News-Record.com

I have a few comments to intersperse with the article:

"The young men and women attending the 20 religious colleges I visited in 2001 and 2002 are red through and through."

It is a sad thing to see, this mixing of conservative politics with extremely enthusiastic religion. It flies in the face of all the American traditions I ever heard of. It reminds me of the religion/politics mixing seen in Germany between the World Wars.

"They reject the spiritually empty education of secular schools."

Interesting. Does this mean that they think education should be laced with religion (and presumably with conservative politics, by extension)? This sounds like a very dangerous thing, the creation of a religious/political orthodoxy that will exclude all other expression.

"They refuse to accept the sophisticated ennui of their contemporaries. They snub the "spiritual but not religious" attitude. They rebuff the intellectual relativism of professors and the moral relativism of their peers."

This seems to be saying that they prefer to see things in concrete, black-and-white terms... also a very dangerous, childish way of looking at a deeply complex, nuanced world.

I see this as a movement that will unwittingly drag us to disaster. Too bad there's pretty much nothing to be done about it...

Eric, I concur with the conclusions made.

I attended and graduated from a "religious" college, however, it was not sectarian. Some would even say that my alma mater was not "religious" at all. Yet, I found my faith challenged and strengthened. I also found myself among some of the very type of students referenced in the article/book. Those people were supposed friends at a point when they felt I was "like them." However, when it became apparent that I was not one of that conservative/fundamentist ilk, I was only an "accquaintaince."

I have no regrets in my dealing with those people. I can only hope that at some point in their life that they recall the "christian" way that they reacted to me.

I feel that the mixing of the strong religious aspect with feverent patriotism is dangerous and goes against the very scriptures that many of the aforementioned people supposedly believe.

Somewhere, I feel, these people have been led astray. I fear that when they come to realize the error of their ways, rather than being a strong religious person, they will leave their faith. Those that led them on the destructive path will have to bear the responsibility for that!

Shalom

First off, thanks to Nancy for straightening out the glitch in the blog links. Computers can be so irritating at times...

Darryl said:

"Somewhere, I feel, these people have been led astray. I fear that when they come to realize the error of their ways, rather than being a strong religious person, they will leave their faith."

It happens every now and then. But you know what they say: Fundamentalism means never having to say "I'm wrong."

Speaking as someone who ahs spent most of his life on college campuses, including one affiliated (loosely) with a church denomination, I have to say this wave of missionary-talking (but often materialist-walking) students is on the rise, indeed. The mixing of politics and faith, (lack of) critical thinking and faith, and a general attitude of "don't trust what the prof says, even if he has cred or sources to back him up", is also hard on the heels of these longed-for "End Times" of theirs. Scary.

I am all for academic freedom, if a college wants to advance an agenda of anti-free-thought a spart of its freedom of speech, for example. Being academic does not mean being in possession of any superior truth, secular or religious. It does mean, however, free inquiry. That is where the loyalty oaths and attendant restrictions go afoul of scholarship. I doubt sincerely any significant new science in the fields of cosmology or physics will occur under such draconian regulation.

There definitely is a Christian move toward the center of public encounter and controversy. The predominant trend almost the entirety of the first half of the last century was toward the isolationist, fundamentalist rapture-come-soon variety of evangelical. With the 60’s and people like Francis Shaeffer, R. J. Rushdoony, Hugh Ross, J. I Packer, C. S. Lewis and others, a breaking out of the protectionist, dispensational box, which has become a gathering torrent of revived Christian scholarship and sophisticated expression.

There is still the rather wooden, simplistic, buttoned-down variety of fundamentalism around in very religious colleges and universities, but even these enclaves of the “old school” have moved toward a more savvy apologetics and biblical theology of Messianic destiny. The reason that the secular and religious left (two sides of the same coin) are freaking out with all kinds of books and blogs and articles and national organizations is that they sense the power of conviction and biblical truth. But they still have plenty of grist for their critical mills. They can easily, though not honestly, feature the ONLY most extreme exponents of Christian thought and opinion – rather than interact with the more stable and learned apologists of the day: clearly an attempt to propagandize rather than interact thoughtfully.

It is interesting that just about all you guys can say is: “scarry” “a very dangerous thing” or “drag us to disaster” etc. The center and main force of the Christian resurgence is no where near the Bible-thumping, Billy Joe Hargis (sp) variety; but as the article acknowledged, is far more broad and informed in its world view. The fact that that world view is biblical and Messianic (same and dominion-focused) is what “scares” the religio-secular left/liberal crowd, who carved out their MO of secularist dominion in the wake of the fundamentalist cop-out of the last century. Seeing the Phoenix of intelligent, orthodox, well-informed and Scripturally aware young Christians arise again on the stage of history should indeed make them quake in their boots; because it is nothing less than the true and living God of Scripture and historical intervention doing what He has always done when godlessness and apostasy gains ascendancy. He will not tolerate forever rank unbelief and hatred of His Word and Person. (Psalm 2).

