The Real Agenda of Some College Professors

The Christian Post ^ | August 20, 2010 | R. Albert Monler, Jr.

[wmfights]

For Christian parents and students, this should be a matter of deep concern and active awareness. The secularization of most educational institutions is an accomplished fact. Indeed, many college and university campuses are deeply antagonistic to Christian truth claims and the beliefs held by millions of students and their families. Furthermore, the leftist bent of most faculty is well-documented, especially in elite institutions and within the liberal arts faculties. On many campuses, a significant number of faculty members are representatives of what has been called the “adversary culture.” They see their role as political and ideological, and they define their teaching role in these terms. Their agenda is nothing less than to separate students from their Christian beliefs and their intellectual and moral commitments.

A good many of these professors deny this agenda, but from time to time the mask is removed. Writing at the “University Diaries” column at the site InsideHigherEd.com, a professor of English revealed this agenda with amazing candor. Responding to an argument about the power of intellectual elites, this professor dropped any effort to hide the real agenda:

“We need to encourage everyone to be in college for as many years as they possibly can,” this professor wrote, “in the hope that somewhere along the line they might get some exposure to the world outside their town, and to moral ideas not exclusively derived from their parents’ religion. If they don’t get this in college, they’re not going to get it anywhere else.”

This professor minces no words. The college experience, the argument goes, is the best (and perhaps last) opportunity for someone to break students’ commitments to the moral convictions “derived from their parents’ religion.”

[wmfights]

Yeah, but most of these kids, even if they do stray for a bit, go back to the values taught to them by their parents. A 20 year old student usually thinks they have all the answers, but when they enter the real world and start raising kids of their own, they realize Mom and Dad were right all along.

70% of single white women voted for obama. We see a strong push for treating homosexuality as normal and healthy with very little disagreement among the 20 somethings and the 30 somethings. We are seeing each generation that turns over more accepting of the idea of the govt assuming the role of provider and guarantor of a good life.

I think there are a lot of kids that ultimately see Mom and Dad had it right, but each generation is seeing fewer.

[newheart]

Atheists and agnostics of conscience follow the TC rules and I am convinced they are thankful for them.

They may have a conscience, but the moral law they follow is to do whatever seems right to themselves. It is the curse of the Fall.

[mjp]

Their agenda is nothing less than to separate students from their Christian beliefs and their intellectual and moral commitments.

Richard Rorty outlined the Postmodernist battle-plan in the struggle for students' allegiance: "The fundamentalist parents [i.e., Christian parents] of our fundamentalist students[i.e., Christian students] think that the entire 'American liberal establishment' is engaged in a conspiracy. These parents have a point. When we American college teachers encounter religious fundamentalists, we do not consider the possibility of reformulating our own practices of justification so as to give more weight to the authority of the Christian scriptures. Instead, we do our best to convince these students of the benefits of [humanistic] secularization. Rather, I think these students are lucky to find themselves under the benevolent herrschaft [teaching] of people like me, and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents"

[GladesGuru]

“At what point do parents start telling their children you need the diploma, or degree but you don’t need to believe or respect the teacher?”

That moment comes when first the child questions the teacher and has a valid question. The one person responsible for the child’s education is, was, and always will be the child. Parents and teachers, even the libraries and Internet are all resources.

If the child has been properly introduced to the core beliefs of America by the parents, and if the parents teach the child to go to the actual resource rather than blindly accept “authority”, that child will be able to actualize its potential despite socialism impaired teachers.

[wmfights]

Richard Rorty... Rather, I think these students are lucky to find themselves under the benevolent herrschaft [teaching] of people like me, and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents"

Pretty scary stuff and they obviously believe it. It's that liberal hubris that can't accept there is something bigger than them in the world.

I'm convinced Christian parents have to start with their children very early on explaining that you must be civil in the classroom, but you do not have to respect or believe the teacher.

[wmfights]

That moment comes when first the child questions the teacher and has a valid question.

I'm with you!

That moment came in jr high for my oldest and in high school for my youngest. Parents have to make sure their kids know they "have their backs" as long as it's not behavior, but reasonable intellectual questioning.

[WorldviewDad]

This has been the plan all along...but few paid attention.

