wonderfully wrote the other week about abrasive Christians on campus and how other students were not receptive to that. But what about professors?
Shouldn’t professors as educators be held to a higher standard? Does anyone see a problem with this?
Hi Jim –
I’ll have to admit ignorance here on the Protestant/evangelical issue. I’m more comfortable with the word ‘Protestant’ because I can delineate to whom it refers (at least from a Catholic perspective). This is an interesting question for me. What denominations make up the group of evangelical Christians? I realize there is a lot of overlap but not all Protestants must be evangelical. Help me out here?
After having been to a teaching university, I attended a large research university on the east coast for my Master’s degree. What a world of difference, especially for the undergraduate population. For the undergrads, professors were not really educators. Many professors were concerned about doing research, publishing books, and tenure instead of helping students learn and grow. Quite frankly students got the short end of the stick. Professors did not make as much time for students as we were accustomed to in our undergraduate experience. And many courses, especially at the lower level, were so large that professors didn’t know their students to form opinions of them anyway. I’d like to know exactly what kind of professors were surveyed to get this kind of result.
In many cases the professors were a product of the system they were in. (I did meet many exceptions!) But professors, too, are human. In college we are all supposed to act as adults toward a goal of learning. If some parties do not wish to come to the table with an open mind, be they professors or students, then there is a problem.
I believe it is possible for those who are good Christians to be successful academics. However, I don’t feel the classroom is a good place for evangelizing (if that is a word). Perhaps when an evangelical Christian student comes to the floor with their beliefs at an inappropriate time, some professors may feel they’re losing control over the process. Like me, other students may feel intimidated. Faith and reason can coexist very well, but they apply to different parts of life.
At my other school we also had a very abrasive preacher (who was not actually allowed to come on campus property, but an adjacent sidewalk was close enough). How are threats of hellfire and brimstone going to convince anybody? Most people never waited around long enough after the threats of hell to learn about the possibility for salvation. One course I TA’d was next to his chosen spot for hollering at students; sometimes the professor and I would listen to him. I don’t think the professor was very impressed with him; maybe those who try to reach out to college students need a more sophisticated technique.
Anyway, I’m getting away from myself. Professors have more independence than most of us think. They are hard to control or hold to standards, particularly once they get tenure. If you say this is a problem, then the academic system as a whole needs reform. Not an easy thing to accomplish.
V!!!!!
Holy crap, I just realized exactly who you were. I totally didn’t realize how I knew you in your first comment. How the hell are you?
To bring some further perspective into this discussion, here are a few links:
The post I wrote that Jim is referring to:
http://seminarianblog.com/2007/08/15/what-in-the-world-does-missional-even-mean/
A post by MOI that is very related, particularly to her comment:
http://mysteryofiniquity.wordpress.com/2007/08/19/conversion-rules-or-freedom-from-evangelization/#comment-8543
In short, I believe that (ideally) professors should operate on the same level of tolerance they expect from everyone else, and not make an exception because some (many) Christians have been judgmental in the past. However, in the same way that not all Muslims are terrorists, not all Christians are judgmental.
I have found that it is often the exclusive truth claims of scripture that come into conflict with the views of our culture that absolute tolerance is the high morality of the day (acceptance of sin in moral relativism). And because Christianity (speaking generally of course) does not bow at the knee to relativistic claims, we are sometimes seen as close-minded, bigoted, and sub-human.
Again, I am speaking in VERY general terms, and do not mean to apply this to all situations or people.
Veronica!
I’m really pleased that you’re taking off on this issue. I can tell it means a lot to you. Me too.
I agree with you about professors, and they give the short end of the stick to students in a lot of ways. But the survey showed that professors DO hold favorable views of most all religious students except evangelical Christians and Mormons. So it’s not against religion overall, just Mormons and evangelical Christians. That’s troubling. Those two areas of faith are not the only two that evangelize and bring their views to the table of ideas.
Sounds like a bit of viewpoint discrimination, some would say.
The study surveyed profs from public and private schools, religious and secular, two-year and four-year. So it seems a pretty good cross-section of academia.
At Missouri State recently, there was an incident where a student and a professor had a clashing about the student’s religious views vs. a peripheral assignment that would have compromised them. An independent investigation into the department found that “many students and faculty members at Missouri State’s School of Social Work ’stated a fear of voicing differing opinions,’ particularly about spiritual matters. They found such a ‘toxic’ climate of intellectual ‘bullying’ that they suggested shutting down the social work school and restarting it with a new faculty.” That’s on the second page of the Post article.
