Evangelizing Academia and the intellectual elité

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This is a valid area of evangelization because these professors and writers and scientists are in a position to influence so many young minds. I remember my own college days when my faith was put to the test - and the awkwardness with professors I genuinely liked and respected, and was grateful to for teaching me in the academic disciplines, but when conversations turned unexpectedly to moral issues, oh my! :eek: And trying to decide what to write about and how to bring God into it without “sounding preachy or judgmental.” :coolinoff:

Back in the 1980s fornication and cohabitation were still able to raise eyebrows, at least in my experience. Homosexuality was encountered somewhat amongst my English profs. More lesbians (who had the women’s studies department a floor down and there was cross-pollination, so to speak, with the literati) than gay men, though some gays among my fellow students.

Then there were the sciences, whether “hard” or “soft” - and the tendency to steer students toward random purposeless evolution (I’ve no beef with the study of evolution as long as it’s acknowledged God had a hand in it). Or determinism in the case of psychology or sociology - man really is not different from the beasts, free will is a myth, religion is superstition, etc.

As I mentioned, it was a trial of my faith, and there was some fallout. I didn’t leave the Church, but I did struggle, and the struggle brought on anxiety and depression. If I were in academia today, I’d be downright terrified, because what I could mention then and simply have eyes rolled at me, today might get me censured or sued or threatened.
 
To evangelize I use the media, eg. Letters to the editor: I pick-up local problems concerning morals, misunderstandings about our faith, and believe me there are many. There are many social problems that can be clarified by our own understanding of our Faith. Every chance I get I bring Jesus Christ into the solution. I try with every thing God gives me to make the truth known. I agree, one must have a supply of knowledge to show the root of many social problems. I know that at times you might step on someone’s toes, but Christ warned us about persecution I also send those more educated some personal witness, and I have reason to believe that they were effective because I saw a good change in the person. With my own grandchildren I have them say a prayer which incorporates a petition to the Father in the Name of Jesus to give His Spirit of Faith, Hope, and Love to them, and also knowing the temptations that come from their nature, and the world, I include a simple prayer of exorcism. I try to level the playing field for them. When I do this I believe it make them more receptive to what I say. I find that many times I don’t get many responses, but like St.Paul I move on knowing that what I say may not be received, but I leave this all to God’s providence.
I cast my bread upon the water and see where it goes.
 
=Rock7;11615679]Okay this flipped through my mind. And no I’m not talking about evangelizing students. How do we evangelize those that write philosophy papers, publish in the journal nature, or discuss public health policy. In other words how do we witness to society’s scholar class? They are the ones who lead many astray and it is by their influence that atheism, rational humanism, and the deification of progress and tolerance(worldly tolerance if you know what I mean) spread and incubate? If anything Christ work is more needed in this sector than anywhere else today! Then how do we do it?
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God HAS TOO prepare the soil; then we PLANT he seeds and God does the watering and provides the sun [son] shine to make it grow:D

I suspect the place to start [after MUCH prayer] is with evidence of God’s existence.👍
 
I have in the past written to News paper column writers like William Buckley Jr. He died before I could reach him. Also I written to Cal Thomas of Tribune Media Services and witnessed to my Faith, and got results, God paved the way. I also written to Charles Reese, he was a columnist for the local paper. These men were in key positions to reach many people from all walks of life. I witnessed to my Faith and left the rest to God, trusting His providence. I also engaged college students who were affected by false teachings from their teachers I couldn’t do this if I didn’t some qualitative education of my Faith and spiritual confirmation of my Catholic, Christian faith It is like “making a fool of yourself for Christ” It takes courage, and motivation that can only come from the Holy Spirit. Such is the Power of our Faith because it is real, and based on Truth, Jesus Christ.
 
I might add I believe the intellectual elite would probably be the hardest group to get through to and evangelize.or even to share the truth. With knowledge comes a danger of “intellectual pride” a real obstacle to the Holy Spirit God favors the meek and humble of heart and mind.
 
What I have seen is a pattern similar to the following:
  • Professor is raised Catholic, but their family was dysfunctional, or someone in the Church hurt them, or their mother bore many children but was worn down by it and no one helped her practically or emotionally. Worst case scenario she was harmed by childbearing or used birth control but bore tremendous guilt - felt caught in a Catch-22.
  • Child who would later become the professor either rebels against the Church inwardly on his/her own, or finds liberal-progressive views in books or from peers or teachers or some authority figure.
  • If this person went through the Vietnam War era and the hippie culture, the “Women’s Lib” movement, and other social movements of the 1960s-70s time period, these were often a particularly powerful influence. They felt themselves the vanguard of building a new society, the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, or whatever. And some of their idealism and desire for justice was genuine - but other not-so-wholesome ideas got mixed in with it.
  • Eventually the person gravitates more and more towards the new beliefs and the colleagues who share them, and they reinforce one another, while associating most traditional beliefs (and believers) with the “oppressors” of the past.
I apologize for inconsistencies of verb tenses in the above and I’m too tired to correct them :o . . . take from it what you will. The above is a composite of many professors who taught me in the 1980s. Mind you, the roots of some of their ideas went back further than that, probably to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. World Wars I and II played their part as well in changing society’s moral climate.
 
