Join host Angie Austin as she engages with Dr. Gary Lovejoy, a seasoned counselor and author of ‘Students in the Lion’s Den’. In this compelling conversation, they explore the challenges that Christian students face when transitioning to secular universities. Dr. Lovejoy shares his extensive experience dealing with students who have been antagonized for their faith, and provides insights into how they can stand firm in their beliefs.
00:03:11 Challenges Christian Students Face in Secular Universities
00:07:55 Students Fighting Back and Support Systems
00:14:56 Continuation of Discussion on Christian Students
00:21:48 Role of Parents and Churches in Student Support
00:26:44 Vulnerable Student Groups in Universities
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hello there, friend. Angie Austin here with The Good News. I am thrilled to welcome to the program Dr. Gary Lovejoy. And today we are going to be talking about his book, Students in the Lion’s Den. Welcome to you, Dr. Gary Lovejoy.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I thank you for inviting me. I appreciate that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Now, I understand I spent a lot of time in California as well. You got your degree in psychology from California State, Long Beach. And then you got your master’s at California State University, L.A. And then Fuller Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the International University. You’ve been all over the place and you’ve been a professional counselor for 40 years now. specializing in marriage counseling, depression, anxiety disorders, et cetera, and have written other books. But I’m particularly interested in this one, Students in the Lion’s Den, because I’ve got three teenagers, two of whom just started school in about the last, well, one’s a freshman in college, one is a sophomore in college, and one is a junior in high school. So I’m right here in the lion’s den with them.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. You are at that point. And I taught for over 30 years at the college level in psychology and world religions and encountered many students who had been roughed up by atheist professors and Marxist professors, particularly in our philosophy department. And they came into my office, some of them crying, others just angry that they had been humiliated by the professor in front of the class. And all of them were kind of beginning to question, well, gee, you know, this guy’s got a PhD. I can’t answer his questions. Maybe my faith is not – is not valid. And so they began questioning their own faith. And so I was able to sit down and talk with them, and they knew I was a Christian, of course. I was one of the few on campus. But they finally came to understand why they weren’t able to answer. And they essentially were unprepared. And I began to realize that many students are, when they walk into the lion’s den of college education, and that they are really just not prepared for the questions that are going to be asked, and they’re not prepared for being able to defend their faith in a reasonable way, and many of them are not as conversant with Scripture as they should be as well. And so many of them get thrown off by the arguments that are level at them, especially from professors who are now atheists slash Marxists, but have an early background in in evangelical Christianity. I’ve seen that in many cases.
SPEAKER 02 :
And, Doc, you know, you said they’re not able to defend themselves or embarrassed by the professor. But I have to be honest with you. I have warned my kids to not necessarily let some of their views be known in their classes. And I know that a lot of parents wouldn’t agree with me on that. But I feel like there is in some universities such a bias against Christians who are not, you know, very liberal or very far left students. that they oftentimes don’t fit in on some of the campuses and that they might be discriminated against and their grades may suffer if they’re outspoken about their beliefs and not just Christianity, but their political beliefs as well. And I don’t really want my kid targeted, and I don’t know that they are well-versed enough in the Bible to defend their stance. And when they do defend their stance, it’s like, um, my son’s university, at least he goes to the university of Colorado Boulder, but then get this. My daughter is that freed Hardeman university, a small private Christian university out in between Memphis and Nashville and Tennessee. So they’re in completely different environments.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. They are. Well, you know what you were talking about, uh, probably, uh, caught your attention to the young, uh, student, uh, female student at, um, one of the Oklahoma universities that had exactly that happen, which you fear, which is that her professor, he, she wrote a paper that fulfilled all of the requirements, but she, and they invited there for them to state their own beliefs. She did so. And once she stated her beliefs, he gave her an F. I did hear about this. And, and she then went to the administration and protested. She was, She was a bold person. She was able to do that. So she went and protested. And eventually what happened is that the grader, the person who graded her paper, was dismissed from his position, which should have happened because it was completely, both from an academic point of view as well as, of course, obviously from a Christian point of view, completely uncalled for. And so… because she was able to fight back successfully. But some students never fight back, or they may simply be crushed by the administration who will support the professor. And so I think they have to be prepared for that sort of thing. And some students who may not, sometimes they’re called out partly because maybe they’ve indicated something in a paper they’ve turned in, or they’ve made a comment in the classroom that suggests that they have different values than the professor. And once some professors hear that, then that’s like a signal to go after them. And then they are tagged. And in the cases of the students that were coming to me, And that happened to be the case. The professor happened to be – came from an evangelical Christian home, rejected everything. He himself abandoned Christianity when he was in college, interestingly enough. And he threw it all over, and not