After
being raised in an Evangelical Christian family, I chose to
attend Liberty University in the hopes of furthering my knowledge
of Christ and growing intellectually. It was probably the worst
decision of my life. This school is manipulative, narrow-minded, legalistic,
dishonest and spiritually abusive (not to mention the aesthetically lacking
campus, hostile attitude toward vegetarians, artists and “yankees"). Freshman year
I was accused by my roommate of being a freak
daily (I have to mention that this roommate later became
a hipster and began to copy information off my facebook
to better fit in with her new “trendy” hipster friends.
It's okay to be weird as long as being weird
is trendy).
I'd also like to mention that I
am not and was not a “freak” by most of
the world's standards. I was an art student, enjoyed foreign
films (Pan's Labyrinth, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Departures),
didn't eat meat (none of my family does), and was
used to drinking wine at family gatherings. These qualities were
strange enough to have me ostracized my entire freshman year.
In the 3 1/2 years I attended LU, I had
only one kind, genuine, approachable RA. The only lasting friendships
I made were with two equally ostracized students who happened
to be my roommates sophmore year (we bonded over our
mutual dislike of the school and unjust treatment from our
two RAs).
Convocation is mandatory 3 times a week.
The idea of attending church 3 times a week was
new to me, but still exciting. The problem is that
this isn't really a chapel. It's like a highly politicized
Christian rock concert. One gets the impression that the student
body is used as a weapon for the Falwell's political
agenda. I remember being persuaded to vote for a local
Conservative politician because Liberty students “pay more in food tax
than any other University students in the nation”. They wanted
us to believe the high taxing was a form of
religious persecution (forgetting to mention the students at Lynchburg College
or Sweet Briar who paid the same taxes). One convocation
Jerry Jr. made a statement about Glenn Beck, heavily implying
that he was a Christian (something about how Beck believes,
like us, that America needs to get back to Jesus
Christ and it's Bible-believing core...or something). I later learned that
very few Liberty students (at least of the ones I
spoke with) knew that Glenn Beck is a Mormon.
I also suffered tremendous spiritual abuse at the hands
of an RA during a two-week mission trip. This girl
was jealous of the attention I'd received from one of
the better-looking guys on the team and went to extreme
efforts to punish me for it all “in the name
of Christ”. I came home feeling absolutely defeated and seriously
questioning whether God is real at all. It's something I
still question and am desperately trying to find the answer
to.
I no longer believe anything I was taught
while at Liberty. Although this comment is scattered and disorganized,
there were multiple instances of hypocrisy and dishonesty that haunt
me still. Bible verses were taken out of context and
used to justify people's own selfish means, prejudice and hatred
is everywhere, the food is terrible and vegetarians are treated
as having a less knowledge of the Bible (because of
that verse where God tells Peter or someone that he
can eat any kind of meat...they assume that means it's
wrong to not eat meat).
Other things the school doesn't
want you to know:
internet is censored (unless you sign
in as a guest)
-not just “bad” websites are censored.
examples were (until I [or others] appealed them)
peopleofwalmart.com
fml.com
some website on Icelandic pronunciation
Bild.de - which I needed for my German class
itsyoursexlife.com
almost any
website that mentions wine or vinyards or beer
these are
the ones i remember appealing. some were fixed, others were
not.
Another thing,
on my 21st birthday, my best
friend, who was pregnant at the time, drove down from
DC to surprise me (she and my mom had been
planning the surprise for months) only to be told that
she was not allowed to stay in my dorm because
of her pregnancy (she was unmarried at the time). One
would think that with all of their emphasis on the
evils of abortion, they would be more kind to those
brave women who sacrifice everything to keep their children, rather
than raining down judgement and plain rudeness.
There is really
so much to say about Liberty University. Very little is
positive. Unfortunately discussing my time there is so upsetting and
angering that I am rarely able to describe the experience
in a clear and orderly way. I can say that
I transferred to JMU the second semester of my senior
year because I was so miserable, and while at JMU,
took a class in which I read “A Day in
the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, a book about a man
who survived life in a gulog. I related to this
man more than any free, 22-year-old American ever should. I
felt that the biggest difference was the weather (Lynchburg vs.
Siberia). This is not an exaggeration. Think long and hard
before attending Liberty University. Don't be fooled by the CFAW experience (they always make things better on CFAW weekends).
Articles
My undergraduate degree in the arts (film studies and new media) from a large public university, and I converted to Christianity during the last year of college. After graduation I spent four years at a Christian university completing a graduate philosophy degree where I encountered many of the same things you describe. I am very concerned about the state of Christianity in America for many of the reasons you describe. The arts are especially suffering. I'm very sorry about your experiences and can sympathize. However, I would urge you not to identify all Christianity with what you experienced at Liberty. I would highly recommend looking at www.gutenberg.edu or, if you can, to visit one of the L'Abris in Rochester, MN or Southborough, MA. Jesus is still the key that unlocks ten thousands doors and the spindle that all the spokes of life must be attached to for us to function properly as humans. Don't be discouraged by the Establishment! Peace and valor in Christ from your brother.
