“Help! My College Student Is Questioning His Faith!”

“What Happened to My Child?”

So your son or daughter has been away at college this semester and is now home for the first extended break. While recovering from the rigors of finals week and over some delightful home-cooked meals, your conversations indicate that he or she has adopted some ideas and even behaviors that trouble you.

Perhaps your beloved child has made statements or presented questions such as these:

• “The Bible is just like other religious writings made up by men. It’s just a bunch of stories that have no connection to the real world.”
• “How do we even know what the original Bible was? It has been copied and translated so many times.”
• “I didn’t realize how damaging the church has been throughout history. It’s oppressive and is full of hypocrites that are intolerant, judgmental, and condemning.”
• “How can the Bible’s story of creation be true if science says that the earth is millions of years old?”
• “How can a loving God allow such tragedy, suffering, and death?”
• “Some people are just transgender: their assigned gender is different from their experienced gender.”
• “Sexuality is more complicated than the old view of masculinity or femininity, and marriage is more than just between one man and one woman. Love is love, no matter who’s involved.”
• “Abortion is health care.”
• “So many Christians have different interpretations of the Bible, it’s impossible even to know what it means.”
• “It’s arrogant to say that Jesus is the only way to God.”

Wow. Maybe you had some idea of your child’s fledgling questions and concerns throughout the semester, but now these issues seem to have matured into affirmations and denials such that you might wonder, “What happened to my child? What am I to do? How do we go forward from here?”

Avoid Making Matters Worse

Hopefully it goes without saying that you should commit to consistent prayer for your college student. As John Bunyan reportedly said, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.”1

Hopefully it goes without saying that you should commit to consistent prayer for your college student.

As you reflect on your child’s thoughts, beware of several potential responses that could make matters worse. One negative response would be to take your child’s questions and claims as a personal attack. Avoid becoming defensive when encountering ideas different than what you have held to and even taught your child to believe. Keep your emotions in check as you converse with your child and keep the focus on the truth of the matter rather than how either of you feel about it. Be willing to evaluate your beliefs and practices to make sure they are as biblical as they should be.

Also, beware of appealing to your authority as the parent and forcing submission to your point of view. Compelling your child to conform to your perspective just because you are the parent fails to honor the (hopefully) sincere questions and concerns he or she has, and it fails to honor the authority and sufficiency of God’s Word to speak to these issues. You want your child to think critically about these and other matters and come to reasoned conclusions as an individual who will stand before God to give an answer for his or her beliefs and behaviors.

While you will likely be confused, agitated, and even angry about the changes you see in your child, be careful to speak and act with compassion and kindness. Remember the scriptural admonition, “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19–20). Avoid judging your child’s motives or jumping to conclusions about where this line of thinking might lead. Avoid assigning labels that would dismiss his or her viewpoint as reckless or ridiculous.

Strive to keep communication open, loving, and productive. Your child should feel welcome to share thoughts with you without fear of retribution or estrangement rather than feeling that he or she needs to hide these things from you. It would be premature of you to cut off conversation on this topic or other topics. Too many families have been torn apart by either blowing up or shutting up in response to upsetting circumstances. It is better for your child to ask questions than to have questions he or she feels unable to ask. As far as it depends upon you, discuss these things with care, precision, and clarity so that the truth of God’s Word would be honored.

Questions and Answers

Some schools—even Christian schools—intentionally create a crisis of faith for their incoming students. They seek to challenge the beliefs of these young people by introducing or encouraging questions in their minds. Now, this is not necessarily evil. As author Patricia Engler states, “Faith crises don’t begin when we start asking questions; they begin when we stop seeking answers.”2 Asking questions can lead to the truth for those who seek truth, but asking questions can also lead away from the truth for those who cannot find or will not accept answers to their questions. Pray that your child would not become a scoffer, mocker, or scorner who is not interested in the truth.

Time during the school break can be full and pass quickly, so make sure to prioritize unhurried and unharried conversation. Answer your child’s claims and questions gently, patiently, and thoughtfully. Serious-minded students should have questions, and you have likely answered hundreds if not thousands of questions in your child’s life to this point. You have an opportunity to continue to be someone your child trusts and feels safe talking with about these matters.