I think it is especially important not to propagate the notion that God favors non-intellectuals, as implied above. Knowledge and wisdom are spiritual gifts. I believe that academics are searching for the same hope, peace, and community that we all desire.
 
3DOCTORS said:
What I have seen is a pattern similar to the following:
  • Professor is raised Catholic, but their family was dysfunctional, or someone in the Church hurt them, or their mother bore many children but was worn down by it and no one helped her practically or emotionally. Worst case scenario she was harmed by childbearing or used birth control but bore tremendous guilt - felt caught in a Catch-22.
  • Child who would later become the professor either rebels against the Church inwardly on his/her own, or finds liberal-progressive views in books or from peers or teachers or some authority figure.
  • If this person went through the Vietnam War era and the hippie culture, the “Women’s Lib” movement, and other social movements of the 1960s-70s time period, these were often a particularly powerful influence. They felt themselves the vanguard of building a new society, the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, or whatever. And some of their idealism and desire for justice was genuine - but other not-so-wholesome ideas got mixed in with it.
  • Eventually the person gravitates more and more towards the new beliefs and the colleagues who share them, and they reinforce one another, while associating most traditional beliefs (and believers) with the “oppressors” of the past.
.
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I was a hippie and went through much of what you describe. I left the church during college because of her members’ inhospitable attitude toward street people.
But God made himself known to me in a real way when I had come to the end of my rope, and I know I’m not the only one. He led me to the Catholic church eventually. You are right, He is working in everyone’s lives to bring them to the truth.
 
Viki63 said:

I was a hippie and went through much of what you describe. I left the church during college because of her members’ inhospitable attitude toward street people.
But God made himself known to me in a real way when I had come to the end of my rope, and I know I’m not the only one. He led me to the Catholic church eventually. You are right, He is working in everyone’s lives to bring them to the truth.​

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So happy you found your way back. It’s interesting - Martin Luther found things in the Church that hurt him and they were bound up with things in society that weren’t right, and he felt his only option was rebellion. That caused the Church to take a look and implement some reforms that were needed. The situation is similar in some ways these past decades, but also different. These days we have to be careful to sort out what is true sin on the part of Church people (such as the sex abuse scandal) and those who do wrong must be penalized and not allowed access to potential victims, and nothing must be covered up.

Other areas such as birth control must be addressed differently - it seems that most often the problems with practicing NFP or even deciding to be open to God’s will re family size stem from a disagreement between the spouses over family size.

Pope Francis is raising a lot of awareness about not becoming insulated in our faith (though I don’t think other Popes neglected this, rather that it’s just Francis’s particular charism that is very strong in him). He is encouraging us to reach out to the marginalized in society. I hope and pray that people will be moved by that to see the Church and Jesus in a favorable light again.

@bioethics1985, I don’t know if it was my post you were referring to, or this thread’s title, or what, but I am with you - we definitely don’t want to play into any stereotypes. There’s been too much of that - religious people are ignorant and provincial, barefoot and pregnant, etc.; whilst it’s the atheists and agnostics who are progressive and realistic and who should guide the world into the future through their “enlightened” social engineering, blah blah blah.
 
I hope that I didn’t give the impression that the intellectually blessed and even elite were not needed. God supplies our needs. I stressed the meek and humble of heart and MIND to counter the propensity to intellectual pride, a weakness of human nature due to sin. I ran into this from some well educated people, even priests. I always regarded the most intellectual and wise as the little guy who society doesn’t notice, that is grounded in the truth, with the humility to acknowledge that he is fallible, and open. God does resist the proud and gives enlightenment to the humble. How many intellectual leaders led society into error’ how many countered Christ and Christianity. Take the supreme court for example , they are supposed to represent the cream of the crop when it comes to deciding whats right or wrong for society, for it’s well-being, according to our constitution Yet look at the mess we see as a result of their decisions. This even included some catholics Do we consider them as the intellectual elite. I know of a successful lawyer ( makes a lot of money on cases) and is regarded as one of the best, and frankly I am not impressed and he represented The pro-abortion party, even had a library at a college named after him. I am not against these men. I am against the pride, and arrogance that I see displayed by those that are considered society’s saviors. We all need spiritual help, and there is only one place I know to get it, that’s Jesus Christ!!
 
