James Smith’s provocative new book, Desiring the Kingdom (Baker, 2009), challenges higher education as usual. As he notes, “The university can’t help but be a formative institution because of the powerful (though often unofficial) liturgies that shape our identity and self-understanding” (pp. 112-113). That is why, he points out, many if not most of our most overtly secular and atheistic state universities feature stunning pieces of intentionally Gothic academic architecture. Such structures acknowledge (however unintentionally) the inescapably liturgical and religious character of higher education. No self-respecting Pagan U would be without its Cathedral of Learning, as Smith calls it.

Smith’s point is important for every Christian parent to grasp. Higher education is not just a neutral data dump into a child’s head. It is not just a place to get spiritually indifferent job or career training. Colleges and universities are life-shaping, vision-forming, habit-making, worship-lifting sanctuaries. Colleges and universities are places of worship. That’s why they are the high ground in today’s cultural warfare. They are one of the key places where the next generation will learn to worship the living God or the deaf and dumb idols of our age. And the impression that worship leaves is indelible.

No matter how much financial “aid” a college may throw at our children, now matter how highly ranked a particular vocational program might be, no matter how close to home the college might be, the central question remains: In which Cathedral of Learning will your children worship?