Eric Fromm has received a lot of hugs on campus lately — at least once a day since he “came out” as an atheist last week in an article in his Christian university’s online newspaper.
And while the Northwest Christian University student body president doesn’t quite know what to do with all the new attention he’s receiving, he says it’s a welcome change from the isolation, verbal attacks and accusing questions that he’d grown to expect as rumors about his nonbelief circulated.
“I don’t have to hide anymore,” said Fromm, 21. “I know that people accept me for who I am.”
Though his active campus involvement was enough to win him the student government presidential election, Fromm said he’s felt judged by some of his peers throughout college because, as he wrote in the article that appeared in the school’s Beacon Bolt newspaper last week, “I couldn’t force myself to believe in God.”
It was his peers’ criticism, rather than his own doubts, that Fromm said ultimately compelled him to reject his faith.
Fromm said he was baptized as a Lutheran and attended a Methodist church regularly until his parents’ divorce when he was a teen. He said he had many questions still lurking from his upbringing in the Christian church when he arrived in 2010 to study communications at NCU, which was established in 1895 and is nestled next to the much-larger University of Oregon campus.
As a graduate of the 1,600-student Canby High School, Fromm said he opted for NCU, despite his emerging doubts, because he liked the communications program and the one-on-one attention he knew he would receive from his professors on the 600-student college campus.
While initially drawn to his peers’ faith and sense of community, Fromm said some students responded with shock, shame or fear when he divulged his doubts and lack of faith. Some avoided bringing up the Bible around him, some stopped talking to him for fear of losing their own faith, and others poked fun at him for his views, he said.
“The more I got shunned, the more cold shoulders and verbal attacks, I realized, ‘OK, I’m part of the ‘out’ group,’ ” he said.
Fromm said he wasn’t keen about going public but felt forced to set the record straight as rumors about how he viewed Christians and Christianity circulated on the small campus. Prior to his article’s appearance, he worried that students and administrators might reject him or challenge his presidency.
But the story he never intended to tell has, he says, been met with a surprisingly positive response.
“I knew friends would be accepting, but I didn’t expect as much support” and positive feedback from across the campus, he said. Some students have even identified with his perspective, he said.
“For the past couple years, I thought I was the only one,” he said.
Fromm said he hopes his fellow students don’t confuse his atheism, or lack of belief in a deity, with antitheism, or direct opposition to belief in a deity. He said he still respects his peers for their faith and admires the morals of Christianity.
“My objective is to never attack any religion or any type of person for being who they are,” he said.
Beacon Bolt editor-in-chief and fellow student Brandon McGinnis worked with Fromm to write the article. McGinnis, who is a Christian and Fromm’s former roommate, said a lot of students bring their questions and doubts to college with them. He said he hoped the article would encourage students to be more accepting of one another’s struggles.
“We as Christians have a lot to work out ourselves before saying, ‘This is wrong and you shouldn’t be here,’ ” McGinnis said.
Doyle Srader, Fromm’s communications professor, responded to Fromm’s article with an article of his own slated to appear in today’s Beacon Bolt. McGinnis said Srader’s article centers around the idea that “God isn’t finished,” and that Christians should react to doubt and loss of faith with support, not isolation, if they ever hope to lead a person back to Christianity.
Michael Fuller, the university’s vice president for enrollment and student development, said he’s known about Fromm’s views for years and didn’t question his election as student body president.
“He’s a man of very high character and respect,” Fuller said of Fromm. “He’s a great advocate for our student body, which is exactly what he’s supposed to be and do.
“I want students like Eric here … students who are looking to explore their faith and willing to look hard and make their faith their own,” Fuller said.
“If we all had our wishes, we wish Eric would be a strong Christian man,” Fuller added. But at the same time, he said, “We’re an open and welcome community, and we meet students exactly where they’re at.”
But not everyone affiliated with the university is so sanguine. The author of one email, sent to The Register-Guard, noted that the purpose of NCU’s student government, according to its own website, is “to encourage students academically, spiritually and socially.”
“With an atheist president, it doesn’t make sense how this mission can be carried out,” the email writer said.
Fromm said he still attends the university’s chapel meetings almost every week, even though students are only required to attend about half of them. “I use it as my own personal time, to gather my thoughts,” he said.
Since his article appeared, he’s been able to laugh a little when he fields the frequent question of “Why are you here?”
And for the first time in his life, he’s finally OK with being an atheist.
“I’m too young to really know what’s going to happen after death,” Fromm said. “What I really want to focus on is what I’m doing here, and what it’s going to change.”
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