College, Sex, and Integrity

In March 2005, a group of students at Vermont’s St. Michael’s College had had enough. They decided to challenge the “campus hookup scene” that consisted of sex-saturated spring break getaways and one-night stands.¹ “They wanted the right to demand more from their peers when it came to sex and relationships—more joy, more satisfaction, more commitment—and less sex. Maybe even no sex.”² They started a student newspaper, Dateline SMC, and engaged the relationship between sex and religion, in large part because religion proved to be the only foundation that powerfully challenged the licentious culture these students had come to deplore. “Not because they hoped to convert, but because it helped them to see how something as powerful as religion can hold an entire community accountable in ways that might, in the end, relieve them of all this sexual pressure.”³

It is hard to underestimate the lack of integrity that permeates college campuses today. A former George Washington University student described as routine ambulances picking up intoxicated students.⁴ It was reported that administrators at the University of Colorado and Florida State promised their sports recruits sex with young women.⁵ Sexually explicit theme parties are popular on many college campuses where men dress up as professionals (CEOs, tennis players, professors) and women dress up in hardly anything at all.⁶ Certainly scores of students at secular colleges and universities study without being affected by this hookup culture. Many others are negatively affected.

While individuals of integrity can be found in any and every institution, according to a recent study by Boston University’s Donna Freitas, only evangelical schools actually created a culture of integrity. By-in-large, evangelical students intend for their spirituality to affect their behavior.⁷ According to Freitas, the same cannot be said of secular institutions or even of Catholic campuses.⁸ As another author so bluntly put it: “[I]t is only evangelical students who ponder the connections between sexuality and spirituality. Students who identify as Catholic, mainline Protestant, ‘spiritual but not religious,’ or any other religious persuasion tend not to connect their spiritual or religious commitments to their sexual choices.”⁹

Those students Freitas interviewed who identified themselves as “spiritual” believed they had a strong connection to God but severed this relationship from their sexuality. They believed “sex is a personal choice that each individual must face without reference to religion.”¹⁰ Meanwhile, on evangelical campuses, where students shared an identity and common values, when it came to understanding the relationship between faith and sexuality, Freitas described these students as “leaps and bounds ahead” of students at secular and Catholic schools.¹¹ This is certainly reflected in the statistics. Nearly 80% of the respondents at evangelical schools still considered themselves virgins compared to 37% at Catholic schools, 31% at private-secular schools, and just under 19% at public schools.¹²

Thankfully, there are numerous, solid, Christian students being salt and light at secular universities.¹³ The point that the concentration of Christians at evangelical schools makes is that these students are committed to living out their faith. Oddly enough, as those students at St. Michaels demonstrate, even secular students are finding themselves admiring what evangelicals have: integrity. It may not be perfect—there is plenty of hypocrisy on evangelical campuses. Sin is everywhere. But because of the gospel, the “hookup culture” has not found its way to these campuses. This is something to which to be thankful.

Footnotes: