senior immunizations

I hear about a lot of people who go off to college and ‘lose their faith’, and I think that’s a shame. Because you can be a Christian and be educated. You can be a Christian and be intelligent. I believe that the Christian outlook on life makes better sense than any other outlook, by far. Therefore, Christians have the potential to be the smartest and wisest people in the world.

My goal is not to teach you everything the smartest Christians in the world think. That wouldn’t be possible at this stage. What I want to do is simply convince you that there are good answers to the problems that nonChristians raise about Christianity.

Here’s a pretty normal situation: someone like you goes off to college and goes to a lecture with 500 other students. It could be almost any topic: Biology, Philosophy, English, History, Math, Art, Politics, or whatever. The teacher has a PhD from Harvard and seems really smart. You come to admire him. This guy seems like the smartest guy you’ve ever heard. And over the course of the semester, he makes negative comments about Christianity, either indirect comments or direct criticism. He presents what seem like the fatal flaws of Christianity, things you’ve never heard about in church. And you assume that he’s right.

What might those criticisms be?

Here’s what I want you to get: just because a professor gets up and says something doesn’t mean she’s the last word on the subject. It’s going to seem like she’s the final authority on the subject. And she’s going to say it like she’s the final authority on the subject. But I assure you that there are intelligent Christians who think differently.

Here’s a very crucial point: worldviews depend on presuppositions. If you presuppose that God doesn’t ever act outside the laws of nature, eg miracles, then you will develop your beliefs in a certain direction. And if you believe that God does do miracles, that God is active and at work in the world today, then you will develop your beliefs in an entirely different direction.

You’re going to have professors who believe that it’s not possible to be intelligent and educated and still be a Christian. But that’s not true.

Here’s the way to approach these situations: you don’t have to know all the answers to your professors’ seemingly unsolvable objections. Simply withhold judgment.

What does it mean to withhold judgment? It’s like if you have a friend that your other friends accuse of lying. You hopefully don’t make a judgment about whether your friend told the truth or not until you have all of the facts. It’s the same thing.

First, you need to know that there are smart people who have answers.

Second, you need to know where to get those answers (eg, call or email me for references).

Third, get the answers if you’re interested.

If you take this simple attitude there’s no excuse for you to go off to college and get blindsided.

Here’s the bottom line: a lot of us are spiritually lazy. If we pray for a Land Cruiser and don’t get it, we conclude that God doesn’t answer prayer. Or, more seriously, if we pray for someone who is terminally ill and she doesn’t get better, we conclude that God doesn’t answer prayer, or that God doesn’t care about us, or the God doesn’t exist. Those are lazy conclusions. Any scientist who operated like that would be out of a job quickly. What’s the scientific method? You test your hypothesis, and then revise your hypothesis based on the test. You seek out new data.

Thomas Edison reportedly failed to figure out how to make a light bulb more than a hundred times. Someone asked him if he was going to quit. He said ‘No, now I know 100 ways not to make a lightbulb.’.

That’s how we should be with our faith. We should test our beliefs by living them out, and if they don’t work, we should reformulate them, seeking out more data.

Was Jesus God?

Is Jesus the only way to know God?

Now let’s be specific. Can your friends know God without knowing Jesus?

You’re probably tempted to say yes. But the clear answer is no. Because Jesus said so. And you can’t have it both ways.

People today believe that there is no objective right and wrong. People today believe there is no such thing as the ‘truth’. They say things like ‘Well, God might be true for you, but God is not true for me.’. This attitude is called relativism – that everything is relative. It’s sometimes called subjectivism or postmodernism. I bet most of you in this room unconsciously believe that there is no objective, single truth that is true for all people.

Relativism is wrong. Subjectivism is wrong. Postmodernism is wrong.

There is Truth. If you’re a Christian, you have to end up in that place. Jesus said ‘I am the truth.’. Another way of translating that passage in Greek is ‘I am truth.’, as in ‘There is no truth apart from Me.’.

Now part of the problem is that some Christians have claimed to know too much. Some Christians have made Christianity too narrow and too strict. Some Christians have said ‘Real Christians don’t drink, or dance, or smoke, or watch movies or play cards or ever have fun.’. Some Christians say you can’t be a Democrat and be a Christian. Some Christians say you can’t be a Republican and be a Christian.

That’s baloney. Let me assure you, there are intelligent, faithful, Christians who drink sometimes, dance sometimes, watch movies sometimes, play cards sometimes, smoke sometimes, and have fun.

There are intelligent, faithful Christians who are Democrats and who are Republicans. And it’s not because they’ve separated their faith from their actions. It’s because they believe their faith is so important that it needs to be active. I’ll tell you what, for a lot of people, voting Republican or Democrat comes down to who you trust less: big business or big government. And that’s not a decision that’s dictated by the Bible or by Christianity.

Now part of the problem is that some Christians have claimed to know too much and a lot of people have reacted against it. It’s a fine line to walk, sometimes, what to say we know and what to say we’re not sure about.

So what do we want to immunize you against? We want to immunize you against the idea that educated and intelligent people can’t believe in God. And we want to immunize you against the idea that there is no single truth that applies to everyone.