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Through interviews and references to contemporary social pressures, it contrasts narratives of hostility with accounts of unexpected openness, community, and counsel grounded in Christian ideals. It also frames the surrounding atmosphere as marked by existential despair, including reported mental health struggles and high suicide rates, while Christian organizations provide support and belonging.",{"@graph":69,"@context":121},[70,84,104],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":53,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/lifestyle/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/christian-students-on-a-secular-campus/588251/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":98,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":99,"interactionStatistic":100},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/christian-students-on-a-secular-campus/588251.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Aditya","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":101,"interactionType":102,"userInteractionCount":4},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":103},"ViewAction",{"@type":105,"mainEntity":106},"FAQPage",[107,113,117],{"name":108,"@type":109,"acceptedAnswer":110},"What did Brian expect when he arrived at Stanford, and what changed after he became a junior?","Question",{"text":111,"@type":112},"Brian never expected to spend an evening with his fraternity brothers drinking and teaching them about Christian love, but those kinds of moments became increasingly common as he advanced to his junior year.","Answer",{"name":114,"@type":109,"acceptedAnswer":115},"How do Brian, Isabella, and Jack describe their nonreligious friends’ responses to their faith?",{"text":116,"@type":112},"They say their friends often ask about faith and theology or request advice on personal problems, and they are sometimes surprised by how often those conversations turn toward biblical wisdom.",{"name":118,"@type":109,"acceptedAnswer":119},"Why does the article connect Stanford’s campus environment with despair and depression?",{"text":120,"@type":112},"It describes pervasive existential hopelessness, including casual confessions of suffering, and cites that Stanford’s suicide rate is higher than the national average as of 2022.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":123,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":125,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":127,"site_id":62},588251,1792064847,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":130},{"doc_id":127,"user_id":131,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":132,"doc_module":4,"category_id":52,"category_name":53,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":133,"file_id":134,"file_url":135,"file_type":136,"file_size":137,"view_count":4,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":29,"language":138,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":139,"faqs":140,"seo_title":141,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":128,"read_time":44},962085564549,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_085a072bc5b1113ac321206ff7593b45","Acad. Quest . (2023) 36.1 DOI 10.51845.36.1.7  \nChristian Students on a Secular Campus  \nCola Buskirk  \nWhen he first arrived on Stanford University’s campus, Brian never expected to spend an evening drinking with his fraternity brothers and teaching them about Christian love. Nonetheless, now in his junior year, moments like these have become more and more common. One night at his fraternity house, Brian had a friendly debate with one of his brothers about the four loves of C. S. Lewis. His friend, as Brian described it, argued for a radical pursuit of your own self-interest over a Lewisian, or Christian, ideal of selfless love.  \nAs various people passed in and out of the room where they debated, some paused to listen or contribute. To Brian’s surprise, his argument in favor of Christian love, and not the argument for self-interest, appealed to his fraternity brothers. When considering why this may be the case, Brian said,“It’s not interesting for somebody to tell you to radically pursue your own self-interest. Nothing is meaningful about that.”  \nMore moments like this followed for Brian, who himself had gone from being passively religious as a child to an agnostic teenager to, now, a serious Catholic. His nonreligious friends ask him about his faith and theology or simply for advice on personal problems, to which he often responds with biblical wisdom. Much to their surprise, two other Christian students at Stanford, Isabella and Jack, experienced the same with their respective friends.  \nDespite the warnings given to young Christian students about hedonistic college campuses, many of these students arrive at Stanford to instead find a plethora of lively Christian organizations and their nonreligious classmates often more curious than hostile. Stanford by no means espouses Christian values, but hedonism in any true sense  \nCola Buskirk ’s article “The Sugar Babies of Stanford University,” appeared on the Pirate Wires Substack and in [Realclearpolitics.com](Realclearpolitics.com) on Sept. 14, 2022.  \nof the word has died and left its rotting carcass for crows. Hookup culture and casual drug use abound. Freshmen are required to attend the university-sponsored “Beyond Sex Ed” in which upperclassmen graphically recount their sexual experiences, but no one seems to take any pleasure in it. All the talk of sexual liberation and individual empowerment (sexual or otherwise) covers up the more dismal and sinister reality. Gone are the excesses of the Sixties or even of more recent frat-comedy movies. Hedonism does not rule campus anymore, but rather a heavy fog of existential despair.  \nThe three Christian students I interviewed, Isabella and friends Brian and Jack, remarked on the shockingly casual confessions of their fellow students: “I’m so depressed,” or “life is suffering.”Phrases like this, common among the student body, are often scribbled on desks at Green Library or spoken like self-deprecating jokes to friends. Others laugh along and agree that they too are depressed, anxious, and suffering. As of 2022 Stanford has a higher suicide rate than the national average.1  \nNo easy answer exists as to why despair reigns nor how to solve it, though most students recognize it as a problem. Some point fingers at the university, while others point to the broader trend of collapsing American communities (as documented in Robert D. Putnam’s 2000 book Bowling Alone or Charles Murray’s 2012 Coming Apart); to growing up with incessant social media use, which has frequently been linked to depression and anxiety; or to the long-stagnating wages and mounting student debt that makes it almost impossible for young people to do as well or better than their parents did. Stanford graduates have some of the most promising chances to overcome these setbacks, and yet even one of the best universities in the world is not immune.  \nWhen I asked Jack, a senior financial officer of one of the largest Protestant groups on campus, Chi Alpha, what he expe","cbCaitKvBr10IXau","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaitKvBr10IXau","pdf",200465,"English","# Christian faith on campus\n## Debates about self-interest and Christian love\n## Campus culture, despair, and mental health\n## Christian communities as havens","[{\"question\":\"What did Brian expect when he arrived at Stanford, and what changed after he became a junior?\",\"answer\":\"Brian never expected to spend an evening with his fraternity brothers drinking and teaching them about Christian love, but those kinds of moments became increasingly common as he advanced to his junior year.\"},{\"question\":\"How do Brian, Isabella, and Jack describe their nonreligious friends’ responses to their faith?\",\"answer\":\"They say their friends often ask about faith and theology or request advice on personal problems, and they are sometimes surprised by how often those conversations turn toward biblical wisdom.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the article connect Stanford’s campus environment with despair and depression?\",\"answer\":\"It describes pervasive existential hopelessness, including casual confessions of suffering, and cites that Stanford’s suicide rate is higher than the national average as of 2022.\"}]","Christian Students on a Secular Campus | PDF"]