Risk Taking Academics

Imagine for a moment that you’re in a secular university studying the many disciplines of ethics. As a Christian, you stand immovable to your presuppositions when it comes to ethics, involving its origins and meaning. But when confronted with a lecturer that presupposes ethics as being nothing more than an idea, you begin to feel the clash of worldviews. This type of situation is all too familiar within universities. And although they might teach worldviews from an introductory unit, they will always try to push the students into a neutral submission under the guise of ‘free thinking’. What goes through the mind of a Christian when they pick up their pen or begin typing on the keyboard? What does it mean to stand firm in the face of supposed proverbial academic Goliaths and to hold vastly to the truth of scripture?

I believe Paul knew the battle in part what it would be like for Christians to come across confrontation of all sorts. He left the Ephesian church with a message that stands upon a greater foundation than the wisdom of man. “Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by His vast strength.” Ephesians 6:10. The preceding verses explain the nature of the full armour of God and what it means when you are strengthened by God Himself. Now going back to what I was originally conveying, for a Christian to write anything opposing the ideas of man regarding the nature of ethics or any topic for that matter, hinges upon greater strength than themselves. Why do I say this? Not many Atheistic lecturers presuppose absolute truth, they will usually begin with relativism “What’s true for you is true for you, what’s true for me is true for me”. But when you expose the inconsistency of relativism, you will have to rest upon the vast strength of the Lord. In doing so, you risk your own position within university itself.

Many lecturers and tutors will try to push the idea of neutrality; an example of this is presuming that evidence points to a direction of truth. It’s an illusion for both the Christian and the one pushing neutrality. A Christian should never presuppose neutrality, the disciples never did and to do so would be to deny the strength of the Lord. This isn’t good apologetics nor does the bible present itself in the same measure. If we believe what Genesis 1:1 says about how things came into being “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”, than our presuppositions ought to begin with this truth. If we don’t begin with these presuppositions than our faith is easily shipwrecked by the wisdom of fools who try to undermine the nature of things in existence using irrationality. This is why it’s important for Christian parents to sit down with their children prior to sending them off to university or any school for that matter. The way in which you’re taught things may have a detrimental impact on how you present Christianity to those around you, even if you do think yourself ‘out on top’ of the wisdom of fools.

I believe that the only reason a Christian should be at university or college is simply to share the gospel. For any other reason would infer that you’re open to all types of teaching and even the way disciplines are taught. Parents PLEASE pay attention to this! Unless you know how universities operate and unless your child is firmly grounded in the gospel, don’t send them to university. It takes risk taking Christian academics to write a thesis or an essay that pushes the antithesis of how truth is presupposed. And those Christians are willing to risk it all in order to share the truth of the gospel.