As a college pastor, I personally witness the painful accuracy of an old statistic: close to half of all students who grow up in homes that claim to be Christian turn away from Jesus their first year of college.

What went wrong? In many cases the child’s faith was never tested. He grew up in a Christian atmosphere with Christian parents, attending a Christian church, surrounded by Christian friends, playing on Christian ball teams and suddenly he was launched down the chute into a den of wolverines. And he’s supposed to fend for himself?

Jesus’ brother tells us that the testing of our faith produces endurance (Jam 1:2) The adverse is also true: the untested faith will not endure. Public universities are not padded playgrounds with candy vans driving around. They are relentless, vicious, and can be very confrontational. I’m not against public universities. I wish more believers would attend them because this little light of mine won’t be very shiny on a Christian campus. But if it was only Christian atmosphere that kept a child “Christian” through childhood and adolescence, what’s going to happen when that atmosphere is no longer Christian? It’s like parenting. In most cases, by pushing the right buttons you can get your child to behave the way you want. But it’s impossible to tell where his heart is until his heart is tested and has the opportunity to choose right from wrong apart from his parent’s looming shadow.

I’m not advocating giving our kids a seminary education before sending them into the wolf pack. Nor do I endorse dropping kids off in the marketplace to live ‘n learn. But in our efforts to protect our kids, we may unintentionally be softening them. And then when it’s war time they crumble like Feta cheese.