Yikes.
Jim, could you post some of those links (assuming they are still available online, I know the Post-Dispatch sucks at keeping them up for any length of time)?
I would be very interested in reading some more about this….
And V, in reference to your defining Evangelical v. Protestant Christians, we will have to do some research as to how that term is used to reference denominations (unless someone else here knows), because I haven’t really considered it myself…
But you are correct that this is an assumption that should be defined!
Brad,
I think my blog links to the Post article if you scroll over the word ‘Washington Post.’
Definitions of evangelical and Protestant Christians is a great topic, we should pursue that as its own blog entry rather than tossing it around here.
Regardless, is there a targeted tolerance problem with our professors?
[Hi Brad! I'm doing well, thanks
]
I find moral relativism and similar things brought on by postmodernism to be very dangerous to rational thought and discourse. If everything is equal, then everybody gets to be right in their own closed-minded way, and no conclusions can ever be made. Useless.
Certainly all people, particularly academics, should strive for an open mind when dealing with others. Yet we are all a product of our experiences, and I can imagine it is frustrating when dealing with these constantly judgmental people. Do you think that these types are immature in their faith? Will they go on to reach a better understanding?
I agree that the favorable vs. unfavorable views of different religious groups is problematic, and troubling if you happen to be part of one of the unfavorably regarded groups. But not all professors feel this way; surveys are not 100% accurate, and the sample seems small to me although it may be statistically sufficient. Anyway. How do you feel you could change the perceptions among professors against evangelical Christians? What can you do to change their minds?
When people talk about inerrancy of scriptures, and their exclusive truth, I am concerned. But as Jim said, that’s a topic for another day.
Hi Jim,
By no means include me in a discussion on inerrancy!! LOL. I’ve had my fill of THAT discussion over at deConversion blog.
No, I’m just offering a reason why some professors are loathe to give Christians a fair hearing in class. I’ve seen it, I’ve been there. They perceive Christians as coming with an agenda and do not want classroom debate to degenerate into a discussion of the merits of the bible. That’s not what secular college classes are for. Just a thought.
Jim, sorry for not commenting on the actual subject matter of your original post. ERm…no explanation there. Sometimes I’m just dim.
As per your actual stated questions: “Could this survey be indicative of a targeted intolerance problem with our professors? Do you feel that tolerance by college administrations and faculty is championed unless it’s regarding evangelical Christians? Or is this a non-issue, and our campuses do fine how they are? Or do you think this is an issue, but that evangelical Christians somehow deserve it? Why?”
I’d like to start by saying that the first two years I was in college, I was a Mormon, and I never felt attacked. It’s weird that Mormons are included with Evangelical Christians in this discussion. Makes me giggle.
I suppose it really does depend on the school, doesn’t it? And maybe on the idea that it is okay to disagree with the majority in any given society. Well, not any society. North Korea, NOT okay, but in a (supposedly) free Democratic Republic, it is supposed to be okay to disagree with the “establishment” and right now Christianity in general (but especially evangelistic Christianity) may be seen as many as part of the “establishment.” A lot of people see evangelicals as part of the government machine, and US History is rife with folks dissenting from those in power. Maybe it has something to do with that?
Mmm. That’s not very eloquently put, but there it is.
Inerrancy of the Bible will be a topic in the future, and I look forward to it. Stay tuned.
The survey had cross section of profs from all types of schools. If they were majority unfavorable toward Muslims or women as people, there would be an outcry. But here, nothing.
The issue of a majority of professors having negative views against evangelical Christians and Mormons as people is troubling to me, especially when ‘tolerance’ and ‘diversity’ are trumpted as stand-alone values on college campuses. Is it wrong that that these values are possibly not equally applied?
Veronica, you asked some excellent questions. I’ll have to research this.
Gotta get back to studying.
I also took Exploring Religions at that oh-so-popular Midwest school. In that class, the professor asked us to do a field experiement wherein we went to a church/synagogue/mosque/etc. that was vastly different from our previous experiences. We then had to make various observations, write a paper, etc. It was stipulated that we could not visit a Christian church.
I went to the professor and asked to be allowed to conduct my field experiement at a Christian church. My reasoning was that of all the religions I could think of, it was the one I had studied the least. I felt very interested in lots of other religions, particularly Eastern ones, but I had NEVER had an interest in learning about Christianity, experiencing those tradtions, etc. In fact, I considered myself fairly intolerant of Christianity in my own life. (Like hey it’s cool if others do it, but it most definitely is not my thing, keep it away from me.) So, I figured the biggest challenge for myself in that assignment would be to go into a Christian church (of whatever denomination) with an open mind.
