How to Think Your Way through College

note: Brian Walsh wrote this article while Director of the Campus Outreach Program of the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. This article was originally published in InterVarsity’s HIS magazine.

How to Think Your Way through College

Leon Trotsky once observed that Russia’s problem wasn’t a lack of good writers, but a lack of good Russian “communist” writers. In other words, few writers were so steeped in the communist world view that their literature naturally and integrally breathed communism.

We could say the same thing about the body of Christ today. It is not that the church lacks lawyers, doctors, politicians, farmers, scientists, business people and psychologists, but that so few could be termed “Christian” lawyers, doctors, politicians, farmers, scientists, business people and psychologists. Most Christians are fragmented rather than integrated. We often fail to relate our daily tasks to our Christian faith.

In The Christian Mind (Servant), Harry Blamires has observed this disturbing feature of the contemporary Christian: “There is no longer a Christian mind. There is still, of course, a Christian ethic, a Christian practice and a Christian spirituality. As a moral being, the modern Christian subscribes to a code other than that of the non-Christian. As a member of the church, he undertakes obligations…ignored by the non-Christians. As a spiritual being, in prayer and meditation, he strives to cultivate a dimension of life unexplored by the non-Christian. But as a thinking being, the modern Christian has succumbed to secularization.”

One of the purposes of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship is to help students integrate the biblical world view into all aspects of life. In practical terms, this purpose calls us to integrate faith and learning intellectually by developing a Christian perspective in our studies. We confess that all truth is in Jesus Christ (Jn. 1:14; 14:6). Shouldn’t this confession have far-reaching implications for university study which is, after all, the pursuit of truth?

Four Formulas
What happens when we take a Christian and add him or her to the secular university? We’ll end up with at least four possible equations.

1. Christian + University = Christian + University. This equation could be called the isolationist option. Most Christian students see no real connection between their studies and their faith in Christ. They isolate their faith from their studies, and their Christian presence on campus is limited to attendance at an IVCF chapter meeting, personal Bible study and maybe a little evangelism. They may find opportunities to share their faith with a non-Christian classmate, but they write their papers on Hopi Indians or take their engineering exams without a Christian approach to anthropology or technology.

2. Christian + University = A Bit of Both. Some Christians feel uncomfortable with an isolationist approach. University studies cause them to rethink their faith, and they begin to modify their beliefs. Although this can be a healthy experience (we must all be open to correction in our beliefs so they become more and more biblically accurate), there is a danger to be avoided here. In its extreme, this position leads to an accommodationist stance. Christians accommodate their faith whenever it is seriously challenged by their studies. For example, the study of psychology could lead them to view conversion as a merely psychological event in which God has no real impact. Studies in commerce could lead them to spiritualize Jesus’ concrete teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, which fly in the face of economic practices rooted in self-centered greed (Mt. 6:19-34). Or a comparative religions course could result in watering down Jesus’ claim to be the way, the truth and the life.

3. Christian + University = Non-Christian. An accommodationist approach to university studies could well be the first step to this third possible equation. Sometimes the first two options—isolation and accommodation—become unbearable, and Christian students respond by giving up their faith. Although this option is clearly the saddest and most drastic, it may have more integrity than either accommodation or isolation. At least such people have the courage to say that their faith cannot be sustained in the face of academic studies, so it must be abandoned.

They read Freud’s The Future of an Illusion (Norton); they are convinced that religion is an infantile projection, so they decide to grow up and leave childish things behind. Or the accommodation of historical Christianity to unjust and oppressive economic patterns becomes too much for their conscience, so they reject Christ and embrace Marx.

4. Christian + University = Christian University Student. Perhaps fewer students would abandon their faith if they opted for the fourth equation. This option of integration, from a biblical point of view, is the only valid option. Rejecting the irrelevance of an isolationist perspective, the impotence of accommodationism and the death of abandonment, the students who opt for integration strive to think Christianly, to be Christian university students.

This option takes Jesus Christ seriously as both Creator and Redeemer. Listen to Paul’s portrait of Christ: “For in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together…. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:16-17, 19-20).

Do you notice that the words all things recur throughout these verses? Jesus is the Creator of all things, he is before all things, and all things are reconciled to him. In short, because he is both Creator and Redeemer of all things, he alone is the rightful Lord of all things. And the passage is clear in its all-inclusiveness. Nothing lies outside the scope of Christ’s lordship. He has jurisdiction over all existence. As Lord of all creation, he needs to be accommodated to nothing—everything is subject to him. Perhaps if more Christian students lived as if they really believed this, we’d see fewer people abandon their faith on our campuses.

Image or Idol?
If Jesus Christ is the Lord of everything, then surely he must be the Lord of our studies. But how can we subject our study to his lordship? As rational people, won’t Christians and non-Christians study and think in much the same manner? No. Christians and non-Christians should not only live differently; they should think differently. There is a good biblical reason for this. The Scriptures portray humans as inherently religious creatures; we seek an orientation, a higher goal, an ultimate end, a god. This is what it means to be created in the image of God.

The Bible teaches that if we do not fulfill our calling to reflect our Creator, we will necessarily mirror something else, some idol. Paul puts it this way: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles…they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!” (Rom. 1:22-23, 35)

The pattern is inevitable: either we serve the Creator, or we idolize and serve something in the creation. Every life is a profession of faith—everyone places confidence in someone or something. In this sense, everyone is religious. Without exception, we all surrender our allegiance to powers and influences that control us. Dylan is right: “You gotta serve somebody.”

In other words, all students have a view of the world. We all interpret the events of life within some framework. We have to, in order to make sense of our existence. Our decisions and choices flow out of this vision of life. Whether we consciously define it or unconsciously express it, all of us operate with a world view.

Road Map
A world view is a kind of road map. It tells us the “lay of the land” and how to get from one place to another. But we operate according to different maps which view reality differently and therefore suggest different routes through life. That is why we often miss each other—we take different streets altogether. The question for us as Christians is not whether to have a road map, but whether that map is God’s map or not. Only the Creator can draw an accurate one. Without the Creator, people draft their own maps—false ones.

A professor walks into the lecture hall at nine o’clock on Monday morning. When she begins to lecture on electrical engineering, the literary criticism of a play or the molecular structure of a cell, is she simply giving us the bare facts? Is her lecture totally divorced from who she is as a person and what her fundamental religious decisions are? No. Everyone has a world view, including our professor, and she brings to her lecture (whatever the subject) all of the baggage that comes with this world view. Her presuppositions are usually hidden from the class, and sometimes even she is not aware of them. If her world view is idolatrous, then it will have devastating implications both for her own academic research and for us, her students.

Consequently, to be Christian students, we must learn to discern various world views. Because a world view has to do with what spirit leads us, such discernment is of spirits (I Jn. 4:1-3). The Scriptures clearly warn us not to be conformed to the world (Rom. 12:2) or led captive through idolatrous philosophy (Col. 2:8). Our task is to discern the underlying presuppositions that our teachers and textbooks assume.

This may lead us to ask some questions: Why is economics generally reduced to a quantitative science? What is at stake in the synthesis of music and technology in much contemporary music? What fundamental assumptions about being human are at the root of conflicting schools of thought in psychology (behaviorism, Freudian psychoanalysis, transactional analysis, bioenergetics)? Why does science play the most formative role in the health professions? Should it have such a role? Why does the engineering department view technology as the true route to social blessing? What presuppositions are entailed in such a faith? How does the social work department define social well-being? All of these questions point to the world view roots of university study. Christians should be asking such questions. If we do not, we may buy into a non-Christian world view unawares.

Clear Vision
If a false world view distorts our studies, just imagine what kind of results a Christian world view should have. We can begin to integrate our faith with our studies only if we are thoroughly grounded in the biblical vision of life. In-depth study of God’s Word, therefore, is indispensable. That is why small groups and IVCF meetings are so important. We can discern idols only if we first have the liberating vision of the Spirit of God. Such vision is impossible without an informed view of the Scriptures.

We begin to be Christian students not only when we can discern false idols and are firmly rooted in the biblical world view. In addition, we must learn to deal with our academic subjects in terms of the Bible. What the Bible teaches on stewardship and the jubilee year will affect our thinking about economics and commerce. Do those implications suggest a different model for our relation to the Third World? Will a Christian political theorist develop a different view of politics considering what the Bible says about justice and the poor? Does healing in the Scripture and the notion of shalom or blessing have an effect on our approach to health care or social work? What does the Bible mean by the mind? Is that helpful in physiology, neurology and philosophy?

Christian students will want to allow the biblical view of humanity to bear fruit in their studies in psychology—even if that puts them on a collision course with prevailing psychological theories. Natural science students will not only deny that faith is a hindrance to science, they will insist that all scientists work from some faith perspective. The conflict will become heightened when it comes to the controversial questions of genetic engineering, abortion and euthanasia.

To respond as individuals to all of these issues is difficult. It is something we must do together. Working through answers to the questions is a function for the community of believers. In contrast with the competitive individualism of our culture and the university, Christians proclaim a gospel of community. That means we are in this together—we have the whole body of Christ on whom to depend.

We should band together with other Christian students in our field, seek out Christian professors, and develop a Christian perspective together. Studying Christian authors on topics pertinent to our fields supplies further insight.

The lordship of Christ offers us no alternative. If we are to honor his rule in our life, we will pursue our studies under his guidance. If we isolate or accommodate our faith, we are denying Christ. Let us instead affirm—and rejoice in—the fact that all truth is from him.