Many Christian parents are concerned that their kids may graduate from college no longer believing that Christianity is true. After all, the secular campus confronts them with questions about supposedly suppressed gospels, James Cameron supposedly finding the lost tomb of Jesus, the Zeitgeist movie madness, and erudite sounding “science” which proclaims that all the complexity we find in the universe arose by luck.
Sadly, even many “Christian” colleges have professors who undermine the reliability of Scripture. These can be harder on Christian students’ faith because they expect secular campus profs to revile every aspect of Christian truth, but not a professor who self-identifies as being a Christian but then tells them that Christianity is only “our construction of reality” or that Adam and Noah are no more than “poetic devices.” (Thus, to borrow from that wise sage Mr. Miyagi: “Either Christian school do yes, or Christian school do no, but no Christian school maybe.”)
This should concern Christian parents! After all, Christians cannot love the Lord with all their minds while suppressing fears that Christianity cannot answer the hard questions. That is why apologetics is essential to a robust faith.
Many wonderful Christian organizations on college campuses occasionally include apologetics into their ministries, but I believe students need a campus ministry that can work in concert with these ministries to answer the hard questions. That’s why it’s vital that there be university Christian groups unambiguously dedicated to defending Christian truth. The new campus ministry, Ratio Christi, is exactly what’s needed (and that is why I was honored to join its board).
Ratio Christi (which means “reason of Christ” or the “rationality of Christ”–for pronounciation, click here) is an apologetics alliance whose mission is to equip university students to give historical, philosophical, and scientific reasons for Christianity’s truth. Though barely four years old, it already has 75 chapters on university campuses such as Ohio State, Texas A&M, Rutgers, Kent State, and UC Berkley.
Students on secular and Christian campuses need knowledgeable apologists to sort out the mishmash and helter-skelter notions that can befuddle sleepy-headed sophomores! That’s why Ratio Christi seeks those who have an MA in Christian apologetics to lead these chapters.
This has opened the door for some of our Biola MA apologetics graduates to be apologetics missionaries to university campuses all over the United States, and several of our graduates are leading campus chapters.
So, if you sense the call to fulltime Christian apologetics and have a heart for God and for university students, perhaps you should pray and even fast about being a Ratio Christi campus minister? If you don’t feel the call to be a campus apologist yourself, perhaps you should pray about financially supporting the ministry or supporting one of its campus ministers. You’ll be richly rewarded.
Matthew 10:42: “And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”
Amen.
I agree wholeheartedly with you Clay. I recently graduated from undergrad and am currently working on a Masters degree in theology and apologetics at Temple Baptist Seminary online. I was doing the M.A. program in Apologetics at Biola, but I found it to be too expensive for my wife and I right now.
You are correct that many Christian colleges are demeaning the Word of God and the Gospel. I live in Manhattan, KS, home of Kansas State University and Manhattan Christian College. I went to MCC for almost 2 years and finally, between the students and the teachers I couldn’t take it any more. The students had seemingly no legitimate guidance from profs or campus ministers because they are all pretty much taught that they are their own ministers, and so they have ignorant (no disrespect meant) teenagers spiritually leading other ignorant teenagers, instead of wise adults leading the teenagers, in their Bible and group studies. As far as the profs, for instance, the Theology professor is an avid open theist who gives far too much credence to evolution, even though he doesn’t actually claim to believe it, and many of the professors refuse to take a stand on major doctrinal issues because they don’t want to offend the students. So I switched to Liberty University Online and finished my B.S. in Religion (Bible and Theology) there last year, which I am very happy that I did, as Liberty is a great school.
At Kansas State, where my wife goes, Christianity is very much hated, although maybe not as much as some other schools. My wife is a PhD candidate in Micro-biology and also working on a DVM at KSU Vet-Med, and it is clear to her that there is certainly no room for God in the science classrooms on campus. I had another friend working on a degree in philosophy there and he said that the philosophy profs are also very anti-God, not that that surprised me though. Even the history department has a nationally renowned Christian scholar who teaches classes on the History of Chirstianity, which I thought about doing a M.A. and a PhD in history under, and in my meetings with him it was made clear that even he doesn’t use words like “cults” (he scolded me for using this term) and that it is required that all the students be very politically correct during school.
These are some of the reasons that I have decided to dedicate my life to apologetics and theology. I intend to also pursue an M.A. in Biblical Languages, a PhD in Theology, and a PhD in Philosophy, as well as a PhD in Ministerial Leadership Studies. Some prominent apologists have told me not to pursue that last degree, but I am keenly aware, as one who has had a very trying life thus far due to several major mental disabilities, that wisdom, such as good leadership skills, is just as necessary as knowledge, and as one who intends on being a professional apologist I want to be able to be a good example for other apologists. Apologetics is not merely about argumentation, but rather it is about the GOSPEL, it is, if done correctly, ministry, which I know that you know. That is why, along with a large picture of Laminin (a protein that looks like a cross) and the Greek word for boldness/confidence, I also have tattooed on my right upper arm 1 Cor. 2:2, which says, “For I have desired to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” because it is vital that regardless of how involved in apologetics we get, we must never forget the most important part of it all and what it is all aimed at, which is sharing Christ and Him crucified for the sins of the world. 🙂
“Like” to both Clay’s article and Trevor’s response!
Hi, this is great. I’m leader of a campus student group outside of the U.S., and run a bunch of apologetics events in addition to that, and it’s hard work. It seems most U.S. campuses are pretty similar to where I am, and a major concern with the way things currently work is the amount of double-up/overlap between Christian ministries. So I really encourage working with major groups like InterVarsity and local churches as closely as possible (even perhaps share office space, room bookings, promotion & admin?), to minimise inward-facing admin tasks and make the best use of the time and skills of students and graduate apologists alike! If Ratio Christi can feed into what current ministries are doing in their meetings, conferences, outreach events, and discipleship, it’ll be fantastic!
Like Trevor, I am also attending Temple Baptist Seminary. The difference is that the though of attempting to pursue all of those degrees makes my head hurt. I’ll probably be done when I finish my second masters, but there’s no guarantee I’ll even do that. Pastoring a bi-vocational church, along with parenting, being a husband, and writing two blogs is enough, for now.
But in regards to the main point, I’m happy to learn about this apologetics ministry. My middle daughter (16), whom we homeschool, plans to major in biology when she goes to college, but with the primary goal of being an apologist. She loves science and is sold out for God, and I couldn’t be happier. She’s even going to “boot camp” at Precept Ministries (here in Chattanooga) so that she can teach inductive Bible study to other youth. I will tell her about the above ministry.
I am very excited to hear about this.