Maranatha Baptist Bible College in Wisconsin wants you to know that sending your kids to a cheaper public school is a disaster waiting to happen:

Yes, secular colleges have a lower price tag. But, what might that decision really cost your family? The cost of sending a young person to a state university will, in many cases, be a life marked by ambivalence toward spiritual things, regrettable lifestyle choices, or a complete disregard of the principles Christian parents had attempted to pass on to their children.

Because, as we all know, all secular college are completely devoid of Christian life…

No, that’s not it. The problem, Maranatha goes on to say, is not that Christianity is missing at these schools, but that there are too many challenges for young Christians, including “Fellow students who will question, and often ridicule, those with conservative lifestyle standards” and “A dormitory where they will be forced to share a bathroom, floor, or even their room with someone of the opposite sex.”

Students questioning your beliefs?! WE CAN’T HAVE CRITICAL THINKING IN COLLEGE!

And at which state school are students forced to share a room with someone of the opposite sex against their will? (Not to mention I can’t think of a single school with a co-ed dorm that doesn’t also have a men-only or women-only floor or dorm for those who prefer those options.)

That’s not all:

Another way to view those statistics is that approximately 65,000 high school seniors will strengthen their faith at Christian colleges this fall — but 148,000 will lose theirs at secular colleges.

The only reason 148,000 Christians would lose their faith in college is because they were allowed to step outside the bubble for once and expose themselves to alternative perspectives that just made more sense than Christianity. If Christianity held up under scrutiny, there wouldn’t be anything for Bible-believers to worry about. But if you believe in Creationism, you’ll be a fish out of water in a real science class. If you hold bigoted views of homosexuals, you’ll be in for a huge surprise when you finally meet some gays and lesbians who don’t fit into the mold you’ve created for them. You get the idea.

Darrell Dow at Stuff Fundies Like also challenges the idea that sending your child to a Christian college will “strengthen” their faith:

Come back and see me when you’ve done your due diligence with another study about how many graduates of [Independent Fundamental Baptist] institutions have also left the faith or abandoned the “morals” they have been taught. For good measure you could also do a quick check into how many kids who were raised in church and went to no college at all are also now atheists. A quick anecdotal check of Fundy U grads I know suggest that number will be pretty high.

The whole Maranatha article is just designed to scare Christian parents into sending their kids to a more expensive school where they’ll receive a less relevant education for most of the careers that’ll be available to them in the secular world.



