Is Sec­u­lar Col­lege Worth it in a Woke Age?

Well, I did it, I grad­u­at­ed with my Bach­e­lor’s. I walked across that stage with gown, cords, and all the trap­pings; and I final­ly got to shake the hand of the Uni­ver­si­ty Pres­i­dent. All should be well, right?

And yet, I can think about lit­tle else than how much I regret my deci­sions over the past five years.

You see, when pre­sent­ed with the option to attend a state uni­ver­si­ty for very lit­tle cost, I jumped at the chance. “Some­times God speaks to the tune of $25,000 per year,” is what I told myself  at the time. With that amount in mind, I per­ceived He was speak­ing to me loud­ly. “I don’t think the Lord wants me to go into debt,” was some­thing else I told myself. The depart­ment in which I was to study was small, tight, and staffed with  bril­liant  pro­fes­sors. The dis­plays were flashy and entic­ing. The uni­ver­si­ty was just far enough from home to give me my free­dom, yet still close enough for me to get a home-cooked meal when­ev­er I want­ed. Club sports and stu­dent orga­ni­za­tions abound­ed, and I thought I heard more than one of them call­ing my name, invit­ing me to join. This just seemed so much bet­ter than all the small Chris­t­ian schools I vis­it­ed. It even seemed per­fect — “the col­lege dream” that peo­ple reflect on and speak fond­ly of after grad­u­at­ing.

If any­one read­ing this is con­tem­plat­ing where to attend col­lege, pay atten­tion, this warn­ing is for you — Not your par­ents or your pas­tor, but you: It. Is. All. A. Trap! A trap designed to break you, specif­i­cal­ly, as a Chris­t­ian; More gen­er­al­ly, it’s a trap to indoc­tri­nate all stu­dents in the false, sec­u­lar reli­gion of hedo­nism and mate­ri­al­ism that has become our country’s state reli­gion. I promise you this: You will be pres­sured to con­form!

It wasn’t always this way, so I hear. Mem­bers of our  par­ents’ gen­er­a­tion, per­haps, may have been able to thrive at such a place. They even may have been afford­ed safe places to study and to grow, even if they were exposed to many forms of  sec­u­lar ide­ol­o­gy. They did not have to deal with the Can­cel Cul­ture!  Gov­ern­ment-run insti­tu­tions are no longer edu­ca­tion cen­ters, but indoc­tri­na­tion cen­ters. While I won’t blame demons for being direct­ly respon­si­ble  with­out evi­dence, as some­one who was there in the sys­tem for years, I would not be sur­prised.

It is going to take a spe­cial kind of iron-willed saint — a trained spir­i­tu­al war­rior — to get through 4 years of sec­u­lar col­lege unscathed. Uni­ver­si­ties are the tem­ple com­plex­es to the gods of this world: Hedo­nism, Self­ish­ness, Pride; and give birth and nour­ish­ment to god­less ide­olo­gies like social jus­tice, sex­u­al “free­dom,” and rel­a­tivism. As a Chris­t­ian, would you want to attend 4 years of learn­ing and liv­ing at a tem­ple com­plex to the Philis­tine gods? What about the Canaan­ite gods, or those of the Greeks and Romans? Why would you will­ing­ly place your­self under the train­ing of pagan gurus and priests? Would you will­ing­ly study with the Aztecs while their priests explained sci­ence through the frame­work of feed­ing human hearts to the sun god? There is no prac­ti­cal dif­fer­ence between these sce­nar­ios and those occur­ring at the mod­ern State Uni­ver­si­ty. 

I have few words to ful­ly describe the cul­ture on sec­u­lar uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus­es, and what it does, or is designed to do, to the typ­i­cal believ­er in Christ; but sim­ple descrip­tions rarely con­vince most read­ers, so instead I am going to tell you  a sto­ry — a true sto­ry.

One day near the end of my senior year, I was walk­ing to class one day. Stand­ing out­side the stu­dent union was a street preach­er shar­ing the gospel. Oh, I should men­tion that this man wasn’t a stu­dent, at least as far as I could tell, and I say that to remind you that you can be an influ­ence for Christ on a cam­pus with­out sub­ject­ing your­self to indoc­tri­na­tion. Walk­ing past him and hear­ing him speak encour­aged me great­ly. An hour and a half lat­er, as I was walk­ing back, I noticed he was sur­round­ed by about 30 under­class­men who were draped in pride flags. They were play­ing hor­ri­bly explic­it music and danc­ing around as they took turns shout­ing him down. One of them was red in the face and giv­ing her own “fire and brim­stone” ser­mon about how the church was guilty of “geno­cid­ing the natives and the gays.” She left with both mid­dle fin­gers in the air and yelling about how she loved kiss­ing women. I’d love to say that I walked up to my coura­geous broth­er in Christ, that I began preach­ing with him, or that I prayed with him, or at least that I just stood with him. But no. Instead I put on my head­phones, put my head down and walked on by, hop­ing the mob would­n’t turn on me. I was just too tired after four years, too beat­en down, mold­ed by the influ­ences I could hard­ly have real­ized were chang­ing me.

