Do you think college today is a
faith-friendly place? That university culture is free of anti-Christian
bias? That your child's teachers are pure seekers of truth with no axes
to grind?
If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. As J. Budziszewski
explains in his wonderful new book Ask Me Anything: Provocative Answers
for College Students, it's still possible to learn something at
college, but professors don’t always cooperate. He ought to know.
Budziszewski is a tenured professor of government and philosophy in the
University of Texas at Austin. And he's also a Christian.
A female student who wanted to be a missionary e-mailed Budziszewski to
say that although her anthropology professor was kind and gentlemanly
when discussing non-Christian religions, he suddenly turned harsh and
vulgar when the subject turned to Christianity. To defend his
hostility, he said that no one possesses religious truth, that every
culture has value and should be judged by its own standards, and that
missionaries force their religious beliefs down the throats of other
cultures. The young woman wanted to stand up to him but didn't know how.
Budziszewski has the answers. When the professor says, "No one knows
the truth about religion," the young woman might respond, "Professor,
if no one knows the truth about religion, then how can you say that
your own claim about religion is true? It’s like the Liar's Paradox,
where a man says, 'The statement I am making is a lie.' If his
statement is true, then it can't be true, because he just said it's a
lie. If his statement is false, then it's true, but only because he's
lying."
When the professor says, "Every culture should be judged by its own
standards," the student might respond, "Professor, whose culture says
that we ought to judge every culture by its own standards? Isn't it
your culture that says so—the culture of relativist university
teachers? So when you demand that every other culture accept your
culture's standard, aren't you violating your principle that every
culture ought to be judged by its own standards?"
And when the professor says, "Missionaries force their religious
beliefs down the throats of other cultures," the young woman might
respond, "Professor, you say that every culture has value, and we
should judge it by its own standards. If so, why do you make an
exception for the culture of Christianity? Doesn't it also have value,
and shouldn't we judge it by its own standards? In that case, I don't
understand why you're so harsh on Christian missionaries."
These are only a few of the tough questions Budziszewski tackles. He
has others that students might indeed ask themselves during their time
at college. For example, "If I was brought up by my parents to believe
in Jesus Christ, does that mean my faith is merely arbitrary?"; "How
can the Christian ideal of faith answer the postmodernist ideal of
suspicion?"; and, "If I treat the Church like a consumer product on
Sunday mornings, what am I missing?"
Remember, college lasts only four years, but the decisions we make in
this life last for eternity.
Copyright (c) 2004 Prison Fellowship Ministries
BreakPoint
with
Charles Colson
Title: "Fears and Fallacies: How to Stand Your Ground"
August 12, 2005
Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark
Earley (first aired on August 17, 2004).
A professor at a well known liberal arts college became infamous for
starting each semester by holding up a Bible and asking, "How many of
you believe this book is the Word of God?" One or two undergraduates
might have sheepishly raised their hands. The professor would then say,
"Do you want to know what I think of this book? This is what I think of
it"—and he would hurl the Bible out an open window.
Even more astonishing, this display took place at a Christian college.
Hostility to biblical faith is now common on both secular and religious
campuses, says J. Budziszewski in his newly updated book How to Stay
Christian in College. The attitude seems to be "ABC"—Anything But
Christianity.
Consider the story of a student named Frank. When he expressed a
Christian point of view in a course on family law, a female student
shouted, "Why don't you just shut up!" The professor merely smirked and
said to Frank, "I guess she told you!"
Or consider Kathy. In her ethics course, the textbook explained that
there are two approaches to morality: supernaturalistic theories, which
base morality on God, and naturalistic theories, which try to derive
morality apart from God. The textbook then excluded supernaturalistic
theories from its discussion. When Kathy asked the professor why, he
replied, "We don't have time for superstitions."
Then there's Keesha. On the first day of her graduate seminar on public
policy, the teacher announced that every point of view was welcome.
Keesha looked forward to an open debate on abortion. But the second
day, the teacher opened class by asking, "All of you here are too
intelligent to be pro-life, right?"
Sad to say, such tactics of intimidation are common in today's
university classrooms—and it's important for Christian students to
learn to see through them. Telling a student to "just shut up" is
technically called the fallacy of argumentum ad baculum, or "argument
to the stick," which means abusing someone instead of reasoning with
him.
Dismissing Christian ideas as mere "superstition" is another
fallacy—the fallacy of "begging the question"—which means merely
assuming a point instead of proving it. And asking students if they are
too intelligent to hold Christian values is the fallacy of "complex
question"—which means posing a question that one cannot answer without
incriminating oneself, much like, "Have you stopped beating your wife?"
Christian students need to be intellectually prepared to see through
the common tactics of intimidation. They must be able to demonstrate
that Christianity really is a more rational explanation of reality than
any of its competitors in the marketplace of ideas. A practical
resource is J. Budziszewski's book How to Stay Christian in College. If
you call BreakPoint (1-877-322-5527), we'll tell you how to get a copy
of it for the kids in your life who are headed off to college this fall.
Christian students don't need to feel intimidated by professors who
insult both their intelligence and their faith. All they need to do is
think rationally—because God's truth is far more reasonable than any of
the logical fallacies used to dismiss it in the classroom today.
Copyright (c) 2004 Prison Fellowship Ministries
Dr.
Murphy Smith, Professor of Accounting