College Is War! – Survival Tips for the University

J. Budziszewski | Saturday, January 22, 2000
Copyright © 2000, J. Budziszewski

Edited transcript of a talk given at Grace Valley Christian Center Saturday, January 22, 2000

Once, when I was a very small kid, at the butterfly-catching-and-putting-in-a-jar age, I caught a caterpillar. I carefully put it in a jar with some moisture and some leaves and a stick, and watched it eating up the leaves and crawling around. It was great fun. One day it attached itself to the stick and wrapped itself up in a cocoon, which was just what I was waiting for. My plan was that when it emerged from the cocoon as a glorious butterfly, I would go outside and I would open the jar and watch it leave the jar and fly away.

Well, when I was at elementary school one day, the butterfly did emerge from the cocoon. I hadn’t expected the butterfly to be so much bigger than the caterpillar had been. The jar turned out to be too narrow for the butterfly’s wings and they couldn’t open all the way. By the time I got home, they had dried and stiffened into a rigid, bent position instead of the normal position of the butterfly wings suitable for flight. The poor thing couldn’t even get out of the jar. It couldn’t climb out when I took it outside, so I had to shake it out. And instead of spreading its wings and flying, it was caught by the wind and blown away, rolling over and over on the ground, like a little tumbleweed.

The moral of this story is: Turning into a butterfly doesn’t mean you can’t be blown away. The jar of the secular university is too narrow for the wings of faith to open. And if you accept its limitations, you won’t be able to fly. But here’s the good thing: College doesn’t have to be a glass jar for you. I can offer you some tips about how to approach college so that, even at the secular university, your wings of faith can open to their full span.

That is what I want to talk about today. Although I did say secular university, I should probably explain that I am including in that designation some colleges that may have the name of Jesus in their names. There are an awful lot of colleges where you would expect to have an experience with your brothers and sisters in the faith, but you don’t necessarily do so. So for those of you planning to go to a denominational college, a Bible college, or something like this–you don’t always know, in this day and age which is so bent on re-paganizing itself, what you are going to get. So this is for you too.

Tip 1: College is a Lot Like Mars Hill

I guess the easiest way to organize this talk is to break it down into a series of tips, so here is tip number one. I want you to understand, those of you who are getting ready to go off to college, and I want you to reflect, if you are there at college already–you can think about your own experience and see if you find that this isn’t true–what happens at college is a lot like what happened at Mars Hill.

In the ancient city of Athens, people loved to hear of what they called new things. That sounds a lot like today. They had a place in the city called the Areopagus, also known as Mars Hill. There they spent all their time talking about the new philosophies and the new religions, the new gods of their own land and of other lands. They were especially interested in hearing from travelers. Now, it may sound very strange to say they talked about new gods. You know, how could a god be new? It seems like a very strange thing, but yes, they talked about that. They were enamored of these new things. The Athenians had a reputation for wisdom throughout the Greek-speaking lands, and I think they believed it themselves. They thought they were very wise.

On the one hand, though, they sensed that their supposed wisdom was incomplete. Even they themselves had sort of an intuition that something was lacking, that something crucial was missing from the picture. An altar in the middle of their city was inscribed, “To an unknown god.” When Paul visited the city, he commented on that. You can read about it in the book of Acts.

On the other hand, they covered up their doubts with pride. We know they had these doubts, or they wouldn’t have had such an altar, but they covered up these doubts with pride. They liked listening to these new things, but they didn’t really believe that anyone could teach them anything they didn’t already know.

As a result, the debates and the discussions and the sessions on Mars Hill were partly a genuine search for truth, but they were partly also an intellectual game. For example, as soon as the Athenians heard Paul teaching on Jesus in the marketplace, they thought, “Something new!” and they rushed him to Mars Hill. But once they had a chance to hear him out in full on Mars Hill, their attitude changed. The book of Acts doesn’t tell us why, but it is not hard to make some guesses. Maybe they had expected Paul to teach a new theory about God. Maybe they had expected him to teach a new philosophy about God. Or maybe when they first heard him mentioning Jesus they thought, “Another new god-one more to add,” so that alongside the altar to Zeus and the altar to Athena and the altar to Ares, there would be an altar to Jesus.

