Campus thriving 101

College campuses across America will be bustling with activity this fall as multitudes of students return to class. With an estimated 19 million already enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities, the National Center of Education Statistics is projecting a 14% increase in first-time freshmen enrollment by the end of the decade. For these students, new relationships, experiences, and greater independence await. However, Christian students who are committed to a biblical worldview will find their faith tested in new ways.

Patricia Engler, a speaker for the apologetics ministry Answers in Genesis (answersingenesis.org), remembers her freshman year.

“I’m being conditioned to fight against a worldview I stand for,” she wrote to her parents. “It’s like being a double agent by training as a cadet for an opposing army.”

Although her professors were friendly, their messages presented in class were steeped in the evolutionary view of the world that permeates Western education.

Opposing worldviews

Having earned a BSc in general science and a master’s degree in bioethics, Engler now draws from her own experiences to help other Christian college students thrive on campus. She traces this desire back to when she was just 14 years old, and she heard a presentation – one that made a lasting impression.

“I heard Ken Ham, the founder of Answers in Genesis, talk about the importance of Genesis for the rest of the Bible and the Christian worldview,” Engler recalled. “So, I thought, I need to learn to defend Genesis against evolution.”

That realization led her down a path to understanding the subtle deception that stems from the secular humanist worldview.

Beginning with her freshman biology class, evolution was taught as an indisputable reality that was not to be questioned.

“My textbooks were saying evolution is just as much a fact as the earth revolving around the sun,” she explained. “That’s a total confusion of two types of science that we talk about here at Answers in Genesis – observational science, which measures things we can see in the present, and historical science, which draws conclusions about the past based on things we can’t observe. You’ll see that as propaganda [that is] trying to promote evolution.”

Compromising institutions

Engler attended a secular university because the few faith-based colleges in her native country of Canada taught theistic evolution – the idea that God used evolution working through natural laws to bring about life. She stresses that incorporating evolution into one’s faith may not seem like a big deal, but it requires believing the death and suffering we see in the fossil record, interpreted as millions of years old, came before Adam’s sin.

Although Engler’s primary focus of study was science, she urges college students to be aware that viewpoints contradictory to God’s Word are taught in nearly every field of study.

“Whether that’s total redefinitions of justice, marriage, and family, you’re going to be indoctrinated with these in secular education,” she explained.

Common foundations

Engler set out on a 180-day journey to 17 countries to see firsthand how other Christian students remained strong in their faith throughout college. In her book Prepare to Thrive: A Survival Guide for Christian Students Fighting for Faith, she chronicles her own experiences as well as those of students abroad. Despite the varying levels of religious liberty and cultural nuances among these students, Engler discovered three common foundations:

1. Spiritual

2. Intellectual

3. Interpersonal

These foundations helped the students remain steadfast in their faith throughout their college experiences.

“If you’re going to survive university, you need to be prioritizing spending time with God,” Engler said. “Even five minutes of prayer a day in the morning is better than no prayer. So, start getting to know God more for yourself. And if you already know God, stay in His Word. Practice a lifestyle of prayer and worship. These are all indispensable.”

Having a strong intellectual foundation, which Engler defines as “being able to logically defend the truth of God’s Word for yourself,” was also common among the students she interviewed on her journey.

“It’s the ability to give an answer for why God’s Word is true,” she explained, “as well as [having] biblical critical thinking strategies you can use to think like an apologist in response to new messages that come up.”

This intellectual foundation also includes knowing the fallacies lurking behind unbiblical beliefs about the origins and value of human beings.

But the most consistent similarity among the international students surveyed by Engler was an interpersonal foundation.

“Having a strong Christian community support network around you is important, including a local, biblical church and older godly adult mentors who can stand with you in that journey,” she said.

Augustine Mendoza, director of spiritual life at Oral Roberts University (oru.edu), agrees.

“We’ve seen the value of in-person relationships and having community,” he explained. “This means having people to call on during a tough situation, as well as connecting with older people who are willing to invest in relationships with the younger generation.

“The students that come in with that foundation, catapult to the next level of leadership, friendships, and their career path much faster because they come in with an understanding of who they are in Christ,” Mendoza added.

That is why Engler provides a wealth of information in Prepare to Thrive – because she wants to see students stand firm on all three foundations as they navigate life at a collegiate level.

“There is a lot of supplementary material [in the book],” Engler explained, “to give you the best possible foundation for going through university, keeping a strong faith, coming out stronger, and then stepping into the calling God has for your life.”