Does College Kill Faith?

One of the easiest explanations for why so few young adults remain involved in congregations is that College kills faith. The supposed reasons are many...

• The faculty are too liberal and antagonistic towards faith. 
• Interacting with people from other religious traditions makes students question their own beliefs.
• Colleges don't support student's religious commitments.

The list goes on and on. This sentiment is exacerbated by the work of conservative para Christian organizations on College campuses and provocatively titled books like "How to Stay Christian in College". Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum even made it an issue on the campaign trail last year when he erroneously stated that 62% of young adults lose their faith in College.

Whatever the sources the message is the same...if you want to remain Christian in College you need to be on guard against the secularizing forces that are out to get you.

Now I'm not going to claim that every College is equal in terms of its support for the faith lives of its students. But hearing this rhetoric one would think that all the problems the Church has with engaging young adults can be traced back to the fact that they left the protection of their home congregations and were corrupted by the evil influence of academia.

But is this actually true? According to Douglas Jacobsen and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen there is clearly an increase in the number of religiously unaffiliated young adults during the College years.

As might be expected, the religious profile of entering college students is very similar to that of their parents and the nation as a whole: Seventy-five percent are Christians, 8 percent are members of non-Christian religions, and the rest (17 percent) are religiously unaffiliated. During the college years, this profile slowly changes, and about 15 percent of previously religious become religiously unaffiliated.

But before we blame Colleges for this trend it's important to look more closely at the facts. Young adults that do not attend College are actually slightly more likely to abandon their faith.

In some circles, there is an assumption that this decline is due to the pernicious influence of nonreligious faculty. It is true that college and university professors as a group are less religious than the national population, but blaming faculty for the decline makes little sense given that the falloff in religious affiliation among young adults who do not attend college is even greater (20 percent).

Jacobsen, Douglas; Jacobsen, Rhonda Hustedt (2012-07-03). No Longer Invisible:Religion in University Education (p. 78). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition. 

The actual reasons that so many young adults are religiously unaffiliated is far more complex than simply the College environment. I would argue (along with Tim Clydesdale, Robert Wuthnow, and others) that the unsettled and ever changing world of young adults is a much more significant reason for their religious disaffiliation.

Living in limbo is tough. Supporting young adults in this time of their lives is challenging.

But in order to be effective the Church must resist the temptation to grasp at easy answers while ignoring the broader challenges.