But that is not what he did. He didn’t teach them a new theory, a new philosophy, or a new god. He taught them what the one true God had actually done. The cross and the resurrection were just a little more reality than they wanted to deal with. A few of them became believers. In fact, according traditions told by the early church historians, a couple of the people who later became bishops in the early church were among those converts on Mars Hill.

But not many became believers. Most mocked him or told him, “Come back some other time.” Of course, there are two ways of saying to somebody, “Come back some other time.” You can say, “Come back another time. We want to hear more,” or you can say, “Oh yes, that is very, uh . . . interesting. Come back some other time. All right?” I suspect it was a lot of the latter.

Now, in the modern world, North America is a lot like Athens, and college is a lot like Mars Hill. Just as on Mars Hill, there are some important things to learn in college–there really are. But there are also a lot of false gods and false philosophies. Just as on Mars Hill, students and teachers seem to sense that there is something missing in all their knowledge, but they still consider themselves wiser than anyone else and don’t really like to believe that anybody has anything to teach them. Just as on Mars Hill, the campus debates are partly a genuine search for truth and partly a mere intellectual game.

And at the end of all that, a few people on Mars Hill and in the modern university will still listen and believe. So that’s the first thing that I would like you to remember. I want you to have one mental picture when you go to college: think of yourself as going to Mars Hill to learn what you can from whatever genuine search for truth is taking place there, but to avoid the game, the shell game of the mind.

Tip 2: Nonconformists Are All Alike

Tip number two: You should remember there are certain forms of stupidity that you have to be highly educated to commit. A lot of college people–I am including students, graduate students, and faculty–think of themselves as non-conformists, as individualists, as pioneers of the world of ideas, brave people setting up their flag for some new idea that is true and that nobody else believes, but they are bold enough to stake their claim. Well, I’ve got news for you: it isn’t true.

I am going to quote from a book by the Christian historian Paul Johnson. He says, “Intellectuals, far from being highly individualistic and non-conformist people, follow certain patterns of behavior. Taken as a group, they are often ultra-conforming within the circles formed by those whose approval they seek and value. That’s what makes them, unmasked, so dangerous, for it enables them to create climates of opinion, prevailing orthodoxies which themselves often generate irrational and destructive courses of action.”

What Johnson is saying in this passage is that most of these so-called non-conformists do their non-conforming in exactly the same way. They conform to the other non-conformists. They are all conforming to each other, non-conforming in exactly the same way, which, of course, means they are not non-conformists.

Science Without God

One belief they conform to is the idea that science can do without God. You know, the best explanation for the rise of science in the world is that it was actually made possible by the spread of Christianity. Nothing like modern science existed in the ancient pagan world. And why should it have? If you didn’t understand that one God with an infinite mind made all there is, and that he had made it according to purposes, then why should you believe that when you studied the universe, you would find anything that made sense? If it wasn’t made by a mind, why should it make sense to a mind?

But when Christianity spread through the world and the doctrine of creation began to be understood and take hold, people could think: “A divine intellect created all there is, and he made us in his image. So we have minds too, even though they are finite and are not like his. Therefore, what he made ought to make sense. It ought to be that we can learn things and even give glory to him by studying it.” That realization was crucial to the development of science.

At some point along the way, however, science stumbled and modern scientists conformed to the idea that science can do without God.

“As We Now Know . . . “

Another idea that many people in the universities conform to is the idea that religion is about personal feelings instead of about truth. Now, they may be intellectuals, but that isn’t very intellectual.

One giveaway to the sort of foolishness that I am talking about is what I call the “as we now know” statement. Have you ever heard an “as we now know” statement? “As we now know, there is no life after death.” I have heard that one myself.

