Word Magazine June 1965 Page 12

THE VALUE OF A RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND ON THE COLLEGE CAMPUS

By Robert Bowman

Address delivered at the Church of The Redeemer, Palo Alto, California, On Orthodox Youth Sunday, 1964

(San Francisco State College)

The reason for going to college is to acquire knowledge of this world. All men naturally desire to know, but knowledge without the fear of God is completely useless. There are many things, the knowledge of which is of little or no profit to the soul. A man’s first consideration must al­ways be the salvation of his soul. When we stand before the Lord on Judgment Day, He will not ask if we know the rules of grammar, or Newton’s Laws of Motion; He will ask, instead, if we know and observe the Laws of God. This is not to say that a certain amount of worldly knowledge is not proper and neces­sary, but that knowledge which is to be acquired in the institutions of higher learning, must be true knowl­edge.

How is the student to recognize true knowledge from false doctrine, if he has not first based his entire life on a firm belief in the doctrines of Jesus Christ? “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” (II Timothy, 4: 3.)

Young minds are easily molded. They can be molded in the path of Christ and Godliness, or they can be molded in the path of worldliness and evil. But a young person’s soul, which is firmly entrenched in the ways of the Lord, will serve con­stantly as a barrier against the teach­ings of evil, and against the tempta­tions of Satan.

In II Timothy, Chap. 3, we learn that in the last days – perilous times shall come. Among other evils, men will be “ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” We learn, also, that evil men will grow worse and worse, not only deceiving but also being deceived.

Any young person attending col­lege and having a firm faith in Chris­tian principles can easily recognize the obvious falsehoods which are so blatantly preached in our universi­ties today. Only a godless student could be trapped by a godless profes­sor into believing that Man, rather than being created in the image of God, is a product of his environment. The Christian student is clear and unshakable in his knowledge that God has given Man the ability to choose between right and wrong. No amount of poverty or of so-called “social inequality” can make a crim­inal out of a person. The person himself must choose, regardless of his earthly surroundings. Yet it is in the universities that students are persuaded to believe that some neb­ulous group, known as “Society” is responsible for all the evils perpetra­ted by Man. After the teaching of this doctrine for thirty years and after loading this country with “so­cial psychologists” the crime rate continues to rise with appalling rap­idity. Upon entering college, one must know the absolute truth, that God will not be “phased out” (as the saying goes) by the ‘Social Psy­chologists,” arid that each man is re­sponsible for his own deeds and the salvation of his soul.

As you may know, upon entering many of the California State Col­leges, the student is required to take a speech test. In this test, he is allotted three minutes to speak on a subject, which he chooses from a list of ten or twelve, before an audience of fellow students and a speech in­structor. One of the subjects on the list given to our group was “Is Or­ganized Religion Losing Its Influ­ence in Modern Societies?” One young lady’s answer was “Yes, be­cause Science is the new millennium, and religion is a thing of the past. It is Victorian in all of its ways and ideas.” I would like to reply to this young lady with the words of Thomas A. Kempis, “The more and better thou knowest, the more heavy will be thy judgment, unless thy life be also more holy. Be not, therefore, puffed up with any art or science; but, rather, fear because of the know­ledge which is given Thee.”