“Destroy the family and society will collapse” Vladimer Lenin

“Give me your four year olds, and in a generation I will build a socialist state.” Vladimer Lenin

“Education is thus a most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?” Charles Francis Potter from “Humanism A New Religion” published in 1930...also signed the “Humanist Manifesto 1”

“Two ideas are here in conflict - on the one hand, man organizing and directing his own life, on the other, professing to believe that a deity orders it for him. Between the two there can be no reconciliation, and religion will eventually have to give way to the facts.” John H. Dietrich, D.D. from “Humanism” published in 1933...also signed “Humanist Manifest 1”

“Religious humanism maintains that all associations and institutions exist for the fulfillment of human life. The intelligent evaluation, transformation, CONTROL, and direction of such associations and institutions with a view to the enhancement of human life is the purpose and program of humanism.” Humanist Manifesto 1 (1933)

“The conditions of work, education, devotion, and play should be humanized. Alienating forces should be modified of ERADICATED...” Humanist Manifesto 2 (1973)

The warnings have been there for 70 years plus...even Scripture gives us a warning.

Psalms 1:1-2 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

So as a culture what have we done? We don't listen to the Scriptures and send our kids to the public schools to sit in the seat of the mockers and then so that our child can “get a good job” we send them off to college to walk in the counsel of the wicked. And we wonder why the country is going through the problems we are???

[WorldviewDad]

I would only disagree with the child being responsible...the parent is the responsible party.

Proverbs 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

[sodpoodle]

**They may have a conscience, but the moral law they follow is to do whatever seems right to themselves.**

Not my experience. Many agnostics/atheists I know had religious parents/traditions but did not attend services regularly. IMHO public education and peers successfully inserted questions of faith and confusion in their minds. Nevertheless, decent people do not discard morals while they are seeking answers to greater questions of faith and theism. To suggest they do is self-righteous - and sinful.

[x_plus_one]

There are non-liberal educators in RC schools but we have to watch out for the social justice wing-nuts. They are in every denomination but have an especially strong hold on Catholicism in the US.

Social justice catholics aren't much different from liberation theology south american communistas.

Aiding and abetting illegal immigration in the name of social justice is a propaganda ploy used by those who would carve out the southwest and give it to Mexico for the sole purpose of expanding the geographic and political reach of the north american catholic bureaucracy.

It's hard to find good schools that aren't propaganda and affirmative action diploma mills.

[wmfights]

There are non-liberal educators in RC schools but we have to watch out for the social justice wing-nuts.

My only point was we find this problem everywhere. I'm Baptist, but sent my kids to a RC high School to avoid the liberals and still ran into it.

It's hard to find good schools that aren't propaganda and affirmative action diploma mills.

I think the culture in education makes it close to impossible to find solid conservative schools. I completely agree with your assessment.

FWIW, I'm telling friends with younger children that they really have to think about how they look at teachers. They are not the ally working with you to help your children become happy, healthy, productive adults. The problem we have is they need the diploma and degree to get ahead in this world.

[newheart]

Nevertheless, decent people do not discard morals while they are seeking answers to greater questions of faith and theism. To suggest they do is self-righteous - and sinful.

I will overlook the provocative challenge of self-righteousness and sinfulness. To both charges I plead guilty.

But I wonder what might be the definition of a "decent" person. From what I know, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So decency, apart from God, tends to be a general acceptance of cultural norms because it seems reasonable.

But cultural norms can change at the drop of a hat. If the individual does not change their values when the culture changes it is either because those values are timeless, received from God and accepted by faith, or they remain convinced of their own subjective capacity for determining good an evil. It was that belief in ones own capacity for determining good and evil that led to the Fall in the first place.

I am not saying that there is no role for reason in seeking understanding of good and evil. I welcome the atheist/agnostic to enter into the discussion. But in the end, we either have morality stamped in our hearts by our Creator or we have a philosophical system to which we give intellectual assent. Sadly, the latter, a stance to which we all fall prey at times, is insufficient, because it still reduces to "whatever seems right to me." That, my friend, is the purest definition of "self"-righteousness.

