Each fall, millions of American families send their sons and daughters off to college with a mixture of pride and concern. They hope their students will grow in maturity, sharpen their minds, and step into their callings with confidence. But all too often, what comes home during Thanksgiving break is not just a tired student. It is a changed one.
This is the quiet crisis playing out on campuses across the country. While parents expect education, many universities are orchestrating re-education. The classroom, once a place for honest exploration, has become a platform for ideology. In my new book, "College Without Communism," I make the case that higher education has shifted away from forming students through truth and toward shaping them through cultural conformity.
This shift rarely happens all at once. It’s slow, subtle and often invisible to those living inside it. Students are immersed in environments that question faith, reframe morality and replace conviction with relativism. They are encouraged to deconstruct everything, except the worldview of the institution itself.
But here’s the hope. Culture never gets the final word. Thanksgiving break offers something precious and increasingly rare in the academic calendar: time. Time to think, to reconnect, to remember.
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Thanksgiving is not just a pause in the semester. It is a sacred opportunity. It brings students back to the people who knew them before the pressure to conform. It opens the door for truth-telling, spiritual reflection and the restoration of identity. In a world that tries to blur lines and erase roots, this holiday can remind students exactly who they are.
This isn’t just about political drift. It’s about spiritual foundations. Many students leave for college with a vibrant faith, but return home unsure of who God is, what is right or why truth even matters. And it doesn’t take long. Sometimes, it only takes one semester.
That’s why families can’t afford to treat Thanksgiving as just a time to relax. It’s a time to re-engage. Don’t settle for small talk around the table. Ask real questions. Invite open conversation. Speak life and identity into your student with love and clarity. Remind them that their value is not defined by grades, popularity or cultural approval, but by being made in the image of God.
Pray with them. Share your own convictions. Tell the story of how your faith was tested and made stronger. And if they come home questioning, doubting or wrestling with big ideas, don’t shut the door. Open it wider. Listen with patience. Respond with grace. Then point them back to the truth that never changes.
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Today’s students are not as hostile to faith as headlines suggest. Many are quietly searching for something solid in a culture that feels increasingly unstable. They are craving clarity, connection and courage. Families and churches can meet that need, if we are willing to speak up and stay close.
At Southeastern University, we work daily to equip students not just with knowledge, but with wisdom. We want them to think critically without being consumed by ideology. We want them to engage culture without losing their soul. And we know that none of that happens without families, churches and mentors who are committed to forming the whole person.
Thanksgiving is more than a holiday. It is a spiritual reset. It roots us in gratitude. It reconnects us with our story. And for students being tugged in every direction, it may be the lifeline that brings them back to who they were always meant to be.
This generation doesn’t need to be rescued from college. It needs to be re-rooted in truth. So, this Thanksgiving, let’s do more than gather around the table. Let’s remind our students of who they are, whose they are and why it still matters.
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