That’s the more insid­i­ous influ­ence of a sec­u­lar col­lege cam­pus. I nev­er recant­ed my beliefs or blas­phemed, nev­er denied Christ or gave in to athe­ism. But I was bat­tered into silence and exhaus­tion. I was afraid to show my faith, afraid for my safe­ty if I spoke up. I grew tired of fend­ing off the con­stant woke assault on my under­stand­ing of moral­i­ty. I stopped read­ing my Bible reg­u­lar­ly, and by the end I could bare­ly bring myself to silent­ly bow my head and pray before meals. I was worn down by the con­stant attacks and the relent­less mes­sag­ing. And for any of you that are say­ing, ”Yeah, what did he expect, even I know that’s what col­leges are like now.” Stop it! You don’t know! It is so much worse than you real­ize from the out­side. And the effect it has on you, when you’re in their tem­ple, being preached to dai­ly by their priests, and beat­en down by their fol­low­ers… it breaks down even sol­id men. That’s what it’s designed to do!. Even if you’re a well-dis­ci­pled believ­er, pre­pared and equipped, yes, you may come through with your faith intact, but the fires will still burn you and wear you down like a riv­er carv­ing out a canyon.

For a while I was able to fight it off with the help of a Chris­t­ian fel­low­ship on cam­pus, but that turned out bad as well. Well-inten­tioned indi­vid­u­als pushed me into lead­er­ship far too rapid­ly. They drove me to a near break­ing point with the sheer num­ber of cam­pus wit­ness­ing events, along with the hos­til­i­ty and abuse it engen­dered from the ene­mies of our faith. At the same time, this pan-denom­i­na­tion­al group was so hor­ri­ble on any the­ol­o­gy except the most basic gospel mes­sage it could give, that its entire wit­ness, both to us and to the out­siders, was­n’t much more than a three page tract. It had to be in its attempts to cast the widest pos­si­ble net and build the broad­est pos­si­ble appeal. It wel­comed all Chris­tians, even those who were vague­ly trini­tar­i­an, to lead­er­ship. It threw all of us togeth­er to recruit and draw in as many unbe­liev­ers as pos­si­ble to increase  the lead­er’s altar call num­bers. Any­one who raised his or her hand at one of said altar calls could expect to be offered lead­er­ship with­in a few months. While I won’t say the min­istry was devoid of all good inten­tions or pos­i­tive changes in peo­ple and their lives, it was more of a machine than a min­istry, and we were the cogs. As you would expect, bad the­ol­o­gy was ram­pant, and I could­n’t stay in that group. 

I have con­clud­ed there real­ly isn’t a pos­i­tive out­come any­more for a Chris­t­ian attend­ing a sec­u­lar col­lege. Can God work it all out for good? Of course. Does that mean we should seek out bad sit­u­a­tions so we can watch Him per­form mir­a­cles? No. A trag­ic out­come is far more like­ly, not because God isn’t real or pow­er­ful, but because of the real­i­ties I’ve high­light­ed in this arti­cle. The attacks are nev­er-end­ing and your men­tal guard must always be up. The con­stant war­fare wears and grinds, and four years is a LONG time. You can nev­er rest. Every­thing must be con­stant­ly dis­trust­ed and fil­tered out.

Are you a Chris­t­ian young per­son about to choose where to attend col­lege or uni­ver­si­ty? 

Ask your­self a ques­tion I wish I had asked.

“Do I need to go to Col­lege in the first place?”

Some­times your call­ing lies in an area that does­n’t require edu­ca­tion at a Uni­ver­si­ty. Con­sid­er seri­ous­ly what skills and inter­ests you have been blessed with and see if there’s a ful­fill­ing career you can take straight out of high school, or with a bit of trade school. The four-year degree isn’t for every­one. There’s so much pres­sure in high school to “choose a col­lege.” Please, see past that. Set it aside. Devote a sig­nif­i­cant amount of time to prayer, pur­su­ing God, and seek­ing His will for your life.

If it turns out that you should go into high­er edu­ca­tion, I implore you: Choose a col­lege where the Word of God is val­ued and held at the cen­ter. Pick a cam­pus strong on the­ol­o­gy and one that does­n’t capit­u­late to the pol­i­tics of the cul­ture. Pick a place where you will be built up rather than torn down. God will pro­vide for you; He will pro­vide the mon­ey. Pur­sue god­li­ness and trust Him for your future. Don’t make my mis­take. The val­ue of the heart-soul-mind-strength price I paid is so much high­er than the val­ue of the mon­ey I saved. I survived—but I sur­vived despite myself and strict­ly as a result of God’s grace. Please, if you must attend col­lege, do so at a tru­ly Chris­t­ian insti­tu­tion, one you’ve thor­ough­ly vet­ted to make sure “Chris­t­ian” isn’t just a label, lest you end up like I did, regret­ting it all on grad­u­a­tion day.