A few years ago in my department, I and some other people were asked to take out to dinner a fellow from another university, a philosopher of politics who was lecturing in my department at the University of Texas. He had to give a talk and lead a workshop. After he had finished his day of activities, we honored him by taking him to dinner. The discussion turned on many different topics, and somehow or other, the discussion had turned to religion. A colleague of mine in my department chimed, “Of course, as we now know, there is no life after death.” “As we now know”? How on earth did he know that?

The “as we now” statement is often introduced by “it was once thought” statements. Have you heard those? “It was once thought that moral laws were given to us by God, but as we now know, mankind gives moral laws to himself.” Such people commonly believe that Christian sexual morality is obsolete.

Whenever your teachers make “as we now know” statements, ask them, “Who do you mean by ‘we’ and how do ‘we’ know?” You will be surprised at how rarely they have a good answer. That kind of a statement depends on just the pompous sound of it for its plausibility. It isn’t meant to stand up to rational scrutiny. It is meant to prevent rational scrutiny. You don’t have to be disrespectful. You don’t have to argue with your professor. You just ask the question, and it is surprising what you will often hear.

Tip 3: No Solitary Christians

Tip number three: There is no such thing as a solitary Christian. I didn’t start with this one but I think perhaps this is the most important one that I have for you, so I’ll say it again: There is no such thing as a solitary Christian.

One day a student approached me after class. She seemed to be close to tears. You know, you can tell when somebody is about to cry, and she was holding it back. She said, “In lecture today, Professor, you mentioned that you are a Christian.” This was the first day of class, and I am always honest with my students. I always think that, just as a matter of intellectual honesty, I need to tell them where I am coming from. You know, I think a Marxist professor ought to say to his students, “I am a Marxist, just so you know ahead of time. No tricks.” A radical feminist ought to say, “I am a radical feminist.” Well, I am a Christian, so I tell them I am a Christian.

She continued, “I’ve never heard that from any other professor, and every day I spend at this university I feel my faith is under attack.”

Now, the early Christians risked death and torture for their faith. Nero, the early emperor of the Romans, burned them to light his garden parties. Can you imagine a feast like that? The twentieth century has been called the century of Christian martyrs. More Christians have died for their faith in this century now ending than in all of the previous centuries put together. Did you know that? Even today three hundred thousand die for their faith every year, and countless others are sold into slavery.

Was my student under that kind of attack? No, of course not. Well, then, what kind of attack was she under? She wasn’t imagining things. She was under attack, but she was merely in an atmosphere in which Christian faith is made to look ridiculous. You know, a lift of the eyebrow or a look askance when you say something the teacher finds very strange. A sneering comment about Christians, the kind of thing that we heard from a Washington Post reporter a couple of years ago who said that evangelical Christians are, by and large, “poor, uneducated and easily led.” It is no insult to be called poor. And there are worse things than being called uneducated-but he meant stupid. And “easily led.” Isn’t that interesting? You hear this kind of thing from professors all the time.

So it was things like this. She was not in any danger of being crucified, of being burned, of being pierced by arrows, of being boiled or of being sold into slavery. But she was in an atmosphere in which Christian faith is made to look ridiculous.

“Was that all?” you may say. Yes. And is that kind of thing enough to explain why the modern university has reverted to paganism? Well, apparently so. How can that be?

Here is one of the reasons, I think. Violent persecution focuses the mind on the fact that the world and God’s kingdom are enemies. If you are spared persecution, it is very easy to slip into expecting the world to be a friend. And if you are basing your life on that expectation, then when there comes a day when the world denies its approval, when the teacher smirks, when some of the other students roll their eyes, you go all hollow inside.

I don’t want to say, “Well, just don’t be like that. Just be brave,” because the fact is, it is hard. We were made in such a fashion by God that we care about other people, we care about relationships with other people. You can’t not care about what they think. How, then, can you stand firm?

The Importance of Christian Fellowship

I am sure you won’t be surprised when I tell you the answer: keep up the Christian disciplines: prayer, worship, acts of mercy to the needy, evangelism, sharing with others the good news of Jesus Christ-that kind of thing. But it is hard to do that all by yourself, isn’t it?

