this was the quick word from Proverbs 28 I wanted to give at Paedeia, but was not able to:
“When the righteous triumph, there is great glory, but when the wicked rise, people hide themselves.”
— Proverbs 28:12
This is what has happened to our country, our culture, and our campus. The last couple of generations of Christians, as a reaction to the “Great ‘Intellectual’ Awakening” of humans, withdrew themselves from the influential spots of society and culture. Used to, the brilliant thinkers, scientists, philosophers, politicians, and influencers of society were all God-fearing men. Brilliance is what faith is meant to evoke in us. We as a church withdrew from culture and allowed the wicked to rise as we hid ourselves in the woodwork, afraid of defending that which we are meant to defend. The Holy Spirit has been paving the road for this school year though. All last year and summer he has shown himself strong and true and prepared to work on this campus in a mighty way. God’s desire and plan for this year has been made clear. This is found later in Proverbs 28:28. he says:
“When the wicked arise, people hide themselves, but when they persih, the righteous increase.”
— Proverbs 28:28
He wants the righteous to increase and the wickedness to perish. Hoe must we as Christians go about doing this? The answer is in verse 1 of Proverbs 28:
“The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.”
–Proverbs 28:1
This one verse hold many many impications:
– The wicked do NOT flee as a result from any pursuit, be it an intellectual one, spiritual one, moral one, or political one.
– The righteous, to make the wicked flee, need not DO anything, but rather BE something: that which God has called them to be. (One hearkens back to Ephesians where Paul says just to stand with the armor of God, not go fight.)
– What makes the wicked flee? Our boldness.
– Lastly, notice that it says “bold as a lion”. “A” lion, singular. not “bold as lions.” We are called to be unified in our purpose, demeanor, attitude, and boldness in this world.
In short, wickedness has taken this campus over, God has said that this is to end this year. How? Wickedness is directly related to how much the people of God are unified in being who God purposes them to be. We haven’t been. Wickedness will decreases, as unification and righteousness increase. So the campus ministries at VCU (namely Every Nation Campus Ministries) serve the singular purpose of creating new Christians and equipping Christians new and old to be the people God desires them to be. It is only when an entire culture of Chirstians have been established as being who they are meant to be in God as one new man bodl as a lion, that the wickedness will decrease.
the long way home 
I see what you mean about the religious studies department teaching fewer Christian courses here at VCU than Eastern Religion courses, but I guess at square one is more students’ knowledge of the Bible, the basic tenets of Christianity.
Christianity may not exactly be pop culture push-out fodder, but most people in the country (and the West for that matter) are familiar with the religion around here.
This bias is not simply limited to one against your beliefs, but also the English degree’s requirement and somewhat preference for “exotic” language classes. I still have to smack on some Caribbean literature courses.
Sure, fewer professed Christians teach Christianity here. However, the goal in even the Christian classes is to study peoples’ conception of God. After all, there’s always that personal Jesus stuff: someone to be your friend, someone whose there. I ask you to consider if more often Muslims teach Islam or if Taoists teach Taoism. I know of only two exclusively Islam-teaching professors here, and one is a Muslim unorthodox enough to recieve death threats and the other is a humanist.
I do not believe in the divinity of Christ, but I believe I understand, can relate to, and by moved to action by many facets of Christian philosophy and worldview.
In reference to the other guy who posted here, Paul is an incredible orator and debator. He quite regularly makes atheists his unholy bitches on the record. He’s as committed to his faith as Stephen was, but he is smart enough to take you through an interesting dive into Judaism. His site can link you to some of the best arguments against the Bible on the face of the Earth, but the man is such an intellectual juggernaut that he builds a scaffold around the detractors, prays and then floats his way to the top.
Any publishers out there, print this guy now, if just so I can write down his points to keep track of them.
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