Letter to the Editor: Christians on campus

If I were to stand up on a table in the middle of the IMU Starbucks and call out, at the top of my voice, “Repent, for the day is at hand,” would anyone listen?

Sure.

Some might cheer me on, some might jeer and throw something at me.

But what about those who should be joining with me, who should be warning with loud cries about a coming day of judgment, about where a life of sin will lead, about hypocrisy and luke-warmness?

It is to them that I say, “We owe the University an apology. We have been silent because we don’t believe what we say we do.

We’ve been snatched from eternal death by a loving savior, but our hearts dry up with timidity and self-serving weakness any time we have the opportunity to share this love with others.And what we need, more than anything now, is to say ‘repent.’ Turn to Christ. His promises are good, and the truth about our own sin is vile.”

The need to proclaim this reality was no more obvious to me than the weekend of Little 500.

Students were boasting about the ways they were bent on proving their “bondage to decay” (Romans 8:21), and the IDS tapped into this desire when it printed tips for “if and when your Little 500 party gets busted.” 

But though this sort of lightheartedness about sin and rebellion is tragic, it is also expected. We see it in ourselves and everywhere around us.

The problem is that Christians on campus simper and hide and conceal the truth, even though we know more is expected of us than being Christians to other Christians and buddies to everyone else.

True religion, James tells us, is to “keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27). What this doesn’t mean is hiding our religion from unbelievers. Rather, it demands we confront them with the truth of sin and salvation, a truth worth all the mockery, loss of friends and hot coffee thrown at us from across the room we can bear.

But our society condemns such a mind-set as embarrassing, weird, to be avoided at all costs.

They tell us we need to dialogue about truth, to have a warmth and understanding toward alternative ways of seeing the world that really isn’t warm or understanding because it refuses to proclaim the kindest words anyone could ever hear: Repent, because death could lay no claim to Christ.

He conquered sin once and for all. Instead, we are told that hell is a state of mind, that true religion is a sort of social activism, that the Bible is in need of just as much academic contextualization and diluting as any other book. 

And what we are left with is a religion allowing us to believe “friendship with the world” is not “enmity with God” (James 4:4). The religion of the double-minded (James 4:8).

Thankfully, as Christians, we have inherited the gift of perspective.

A day is coming when we will account for the glory and self-service we sought in the academy, for the ways we smiled at sin and went our own way and, in many cases, encouraged and joined in with a world we knew was lost and could only be saved
through hearing.

And we know that real joy is not there.

We know that true friendship, true peace, true happiness, can only be had in Christ and His bride, the church.

Happy Easter.

— Brandon Chasteen
PhD Candidate
English Literature