only that, became extremely antagonistic to anyone who was a Christian. And so when he began his teaching career, he targeted students who were Christians, and he had ways of finding out whether they were or not. And so those kinds of things happen, and students need to be aware when they enter college that they could have targets on their backs from time to time, especially if the student is found out to be a Christian. even if it’s just scoba, they will still zero in on them. They can potentially zero in on them. But, you know, one of the things that was valuable when they came to me and we would sit down and talk about it, and I was familiar with most of the arguments that the professor was giving, and they were easily debunkable, but they didn’t know that. And so we sat down and talked about it, and they grew from that experience. They began… At the end, they went back to their classes and they stood up and gave good answers. But even when I told them, I said, you know, you can even if they hit you with a question you don’t know the answer to or you don’t know how to respond. You can always say, well, that’s a good question. I’ll get back to it. I’ll study that, and I’ll come back, and I’ll answer that question. You don’t have to answer every question on the spot. You can buy time. But many of them don’t know to do that. They just are like deer in the cot in the headlights and don’t know how to respond. But once they knew that they had that opportunity, that avenue of escape, they felt much bolder to be able to defend their faith. Because then they could go, and by buying time like that, they would come and talk to me, we’d talk about it, or they would go to their pastor or somebody that helped them to come up with excellent answers, and then they would return and give those answers. And they grew. They grew as a result of that experience. They knew that they’re… entering life itself, they’re not going to be always unopposed. They’re not always going to be around Christians. They may work in an environment that might not be all that friendly to Christian workers. So they can find it everywhere.
SPEAKER 02 :
The difference – my son goes to Young Life at his big university. It’s like 30,000, 40,000 people. And then my daughter’s is 3,000. They have chapel every day. Well, except Saturday. But anyway, so – you know, a lot of early colleges and universities, they were started by Christians. And now many of them seem to be hotbeds of anti-Christian bias. I had one friend’s child turn down Harvard because he just didn’t think that he could handle, you know, the political environment there, you know, let alone how they feel about his faith. So let’s talk about that, how universities have become such a hotbed for anti-Christian bias, and then also throw in the political aspect there. And And then we’ll move on to what advice you’d give Christian students going to, in particular, a secular university.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. Yes, I think that the political, the Marxism is very alive and well in the universities, particularly in the Ivy League schools. But actually, you’d be surprised how widely spread it is within the academic community. But in any case, there is a marriage between Marxism and and anti-Christianism, not only because they’re atheists, but they are also the ones who are spawning much of the anti-Semitic protests that we’ve been seeing in recent years. And one of the reasons why is because both Christians and Jews represent the Judeo-Christian ethic, which they are trying – which the Marxist professors see as – to their interest in changing governance from a democratic governance to a capitalistic system to a market system. And so the first pillar that they must destroy is the Judeo-Christian ethic upon which our Constitution and all of our instruments of government that were established at our founding represent. So, consequently, they have a great animus to that, and there is a program of indoctrination going on in the colleges and universities that are directly aimed at destroying that base. And so, consequently, the ones that get caught in the crossfire are the Christians and the Jews. And most of the students are not aware that that kind of fomenting of racism animus against Christians and Jews is so prevalent on campus. One of the things that they can do, and one of the number one problem on the college campus that has been for many, many years is loneliness. Because many times students, when they graduate from high school, they have to leave all their friends. Their friends are going elsewhere. They’re entering into a college, a group of strangers, most of whom are hopefully friendly, but they can run into others. But they’re very lonely. I had many students that I had in my classes, and that I would see and they would come to the class and they would live what I call a parallel existence on campus in which they would come in and sit in class, sit next to people, but never really interact with them. And then I would see them later in the dining area and they’re eating by themselves. So they may spend the entire time by themselves. And many of the students don’t know, some of them don’t have their social skills, others don’t. just generally keep to themselves and stick to their studies, but they still suffer from loneliness. And I think what your son is doing is extraordinarily important. There are a lot of Christian groups on campuses. Young Life is one of them. Chi Alpha Campus Ministries is another. Back to Student Union is another. The Coalition for Christian Outreach is another. And one called Christian Union is a very important one in the Ivy League schools and as well as in Stanford University, the very highly intellectual universities. So they provide and of course, there’s also the Fellowship of Christian Athletes that’s on our campus. And these are groups that allow students to interact and have fellowship with other Christian students. And I think that’s so important because there’s not only the loneliness problem, which can make them much more vulnerable to indoctrination, especially when that’s mixed with not only they’re lonely, but they’re admiring the professor. He may have a list of accomplishments, and they go in and they develop this tremendous admiration for their professor.
SPEAKER 02 :
We have to take a break, and we will be right back with the good news.
SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
Berthod’s dialed in to the mighty 670. Welcome back to The Good News with Angie Austin. We are continuing our conversation with Dr. Gary Lovejoy and his book, Students in the Lion’s Den. And we were talking about Christian kids going off to school, secular colleges in particular, and trying to defend their faith and maybe their politics and religion. Some people go at it head on, and in the case of my kids, I just said be careful, particularly in my son’s school. My daughter’s going to a Christian school, so she’s in a completely different environment. But Dr. Lovejoy, I had to cut you off. We were talking about kids developing an admiration for a professor, but maybe the professor trying to sway them in a way that maybe as a Christian they don’t want to go, but they’re young and they may not be able to defend their own beliefs. Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, one of the problems there is that the professor has been attacking students for years. So they have their arguments down pat. They know exactly what they’re going to say, and they pretty much know what the student is going to say. Students are at a disadvantage in those arguments or those confrontations in the classroom because – They’re neophytes at that kind of debating, and they’re not prepared for the onslaught. They don’t know the questions. They don’t have the background that the professor has. However, they have the firepower because of Scripture itself. And I think that it’s important for them to go prayerfully into the classroom, that God would give them the words to speak if they are called upon or if they are isolated or identified by the professor as Christian and he comes after them. But I think that in this situation, sometimes they can be… How can I put it? Probably best assailed when they least expect it. Let’s put it that way. And I had a student, there was a student there that had gone into the inner city on the streets and just to experience what it would be to express God’s love to those who are the unacceptables of society. It was a dangerous thing to do because he went into some pretty dangerous areas of the city. But he wanted to find out just how he could express God’s love. He spent a good six months doing that. He survived that experience. And then he went off to college. And he was attacked in the classroom by a particularly… versus professor who wanted to take him down for whatever reason. And he didn’t know all the answers.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
But the way he responded to him with such grace and with such love and with such a calm that the students afterwards, even though theoretically the professor appeared to be
SPEAKER 02 :
Win the argument. Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Overrun him. But they came to him. They said, how did you wither? They were impressed with how he handled it. Yeah. He didn’t get ruffled. He didn’t get angry. He didn’t walk out of the room. He didn’t just fall silent and look crestfallen. Instead, he looked calm, confident, and understanding and loving and respectful and And they were more impressed with that than with whatever was said in the classroom. So, in effect, he won the argument because of his demeanor, not because of the words. And he had some answers that were very good, but others he was unable to. And he did, by time, he said, I’ll check into that. I’m not sure the answer to that. But I will get back to it, and I’ll give you an answer. You deserve an answer. I’ll give it to you. But he… But he held himself with such respect to his professor that it so impressed the students. He made more of an impact on his fellow students than he would have if he just maybe had all the answers, but he engaged in an all-out battle of wits with the professor. he probably had more impact on students in how he addressed it than he would have if he had been even more fully informed before he walked into it. So I’m just saying that part of it is the students can relax in the understanding that even if I’m attacked, it’s how I respond. It’s in terms of my personal way of responding that can be a silencing factor in itself and can be a witness to others to say, gosh, this guy, how does he handle it? Because some of them said, I don’t know how you did it. I would have crumbled under that or I would have fought back. I would have gotten angry. I would have stomped out of the room. I wouldn’t be treated like that. But you handled it so well. How did you do that? What is your secret anyway? That’s what they asked him. And he said, well, I love my Lord. And he talked about his relationship to Jesus Christ. He had more opportunities to witness that day than he had all the year up to that point. So my point is that we don’t have to shrink back and feel like, oh my gosh, I’m going to I’m going to look terrible, I’m going to look foolish, etc. How we comport ourselves makes a big difference in terms of how other students see it. Because other students know full well the professor has the advantage. They’re not hoodwinked on that score.
