In 1998 Ross Gregory Douthat enrolled in Harvard University. The it school, known to Ross Douthat and countless other hopefuls as the H-Bomb. Twenty thousand students. Twenty-two-billion-dollar endowment. More than one million dollars per student. Begun in 1636, the school denies entry to 91 percent of applicants while admitting the best and brightest. Harvard is Harvard.

That same year, I, Nathaniel Jon Daniel Taylor, began my studies at Bethel University. The it school for Baptist General Conference diehards and their ilk. Three thousand students. Fifteen-million-dollar endowment. Five thousand dollars per student, 220 times less than Harvard. Bethel wants to be a good school that educates and trains students in a Christian context. And Bethel is Midwestern to a T: only 27 percent of the students are from out of state. The student body is overwhelmingly white, middle-class, and, of course, Christian.

I majored in English Literature and graduated in glorious sun in May of 2002.

Ross Douthat majored in History and Literature and graduated in a downpour a week later.

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Both Harvard and Bethel are sold as known quantities—brands that parents can trust. Parents understand that Harvard means success. Bethel promises a solid education in an evangelical setting. At Bethel parents know their children will be kept safe from godless professors, a sexualized culture, and binge drinking—and may even find a good Christian spouse. Their children will enter as Christian teenagers and leave as Christian adults. And at the end, after the entire bill is paid, both sets of parents will be happy.

Harvard is fully entrenched in the world of the American Dream, the world of liberal piety, capitalist joy, status, and money. To a degree Bethel is caught in this same world. Bethel wants to be high on the US News and World Report college rankings, proudly informing donors and prospective students that it is the eighth-ranked university in such-and-such region. It wants recognition for its ...

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