My own conversations with Christian students who have undergone such revolutions in thinking suggest that their earlier stands — despite appearances — were built not on foundations strong enough to withstand the inevitable rattling from opposing views; their beliefs rested on weak scaffolds gradually dismantled by each successive encounter with a previously unconsidered idea, fact, or phenomenon.

I started school at age 5 and never left once. My formal education was entirely secular: public schools, then a private college, followed by graduate school at a state university.

My teaching career began in Sunday school, continued in a business school, then two Catholic colleges, a state university, a Christian secondary school, a women’s college, and an evangelical university. I even served a six-year sentence as a high-school principal. I am no mercenary: in matters of education, I don’t believe one size fits all. Still, ideas have consequences, and the ideas that undergird a philosophy of education will bear their fruit.

So the results of the Cardus Education Survey, published in August, intrigued me, to say the least. The survey is touted as the largest known representative study in North America examining education’s long-term effects on students now aged 23-40 who represent various kinds of schooling: Catholic, non-religious private, religious home school, conservative Protestant, and public. The findings are fascinating and surprising.

One major finding is that the students from conservative Protestant schools were least likely to be involved in politics. Another is that the students from religious homeschools were the most likely to get divorced. Given that a primary focus of conservative Christianity over the past several decades has been political activism and family values, these findings are striking.

Because I’ve spent the past 20 years teaching in institutions aligned with these interests, the results hit home. Yet long before this survey, I was troubled by similar trends among some of my own students: More often than not, the students who’ve expressed to me the deepest doubts about the tenets of conservative Christianity, its social and political positions, and even the faith itself, had once been among the most committed.

Beyond this personal experience, I see no shortage of well-publicized poster children for the findings that show where Christian education is failing to fulfill some (not all) aspects of its mission. The natural family planner who kissed dating goodbye is now divorced and contracepting. The one-time creationist has evolved. A missionary kid is flirting with atheism. And one raised right has turned left. I don’t begrudge any of these young people their soul-searching, truth-seeking journeys. To the contrary, I heartily applaud such growth.

But while I understand slow, steady progress toward solidified beliefs and views that naturally change over time, swings from one extreme to another give me pause. I’m reminded of the truism, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

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