Ignorance - n. the condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed. (American Heritage Dictionary 2009) Origin: 1175-1225; Middle English from Latin ignorantia; derived from the word ignore.Lately I’ve been thinking about the exodus of young people from the Christian church in America after they leave home and go on to college or work. A Barna Group survey from September 2006 said that 61% of twentysomethings had left and not returned to church life.
There are probably a number of reasons for this exodus. The one I’d like to focus on is the one I think may be most prevalent. When young people leave their parents’ home, either due to college or employment opportunities, many for the first time are presented with the freedom to think for themselves.
When these young persons go away to college, they may be introduced to academia that is quite different from their high school experiences. The majority of students attend high schools which are public and therefore restricted by separation of church and state law. High school teachers are not allowed to proselytize their students regarding spiritual matters. Parents or the local church are mainly the ones who take this instructional opportunity in a child/student’s life.
At college, living away from home, the young person has the opportunity to test their beliefs, doctrines, whatever it is that they’ve known and followed previously in regard to spirituality. Many of the parents I’ve known through the years would think this unfortunate. “Those university professors are brainwashing our children.” (I used to think this way but don't any longer.) The years of input from the parents moves into testing time. Testing that could not have been run while their son or daughter was living at home under their tutelage.
What is it that these youth encounter? They are introduced to points of view that not only differ from theirs, but views they may never have even heard of before. I think the one thing they face which challenges their beliefs more than anything else is scientific evolution and its acceptance by not just faculty but by other students as well.
Due to my evangelical Christian background, I’ve never taken time to study evolution in depth. I did not include evolution in my home school curriculum until now. I assume that the church we were part of when my children were in high school didn’t teach the subject either. If it was talked about, it was probably labeled as untrue and anti-creation and “we don’t agree with it“.
A person can’t really blame them though. Once you open the can of “evolution” worms, it’s hard to put them back in. Actually if you look at it with reason and science, it may be impossible to put them back. What the newly graduated high school student faces is science and many intelligent people who have done their homework.
Most parents don’t react well when they realize their child’s views are changing. I personally saw this in several of my children but had no resolution for them. Knowing little about evolution, I was at a loss to intelligently converse with them about it. A religious person might say, “But the Bible says ______.” This wasn't good enough for me. I wanted understanding. Without an understanding of the scientific discoveries that had been made in the past 100 years or so, I knew I had an internal conflict that needed to be resolved.
What to do? I’ve begun to study evolution and scientific discovery. I want to understand why churches and those who stand for creation are so opposed to evolution and the teaching of it. The word “theory” doesn’t necessarily mean that facts are not known and have not been proven. Music theory and Einstein’s relativity theory are proven and accepted today.
So… after a couple of weeks, the worms are all over the place. And it's okay. It’s rather amazing actually.
