Dear Editor,

There has been much written about the changing orientation of the colleges and universities of America. It is interesting to note that many of them began as institutions designed to educate ministers for Christian churches in the nascent United States. My, how things have changed! Today most of our institutions of higher learning are openly hostile to the very values and principles they were originally created to promote.

Not only have these institutions turned their backs on religious faith, they have also come out firmly against free market economics. Although communism has died, as proven by its failure in the USSR and many other socialist countries, there are still professors and instructors at colleges across the nation who demean individualism and promote the Marxist, collective ideal. These colleges and universities are actively working to influence the politics and culture of their students. I recall my daughter coming home from college complaining that she felt castigated as a Christian with strong conservative values.

At one time, a liberal arts education was seen as enlightening and open to new ideas and honest discussion. Today, however, belief in God and the concept of ultimate truth has been replaced by academics with the concept of moral relativism. The search for truth has been replaced with the concept that there is no ultimate truth. To cite God or even to quote the Bible is disclaimed as naïve. The idea of reading the classics has been replaced by the belief that all books are classics. The study of great art once included Van Gogh, Delacroix and Michelangelo. Today it may well be a crucifix submerged in a jar of urine. Objective truth has become suspect. It has been labeled as narrow and intolerant. The irony is that those institutions which promote gay rights and feminism may also promote Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood. A few years ago, Yale University admitted Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, a former diplomat representing the Taliban. The Taliban executes homosexuals and denies women and young girls access to any form of education. So much for gay rights and feminism. It would seem that the only truth that is sacred is the alleged truth that there is no truth.

Along with the main-stream media, modern academia has sold out to the liberal concept of no God and no truth. How can either exist when every situation is measured by a different yardstick? Moral relativism simply means that anything is acceptable under certain circumstances. This has been compounded by some sense of political correctness that has made tolerance more important than truth.

Ford McLain

LaGrange