Inside Higher Ed today reports on a study that while many students drop in their attendance to religious services, very few actually say that religion is less important to them or disassociate with their religion.

The more you pursue a higher education, the more likely you are to abandon your faith — at least that’s what conventional wisdom holds.

“Actually we’ve just been wrong about this for quite a while,” said Mark D. Regnerus, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the authors of a new study that suggests students who attend and graduate from college are more likely than others to hold on to their faith.

It’s not that colleges necessarily encourage faith, he said, but for all the talk about how intellectuals are out to destroy students’ relationships to their religions and God, the main obstacles to such relationships have to do with maturing and how young people spend their time. “Some kids were bound to lose [their faith] anyway and they do,” Regnerus said. But the evidence suggests that college isn’t responsible.

[ . . . ]

Regnerus said that what the study suggests — and his personal experience confirms — is that while there are plenty of non-religious professors around, they aren’t trying to discourage any students from practicing their faith. “Of course there are some who are hostile to religion. But they don’t teach that. They teach their discipline,” Regnerus said. The attitude, he added, is: “Whatever I think about evangelicals, when I go to teach quantum physics, I teach quantum physics.”

One hopes that conservative pastors and communities of faith around the country will hear the good news, rejoice, and stop discouraging their flock regarding higher education! Alas, I suspect it is not the end for the niche of books (or articles) written for Christian graduating high school seniors on how to keep the faith while going off to a godless college campus. One interesting title I just saw on Amazon is University of Destruction: Your Game Plan for Spiritual Victory on Campus by David Wheaton. What is one trying to conquer at the University of Destruction? The book’s description reads in part, “Relating his own experiences at Stanford, David Wheaton describes the three Pillars of Peril you will face in college–sex, drugs/alcohol, and humanism–and presents a game plan for victory over these pitfalls based on raising your spiritual GPA.” One Amazon reviewer says: “You know that a book is solid when both Sean Hannity and Dr. John MacArthur recommend it.” Indeed.

One of the interesting things here is the tension between the Christian fundamentalism of the past (though, I know this study is for “religions” and not just Christianity) and the fundamentalism that has been developing for a few decades now. Traditional fundamentalism is separated from society, but with the help of Jerry Falwell and others, fundamentalism has learned to try to engage culture. To engage culture, it helps to have a quality education. To get a quality education, one must triumph over the liberal, secular propagandist professors bent on demolishing faith (because we all know that the perils of humanism are right up there with sex, drugs, and alcohol). Well, if this study is of any use, it appears that the battle is not so dire, at least not in the classroom. The article does report, however, that behavior has a part to play:

Behavioral factors, he said, are a better way than college status to predict whether young adults will become less religious. Those who don’t have sex before marriage are also those who don’t experience as much of a drop in religious connection. Those who have smoked pot experience more of a drop. Those who increase alcohol consumption during their young adulthood experience more of a drop in religious connection.

Those who blame college for declining religious activity by students don’t understand that it is these factors, among others, that are the influence, Regnerus said. “This is about this period of the life course where freedom and choice become paramount,” he said. “What diminishes religiosity is freedom and choice, not intellectual engagement.”

I suppose that bit about having premarital sex, smoking pot, and consuming alcohol may trigger the aforementioned books and articles. On the other hand, these things seem to be simply indicators, “symptoms,” if you will. A Christian who believes that consuming alcohol is sinful will not lose their faith after consuming alcohol, but if they drink, they are probably already questioning their faith and that has led them to consume alcohol (perhaps in rebellion).

Christian young adults, and I imagine this is true for other religions, need to know why something is “perilous.” Losing your faith should not be the only reason that something is perilous. Perhaps one steers clear of alcohol (either excessive drinking or drinking all together) because one has seen the effects of alcoholism in his or her family. College is the perfect opportunity to question the reasons for positions on morality, and for students to wonder whether their faith “makes sense” to them. That is scary, I suppose, for religious parents, but young adults either need to figure it out for themselves or, I think, they will toss it aside.