In my prior post I suggested two main causes for students’ diminished participation in the church: ecclesiology, and caricatures from campus (the focus of this post). On campus, the dominant portrayal of the church is that it’s guilty of being a historic oppressor and, in modern times, of excluding persons of alternative lifestyles. My response is to propose a 90-10 …
How Students Got This Way (part 3 of 4)
In my last post I shared my observations about Christian students’ lack of commitment to the church. How did they come to this position? I offer the following thoughts with a bit of caution. See what you think: 1. We forgot our ecclesiology (theology of the church). A strong ecclesiology says, in effect, there is no true Christian spirituality outside …
Understanding College Students: Church Attendance (part 2 of 4)
In my prior post I did a flyover of the collegiate landscape, mainly in terms of atheism and agnosticism. What I meant to suggest is that, overall, campus culture is quite secular. As for religion, it’s allowed to exist as an exception to the prevailing rule of secularism, and especially as a concession forced by higher education’s stated commitment to …
College Students: What Makes them Tick (part 1 of 4)
Church people often ask me, “What’s happening on college campuses these days? What are students like?” I usually start my reply at the macro level, and talk about atheism, because along with its softer cousin, agnosticism, it’s the most dominant view on campus. Actually, there are two kinds of atheism in the university world: modern and postmodern. Generally speaking, moderns …