Christians on Campus
I would be interested in the responses to readers of this blog to a piece recently published in the Christian Science Monitor about the difficulties of being a Christian on college campuses these days. The story is found here . Please let us know what you think. You can post "anonymously" on this blog without having to register, if registration makes you uncomfortable. Thanks.
posted by Texanglican (R.W. Foster+) | 6:10 AM
3 Comments:
Hi Randall, Jay here.
The glee with which self-identified Christians covet the status of victimhood intrigues me.
Whom does the article describe with the adjective "Christian"? I get the impression that we're talking about a subset of the total group of people on campus who would identify themselves as such. If I'm correct (but I could easily be wrong), we're presumably talking about groups the political punditry calls "evangelical Christians," understanding that many evangelicals might not want to be identified with what has, for the punditocracy, become as much a political as a religious designation.
Self-righteous intolerance masquerading as liberal tolerance is common enough on the university campuses of my experience. I enjoy reading anecdotal reporting such as this article contains that vividly exposes the hypocrisy. Good journalism tells the truth and exposes lies and hypocrisy. Naturally the hypocrisy of "Christians" ought to be exposed. Today's New York Times (1/25), for example, contains a fascinating article on the Arlington Group's threat to withhold its support from the President's Social Security plans due to his lack of demonstrated interest, now that the votes are all in, on a gay marriage amendment. The President's post-election disinterest in this issue is a subject worthy of meditation, as is the language of the revealed documents of the Arlington Group, that acknowledges the group's largely working-class constituency does not support the President on Social Security, but presumes this constituency can once more be mobilized against its interests.
Rather than complaining about the mild rebukes and indignities suffered on college campuses, we who consider ourselves Christians would do better to dig out the logs in our own eyes before shrilly calling attention to the splinters in the eyes of others.
Jay, your comment is very thoughtful and on point.
-Becky Jo
Thank you for the link to the article. You asked for comments on it and I sad to see you didn’t receive any which directly addressed the topic. I’d like to offer my input as someone who has been involved in campus ministry for the past seven years.
I’d like to focus primarily on the first example in the article as it best illustrates what I want to say. I have also seen the “two hills and the cross” diagram. I was in Jr. High. At that point in my life it was an appropriate explanation of the relationship between God, Humanity and Christ. If a Jr. High teacher had done this I would be upset. However, we are now talking about College. If an illustration of a Jr. High level is held up as a college level understanding of faith there is a problem.
I don’t want to condone what was done here, but no one promised a world where everyone was going to be nice to the Christians. When people go off to college their views are going to be pushed, poked and occasionally mocked. As the church, it is our responsibility to ensure that college students have an understanding of faith that is at the same level as there biology, sociology or physics classes.
The “protectionism” in our parishes means that even most adults have the same “Sunday school” faith the received in elementary school. This is a symptom of Rectors, Youth directors, etc. being unwilling to shake the faith of high school and college students for fear that they might “give up on faith.” If one of our high school seniors cannot articulate her or his faith with something deeper then the “two hills and cross” diagram, they are going to have a real shock in their college classes.
College students need and deserve college level faith.
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