I’m giving the space in this week’s blog to some work that our Dean of Students, Brad Voyles, has done recently in identifying trends among today’s college students. Dean Voyles and the staff of the Student Development office (including resident assistants) have a unique view of the rising generation, and their insights are extremely valuable as we pursue our mission. I am very grateful for Dean Voyles’ leadership, grounded in the Scriptures and also in sound thinking about college-age students.

This fall I am taking the Student Development staff through Richard Kadison’s book, College of the Overwhelmed: The campus mental health crisis and what to do about it. We have noticed not only an increase in the number of students visiting our campus counselors, but also an increase in the number of students who report feeling overwhelmed. Each year we have more students who come from broken homes, who report a history of sexual abuse, and who lack strong family support systems – all of which connect with the feeling of being overwhelmed by life and all its demands. Further, the “overwhelmed” phenomenon can be linked to three other traits of today’s students: they are overconnected, overprotected, and overserved. Click to continue »

This week’s blog calls your attention to a characterization of evangelicals – actually the “new evangelicals” – which has become somewhat commonplace in recent months. E. J. Dionne, in his Washington Post editorial “The new evangelical politics,” says: “The era of reducing Christianity to a narrow set of ideological commitments is over.” A Newsweek article (“New Evangelicals,” Aug. 18, 2008) states:

As the evangelical world continues to fracture, schools once known mainly for their conservative politics and their no-sex-before-marriage policies are adapting to a generation of students who see the world in a more subtle way…Old hot-button issues are cooling, somewhat.

Much has been made as well of mega-church pastor Rick Warren’s call to broaden the evangelical social and moral agenda. Warren has said:

Jesus’ agenda is far bigger than just one or two issues…We have to care about poverty, we have to care about disease, we have to care about illiteracy, we have to care about corruption in government, sex trafficking.

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