Nearly Half of College Students Agree That Words Are Violence: New Survey

Worldview

A recent survey reveals nearly half of American college students believe “words can be violence.”

After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression commissioned a survey that found 48% of students either “completely” or “mostly” agree with the statement “words can be violence.” The survey also found 29% agreed that “silence is violence.”

As John Stonestreet at the Colson Center often says, “ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims.” That is what makes these survey findings so deeply troubling.

It’s one thing to say, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer is often quoted, that “silence in the face of evil is itself evil.” It’s another thing to say that “silence is violence.”

And how is there supposed to be civil discourse if “words can be violence“? If young adults view disagreement as violence, it shuts down legitimate speech and — as we have seen — it can lead to actual violence.

These are serious problems, but it’s worth pausing to remember that the news isn’t all bad when it comes to young adults.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that right now young adults seem particularly interested in scripture. Those findings track with a study Barna released in September showing young adults “are driving a resurgence in church attendance.”

According to Barna, Millenial and Gen Z churchgoers attend services approximately twice a month, on average, and teens are “very motivated to learn about Jesus.“ This year, experts have also tracked a “quiet revival” happening among young adults in the U.K.

Gen Z and Millennials generally do not support abortion on demand. And fewer young people are identifying as transgender.

All of that is good news. Still it’s troubling that so many young adults would agree that words can be violence. It’s a “bad idea” with serious consequences.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Human Dignity, Sexual Morality, and Counter-Cultural Christianity

Worldview,

Recently there have been a series of high-profile allegations and cases of sexual harassment and predation — the latest being Hollywood magnate Harvey Weinstein.

Many have pointed out these are not isolated incidents. Sexual exploitation, harassment, and assault have become far too common.

Amid this dark culture, it’s important to remember the pagan world to which the gospel was first taken nearly 2,000 years ago. Our friends at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview write,

With the exception of a few highborn women, Roman women were often treated worse than Roman cattle. Even upper-class women were little more than possessions and, when it came to sexuality, they were at their husband’s beck and call and could be disposed of at will.

Slave women, which were a full third of Rome’s female population, could expect beatings and rape. The “fortunate” ones were sold into prostitution. Unwanted girls were left to die of exposure.

Into this world came Christianity, specifically the writings of St. Paul. As [author Sarah] Ruden tells her readers, to call him an “oppressor of women” could “hardly be more wrong.” “Paul’s teachings on sexual purity and marriage were adopted as liberating in the pornographic, sexually exploitive Greco-Roman culture of the time . . .”

The biblical teachings about human dignity, morality, ethics, and sin were counter-cultural at the time. Today they appear to be once more. John Stonestreet notes that “sexually-predatory males didn’t go extinct, but until just recently—and thanks largely to Christian influence—they couldn’t rationalize their predations, either.”

Click here to read Stonestreet’s entire commentary on this subject or listen to it below.

[audio:http://www.breakpoint.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/BP2017-10-19.mp3|titles=#MeToo by John Stonestreet]

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Giving Our Kids a Worldview Boost

Worldview,

The late Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship and the Chuck Colson Center, spoke back in 2011 about the widening age-range of adolescence. What was once a developmental period spanning the teenage years now lasts through a person’s late 20’s.

Chuck Colson recommends teens and young adults need a worldview boost to propel them toward full-fledged adulthood. Listen below.

[audio:http://www.breakpoint.org/images/content/breakpoint/audio/2014/033114_BP.mp3|artists=Chuck Colson & John Stonestreet|titles=Giving Our Kids a Worldview Boost]

Click here to visit Breakpoint.org.

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