Helping young adults thrive at college and beyond
Ed Stetzer offers an insightful break down of the latest Pew Religious Landscape Report (summarized here). The short version is this: Nominal Christianity is on the decline (with the majority of those raised in Mainline denominations defecting to an “unaffiliated” status), but within the larger category of “Christian,” there is a shift towards evangelical faith.
Here are a few nuggets:
Mark Bauerlein is a professor at Emory University and the author of an outstanding book entitled The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30 (see commentary here). In a recent NYT article, Bauerlein laments wants happened to the role of the professor when students are more instead in a credential than an education (and more anxious about grading than eager for learning):
When college is more about career than ideas, when paycheck matters more than wisdom, the role of professors changes. We may be 50-year-olds at the front of the room with decades of reading, writing, travel, archives, or labs under our belts, with 80 courses taught, but students don’t lie in bed mulling over what we said. They have no urge to become disciples.
Sadly, professors pressed for research time don’t want them, either. As a result, most undergraduates never know that stage of development when a learned mind enthralled them and they progressed toward a fuller identity through admiration of and struggle with a role model.
Read the whole thing. Dr. Bauerlein was kind enough to endorse my latest book, Preparing Your Teens for College.
Did you miss the two and a half hours of oral arguments on same-sex marriage at the Supreme Court last week? James Phillips, visiting assistant professor of law at Brigham Young University, does a great job correcting six mistakes that were made (in some cases by the Supreme Court Justices themselves).
Error Number One: Massachusetts Marriage Rates Have Stayed the Same
Error Number Two: Because Some Men Leave Their Wives and Children, Marriage Does Not Help Keep Fathers Around
Error Number Three: The Purpose of States’ Recognizing and Regulating Marriage is to Bestow Dignity on Couples
Error Number Four: The Only Harm to Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage Is Making Marriage More Adult-Centered
Error Number Five: There Is a Parallel between Brown/Loving andLawrence/Obergefell
Error Number Six: Age Restrictions on Marriage Are Equivalent to the Definitional Element of One Man and One Woman
Phillips piece is clear, compelling, and highly accessible (no legal mumbo-jumbo). Give it a read.
R.C. Sproul:
According to a new report from Sallie Mae, the student lender, there’s been a 25 percent year-over-year decline in the amount of money parents are setting aside for future college expenses ($10,040 from $13,408). And 60 percent of parents lack confidence that they’ll be able to pay for the future price of college.
HT: Inside Higher Ed
J.C. Ryle:
Youth is the seed-time of full age, the molding season in the little space of human life, the turning-point in the history of man’s mind.
By the shoot we judge of the tree, by the blossoms we judge of the fruit, by the spring we judge of the harvest, by the morning we judge of the day, and by the character of the young man, we may generally judge what he will be when he grows up.
-J.C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men (available for $0.99 on Kindle)