SPEAKER 02 :
My daughter’s church, they have families that kind of take in the kids and once a month have them come over for dinner or just offer them a family experience in town if they need a family to lean on. Like they just had this, you know, super storm where they didn’t have school for 10 days. And my daughter doesn’t live there year round like a lot of the kids. So a lot of them went home and my daughter was sleeping in the gym because they had to use a generator. And I said, why didn’t you get one of these families that you’d have a place to go and for dinner or maybe an extra guest room, you know, at church, you can, you know, meet a lot of people there that are willing in the community to take you in. But a lot of kids don’t realize they could have that really valuable connection. And you said that a lot of them are, you know, at these campuses with, you know, 30, 40,000 people and they don’t have friends and they’re lonely. Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely they are. And as I said, it’s the number one problem on the college campus, whether they’re Christian or not. And I think it’s really important for students to have opportunities for fellowship so that they can be strengthened in their faith by their interactions with one another. And so attending Christian groups on campus is a great idea. But for the church, I think, as I said, attending a newsletter – to the student is very important, and it’s a very minor thing to do for a church to do. And why do I say it’s important? Because what the church is saying when they send them a church letter, just to keep them abreast of what’s going on at the church, it’s their home church, is a statement of, you’re not out of sight, out of mind. We’re thinking about you, we’re praying for you, we are sending you and keeping you abreast of what’s going on in the church. That’s a statement to the students that I’m still welcome there. So when they come home, they understand the church has maintained a connection, even if it’s just written word. And then when they get there, get home, that it’s important, I think, for college students to have places they can come together and fellowship with one another as a peer group. And starting around the 1990s, before that time, college departments were in almost every church and almost every corner. But they started lopping them off, I think partly because they thought, well, they’re old enough, they can just come to the main service and that’s fine, and we’ll let it sit at that. But what had happened is they cut off all the fellowship opportunities. And I know one family who had two daughters, both of them were in college, and they came home. And they complained to their parents. They said, we don’t know who. A lot of them did not come back to the church at break times or even sometimes in the summer. They stayed near their schools. And so some of their friends were not there, and they didn’t have any college group to meet with. And so they felt lonely at home, oddly enough. And so the parents swung into action, and what they did is they opened up their home And without any advertising, no indication that they were meeting me, just word of mouth only, they opened their home up for just fellowship, just from college kids to come together. And they had up to 50 students. They were hanging from the rafters. The place was packed. And that many students to come simply by word of mouth tells you the hunger that’s out there. And by the way, I would say this. For the parents, I believe that it’s a great idea for them to start they can start the earlier the better, of course, but certainly in their high school years, to sit down with their teenagers and talk about these issues. Even if the church doesn’t do that, talk about, you know, read up on what the woke ideologies are. Read up what critical race theory is, what critical justice theory is, what Marxism is, socialism, how that differs from capitalism, and all the rest. To sit down and have an honest discussion with their kids and allow them to ask whatever questions that come into their mind so that they are not unfamiliar with these issues when they head to the college. And some parents are reluctant to do that and say, well, I don’t know all the answers to these things. And my response to that is you don’t need to. If they ask the question that you don’t know the answer to, you don’t have to be the shell answer man. You can say, you know, that’s a great question. I’m not sure. I’ll check it out. And you know what? Kids love that because they see their parents as being authentic. Instead of trying to be the shell answer man and answer everything, they realize they have their own deficits and they have their own study they have to do that will help, but they realize that it’s a collaborative relationship between parent and child. in understanding how Scripture addresses these issues. And like I said, they may not know all the answers, but even the parents can talk to their pastors if they need help in steering their child. But the important thing is the kids know that they’re important to their parents enough that their parents are willing to prepare them for what’s to come. And so that’s another way that parents can help. intervene in this process. I have discovered, though, that as a professor on campus, there are six kinds of students that are particularly vulnerable. Not all students are equally vulnerable, but some are more than others.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, we got about 45 seconds. Rip them off.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, well, there are those who are socially awkward, as we’ve talked about, that are sometimes shunned by their peers and have fear and anxiety and sometimes anger for being so alone. There are the idealistic types. They have intellectual abilities that prompt them to explore the more esoteric claims of academia. And… And the more the claims are outside of the mainstream of the thought, the better. So they will attach themselves to some of these Marxist ideas. Those whose identities have not fully formed or formed along fluid lines, often due to over-controlling or over-protective parents at their homes, and they often have a resident anger just below the surface as well. Then there’s the over-indulged, sometimes alienated students who have been raised in dysfunctional, usually wealthy, although not always, often liberal homes, Where there’s no real sense of belonging to begin with. And their frustration tolerance levels are very low and they’re very easily triggered. And then finally, there are bored students. These are very intellectually gifted students. Often they’re bored with the classroom. It doesn’t offer a challenge to them. And they’re like budding rebels looking for a cause so that they will seek some of these challenges. these ideas that are loaded with Marxism because they’re different and they are oftentimes at the forefront of some of these protest groups. So these are the groups of students that are particularly vulnerable to the indoctrination that goes on in the campus.
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely. All right, Dr. Gary Lovejoy, we are out of time. The book is Students in the Lion’s Den. Would you give us a website, please?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, the website is www. Well, first of all, let me just say the books are available at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. If you just type in the title or my name, it’ll come up, and they can buy it directly from there. My own website is www.heartswithpromise.com, and that displays all the books I’ve written, and most of which are still on sale at Amazon.com. And I can’t buy them directly from my website. That just gives all the books that I’ve written and a little bio of myself. And then it directs people to go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble to actually purchase books if they so desire.
SPEAKER 02 :
Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Lovejoy. I really appreciate the conversation. You’re a real blessing. Thanks for all you’re doing for others.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you so much. I appreciate you inviting me on your show. You bet.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
