John Fea, professor of American history at Messiah College, believes there’s a widening rift in the Christian college landscape between evangelical colleges open to political and, in some cases, theological diversity and those that embrace a uniformly conservative identity.
“You see really conservative evangelicals who would have supported Trump, who questioned vaccine and mask mandates, who are worried about critical race theory, gravitating toward your Liberties, Hillsdales and Cedarvilles in some respect. I think it’s going to create a split.”
It’s not surprising that politics have become a factor in some Christians’ college calculations, given their growing influence on social interactions. An August NBC survey of over 1,000 rising college sophomores found that 62% of Democrats (and 28% of Republicans) said they would not room with someone who supported the opposite 2020 presidential candidate. More than half of all students said they either definitely or probably would not go on a date with a person who supported the opposing candidate.
Political issues can also earn Christian colleges national media attention. Just this last year, Seattle Pacific University, Calvin University and Samford University made headlines for internal clashes over LGBTQ rights, while Grove City and Cornerstone University drew attention for their approach to race and racism.
At Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington, students staged sit-ins outside the president’s office this spring in response to a board vote that upheld the school’s hiring policy requiring employees to “reflect a traditional view on Biblical marriage and sexuality.”
“We have lost a number of students over that,” Michelle McFarland, director of enrollment services at Seattle Pacific, told RNS. “There are lots of welcoming spaces here for students, but it was the representation of faculty and staff where they were hoping to see the lived experience of being gay and being a follower of Jesus.”
McFarland added that this year, prospective students and their families were more likely to ask about the school’s policies around LGBTQ rights.
According to Brianna Deters, a freshman nursing major at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, politics are sometimes one of the first things students consider.
“It’s definitely a factor you look at in the college-decision process. You see it’s a Christian college, and then immediately ask, what kind of Christian college is it?” said Deters.
Though she’s only been at Calvin a short while, she said she already appreciates how Calvin engages with “hot topics” from both sides in chapels and other events.
Some scholars argue that while political divisions feel new, older iterations have always embellished the Christian college landscape — rifts over evolution and biblical inerrancy, for example, rather than over vaccines or critical race theory.
Moreover, admissions counselors from most of the seven Christian colleges RNS connected with for this story maintained that affordability remains prospective students’ top priority, not politics. And while some admissions representatives said they’d seen an increase in political questions from prospective students, others, like Mary Herridge at Baylor University, said politics still don’t seem to be a major factor.
