“My friend’s daughter went off to college, and now she’s a totally different person. It’s so sad.”

How many times have you heard this story?

I used to wonder how simply going to college could effect such a sudden and drastic worldview shift. I mean, going to a school couldn’t possibly change such a large thing as a worldview, especially one that has been held since childhood, right?

This year I started attending a local private Christian college, and it’s become very apparent that such a worldview shift is possible, especially if you attend a “Christian” college that is not biblically solid.

Attending college immerses you wholly in the worldview of whatever institution you attend. Its worldview permeates everything—your homework assignments, class periods, chapel sessions, fellow students, and professors. Classes and homework take up most of your thoughts, and a plethora of offered events clamor to take up the rest.

You aren’t just being taught information; everything has a worldview packaged with it.

Someone had to choose the curriculum, after all, and “unbiased” tends to be code for “secular.” With everything going on, there’s hardly time to lock down what you’re taught, much less spend time sifting through it to determine whether it’s biblical. Plus, the lack of sleep that college students notoriously suffer from adds to all of this by dulling mental processes.

There is an especially unique danger when it comes to Christian colleges because it doesn’t present itself as obviously as at a secular college. While secular schools teach the unbiblical ideology of our day outright, Christian colleges tend to more subtly incorporate these messages under the guise of “inclusivity” or religious language.

Sometimes it isn’t even on purpose. They just don’t know the Bible firmly and want the world to see them as kind.

There’s a truth crisis in our culture, and it has bled into Christian education.

When a student chooses to go to a Christian college, it’s with a mindset that says,

“Okay. It’s a Christian school. I can go here, and I’ll be taught in accordance with biblical teachings.”

Students go in with their defenses down because they’re expecting it to be a Christian institution. But too often it’s not, and the mantras of modern society march through their downed defenses. Many Christian institutions have major cracks in their foundations and they’re being filled with the sand of worldly dogma.

If it’s been said once, it’s been said a million times. It’s so important to be discerning about what you’re learning and to keep watch so that you don’t succumb to the constant false messages of the world. Hebrews 2:1 (referring to the gospel) says,

“Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (ESV).

If we don’t keep a close watch, firmly anchored by the gospel, it’s very easy to become “carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14).

Staying firm requires hard work and a willingness to be uncomfortable, take the heat, and be considered unpopular. It requires intentional reading of the Bible every day, studying, praying, and finding a group of fellow believers to discuss things with.

We don’t live in a unique time, but it’s different than anything we’ve known before. It will feel strange to be on the “counter-cultural” side.

But the secular worldview is fundamentally incompatible with the worldview of the Bible, and will consistently try to take over because of the spiritual battle in our culture.

Getting a college education is a privilege and an honor.

But recognize that it’s being used in the fight for the soul of our nation.