Hail to thee, alma mater
I have distanced myself from televangelism, but it helped pay for my college education
Sometimes, in blog entries or social media posts, I will refer to my alma mater as Famous Televangelist University. It’s a tongue-in-cheek, but maybe cowardly, way of distancing myself from stereotypes.
But when Oral Roberts University won a historic upset in the first round of this weekend’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament, I had to post about it — even then, I made the disclaimer that I sometimes have mixed feelings about the school.
The fact of the matter is that I had a good experience at ORU. I think I got a good education there, and the shortcomings in my education, and what I’ve done with it since, are much more my own fault than the school’s. Yes, there are drawbacks to some types of faith-based schools. My dorm director at ORU once said in a devotion that Christian college was sometimes the hardest place to be an authentic Christian, because the herd mentality and peer pressure sometimes lead you to behave in certain ways that you haven’t actually internalized. At some — but not all — Christian schools, there’s a sort of lockstep mentality that makes it difficult for those whose theology (or politics) don’t line up perfectly with the bulk of the school’s student body.