It took a LOT of convincing to get the professor to allow me to do that paper. (And that, of course, resulted in me being really freaked out that I would get a bad grade. So the whole experience was a little tainted in that way, but it all worked out.) Anyway, I find that really interesting in light of the original post here about professors feeling unfavorably toward evangelical Christian and Mormon groups.
And that rather long explanation for a short story leads me to an idea of what PART of this is about. I noticed Veronica wrote about open-mindedness and Kyle wrote about Christianity being viewed as part of the “establishment,” and I think that our society’s desire for individuality and fringe ideas/beliefs/music/literature/theatre/lives/etc. has led to a sort of expectation that anything mainstream or well-known or widespread is inherently BAD and should be rebelled against.
We embrace ideas like affirmative action, handicapped parking spaces, and indie rock. We think a movie should be different or edgy to win an Oscar. And we tell kids to express themselves, be an individual, find their own voice, etc. We promote acceptance of anything in the minority, be it cheering for the underdog or awareness about other religions.
Is it possible that we’ve gone so far into the land of tolerance and open-mindedness towards these fringe ideas and groups that we’ve become intolerant and close-minded toward anything that appears to be mainstream?
I know that may be generalizing things a bit, but speaking as someone who wants to experience all kinds of non-traditional things simply for the excitement of them being non-traditional, I feel like this is something others might be subconciously experiencing, as well. And maybe we’ve had a bit of a trickle from being embracing of something new and different to rejecting something that seems more familiar… simply by virtue of its familiarity.
Ooooo…. Danielle… I think you hit something here…. wow!
(welcome, btw!!!)
I think you may be dead on, or at least on the right path. Specifically, it is the claims of exclusive truth that the Evangelical Denominations hold on to, that also threaten this culture of preferring the “fringe” or “minority” streams.
With Christianity being the “mainstream” or “majority” faith in the Western world (although that is RAPIDLY declining…), the inherent rejection of pluralism can very easily be seen as devaluing or threatening the kind of non-traditional or “indie” streams in both culture and faith.
“Is it possible that we’ve gone so far into the land of tolerance and open-mindedness towards these fringe ideas and groups that we’ve become intolerant and close-minded toward anything that appears to be mainstream?”
Well said!!!
The challenge for Christians, it seems, is to affirm truth when we find it in the “fringe” and “indie” streams to create a mutual appreciation for others while maintaining the truth claims of our faith.
The question is, it seems: is that enough? Will the culture be satisfied with that? Or will being “tolerant” require Christians to throw the truth claims of their faith out the window to conform to culture?
Indeed, is either pluralism or culture itself becoming it’s own religion?
I think the challenge of Christians is to not be arrogant in the college sphere. The first experience i recall with this was in a Religious Studies Class where a student attempted to trump a professor using Scripture. The problem was that the scripture she was using is only valid with an “inerrant” view point. The professor (not one probably with a bias as far as I could tell by the 27 hours I took with him), didn’t quite know how to respond because in the context of his class and that lecture her comment was inane.
My experience at Mizzou was that Christians (sometimes me, sometimes not… ) came into classes thinking they had the corner on truth. That, in and of itself is only part of the problem. The rest is that they did “feel attacked” as someone else mentioned, when in fact a professor is sometimes attacking and sometimes simply teaching and other times not even near where the Christian thinks they are.
Too many Christians think their Bible is a history book, a science book, or even a book of Theology. It is the Bible - the story of God and his people. And we enter with so much baggage, and oftentimes I think (because I am one of the “we”) that one of our ways to not think or not be sensitive to others is to continue on as a bull in the china shop of our College Classrooms.
What does this have to do with Jim’s original post? College Professors, or at least 53% of them, probably did not begin dis-favoring Evangelicals but were moved there by experience. And, the ones who were already there are probably there for strikingly similar reasons so many evangelicals hold their beliefs as if they were philosophical, scientific, theological, and biological dogma (no pun intended).
