[asa] What causes students to move from faith?

-- 
James Mahaffy (mahaffy@dordt.edu)          Phone: 712 722-6279
498 4th Ave NE
Biology Department                                     FAX :  712
722-1198
Dordt College, Sioux Center IA 51250-1697
>>> On 9/5/2006 at 10:50 PM, in message
<45416.71.115.64.245.1157514611.squirrel@webmail.saintjoe.edu>, "Roger
G.
Olson" <rogero@saintjoe.edu> wrote:
>> Well, what are we gonna do, Merv?  Just be patient while the
rhetoric
> machines of AiG, ICR, TrueOrigins.org, et.al. grind out their screed
to
> the naive layperson?  What about the poor ignorant slob who's led to
> Christ under the false pretext of some despicable representative of a
YEC
> "ministry" who proffers YEC propaganda as "proof" of the veracity of
> Christianity?  What happens when this poor slob studies some science
and
> realizes that YEC is cobblers?  Uh oh!  There goes the faith!   Yes,
we
> should all be more tolerant of our fellow Christians.  Isn't it time
we
> *stand* for something?
> 
> Roger
Sure there are incidents of folks who "lost" their faith because they
went to the University and realized what they had been taught in their
churches had lots of holes.  However, I suspect even more had crises
because of the secularizing influence of the University.  My reading of
George Marsden (a good evangelical historian) suggests that he feels the
post Darwin science that unlike previous natural theology know felt NO
need to refer to God was one of the causes of the shift in the American
university as a place fostering established protestant belief to a place
fostering established unbelief.  We need Christians (TE or any kind) in
our Universities being public and forthright about their faith.  
Have there been any good studies on what causes US students to move
toward unbelief?  that surely sounds like a good PhD thesis. Share with
me some of the academic studies in this area if they exist.
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