Monthly Message, April 2021
It is true that some secular ideas are not compatible with the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is true that some persons are destroyed spiritually by the university experience. But it is also true that there need be no destruction of an individual’s faith in Christ in even the most adversarial university environment. The real question is, how ready to meet the world is an individual?
A university is part of the world. The mission of a university is to expose each student to a rich variety of ideas, beliefs, skills and values. The supposition is that the student will then select for himself or herself which of the university’s offerings best fill his or her needs and will then proceed to master these offerings in order then to make an enhanced contribution to welfare of the society of which the student is part.
If the student goes to the university well-grounded in faith in Jesus Christ, that means the person has had personal experience with the Holy Spirit and has taken it for his or her guide. One intelligently takes a guide only after comparing many guides and selecting the one that is most helpful in filling one’s desires. Those souls who hunger and thirst after righteousness find that nothing compares with the constant companionship of the Holy Spirit, so they take and keep the covenant which assures that blessing.
Being rooted and grounded in faith in Christ then makes this person fully ready to face the world. Using the Holy Spirit as a personal guide in all matters, the person will seek out everything with which he or she comes in contact and hold on to all that is true, virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy. Things thus garnered will be treasured, learned, adapted and adopted as the individual grows steadily in the nurture of Christ towards the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
As an individual seeks that which is good (righteous) in all things, inevitably there will come to that person ideas, practices, standards and persons which are evil, which is to say, are not up to the standard of truth and righteousness. The wise person will not shy away from these automatically, but will seek the guidance of the constant companionship to know how worthwhile a pursuit of such would be. As a little child led by the hand, the person guided by the Holy Spirit will be led to investigate thoroughly some things that are not true and right. The Holy Spirit will enable the person at the same time to keep in mind, by contrast, that which is true and right. Later this individual, thus learned in the ways of the world, will find an opportunity to make the world a better place either by promoting better ideas and standards in that area or by rescuing some faltering soul from being destroyed by lesser ideas and standards.
Specific university challenges to faith in Christ: Atheism, agnosticism, socialism, humanism, destroying the U. S. Constitution, deficit spending, organic evolution, letting LGTB values run everything, preference of science over technology, etc.
A university is a smorgasbord of good and evil, noble and ignoble. No one has to devour it all.
But everyone should taste widely and become acquainted with the offerings of their brothers and sisters. As one comes to know one’s way around academia, there are mountains of good to be digested. Thus nourished, one might indeed make the spiritual contribution to this world for which one has been sent into it.
It is not possible to make the world safe for individuals, but it is possible to make individuals safe for the world. Which is the way it should be.