The stats indicate this may be more than mere legend. According to LifeWay Research, 70 percent of young adults who indicated they attended church regularly for at least one year in high school drop out of organized religion during their college years. Almost two-thirds return to regular church attendance later on, so there seems to be something about their experiences during this life phase that pushes them away from religion.
But amid this abysmal picture of floundering faith is a story of hope and perhaps a model for how faith might thrive at even the most secular institutions.
It’s called The Veritas Forum, a national Christian organization founded by Harvard students 20 years ago. They host events at universities across the country that seek to “engage students and faculty in discussions about life’s hardest questions and the relevance of Jesus Christ.”
Veritas, meaning “truth” in Latin, is not your fundamentalist grandmother’s Christian group. Their forums take place at America’s top universities—including the Ivies—and the questions they address are not simplistic spiritual queries.