The ongoing scandal at Penn State has changed the conversation on that campus. People are no longer afraid to talk about God, or about morality.
They are asking questions like:
- Who decides what is right and wrong?
- If some things (like child abuse) are definitely wrong, does that mean that there is an absolute standard of morality—despite what many professors and others say?
As usual, when difficult questions like these arise on college campuses, students turn to those they esteem as the local “resident experts” for help: professors. But what happens when professors’ own moral compasses are faulty? And that is happening across academia:
- An art professor at Michigan State exhibits photographs that display him with former students and colleagues (in various stages of undress) enacting sexually charged scenes. His university is defending him. (1)
- Another child abuse scandal is now brewing in Syracuse University’s basketball program. (2)
- At Western Nevada College, a professor for a Human Sexuality class assigns students to journal about their sex lives and then write a term paper that divulges personal details— including any past sexual abuse—of their lives and sexual histories. (3)
Our universities hardly have a monopoly on moral corruption, yet stories such as these show us the poignant, pressing need for Christian professors to bring the transforming hope of Jesus Christ to their colleagues and students.
