New Christian college in Bennington, Vt.

The Northeastern Baptist College is scheduled to open in August 2013. Plans are for the four-year college to offer three degrees: music, Biblical studies, and education.

I am working towards a Master of Science degree in Mathematics at a large state-run university in Texas. My coursework this summer has convinced me of one thing: many state-run colleges and universities are openly prejudicial towards Christians and Christian beliefs. Christianity is one of the few subjects where you can say anything you want about it, no matter how demeaning and derogatory. But if you change the target to (say) Islam or homosexuality, you can face possible discipline and even expulsion. Defending Christian beliefs, or even questioning sacred topics like evolution, is risky.

So what are Christians to do? A "slow march through the institutions" - Christians moving up the ranks and taking over positions of leadership in these state-run colleges and universities - will be a difficult process that has no guarantee of success. It will be a long time (if ever) before Christians are free of the growing prejudice and bigotry they face in these institutions. Nor is there any assurance that Christians who attempt this will not end up being changed by the institutions and participate in the discrimination.

The alternative is to support Christian colleges like Northeastern Baptist College. The problem is that many colleges and universities that bill themselves as Christian may not really be very Christian. An example: Texas Lutheran University is a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I have heard some parents complain about the growing secular views of the administration and faculty of TLU (my own experiences with TLU tend to confirm this). It remains to be seen if TLU can maintain some degree of independence and avoid the downward spiral into secular political activism that is consuming the ELCA.

There are no easy answers. But lately I have begun to warm to the idea of Christians forming more of their own colleges and universities. And to those who protest that Christians should not segregate themselves from the rest of the world I would say: no one has an obligation to be a doormat simply to prop up the fragile egos of those who hate them. Turning the other cheek does not involve slapping yourself, and Christians have no calling to compromise with and give credibility to those who clearly hate them. Instead, let the faculty and administrators who run the state colleges and universities explain how promoting Christophobia is somehow consistent with "diversity and tolerance".