09/02/2026
College campuses keep giving me hope.
Academia is pretty normal in our family. My wife works at the business school of a major public university. Our son is a sophomore. We record our podcast in a university studio. Both of us have graduate degrees.
For us, faith and learning have never needed to be enemies.
And now that campuses are full again, I’m reminded how much I love the energy.
Different races. Different cultures.
Different accents. Different beliefs.
Young adults learning, laughing, debating, becoming friends, and figuring out life together.
There’s an optimism on a college campus that I think a lot of us adults misplaced somewhere between social media and cable news.
Speaking of which…
I recently subjected myself to a few hours of Fox News. I try to consume viewpoints I disagree with so I’m responding to what people actually believe, not the cartoon version in my head.
Think broccoli for the media diet: necessary, rarely delightful.
One host warned that universities are replacing “academic truth” and “civic virtue” with ideological conformity.
Curious standard: apparently conformity only counts when the ideology isn’t yours.
Academic truth isn’t everyone agreeing.
It’s asking questions.
Examining evidence.
Testing assumptions.
Letting your conclusions be challenged — and changing them when the evidence demands it.
And civic virtue?
It’s learning how to live in community with people who aren’t exactly like you.
You know, kinda sorta like that whole “love your neighbor” thing Jesus kept bringing up.
Universities aren't perfect.
Neither are churches, businesses, governments, families, or anywhere else we've allowed human beings inside.
But when I walk across campus, I don't see young people being destroyed by difference.
I see them learning that people are harder to fear once you’ve actually met them.
Jesus never taught us to avoid people unlike us.
He taught us to walk toward our neighbor and love them.
Maybe the real threat isn’t that young people are meeting people different from themselves.
Maybe it’s that too many adults have forgotten how to live alongside those who are different.
The students have a lot to teach us.
