Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 October 2008 11:46:33
Ok, I'll be honest I have a kind of love / hate relationship with the editorials in the Baptist Times . I guess that kind of sums up my relationship with "formal religion" though, sometimes I think wake up and smell the coffee and other times I think thank goodness, some common sense. I also have respect for the writer though, trying to walk a tightrope which will not alienate existing readers but might also attract new ones can never be easy. This week is a definate "hurrah for Mark Woods" type week though.
He has written a piece that I as both a parent and a student can appreciate. In asking us to think about the Christian parents waving their youngsters off to uni this year he says:
"For Christian parents, along with the usual worries about the various temptations which their offspring will face there's the added fear that the faith in which they have been nurtured will not prove strong enough to survive outside the sheltering environment in which it has been nurtured so far."
He then goes to point out though that parents need to stop feeling responsible for their childrens faith and give their children the responsibility of making their own choices. He does say even if they seem to turn away from their earlier faith the imput they got is likely to help shape their future choices and Christian parents are really no better or worse than any other.
Most importantly in the article Woods says that: "It's no good a Christian Union or other student group seeking to support young Christians by insulating them from the evil influences of the outside world; they'll face it anyway sooner or later, and it's much better to try to equip them to live in it faithfully than to remove them from it. This will mean, as congregations, chaplains, church leaders and role models of whatever sort, being honest about doubt, struggle, temptation and failure. And many - though not all - young people have enquiring minds. They might like supermarket ready meals, but they won't be satisfied with theological ones. Far better to respect their intelligence and have the courage to allow them to enquire, even if their enquiries lead them down pathways down which we would not venture ourselves. " This is one of the most sensible things I have heard in I don't know how long.
From my experiences of being a student I know it is all too easy to slip into the safe environment of the CU sub-culture, which does seek to isolate young people to some extent, (see the UCCF site both for contact details and an illustration of their approach). Equally there can be a culture of believing the diet of "lively songs mixed with a bit of contemplation and talks which have essentially been recycled from the 1960's onwards" is what students need. It isn't what students actually need, as the article suggests is a safe haven to make mistakes in where they know they they definately belong but have their faith stretched. One of the most precious gifts I belive that uni can provide for students is being a place to say there are lots of different possible answers let me see which one(s) makes sense, (see the SCM site for a student Christian group which tends to take more of this approach).
As for myself I have through not managing to get emeshed in the "Christian bubble" yet, to start getting to know some "normal" people. The temptation to find a series of Christian activities to take up my time and give me an instant group is v. strong, but if I manage to continue not using the Christian route to build all my new friendships I have much more chance of finally escaping the sub-cultural bubble where most of my friends end up being Christians. That's not to say I don't want to be rooted within a Christian community up here, as regular readers will know I v. much do. Rather it's to say I want that community to be one of my circles of interaction, not my only "non-professional" one, as it has ended up to some extent being at various points the past.