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Young men and women are being enticed to think of themselves as two selves, one that is mind and reason in the classroom and another self, active "after hours," that is all body and passion. They begin to imagine—though few entirely believe it—that they can use (that is, abuse) their bodies as they please for pleasure, and that choosing to do so has nothing to do with their academic studies or future lives. In reality, they are following a formula for self-disintegration and failure.

This is the grisly underbelly of the modern American college; the deep, dark, hidden secret that many parents suspect is there but would rather not face. The long-term damage to our children is difficult to measure. But it is too obvious to deny. I remember once hearing that the British lost the empire when they started sending their children away to boarding schools. I do not know whether anyone has ever seriously proposed that thesis. I am prepared, however, to ask whether America might not be lost because the great middle class was persuaded that they must send their children to college with no questions asked, when in fact this was the near-equivalent of committing their sons and daughters to one of the circles of Dante's Inferno.

I have lived long enough to understand and be thankful for the fact that the sins and indiscretions of youth may be forgiven and overcome. Nevertheless, the behavior of our American colleges and universities is inexcusable. Their mendacity is doing great harm to our children, whom we entrust to them with so much love, pride, and hope for the future.

Vigen Guroian is professor of theology at Loyola College in Baltimore. He is author of Rallying the Really Human Things: The Moral Imagination in Politics, Literature, and Everyday Life (ISI Books, 2005).

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

More about Vigen Guroian, including his biography, publications, and contact information, are available from his website.

Guroian's other books, including Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination and Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening are available from Christianbook.com and other book retailers.

Other Christianity Today articles on Sexuality & Gender include:

SPEAKING OUT
We're Still Supporting Slavery | New efforts to stop U.S. troops from visiting prostitutes abroad are a good step, but let's not whitewash what's happening. (Sept. 28, 2004)

Let's Talk Sex | What Christian books on the topic are, and are not, communicating. (May 28, 2004)

Hugh Hefner's Hollow Victory | How the Playboys magnate won the culture war, lost his soul, and left us with a mess to clean up. (Nov. 21, 2003)

Holy Sex | How it ravishes our souls. (Sept. 30, 2003)

The Truth About Sex | Even Christians get seduced by the sexual lies our culture proclaims. (Nov. 13, 2001)

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February 2005, Vol. 49, No. 2