[Cacique]

It’s not so much religion in itself rather one religion is being replaced by another. Secularism is after all, a form of religion. The same holds true for the Roman empire, it fell victim to the gnawing invasion of Christianity. Not all religion needs a God or an after life. If we view religion as a belief system then secular communism is one as well. It’s adherents need to validate their beliefs, the only way to do that as the muslims learned long ago, is that when you can’t convert them, you kill them. Stalin and Mao tried as did Caligula and Nero before them. It’s amazing tat even with all their control of all the levers this is still basically a conservative country. In the end it will be bullets that will determine who the winner is.

[KansasGirl]

That may be the result of the parents failing to instill strong, conservative values in their children in the first place not any influence their professor's may have had. I remember coming home from college, a little know it all full of the liberal ideas taught to me by liberal professors. My Dad always listened to Rush Limbaugh on the radio whenever we were driving somewhere. Every now in then I would pipe in on one topic or another in disagreement with Rush. My Dad never told me I was wrong. He wouldn't even disagree with me. He would just ask me a question that I couldn't answer logically. I would be left stammering and pondering my position, but always left to my own conclusions. My parents always taught me how to think, not necessarily what to think, just to think. Also as a child, we didn't go to the beach on vacation or Disneyland or skiing. We went to historical sites. We went to civil war battle fields, Thomas Jefferson's home, Davy Crockett's birth place, Daniel Boone's home, the Alamo, Lincoln's birth place, the Lincoln Memorial, the capital etc. etc. We were always taught to love history and learning. They raised 4 strong conservatives. We all went to public schools. My sister and I to public college. My sister even graduated with a BA in education and MA in childhood counseling. Is she liberal? Nope, almost just as conservative as I am. She is the one who pointed me towards FR.

[Campion]

I'm much less worried about what students are told by professors in classrooms than I am about the rampant sexual promiscuity that seems to prevail at a lot of college campuses.

Kids learn early that not everything an adult tells them is true, and that not every adult is trustworthy. And most of the arguments the Left makes on any topic can be dispatched easily enough.

But destroying their ability to relate to the opposite sex in a Godly manner, rather than as an object to be used for one's own gratification (or as user of others in that way), can do permanent damage.

[wmfights]

I'm much less worried about what students are told by professors in classrooms than I am about the rampant sexual promiscuity that seems to prevail at a lot of college campuses.

I think the two are connected. For example, universities have made homosexuality a protected class and any that voice opposition to it are punished. Homosexuals publicly "hooking up" is not uncommon. Also, coed dorms are now common place.

But destroying their ability to relate to the opposite sex in a Godly manner, rather than as an object to be used for one's own gratification (or as user of others in that way), can do permanent damage.

I agree about the permanent damage not only to the individuals, but to society as well.

[RobbyS]

The Church has been divided since Vatican II. Formerly a liberal icon, Jacques Maritain warned about the “reformers” who had taken control of the council, who he said “were geneflecting to the world. “ The present pope was at first among the reformers, but he soon saw that liberals had seized the moment and were attempting a modernist revolution in the Church, and he turned against the movement. John Paul II greatly slowed its momentum , and doing so made him greatly hated by liberals. But they had many friends in the Church: there are high prelates, including a man who had a chance to succeed John Paul II, whose views are quite like those of the liberal Hans Kueng. The present pope is widely hated because he is their enemy, and though he is by nature, meek and mind-mannered, and not the showman his predecessor was, seems determined to clean house during the time God gives him here on
earth. .May he have health and long life, please God.

[sodpoodle]

Cast not the first stone!!!~

[WorldviewDad]

Where was the stone???

Or were you trying to say that we are not to discern good from evil???

Hebrews 5:13-14 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Based on this Scripture we are to discern (distinguish) good from evil. Even in the portion of Scripture you are referencing...John 8:1-11...there is discernment of good verses evil. The point was that God is the only one who is not guilty of sin and as such is the only one in the position to condemn the lady...to stone her...and He also had the right to forgive her. He did forgive her but then finished by saying “Go now and leave your life of sin.” So the original discernment that she had sinned was correct.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Romans 6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.

So what is sin? We have all done it...so let's study His Word so we can discern good from evil.

[sodpoodle]

Not a theologan, not a perfect Christian - but I am sure of one thing. I would rather have ten good agnostic Americans in uniform than one devout Muslim at Fort Hood.