The Ivory Towers of Perdition
My political affiliation is Democrat, and I lean towards the left-hand side of that party. My religious affiliation is none, which is the same as my belief in gods and supernatural phenomena. While happily and monogamously married to an Unindicted Co-Conspirator of a different gender, I'm absolutely in favor of marriage equality and LGBT civil rights, and so on and so forth.
So it should come as no surprise that I work in academia. I'm part of the sea of relativism and antagonism to God that is drowning American young people. Just ask the frothy former senator from Pennsylvania, the once and future presidential candidate, Rick Santorum.
As a senator back in 2001, Santorum supported higher education. He boasted of increasing the maximum Pell Grant, earmarked millions of dollars in federal budget bills for Pennsylvania colleges, and supported historically black colleges and universities.
That all changed when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination. Suddenly, the sweater-vested dweeb became a horny-handed son of the soil. In Iowa, he told supporters, "Let's look at colleges and universities. They've become indoctrination centers for the left. Should we be subsidizing that?" He mocked Harvard's motto, "Veritas," Latin for truth. "They haven't seen truth at Harvard in 100 years." He derided President Obama's push for more Americans to pursue higher education. "What a snob."
Last Tuesday, Santorum appeared on Tony Perkins' "Washington Watch" radio program. The subject, not surprisingly, was the moral decline of America. Here's what Santorum had to say:
The cultural indicators that I talked about earlier that are sort of going the wrong way, we're, you know, in ever-increasing numbers, less and less people here in America, you know, and believe in God, and believe in Jesus Christ, and believe in truth and right and wrong. It’s understandable, I mean, if you certainly, if you look at popular culture and what comes out of Hollywood, if you go to our schools and particularly our colleges and universities, they are indoctrinating in a sea of relativism and a sea of antagonism toward Christianity -- religion in general, but Christianity in particular. And so it’s understandable that that happens, but we, you’re right. Abortion is a symptom, marriage is a symptom, I mean pornography is, all of these are symptoms to the fundamental issue that we’ve gotten away from the truth and the Truth-Giver.
It isn't just the fact that institutions of higher learning operate "indoctrination centers for the left," or that they turn out effete and elite intellectual snobs, it's that they're tools of Satan! Once people learn about critical and reason-based thinking, they start thinking that way about everything, even the Received Truths in which they were indoctrinated as children. As Santorum sees it, universities promote sinful human intellectual hubris over God's Word.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: (1 Peter 5:8) Higher education isn't an opportunity, it's a threat. Unless young people go to good Christian (preferably Catholic) schools where the teachings of conservative Christianity are placed beyond critical inquiry, their very souls are at risk. In Santorum's view, it would be better to remain ignorant than educated and damned.
So it should come as no surprise that I work in academia. I'm part of the sea of relativism and antagonism to God that is drowning American young people. Just ask the frothy former senator from Pennsylvania, the once and future presidential candidate, Rick Santorum.
As a senator back in 2001, Santorum supported higher education. He boasted of increasing the maximum Pell Grant, earmarked millions of dollars in federal budget bills for Pennsylvania colleges, and supported historically black colleges and universities.
That all changed when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination. Suddenly, the sweater-vested dweeb became a horny-handed son of the soil. In Iowa, he told supporters, "Let's look at colleges and universities. They've become indoctrination centers for the left. Should we be subsidizing that?" He mocked Harvard's motto, "Veritas," Latin for truth. "They haven't seen truth at Harvard in 100 years." He derided President Obama's push for more Americans to pursue higher education. "What a snob."
Last Tuesday, Santorum appeared on Tony Perkins' "Washington Watch" radio program. The subject, not surprisingly, was the moral decline of America. Here's what Santorum had to say:
The cultural indicators that I talked about earlier that are sort of going the wrong way, we're, you know, in ever-increasing numbers, less and less people here in America, you know, and believe in God, and believe in Jesus Christ, and believe in truth and right and wrong. It’s understandable, I mean, if you certainly, if you look at popular culture and what comes out of Hollywood, if you go to our schools and particularly our colleges and universities, they are indoctrinating in a sea of relativism and a sea of antagonism toward Christianity -- religion in general, but Christianity in particular. And so it’s understandable that that happens, but we, you’re right. Abortion is a symptom, marriage is a symptom, I mean pornography is, all of these are symptoms to the fundamental issue that we’ve gotten away from the truth and the Truth-Giver.
It isn't just the fact that institutions of higher learning operate "indoctrination centers for the left," or that they turn out effete and elite intellectual snobs, it's that they're tools of Satan! Once people learn about critical and reason-based thinking, they start thinking that way about everything, even the Received Truths in which they were indoctrinated as children. As Santorum sees it, universities promote sinful human intellectual hubris over God's Word.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: (1 Peter 5:8) Higher education isn't an opportunity, it's a threat. Unless young people go to good Christian (preferably Catholic) schools where the teachings of conservative Christianity are placed beyond critical inquiry, their very souls are at risk. In Santorum's view, it would be better to remain ignorant than educated and damned.