As you converse with your child, use open-ended, probing questions to better understand what your child is claiming:

• “What do you mean by that?” Pay attention to the language your child uses. Do not assume that you are using terms the same way. Ask for definitions and examples of what he or she is talking about. Humbly point out inadequate and false statements, and use basic logic to point out errors.
• “How do you know that to be true?” Investigate the basis for your child’s reasoning. Certainly, schooling should stimulate curiosity and sharpen discernment. But recognize that the battle of worldviews ultimately comes down to God’s Word against man’s word. Help your child to seriously evaluate beliefs, arguments, and claims according to the Bible.
• “Who is saying these things? Where is this coming from?” Evaluate the authoritative voices influencing your child: professors, students, friends, influencers on social media, or church leaders. Everyone has biases and presuppositions behind our arguments, so help your child consider what influences these voices. Even kind and smart people can be wrong, and not all viewpoints have equal standing in the pursuit of truth for God’s glory.
• “What does God say about this?” Lead your child to God’s sufficient and authoritative revelation and evaluate all ideas according to the Word of God. Use biblical terminology as much as possible. For example, abortion is not health care, it is the murder of an unborn child whom God knows (Psalm 139:16); one’s sex is not a social construct but is a biological trait (God made male and female in Genesis 1:27). If you don’t have a biblical answer ready at hand, go and study . . . together! Show that you also want to grow in your understanding of and obedience to the Word of God. Remember that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Proverbs 9:10).

Case in Point: The Age of the Earth

Does your child think the earth is millions of years old? Unsurprisingly, this belief patently demonstrates the conflict between questioning God’s Word and affirming man’s word. This battle of worldviews has far-reaching implications.3 A simple, straightforward, literal reading of the historical record of Genesis 1–11 would lead one to believe significant truths such as these:

• God directly and supernaturally created everything in heaven and earth.
• The days of the creation week are seven consecutive 24-hour days.
• God created distinct kinds of animals immediately, not through natural processes over long ages of time.
• Mankind consists of male and female individuals created in the image of God—Adam from dust and Eve from Adam’s rib.
• Marriage follows both God’s design of male and female and his decree that the two shall become one flesh.
• Suffering and death entered the world for humans and animals because of Adam’s sin.
• The entire earth experienced a catastrophic flood, during which God saved eight humans and many animals, all of whom would repopulate the earth.
• The detailed genealogies indicate that creation occurred approximately 2,000 years before Abraham, not millions of years before humans first appeared.
• The confusion of languages at the tower of Babel led to the many tribes, tongues, peoples, and nations we see today, though all people are one race: the human race.

(For a more detailed catalog of teaching from Genesis 1–11, see “Origins and History” in the Statement of Faith.)

What’s Behind This?

To be sure, you’ll want to discuss your child’s ideas, but you should also consider what might be behind them. Remember the proverb that says, “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out” (Proverbs 20:5). Sometimes the issues we present do not relate to the real issues we are facing. So strive to get to the heart of the matter rather than just the fringe issues, as disconcerting as those might be. You want to help your child deal honestly with these deeper matters and grow in maturity.

You want to help your child deal honestly with these deeper matters and grow in maturity.

Perhaps your child is encountering issues and ideas he or she has not considered adequately before. It’s appropriate—especially in educational settings—to consider new ideas, but it is also prudent to recognize that not all ideas have equal worth and validity. Scholarship does not require the abandonment of faith. Help your child put these things into proper perspective and examine them in the light of Scripture.4

Maybe your child wants to feel accepted in the new school situation and does not want to stand for the standards of his or her childhood. The choice of friends has a direct bearing on thinking and behavior, as the Scripture warns, “Bad company ruins good morals” (1 Corinthians 15:33). But the fear of man is likely more potent in the classroom where your child fears academic retribution when disagreeing with the instructor’s perspective. Help your child understand this: “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe” (Proverbs 29:25). Encourage him or her to be willing to stand out from the crowd and even to stand alone for Christ despite mischaracterization, misunderstanding, or maltreatment.

It could be that your child has halted personal Bible reading and prayer—hopefully not by intention but possibly by neglect with all the pressures of college life. He or she might be neglecting to participate in a sound local church near campus. While these spiritual practices might seem unimportant in the grand scheme of a busy college semester, they are fundamental to the spiritual stability and growth of Christians in all circumstances—especially college.5 Encourage your child to devote a portion of each day to reading the Bible and praying and to fellowship with a local church as much as possible for sound teaching, support, and mentorship.

Conclusion

Put your hope in God and trust him to work through his transforming Word.

Be sure to express and show love for your child as a precious soul whom God has entrusted to you for “the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Put your hope in God and trust him to work through his transforming Word. Lead him or her to the majesty of God as revealed in his authoritative Word and the gospel of Jesus Christ. All the intense controversies of life lie pallidly before him as we consider our daily need for a Savior. May our gracious heavenly Father help you and your child to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).