Dear Editor,
I fear that you will dismiss and disagree with me out of hand, but after my own personal experience in higher education, I have come to strongly believe that I will not be sending my daughter to a secular university.
I attended two universities in the United States; one secular and one religious. At the religious university, I learned about the importance of a religious worldview and I became a big proponent of having a religious worldview. I believe that a person’s life is guided by the way he or she sees the world.
At the religious university, all of the professors believe in God, and they encouraged the students to believe in God. But at the secular university, most of the professors were atheists, and they encouraged atheism and humanism. As a result, many of the students became atheists or agnostics.
So when I received a letter from the prestigious Yale University in the United States inviting my daughter to apply to the university, I was faced with a dilemma of sending her to Liberty University, a religious university, or Yale University, a very secular university.
So I started to weigh the pros and cons of going to Yale.
Pros
Yale is prestigious and academically challenging, which is the kind of environment my daughter performs well in. Yale will offer more financial scholarships. Most parents want their children to go to an Ivy League university. Yale has some of the best professors and many of the brightest students. She would be walking in the footsteps of some of the past and future brightest minds in the world, including world leaders, presidents and other important people.
Most parents would kill for their children to go to Yale, but we’re not like most parents. Having been born and raised in Albouystown, one of the most violent villages and having dropped out of high school, having a child attend Yale would be a great accomplishment.
After receiving the letter, I was overjoyed that Yale was considering enrolling my daughter. Going to Yale would make a compelling story about a child’s rise from Albouystown to Yale. While it is tempting to send my daughter to Yale, there are downsides of going to Yale.
I have no doubt that my daughter will receive the best education in the world and land a great job because she graduated from Yale. However, a good job and making a lot of money is not everything.
There are some things that are more important than money. As a family, we believe that having a relationship with God is more important than having all of the money in the world.
While wealth is important, it must not be more important than God.
Cons
Because Yale is a secular university, my daughter will received a non-religious and humanistic education. They’ll teach my daughter an atheistic and humanistic worldview. They’ll teach her to follow a path of darkness rather than light and how to make a lot of money. What matters to our family is not how much money you make, but rather, how much you help others.
While many families see nothing wrong with an atheistic, humanistic or secular worldview, my family does see something wrong with it. While we want our child to have the best education and attend the best university, we are unwilling to do it at all costs or by any means necessary.
Notwithstanding, I have a few things against Yale. I have rejected Yale because of its athletic, humanistic and secular worldview education’s curriculum.
I desired an education curriculum that includes and encompasses a knowledge of God and a godly worldview.
We are not going to send her to Yale if she will end up becoming an atheist or a nonbeliever. No amount of money is worth losing one’s religious faith over. My goal is for my daughter to have a good education and a relationship with God. Yale can only offer a good education but not a relationship with God. Liberty is able to offer both.
Therefore, Editor, because of these reasons, I am sending my child to Liberty and not Yale.
And while it costs us more financially to send her to Liberty because they are offering less financial scholarships than Yale, it is a more prudent and wise investment in the long run. Because when she graduates from Liberty, she’ll not lose her religious faith and become an atheist.
I believe no amount of money is too much to pay to attend a religious university where my child will learn a philosophy of education rooted in moral virtue, religious ethics and a godly worldview.
Editor, no matter how much money they pay me, I’m not sending our daughter to Yale.
Yours faithfully,
Anthony Pantlitz