This is, however, no Billy Bob, Bible-belt bluster, but rather, a world-embracing, sophisticated commitment to interaction and dialogue – with all its attendant faults and shortcomings. But the new Christian apologetic cannot be encapsulated in the Four Spiritual Laws and street corner buttonholing of yesteryear, but has arisen to take its rightful place in the public forum of ideas; and the fact that it has absolutes, convictions and faith is simply its position. Rather just throwing up red flags like “scary” and “dangerous,” those who oppose the Christian Faith should stop thrashing the weakest and least able elements of the very large Christian spectrum and begin to honestly address the Master of the Faith Himself and the best and brightest of his apologists throughout history and of today.

Maybe we should revive the old adage: “better RED than dead.” Well, maybe not – it has too many “scary” memories.

Nikos, your eloquent and occasionally windy pronouncements notwithstanding, the arisen new-found Christian "scholar" is often no more than a merely very nice, but muddle-headed do-gooder (and likely hypocrite). While I am happy there are good intentions all around, I mistrust any motives that rely on supernatural beliefs to justify their actions. Besides that, the fate of scientific innovation faces an endgame.

Not withstanding the adhominem "eloquent" but "windy" flack, apparently you haven't interacted very much with the most able and throughtful apologists of Christianity or you wouldn't describe them as "nice, but muddle-headed do-gooders." None of them is perfect, or the most perspicacious thinker ever, but their arguments are certainly not unreasonable or groundless. I am not referring to the liberal/radical variety, such as Spong, Tillich or Matthew Fox, but the orthodox ones: C. S. Lewis,Francis Schaeffer, Hugh Ross, Greg Bahnsen, R. J. Rushdoony - not to mention those from 30 B.C. on. There are, of course, divergences of opinion on particular theological and biblical issues among these conservative voices, but essential agreement on the Creeds, the Gospel and other core doctrines.

Freddy, does your distrust of "supernatural" (i.e. un-seeable) things include "trust" itself. Show me trust in a test tube, or liberty, or beauty, or logic. Even Plato had his "forms." And then there is ESP. All unsee-able constructs rely on observable phenomena to verify their existence.

As Jesus pointed out in his discourse with Nicodemus, concerning the reality of the Holy Spirit: "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." God's mighty actions in the lives of people across the ages testify to the "wind" of the Spirit moving in their lives: Augustine, Luther, Teresa of Avila, John Newton, Mother Teresa, Charles Colson, et al. The testable results of sin (breaking of the Law) does exactly what God says it will do in the Scriptures - misery, confusion, depression, guilt, divorce, etc. And God always answers the prayers of the faithful; either yes or no or in due time)

So, even though you cannot see God or prayer or love or Spirit in a test tube, they have been, and can be tested in human experience. The sceintific method has its marvelous applications, but it can never truly enble us to smell the rose or be enraptured by the sonata or plumb the depths of the poem or koan.

So, there is the realm of faith - not a blind or baseless MO, but one which operates on principles that science is utterly unequiped to explain or operate in. Jesus words to Nicodemus resound through the ages: "You must be reborn" into the spiritual plain before God and prayer and mircles and saving grace can be understood or appropriated.

"Faith" as "expecting normal, predictable or highly likely results" in the case of scientifically explainable phenomena is quite a different thing from "faith" in beings that do not reside in the universe as composed of matter and energy (and so-called dark energy, etc).
If I cannot logically expect certain results from actions or observed, tested phenomena, then I am simply "hoping". Nothing wrong with that, but declaring full certainty would reveal logical lapses.

As for the ad hominem, I merely was pointing to the generally extended length of your remarks. I do stand by the hypocrite line for many Christian (and other religious) apologists. The Greeks used the wortd to mean "actor". The one caveat may be that most of us are "hypocrites" when we let hope cloud our vision. Again, this is not terrible. Just human. We strut and fret our hour upon the stage.

And to address the laundry list: ESP is so vague it doesn't stand up to any test; tubes have real matter in there, so there are methods to determine what can be done to the stuff, how it reacts, etc., generating relatively reliable knowledge (which is open to revision, of course); beauty is a particular subject of mine, and I agree it is hardly reliable or trustworthy, culture to culture; Plato and his "Forms" were a clever argument, but just as supernaturally specious as any "god".

Wow, what a marvelous, dry, experimental wasteland of monoplaned existence. Beauty is out, ESP and Plato. I guess we can just sit and But I know you don't do that. You probably like Bach Beauty, love, spirituality, God. Life without them is just plain boring.