Religion safe at secular universities

A study appearing this month in the journal Social Forces reports that the widely held belief that religious students abandon their faith at a altar of secular colleges is flat wrong.

It’s not that colleges necessarily encourage faith, said (Mark D. Regnerus, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas and an authors of the study), 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.

Last month, the International Herald Tribune surveyed scholars, academic administrators and students and found that not only were students not losing their faith, but they were pursuing it more fervently than any other time in recent history.

(Hat-tip: Bible Belt Blogger)