But I have good news for you: You don’t have to do it all by yourself. God has not left you all by yourself. He has provided the church. You need to seek out your partners in faith on the college campus and have frequent fellowship with them. Those of you who are high school students, college-bound, planning now to go off to college, make that your first priority when you get to the campus. Don’t, don’t, don’t do it your second week on campus; do it your first. Look for a student Christian fellowship.

Don’t just look for a student Christian fellowship; also look for a real church. The Christian fellowship is going to be great because you are going to be with people who are like you. They are going through the same things. You can exchange experiences and you can talk about these things together from a faith perspective. But you need to be in real church also, because you need to be with people who aren’t like you, people who are other parts of the body of Christ. Maybe you are a nose; you need to be with some fingers and elbows. You need to be with people of other generations, people much younger than you, people older than you. That’s necessary.

So this is what you have got to do–seek out your partners in the faith and have frequent fellowship with them. Why is that so important? Can’t you just be a Christian by yourself? No. It doesn’t work.

A young man that I know came to me once. He was a graduate student. He had some questions about God. We talked. Some time later, he became a Christian, but neither I or any of his new Christian friends were ever able to persuade him to worship with other Christians. For some reason, for some obstinate stubbornness in his heart, he thought, “I don’t need that. I can worship God and study the Bible and do all this stuff by myself. It is just you and me, God.”

It doesn’t work. God made us social beings. That is why we respond to peer pressure. Peer pressure is good, if it is the right kind of pressure from the right kind of peers.

So who are your peers? Who is your true peer group? Your true peer group is the household of God. Your real family is the family of faith.

This is a great secret. I don’t mean that people are trying to keep it a secret, but I mean that nobody seems to know it. It is as though somebody were trying to keep it hidden. Not many Christians know this. So remember, there is no such thing as a solitary Christian. If you go into the world alone, you will be swallowed by it.

Tip 4: You Need Intellectual Support

Tip number four: You need not only a Christian spiritual support circle, but a Christian intellectual support circle. What do I mean by that? I mean a group of friends your own age who are dedicated to Christ, who face the same intellectual challenges that you do on campus, and who encourage each other in the faith by talking about these challenges.

If your church or if your student fellowship group functions as both a spiritual and an intellectual support circle, that’s great. You don’t need to look any further. But it doesn’t always happen that way. You may have a Christian fellowship group that is great in some ways. You can do some Bible study there. You can worship God together with other believers. There are other people who will hold you accountable when they see that you are slipping in your Christian disciplines and who will pray with you, and that is all terrific.

But it may be that this particular group just doesn’t function as the kind of place where you can discuss the intellectual challenges to Christian faith. If that is what you find, don’t worry about it. Every church and fellowship group is stronger in some areas than it is in others. But in that case you are going to have to form another one or find another one. The important thing, though, is that everyone in your intellectual support circle is a Christian, so that you build each other up in faith when you talk about these things instead of tearing each other down.

Perhaps one member of your intellectual support circle is your roommate. Another is a friend from your fellowship group. One is from your church. One is from your softball team. One shares a lot of classes with you because you are in same major. Your intellectual support circle doesn’t have to be a club with regular meetings, although, of course, it could be. It is enough that you all can talk together, whether all at once or whether in twos and threes and fours.

In my mind, for instance, I hear somebody–let’s call him Frank–Frank mentions to his Christian intellectual support circle that ever since his literature class read

Paradise Lost

by Milton, he has been troubled by the puzzle of why there is evil in the world. And so all of the others respond.

 

One of the members of his circle is Ahmed. Now, Ahmed is a good listener. He asks questions to draw Frank out. Susan’s brother died of cancer, and in her family, they have been through this question. She mentions a Bible passage that encouraged her brother and she and Frank look it up together. Farhannah, who is the kind of thinker who reads everything that she get her hands on, suggests a book, The Problem of Pain, by C.S. Lewis, the great Christian writer, and she offers to loan it to him, because she has a copy. And then Frank himself, after all of that stimulus, remembers hearing something back when he was in high school, back in his hometown church, about the book of Job in the Old Testament, and about the problem of evil there, about Job’s sufferings, and he decides to read it again.

