| |
In nearly every university in America, it’s easy to find professors who are vocal in their opposition to Christianity. They tell students that the church wants to take us back to the dark ages. Christians strike fear into the hearts of many an intellectual when we actually call evil, evil. It makes one wonder what happened to intellectualism.
So, if distinguished professors whom you respect taught you that religion is the sole source of all bigotry, would you hate religion? If you were only taught that influential Christian leaders like Martin Luther were anti-Semitic and never taught about the virulent anti-Semitism of secular Enlightenment heroes like Voltaire, would you resent Christianity? If all you were taught of Christianity was Constantine’s rule, the Crusades, the Inquisition and witch trials, would you detest it?
Indeed, there would be something wrong with you if you didn’t.
These are wholesale distortions of truth and history. Setting aside the truth claims of Christianity for a moment and observing strictly from a cultural vantage point, Christian faith has done a whole lot more good in the real world than secular radicals want you to think. In America, 229 years of religious liberty has not lead us to slavery; but away from it (with Quaker and Puritan pulpits leading the early opposition). Our religious liberty, once it took root, did not lead us to the rack and shackles, but away from them. It did not lead us to a theocracy but to democracy. It did not lead us to illiteracy but away from it (again, with Puritans championing literacy to an unprecedented extent). It did not lead us into primitive caves, but toward progress. It did not lead us to ignorance, but away from it. It did not pull us from science, but toward it (note that the Enlightenment came on the coat-tails of the Reformation). It did not point us toward a neglect of the needy, but toward deeper practical compassion--fostering countless hospitals, the Salvation Army, the YMCA, nursing homes, orphan homes, prison ministries, crisis pregnancy centers and relief organizations world-wide. A recent Manhattan Institute study revealed that among church attendees, divorce rates are much lower and life expectancy rates rise about 4 years. And this is the tiny tip of the iceberg.
Be thankful for your freedom of faith in America. Use it for good. And most of all, remember that the best benefits of Christian faith are invisible and eternal!
Joel Mark Solliday , M.Div., is the editor of Campus CrossWalk and the pulpit minister of the Brooklyn Center Church of Christ in Minnesota. A Pepperdine graduate, he later worked in their Campus Life Office and at ACU as a Missionary in Residence. He earned his M.Div. at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is in his first wonderful year of marriage with Katie!
|
|