While I understand your point ynotzap, I could make the same statement about religious people. How many religious people have killed in Christ’s name? How many religious people abused minors for decades and then participated in an elaborate cover up? How many religious people did Jesus actually condemn (Pharisees, Scribes, those who obeyed but did not love, etc.)? These highly educated theologians are supposed to be the cream of the crop as well. The more liberal leaning members of our community do not have a monopoly on hypocrisy. Also, I urge you to consider the fact that individuals in civil society are not free to impose their religious beliefs on others. The Supreme Court is not tasked with determining what is moral. Rather, they are tasked with determining what is constitutional. You have the right to free exercise of your religion, but sometimes intellectuals must develop generalizable policies for the secular sphere. They don’t do a perfect or even great job many times, but their task is also more difficult than people realize. In order to protect the freedom of free exercise, we are not at liberty in the secular realm to use our religious beliefs as the sole basis for public policies and procedures. If we desire academics to be humble, we must first be humble ourselves in our judgment of them. The question is not really how do we get the intellectual elite to change. The answer should be how do we change our actions to serve better, love more, and have a greater understanding.
 
I agree with what you say. There should be an awareness of on the part of those that lead the country of the self-evidence truth that when society’s rules are in harmony with morallity there is peace. When laws are bad laws not conducive to the well-being of society, they cause anarchy. And thats what we have. I see a real division taking place. When money wins an election what does that say for the country. When some of the elite are caught being immoral what does that say for the country. I see the deepest need for turning to God for the solution, otherwise at best all we have is symptomatic cure. Of course corruption is world wide, all we have to do is observe the world through the media. So all in all, there is a great need for Evangelization of the world, and only the acceptance of Jesus Christ into our lives will remedy humanities problems. As St.Paul states, “We are not fighting flesh and blood but Principalities and Powers…” Satan works through all our weakness. We can not blame the spiritually handicapped, and we all are hanicapped to some degree. God gives grace to the humble and resists the proud. A lot of religious people have not really been converted, they have not had a “Christ encounter” we have taken much for granted.
 
Not trying to be critical, but it would help a lot if some of these posts were broken up into at least a couple of paragraphs. It’s hard to follow the thoughts in a large block of text. Just a suggestion. 🙂
 
bioethics1985 said:
I think it is especially important not to propagate the notion that God favors non-intellectuals, as implied above. Knowledge and wisdom are spiritual gifts. I believe that academics are searching for the same hope, peace, and community that we all desire.
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👍 Yes, this!
 
If I implied anything I implied that God does not favor proud intellectuals who reign in high places, and I do believe from my own personal observation that we have plenty of them. I do not says this in condemnation of them, but discerning their actions I have to keep reminding myself “for creation was made subject to futility, not of it’s own accord, but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God” All the good example in the world, and all the love we can give will not change anyone, but it will point directly to Jesus Christ who alone is the Savior of the World. Humility will bring us to Him, humility brought Him to us, He humbled Himself for love of His Father, who loved us. Jesus is the gift of His love for us.
 
ynotzap said:
All the good example in the world, and all the love we can give will not change anyone, but it will point directly to Jesus Christ who alone is the Savior of the World. Humility will bring us to Him, humility brought Him to us, He humbled Himself for love of His Father, who loved us. Jesus is the gift of His love for us.
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👍 👍
 
The chief problem is that there are VERY few religion classes on campuses, and typically they tend to be comparative religion.

The atheists have a great upper hand. The atheist view is pretty easy to spread, since it can easily mask itself as being “neutral” and “scientific.”

I think the spate of bestselling atheistic titles in recent years has emboldened these folks. . . and gives average people the notion that atheism is intellectually respectable.

Students tend to be outrageous moral relativists. They’ve been taught this in high school by the National Education Association’s approved Politically Correct membership.

They’ve also been told that moral relativism is essential in the Global Community, since we Christians must lay on our backs and roll over, in order not to disturb the wild and potentially violent Muslims. Keep the peace; shut up about Jesus.

I’ve even seen some students more respectful of Islam than Christianity. (We all KNOW Christianity is intolerant! and the muslims are just so much more DEVOUT).

If you discuss belief as a teacher, you may get reported to Campus Authorities who will accuse you and repress you for it. Christianity is not politically-correct, and the Thought Police will get you. They will remember you and will actually persecute you.

WHERE can you talk about Christianity on campus?

I like the suggestion of Letters to the Editor of the school paper. Nicely-written, short three paragraph things. These have an impact on the community; staff and faculty as well as students.

If several students did this, it might clean the air a bit and make it more tenable for religious discussion in classrooms.

Moreover, believe it or not, in the Year of Our Lord 2014, there are MANY students who cannot tell you the details of Jesus’ ministry.
 
Captain_America said:
WHERE can you talk about Christianity on campus?

I like the suggestion of Letters to the Editor of the school paper. Nicely-written, short three paragraph things. These have an impact on the community; staff and faculty as well as students.

If several students did this, it might clean the air a bit and make it more tenable for religious discussion in classrooms.

Moreover, believe it or not, in the Year of Our Lord 2014, there are MANY students who cannot tell you the details of Jesus’ ministry.
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:thumbsup:I love your idea about letters to the editor!!! 😦 And I’m so sorry about the students who don’t know anything about Jesus!!!
 
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