Do you see how that works? An intellectual support circle is a great gift of God which will make a difference for the rest of your life.

There was a period in history after the spread of Christianity through the western part of the world when, in Europe, there was a Christian intellectual culture. You didn’t have to go looking for a Christian intellectual support circle. The whole culture was oriented that way. But we are not in that kind of a culture anymore, so you need to look for an intellectual support circle.

Tip 5: Behind Every Temptation is a False Ideology

Tip number five: Behind every temptation is a false ideology. My grandfather was a Baptist minister. I remember when I was a kid once I made a picture of the devil according to conventional art ideas. I guess it was my childlike idea, but the adversary, the enemy, Satan, was pretty close to a guy wearing red pajamas. He had a long spiky tail and he had the horns and he looked like one of the singers in the rock group Kiss.

I was pretty impressed with my own work and showed it to my grandfather. He said, “That’s not the devil.” I said, “It’s not?” He said, “No, the devil is a beautiful woman.” I know what he meant. You know, for a young man at least, that is the shape temptation may wear. For a young woman, of course, it may be a really good-looking hunk of a young man.

That was a good lesson for me. But there is another one that I learned later. You may think, “Okay, I know temptation doesn’t look like some guy with horns. Temptation may look like a beautiful woman.” But that is not the whole of it either. There is something else behind that. Behind even that temptation is a false ideology.

Now, I just talked about a beautiful woman and a good-looking hunk of a man, so let’s talk about sex. I knew that would get your attention.

It is a fact that not many Christians stop believing in God and then start sleeping around. More often, they sleep around and then hunt for excuses to stop believing in God.

A friend of mine was a campus at one of the colleges in the Texas university system, and there was a guy he told me about. He had had high hopes for this fellow. The guy seemed to have some pretty strong faith. He was eager to learn more and my friend, as his chaplain, had been giving him some good Christian books to read and encouraging him in Bible study and so forth.

And then all of a sudden, like night and day, the guy just stopped coming to fellowship meetings. He wasn’t reading anymore. He stopped coming around to talk to my friend. He wasn’t hanging around with other Christians. What had happened? Well, he was a body builder, and women used to sort of fall at his feet. So he had to stop believing in God in order to have an excuse for doing what he wanted to do.

Sexual temptation is something to take very seriously at college. You are going away from home, and this is something that pulls. It is not just a moral issue that God doesn’t want you to disobey. Through this particular area of strong desire is one of the chief ways that young Christians are pulled away from their faith–not just pulled into sin, but pulled away from the faith altogether. But behind that is not just that good-looking body; it is not just that desire in your own body. Behind that there is a false ideology.

Okay, Budziszewski has now said that three times. What does he mean? Well, everybody knows the world is full of sexual temptation, but people don’t know very well that temptations are almost always accompanied by false ideas about reality. That is especially true at college, where ideas are the name of the game.

“You Have to Experience It”

To see what I mean, consider a piece of ideology that is very prevalent today: “Sex is just like everything else; in order to make wise choices about it, you have to experience it.”

Is this really true of everything else? Is that piece of ideology, that claim about reality, about everything else–is it really true? Is it really true of everything else, that in order to make wise choices, you have to experience it? Some things are like that. They can’t be understood from the outside. We need inside knowledge.

There are a lot of other things that aren’t like that at all. Nobody with any sense would say that you have to become a drug addict to become wise about addiction. Nobody would say that you have to commit suicide to find out whether suicide is a good idea. In these cases, experience is the one thing that keeps you from being able to choose wisely. A person having the addiction experience can’t choose wisely because he is hooked. A person having the suicide experience can’t choose wisely because he is dead.

Sexual sin is like that too. It makes you stupider instead of smarter. It makes it harder to choose wisely instead of easier. And that is one of the reasons, although not the only one, that God warns people away from sexual sin.

