God And The City

"It was 10 in the morning and I was on my way to poetry class," says Kiley Humphries, a senior from Wichita, "and this guy came up to me near the corner of 31st and Madison, and he said, 'So, where are the drugs around here?'

"I almost laughed at him. He was like, 'Come on. You know. I know you know. I see that little smile.' I was like, 'No, I really don't have a clue.' He said, 'You know. Tell me where the drugs are.' I was like, 'I really don't know.' He seemed to believe me. Then he said, 'Okay, if I do end up finding drugs, can I get your number so I can let you know?' I was thinking, does that ever work?"

A 'Crackpot Idea'

Ironically, what the King's College did not get when it moved into one of the world's tallest buildings is a killer view. Most of student life happens on the lower level, which is underground. The classrooms are there and so is the student lounge, a vast den with tables for pool and ping-pong and lots of sofas. When the halls are filled with students, it feels like a heartland social in a very large bunker.

Only two majors are offered: business and a program in politics, philosophy and economics. No foreign language classes, no science. With biology absent from the course catalogue, there is no official take on evolution at the King's, and it is the one topic that everyone seems vaguely reluctant to discuss.

"I shouldn't have brought this up," says one student after the Saturday night debate, explaining his quibbles with Darwin. "You're going to make me sound crazy."

Indeed, the subtext of many conversations here is: "We know you think we're nutty, but if you listen, you'll realize how perfectly sane we really are."

Nearly all of the students and faculty are Republicans, against abortion rights, wary of gay rights. They'll say nice things about Mike Huckabee, because he has popularized the non-threatening face of evangelical Christians, but many find his economic populism -- his emphasis on the plight of poor families, his attacks on the alleged greed of corporations -- a little off-putting. There's also widespread affection for President Bush, which is something you just don't see on any other New York City campus.

"I was carrying a placard from a Bush rally once," says Humphries, who is student body president. "And a woman in my building said, 'You're a college student?' And I said yes. And she said, 'In New York?' I said yes. 'And you're for Bush.' And I said yes. And she said, 'So you do exist!' "

Everyone here seems to relish being outnumbered; you get the sense the students all come from places where they were surrounded by like-minded people and now they're tickled to be in the minority. They're also aware that in New York, many of their opinions -- that God condemns homosexuality because it says so in the Bible, for instance -- are a kind of secular heresy.

"At most colleges today, if you attack abortion, you'll be mobbed by other students," says Marvin Olasky, who became provost in June of last year. "You don't have free discussions in the classroom."

A gentle, nebbishy guy with thick glasses, Olasky is best known as the author of "The Tragedy of American Compassion," a book that shaped the idea of "compassionate conservatism" touted by President Bush in 2000. Olasky's path to the King's was hardly direct; he was born Jewish, grew up an atheist and was a certified pinko commie in his 20s, enthralled enough by the Soviet Union to hitch a ride on a freighter and tour the country. He became a Christian as a graduate student in American studies, in 1976, as he read a Russian version of the Bible, hoping to hone his language skills.

"By the time I reached the Sermon on the Mount," he says, "I thought, 'This is the word of God.' "