In a university setting? Of course it’s right, if it’s relevant. It may not be easy, though.</p>
<p>I agree that there is a wide range of Christian schools with respect to how much differing views are welcomed or tolerated. But certainly at some of the more conservative schools, there is only one right answer to many questions, and all the professors agree on what it is. Personally, I think that is inimical to a good university education. But again, a lot depends on what you are trying to get out of your education in the first place.</p>
<p>I can distinctly recall in my English and Humanities classes there was only one right answer for my profs too, and if one didn’t agree with them in papers, one got an F. Ask me how I know… I went to secular state U - a highly ranked one. Fortunately, my major was Physics which is far more cut and dry, but I learned how to parrot what my “core” profs wanted even if I didn’t adopt their views. Learning to parrot is a good skill. It’s needed at times in real life. However, I’m not sure I needed to learn how to do it in college.</p>
<p>While I think you could be correct at the far, far conservative Christian colleges (Pensacola comes to mind), I think you are believing a myth about the rest. I don’t actually blame you as I probably would have believed the same myth prior to my son’s experience at his college which is run by PCA - a Conservative branch of the Presbyterian church, but that’s not our denomination. He hasn’t been penalized one bit for having differing religious views (still Christian). He’s said there are profs who are liberal and those who are conservative. The common denominator is that all believe in Christ as our savior - and at that school - all profs are Calvinist (not necessarily true with all students, but all must be Christian at that school - or pretend to be so anyway!). Student views vary widely from political to moral to “science” issues. All are accepted and all are free to state their reasons.</p>
<p>The only difference (besides size!) between his college classes and mine is that his profs can and do freely speak about how their faith affects their teachings when it is relevant or even if they just want to. As I said before, that never happened at my secular U, nor would I expect it to.</p>
<p>If one does not want faith integrated into all aspects of life, do not consider a Christian college (unless it is one in name only such as Duke). If one does, all I can say is my son absolutely loves where he is. Educationally they also have a decent rep - and do very well on Major Field Tests in Business - 95% (the one I looked at since it’s one of my son’s majors).</p>
<p>Obviously, there is a continuum, but I still say this idea that Christians will be penalized for their faith at secular colleges is way overblown–I’ve rarely heard any convincing examples. To the contrary, I can remember very lively discussions of very hot topics in some of my college (and law school) classes as secular schools. Again, it depends on what you want from your education.</p>
<p>My personal examples from English and a Humanities course had nothing to do with my faith. They had to do with disagreeing with the prof on specific books and the respective author’s intent.</p>
<p>Granted, I’m a math/science person, so maybe there was ONE right answer that we were supposed to infer from those books, but I still disagree with it. The English prof was a grad school prof normally, just brought down to teach our one Honors English course. I did end up with a B in her class. The Humanities prof was a “typical” prof. I don’t know if she taught grad school students or not.</p>
<p>I’m not anti secular schools at all. I enjoyed my own education. Middle son is most likely to attend a secular school due to wanting research opportunities in pre-med that we just aren’t seeing in a Christian school setting (at the level I want and with decent merit aid options).</p>
<p>My sole intent is to dispel the myth that seems to be prevalent about Christian schools. In my experience there is just as much discussion and debate there as there is in a secular school with the exception of the, “Does God Exist and Have Meaning in our Lives” debate. At most Christian schools, this is a given. Not so in any secular school. For the Christian, there is actually MORE of an opportunity to be open about faith in the classroom than there is in a secular school. Some students want that. Some do not. To each their own.</p>
<p>And my experience does not reflect the super conservative schools like Pensacola and Bob Jones. I never cared for the legalism at those schools, so we never researched them to see.</p>
<p>The Christian school I know most about is Liberty, and I certainly agree that it’s very, very different from someplace like Wheaton, and probably lots of others. As is often the case, the extremes tend to unfairly characterize a whole group of schools.</p>
<p>I do not know enough about Liberty to comment. It was not high enough academically to make our radar. I know some students who go there from our local public school and church, but I don’t know them well enough to have had specific conversations with them about class content.</p>