February 16, 2012
If you were to watch any Republican debate for the 2012 election, you would be sure to witness discussion on a number of topics including foreign policy, healthcare and education. However, there is an inevitable point almost every debate where the conversation turns to a controversial and crucial factor in the Republican primaries: religion.
The dialogue often centers on Newt Gingrich’s infidelity or opinions of abortion, but at a campaign speech on Jan. 25, Rick Santorum chose to tackle what he thought of as a problem in the American university system, saying that if professors “taught Judeo-Christian principles in those colleges and universities, they would be stripped of every dollar. If they teach radical secular ideology, they get all the government support that they can possibly give them. Because you know 62 percent of children who enter college with a faith conviction leave without it.”
Santorum cites an important statistic which, in the context of his speech, makes it seem like going to college strips students of their faiths—whether it is because of biased education or lack of religious structure in universities.
A study done in 2007, however, showed that people are more likely to lose their faith when not attending college. For the purpose of my argument, though, I will assume that Santorum’s statistic is, in fact, indicative of a fundamental change in belief structures of Americans who attend college. This then raises a critical question embedded within Santorum’s statement. Why is losing faith necessarily a bad thing?
One may argue that faith, along with many other benefits, instills a sense of moral values outlined in the Bible, partially enforcing this sense with a hope to ascend to paradise and a fear of descending into, well, someplace else. This isn’t the argument that Republicans present, though. Rather, Gingrich claims that those who spread secularism are “determined to propagandize our children with values and ideas alien to the American tradition and alien to American civilization.”
Conservatives link the loss of faith with a march further away from the values of our founding fathers. But isn’t our country already so far off the track from what the writers of the Constitution envisioned? After all, George Washington famously warned against the power of political parties and narrow schools of thought, a warning clearly not heeded by Santorum or Gingrich. Almost every aspect of American society exhibits a fundamental change from what was envisioned in the late 18th century, so why is it that a change in faith is the problem which undermines our country? Maybe it’s our move towards a much more hands-on government, changes in economic structure or possibly even our newfound obsession with fast-food (why not?). Certainly, it could be any number of ideas that have changed our nation, and I argue that even though a loss of faith has occurred, it isn’t responsible for any of our country’s myriad problems.
To spin Santorum’s criticism the other way, our country’s loss of faith is a credit to an unyielding curiosity which fuels us to find answers to questions that we didn’t have answers to back in 1776. Santorum urges the country to stop funding the biggest thinktanks and arenas of experimentation, our own colleges. Why, as Americans, and especially as college students, should we merely conform to preset tenets? Universities exist as a representation of our desire to learn and challenge pre-existing thoughts and beliefs, a desire that I find to be completely necessary to the advancement of our country and the human race.
Imagine the astounding number of theses that will be written this year by seniors. Each student is challenging an existing belief or suggesting a completely new one. Some of these ideas get tossed aside, others get published in scholarly journals and even fewer will become part of mainstream human thought and understanding.
Now, do these new ideas decrease faith? I certainly don’t think that’s the main goal of a Senior Thesis, but further examination of the way the world works often does discount ideas in the Bible. The loss of faith experienced by college students might just be an employment of the scientific method which allows us to raise questions, build hypotheses and, eventually, come to conclusions.
Ultimately, contrary to Santorum’s beliefs, colleges often don’t teach against faith but rather teach in favor of streamlined rational curiosity which— although it may have killed the cat—it won’t kill America.