<p>I'm a devout Christian and trusting God has been a huge part of how I lived my life. My life has not been easy and very bumpy. Throughout the whole adventure, I relied on God and trusted that He'd get me through all my troubles. However, I've been told that talking about religion or any other controversial topic is not a good idea. My entire essay isn't talking about my faith, though, I just want to mention Him in one sentence, but I'm not sure whether it's a good idea or not.</p>
<p>Do you think it'll be all right to just mention trusting God once or would it be too risky?</p>
<p>I might be giving you a completely mistaken advice, but… I don’t think mentioning God would be a problem. </p>
<p>I am myself an atheist and I wouldn’t mind reading an essay about a person’s faith at all, and I wouldn’t mind a reference to God either. I think that if it is important to you, then go for it.</p>
<p>But don’t forget that the essay is about YOU, so don’t write about religion itself, but why it is such an important part of your life, how it shaped your identity or something like that.</p>
<p>Not risky at all. Your faith is an essential component of your character and it’s fine and perfectly appropriate to mention it briefly in your essay.</p>
<p>The answer will be different, I imagine, depending on the sort of college you’re applying to. Explicitly religious colleges? No problem. Secular colleges? No more than a sentence, I think.</p>
<p>Secular colleges will make their decisions based on the kind of student you are, and not on the basis of your faith in God. So for those colleges, an essay that’s mostly about your reliance on God–not what you’re proposing, I know, but it helps illustrate the point–doesn’t really help them make a decision based on the criteria they use.</p>
<p>By the same token, I’m sure you wouldn’t be happy at a college that would blackball you because of your faith. It’s clearly an essential part of who you are. So I think a mention of God may be a good idea. I do not for one instant buy into the notion that Christians are persecuted in twenty-first century America, but some campus cultures are more supportive of religious people than others. If a campus actually might be an inhospitable place for you, it’s better to find that out by being rejected over your essay than by living there miserably for a year or more.</p>