All right. Now take the idea beyond just sex. Think of that just as an example of any temptation. Was the temptation just the presentation of an opportunity combined with a desire? Was it just that you might think that you might want to have sex with somebody and here is the opportunity? No. Very few people will do it unless there is the support of some false idea, some line that you’ve heard.

Lines are not just told by guys to girls on dates. You may hear them at a college seminar. It may be a political line. It may be a false idea that you hear in your biology class. But behind every temptation, at some point there is some false idea about reality, which, if you saw through it, would make the temptation itself look hollow. It would be obvious that this wasn’t such a hot idea.

God has provided a way out of every temptation. That is one of his promises. But part of the way out is to prepare your mind.

Tip 6: Good Intentions Are Not Enough

Tip number six: Good intentions aren’t enough. This one is about sex too. I’ve noticed that when I give talks about dating and things like that, the four questions that college Christians ask most often are “Who can I date?” “Who will I marry?” “What can I do?” and “How far can I go?” Pretty practical. I remember that when I was a college Christian and a high school Christian, nobody ever answered those questions very clearly for me.

I don’t have time to talk about all four, but I do want to talk about part of the third and fourth questions in order to illustrate the point that I am making, which is that your good Christian intentions are not enough to protect the integrity of your faith.

What Can I Do?

The answer to the “What can I do?” question has two parts: a) You can do anything on a date that is pure and pleasing to God, but, b) you have to be realistic about temptations.

Now, part b, being realistic about temptations, is where we need to talk, because it is just when we are being tempted that we find it hardest to be realistic. Example: According to research, the more hours a man and woman spend alone together-even if they begin with a firm intention of chastity, of abstinence, of sexual purity-the more hours they spend alone together, the further they tend to go, and the more likely they are to lose control completely.

Now, hearing this, most Christian young people have the realism, the good sense, to see that couples who really want to remain chaste need to limit the time that they spend alone. Right? It is not that you say, “No, we’ll just spend all of our time alone together, but we’ll just be made of steel.” It is not “We’ll spend all of our time alone together, but we’ll lock ourselves into cages. She is in this cage and I am in that cage, and we can talk to each other through the gap in between.” There used to be some attempts to regulate male and female dating by doing something like that.

Unfortunately, what gets in the way of that kind of realism is that the more time you have been spending alone with your boyfriend or girlfriend, the less obvious this realism will be to you. You’ll think, “Well, yeah, all right. I see, but we’ll be different. We’ll be tough. We’ve got these good intentions. We are, after all, Christians. We’ll solve the problem by praying together. I talked to God about it, and he said it was okay.” You know, we start making excuses.

What is the solution? You need to set your limits firmly at the beginning of the relationship, while your heads are still clear, instead of going into all those excuses. So be realistic about temptations.

Do you see how this illustrates the point that I was making? Good intentions aren’t enough. It is not enough to know the rules. It is not enough to know even why God gave us the rules. It is not enough to know the rules, to know the reason for them, and to believe in them. It is not enough to know them, to know the reasons for them, to believe in them, and have a firm intention of following them. It is not enough. You’ve got to be realistic about temptations.

How Far Can I Go?

The answer to that next question, “How far can I go?” has three parts: A) you can’t have sexual intercourse, B) you can’t have anything resembling sexual intercourse, and C) you can’t do anything that gets your motor running for sexual intercourse. Okay? A, B, and C. Pretty easy.

Part A is real obvious: You can’t have sexual intercourse. Part B–you can’t do anything resembling sexual intercourse-that’s not really very hard, is it? I mean, pretending you aren’t having sex just because you have your clothes on is like pretending you are not naked because your eyes are closed.

Now, about part C-about not getting your motor running. You know what I mean by getting your motor running, don’t you? Listen: God invented sexual arousal. He invented sex, as a matter of fact, and everything that goes with it. But what did he invent sexual arousal for? Why did he build that in as one of the possible states of your body? Why did he build it into all of your equipment as a human being? To prepare your bodies for sex.

Leading to sex is what sexual arousal is for. God planned it that way. That means that if you are dating, it doesn’t make any sense to say, “We’ll sexually arouse each other but we won’t go on to sex.” It makes no sense. It is like turning on powerful rocket motors and saying, “Don’t lift off.” Try saying that to a rocket sometime and see if it listens to you.