I just wish we would all listen a bit more, love well on an individual level, fight less fights that don’t actually exist, and maybe learn something from these professors - such as, why are they irritated? Similar to - Why do waitresses assume they will get a terrible tip from evangelicals? Why do people waling into movie theaters get annoyed when someone asks them “if you were to die tonight and stand before God why would he let you into Heaven?” It is unkind to approach people this way - as if they were not people. These professors have likely been blindsided more times than the Washington Post cares to look up, and that DOES NOT MAKE IT OKAY for them to be intolerant
of Evangelicals. But, let’s look for a solution - person by person, rather than harping on the problem and who is to blame.
Ultimately the problem at Mizzou was me - people like me. Who love poorly, respected less than they might have, and probably appeared as arrogant as… me. Chesterton said in response to, “What is wrong with the world?” “The Professors at Major Universities… ” No, he said, “I am.”
I suppose I could summarize by saying, I wish they could/would rise above a sweeping judgment, but we (myself included) deserve it.
I think Matt hits the nail on the head. I entered college having read materials that indicated Evangelicals would be persecuted and so on, so I expected to be persecuted. The eye opener was when I realized it was not the professors persecuting me but the other way around. Admittedly, I believe the professors at my college were perhaps exceptionally open minded, but when I saw some of the ways Evangelicals absolutely abused professors, students and student groups that they felt were not theologically correct — it was simply appalling. They’d attack Catholics (professors and students). They’d attack mainline — but none the less believing — Christians (again, including professors) treating them as heretics or worse over their views on inerrancy, etc. They even staged coordinated, disruptive actions when in classes with professors they disliked so as to interfere with the classes’ function.
It was at that point I quit identifying myself as an Evangelical and referred instead to my Reformed theology, so as to separate myself from the un-Christ-like behavior of the Evangelicals. One of the best examples I can provide was when I was talking with an atheist after a religion class one day. He figured I must be an atheist because he couldn’t believe I was really an Evangelical Christian and not going berzerk. Evangelicals generally protested attempts to work in an academic fashion because they already knew everything by faith — they couldn’t see that wasn’t the point.
I found myself allied usually with everyone other than the core Evangelical Christians on campus, because of this. It was sad.
As Matt said, it is hard to support stereotyping Evangelicals like some professors apparently do. However, I went in proudly Evangelical and never found my professors anything but accepting long before I shed the label. If Evangelicals elsewhere act like they did in my experience — and to such a notable extent — it is unsurprising that they are viewed poorly.
Since I went to a Christian college, I have nothing significant to add. Although, to be honest, I’m not quite sure what most Christian teens are expecting when they leave home. I certainly am not shocked by the results of the survey, and can’t understand why anyone would be. They seem to reflect the same attitude much of the American culture holds. Nothing has quieted people I worked with more than even a passing mention that I studied historical theology at a Christian college. Of course professors aren’t generally going to be favorable to people with such a diametrically opposed worldview.
Just to put it out there, many of my professors were Christians, (which they may have never said in class, but I found out later). Whatever that is worth.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/07/08/god_and_country/
thought this was interesting…
Jim,
Wow. I have no idea how I have run across this….but I will comment quickly. (be warned I am half asleep as I write this though:)
As a graduate of the same university, I really wish I had taken the opportunity to enroll in an exploring religion class during college. I think it is really important to gain an understanding of different beliefs to back up my own. (also to know why they are my own). While not being able to fit that one particular class into my schedule, I did have several classes where beliefs were discussed.
From the time I enrolled in Truman I knew it was a public state school, so I guess I just expected to hear lots of different viewpoints. While I did run across a few professors who blatently gave their point of view on issues, most professors I encountered taught classes with a general overview. They wanted us to think for ourselves..and for their viewpoints to not influence their students.
Overall, I felt Truman had a lvery large number of students with Christian beliefs. A Christian going into college, I felt my own beliefs were dramatically strengthened during my time at school. (possibly cause it was a time in my life where I was examining my beliefs to a greater extent).
It was interesting to read this entry….I definetly have enjoyed reading the responses.
The first time I attended college (don’t ask), I was a biology major. I had one professor who repeatedly attacked the idea that Creation is anything more than the result of a haphazard series of random events. At the time I was angry at him, but looking back I think I can understand where his anger and frustration came from.
You see, with the movement to erase or at least weaken the teaching of evolution in the high school curriculum, the underpinnings of his belief system were and continue to be under attack. Of course he’s going to be defensive.
I’ve worked closely with both scientists and evangelical Christians, and their attitudes toward the other are strikingly similar. It’s a vicious cycle; they feel threatened, then defensive and finally settle on disdain. There is very little room for open, honest dialogue in an atmosphere like that.