David Wheaton - University of Destruction: Your Game Plan for Spiritual Victory on Campus

University of Destruction
Copyright 2005
David Wheaton

Cover design by Greg Jackson
Interior design by Eric Walljasper

All italics for Scripture, added for emphasis, are the authors.

Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Published by Bethany House Publishers
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www.bethanyhouse.com

Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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Ebook edition created 2012

eISBN 978-1-4412-1160-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

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Praise for University of Destruction

David Wheaton provides a useful guide to young Christians who want to use biblical guidelines to overcome the most negative elements of academia and youth culture.

Michael Medved, nationally syndicated radio host and author of Right Turns

If Daniel needed to be prepared before embarking on his higher education (Daniel 1), every Christian teenager thinking of higher education also needs preparation. Mr. Wheaton covers nearly every area one must ponder and understand before such embarkment. Highly recommended....

David A. Noebel, president of Summit Ministries

David Wheatons book exposes an important problem for Christian students and their parents to consider when shopping for college: Should they follow the crowd and send their child off to a secular university where the predominate worldview is incompatible and hostile toward the Christian faith, or should they send them to a church-related college where faculty may cause them to question the essentials of the faith? Wheatons suggestion to be prepared for the mental and emotional struggle that college students will encounter in this battle for the Christian worldview is the best option. I would recommend teens and their parents read this book before becoming enamored with the secular universities of this country that do not respect the Christian beliefs and lifestyle. And then I would recommend they consider a Christ-centered college where faculty and staff integrate the Christian faith into all areas of academic and residential life, because it is there that the faith is nourished and grows.

Gary L. Railsback, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Education, George Fox University

This book is dedicated to
that one young man or young woman
who reads this, heeds this,
... and overcomes!

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the worldour faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 1 J OHN 5:45

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

SUCCESS, SURFING, AND STANFORD

Stanford? Not a problem.

The week before entering my freshman year at Stanford University, I was riding a major wave... in more ways than one. I spent the week surfing Pacific rollers in Malibu, California, while visiting my brother, who was toiling away at Pepperdine Law School.

Sitting on my surfboard waiting for the next set of waves to appear, my thoughts drifted back over the previous monthsthe best summer of my life. In June I had graduated valedictorian of my high school class, and now in September I had just won the U.S. Open Junior Tennis Championships in New York, confirming my place as the top-ranked junior player in America.

I was number one on the court and in the classroom.

How appropriate that in just a few days I would travel up the coast of California to attend the top-rated academic and tennis university in the land... on a full scholarship, no less.

While I was riding a perfect wave that golden summer, do you think I was concerned about the next stage of my life in college? Guess again.

Welcome to Stanford

My duffel bags had barely touched the dorm room floor when two tennis teammates-to-be barged through the door with pitchers of beer in hand. It may have been the middle of the afternoon, but the party had already started. Girls and guys roamed the co-ed dorm, checking out their new surroundings. Classes started the next day, and I kid you not, I had neither pen nor paper.

The first assignment in Great Works of Western Culture, a required freshman class, was to read the books of Genesis and Job. Easy enough, I thought, since I came from a Christian background and was familiar with the Bible. Imagine my disbelief when the professor and other students ridiculed the Bible and mocked God for the stupid way He dealt with mankind. I had never heard God and stupid in the same sentence before! I was so stunned, I didnt know what to say.

The night life was just as shocking. It was as if all moral restraint had been lifted from the campus. Drunkenness and sexual activity were seemingly everywhere. The overall scene brought to mind images of wanton sailors coming ashore at a foreign port of call. Surely this wasnt Stanfordit was Sodom!

Why was I so surprised by my introduction to college? After all, I had heard what college was like. I had already seen and experienced a taste of campus life on college recruiting visits. I was no potted plantI had been out of my own backyard plenty of times.

But this was different... way different. I was now living full-time in the midst of a world diametrically opposed to the one I had grown up inthere would be no returning home to Mommy and Daddy every night. I would soon find out that an excellent upbringing coupled with academic and athletic success was no match for the maelstrom called college. The waters were baited, the sharks were circling... spiritual shipwreck loomed.

There is one word that perfectly describes my upbringing: idyllic. In my memory it was as near to perfect as it could be.

Just west of Minneapolis, Minnesota, my parents home was perched overlooking Lake Minnetonka in a quaint neighborhood called Cottagewood. Whatever the season, life on the lake encompassed our existence. Swimming and sailing in the summer were followed by ice-skating and cross-country skiing in the winter. Living on the lake was so special to us that my mother would let me stay home from elementary school in early December to skate on the newly frozen black sheet of ice.

Life off the lake was storybook too. There was the annual Independence Day parade when all the kids would march around the neighborhood in their patriotic attire. There were the two public tennis courts just down the street from our house where I, at age four, was tossed my first tennis balls by my mother. And there was the outdoor hockey rink across the bay at the local town hall, where my mother would send my brothers and me, saying, Dont come back till dark.

More than just a lake and a neighborhood, though, what made my childhood especially idyllic was the closeness of our family.

Before I came along, the Wheaton family of five was seemingly complete with my sister, Marnie, followed by my two brothers, Mark and John. But then there were six! My arrival almost nine years after my brother could have generated sibling resentment or apathy toward me. Instead, nonstop affection and attention flowed my way. (Being the youngest can have its advantages, you know.)