The solution? Avoid the things that arouse you. If sex is only for marriage, then sexual arousal has to be for marriage too. It is really kind of common sense, isn’t it?

Tip 7: Jesus Doesn’t Want to Be a Part of Your Life

Tip number seven, and this is my last tip. We are off the subject of sex now. I want to talk about straight theology and devotional practice.

Jesus doesn’t want to be a part of your life. Now, in a minute I am going to say something radical-but not yet. I’m going to start slow. I am going to say what you expect me to say. You know the drill, don’t you? I talk about how you found a place in your life for friendship, you’ve found a place in your life for learning, you’ve found a place in your life for music, and so on.

And then I say, “Don’t forget to find a place in your life for Christ.” And I say my piece about how you’ll need to be well-balanced when you go off to college, spending some of your time in class, some of your time in the library, some in extracurricular activities and so forth. And then I say, “Don’t forget to spend some of your time with Christ.”

I go into my riff about how you’ve made a place in your plans for your future college major; your future sweetheart; your future job, and so forth, and then I say, “Don’t forget to find a place in your plans for Christ.” Yeah, that’s nice.

No, it’s not. It is not. Doesn’t that sound wrong to you too? Maybe you’ve read talk like that in some religious books. I have. Or maybe you’ve heard talk like that from some adults. I have. But doesn’t it strike a false note? The false note is this: It leaves you still in charge. It is all about fitting Jesus Christ into your life, your time, your plans. It says these things are really yours. It is as though the building belonged to you, you know–a big apartment building with lots of units, but you let Jesus live in one of the apartments. It is as though you are the king and the kingdom belongs to you. You’ve got the castle; there are all the peasant cottages, and you let Jesus stay in one of the cottages. It is as though the schedule belonged to you, but you let Jesus have one of the appointments.

Maybe you are thinking, “Oh, I get it. I see what you are saying. To grow my faith at college and stay Christian I shouldn’t give Jesus just a little place in my life. I should give him a big place in my life. Well, I can do that.” No. I’m not saying that. That is not what I mean.

If you give him a big place in your life instead of a little place, it is still your life, right? Christ doesn’t want a place in your life–he wants it all. He doesn’t want you to fit him into your plans–he wants to fit you into his. You are called to give up claims to self-ownership and belong to him.

Now, a lot of college people just boggle at this idea. That is not “feel-good” religion anymore. Who does this Jesus Christ think he is–God? Well, yes, that is just it. He is God. You are not.

Freedom in Christ

A lot of college people boggle at this for another reason-because it seems to take away their freedom. They say, “You know, I’ve got to be free. I can’t give up claims to self-ownership because I won’t have any freedom anymore, I won’t have any autonomy.”

Now, freedom is important. Jesus himself talked about it. He said the truth will make you free. Paul talked about it in Galatians. But Jesus said freedom is found only in him.

There is a slogan on the side of the Texas tower. It is a famous feature of my own campus, the University of Texas. All kinds of famous sayings are carved on it in stone. One of the famous saying is, “The truth shall set you free.” Hardly anybody on campus knows who said that. Hardly anybody knows Jesus did. And I sometimes wonder what people think it means. It is about freedom. What do they think, “The truth shall set you free” means? Do they think knowing about molecular biology will set you free? Do they think knowing why John Hancock’s signature on the Constitution was bigger than anybody else’s would that set you free? Does it mean that knowing how to solve quadratic equations will set you free? All those things are good to know, but they don’t set you free.

You see, everybody is mastered either by his own desires or by Jesus Christ. The first way, we are set free, all right. We are freed from holiness, but the result is futility and death. The second way we are freed from the control of sin, and the result is life with God. We choose the second kind of freedom. We choose to spread our wings, not stay cramped in the jar. We choose to fly in the blue sky of salvation, not be blown away with the dust.

Now, that is what college can be for you, if you follow Christ. So follow Christ.