Faith Retention Syndrome

A few days ago, I was sitting in the cafeteria, here at college, and two visiting prospective students and their parents sat down near the group I was eating with. As various people left the group, I was left sitting with a friend who was also from the west coast. We began talking to the family, and were excited to learn that they were from Washington state.

(You have to understand that even though the closest section of Washington state is probably 800 miles from where I live in California, people from the west coast are so rare in Ohio that anyone who lives remotely near the Pacific becomes a member of a close-knit brotherhood... sorta)

Anyhow, they were on a national tour, looking at colleges, and they would be moving on to Pennsylvania shortly. We got to talking about how I and my other Californian friend had chosen to come to Cedarville. In passing, I mentioned how two of my sisters had attended Biola University in LA, and I got the uniquely hardcore-conservative-fundamentalist response, "did they retain their faith?"

This question was worded with the incredulity that they clearly felt that a good Christian family could send their precious, delicate, impressionable, 18-year-old children to such a liberal and dangerous institution.

I had heard much about the dangerous liberalism that has apparently overrun the campus of Biola while I was deciding between Biola and several other schools, so I assumed these people were just echoing the sentiments I had heard before. I didn't think much of it, except that the family I'd met was probably a lot like some people from my church back home.

But I kept thinking about it.

And it really is a fair question.

It's even a question that could be incredulously asked of students here at my college in Ohio. Maybe we don't have professors in the English department that deny the virgin birth. But we still get up in the morning to go to Bible classes as if it was something purely academic. The following exchange might happen later in life, if this great Ohioan university gets any more liberal:

Random Fundamentalist: "Wow, you went there? did you retain your faith?!?!?"

Me: "well... it was a struggle, but I made it out with my faith intact."

Me: "you went to Pensacola? wow... did you retain your faith!?!??"

Someone Else: "uhhh... no?"

See what I mean? Are people of my age so insecure in their faith? Unfortunately, I think the answer is "yes". There are people who are in my class who will forsake the truth before too long. (I've even picked out the person most likely to be an atheist 5 years after graduating).

I think it is our own attitude and not the positions of our professors that really is the determining factor in the security of our faith. If we are actively seeking God throughout college, maybe we can even keep our faith in Pensacola.