Some Reflections on Religion and the College Campus

Being on a college campus is like stepping into a new world. You cast your eyes about and you see so many things you know to be wrong that it causes a sort of confusion attempting to figure them all out. This feeling of being a traveler in a strange land is made all the worse if you are a Christian who strives for Orthodoxy. College is the Humanist playground of our day. God has no place on campus, and given the conduct and dress of some of the children there I think he would choose not to be there. Not that he would refuse his spirit to the people there, but that the spirit of the people refuses him. During my first week as a transfer Aviation student at University of Central Missouri I was exposed to a litany of things I had never experienced before. 1) Open discussion in class between students about what exams they had cheated on and how. 2) Young women in the hall discussing how the number of their sex partners had increased during the first weeks of school. 3) A science professor lecturing on how there “are no absolutes in science” then proclaiming that God does not exist. 4) An English professor displaying openly vulgar and graphic videos as a teaching aid. 5) I was given a pamphlet of student discount coupons for Planned Parenthood. 6) A slew of other immodesties and vulgarities I will not mention. I was even more astonished that in each of these offending cases, exception being the evolutionist science professor, the offending parties all bore Christian emblems on their person. Over the next few days I kept my eyes out for the display of such emblems and their presenters. What I found was the cross is mere jewelry to most. A symbol for the world to see, but in no way a factor in governing of the mind. It should be said, that there is nothing orthodox in their Christianity. It is a Christianity of the world. Their version of faith allows them the feel-good-ism of belief, but does not require anything of them otherwise. If Christianity is molded to fit the world, and allows for all the worlds trends and ways within it, then it is not Christianity, it is the world wrapped in religious themes. Such is the Christianity of timid people. People who are uncomfortable with the fact that there is nothing worldly about the Church of Christ, because the Church of Christ not only predates this world, but will post date it as well. The act of taking on oneself the name of Christ, and then molding your image after that of worldly trends and attitudes is to blaspheme the name of Christ, to take his name in vain. To be a follower of Christ is to strive for Orthodoxy and set oneself against the world for Christ’s sake. It is as Chesterton said so well: “To the Orthodox there must always be a case for revolution…In the upper world hell once rebelled against heaven. But in this world heaven is rebelling against hell. For the orthodox there can always be a revolution; for a revolution is a restoration. At any instant you may strike a blow for the perfection which no man has seen since Adam. No unchanging custom, no changing evolution can make the original good anything but good.” (Orthodoxy) There is no reason to believe the idea that the Christian need be a timid thing. The Christian is not timid, he lives is a state of constant rebellion. Each passing day is a revolution, that is, if he is honest. We have been trained, by years of visual representation, to view orthodoxy as a stale and stagnate thing. Orthodoxy is commonly seen as the attitude of aged gothic cathedrals and pomp and circumstance of the middle aged church. It is seen as out of date, out of touch and oppressive to vibrant expression. In fact the modern "non-denominational" craze of religion does, in its every fiber, try to shed the likeness of such orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is quiet and solemn, non-denominational is loud and passionate. Orthodoxy has rites and ordinances, non-denominational hold such things as perfunctory. However, in the shedding of the appearance they have also shed the rebellion orthodoxy stands for. Orthodoxy is a uncompromised pursuit of purity. Orthodoxy refuses to accept the unacceptable and refuses to bend to the demands of worldly trends. Satan knowing that his works, once discovered, will be proclaimed by the honest Christian as evil, has made it his mission to convince us that though his works may well be evil, they are tolerable. And the Christian world we tolerate his evil schemes in our mist, for to fight them would require more sacrifice than many of us are willing to give. Latter day saints are given the same option, though we do not at this time suffer death for our opposition, there are those who have had to make that choice. Sometimes if we acquiesce, and agree to tolerate satans methods, we can become very rich, we can be very modern, we can become popular and successful for all the world to see. But in all these things we are stained with sin, for we did not brandish our sword of virtue and holiness when confronted with the adversary works, for to do so would have meant the loss of position, title or income, we instead sought our own gain and place and let the evils work upon others. The world tells us: There is no organization that can bind you. The non-denominational says: there is no need for organized religion, only faith The orthodox says: there must be order in all things, God cannot exist in chaos. The world tells us: anything goes as long as you are good. The non-denominational say: there is no need for baptism, its just an outward expression of inner faith, purely symbolic. The orthodox says: As Christ could do nothing save that which he saw his father do, we can do nothing save that which we saw of the Christ.