Demolition Derby

The truth has now been told, and told by a committee. According to David Brooks of the “New York Times,”* Harvard University commissioned a group of the faculty to report on the purpose of a liberal arts college education. (A liberal arts education per se has nothing to do with our usual political definition of “liberal” and “conservative,” but is a reference to the study of history, literature, philosophy, music, and art.) The liberal arts are all the English and history courses you took and unjustly hated in the groves of academe`.

These academics on the prestigious Harvard committee gave us the Ivy League aim of such an education, and we should understand that this was not a report that they expected to stay within the cozy confines of their ivy walls because, after all, Harvard is THE UNIVERSITY whose lead other institutions follow.

The committee concluded that the aim of a liberal education is “to unsettle presumptions, to defamiliarize the familiar, to disorient young people” and that they “should break free from the way they were raised to examine life from the outside and discover their own values,” and then the further goal of their education is “to help them find ways to reorient themselves.”

The report implied “an entire way of living” in which students would “be skeptical of preexisting arrangements,” to “examine life from the outside and discover their own values.”

Christian parents who have spent eighteen years raising their child to be a disciple of Christ would have cause to read the report, shed tears, and shudder. All the convictions born of their earnest prayers and efforts, all the Sunday school classes, Christian camps, vacation Bible schools, and Bible studies, are now to be, by specific intent, “unsettled,” and “defamiliarized.” After almost two decades of their investment in orientation toward discipleship, their sons and daughters going off to college are to be “disoriented,” and “helped to find ways of reorienting themselves.” Knowing the professors, one would assume that they will do the reorienting. Their ways will become the student’s ways.

This “disorientation” is born of the Harvard committee’s assumption that the students need to be reoriented because the way they were raised is wrong. Going by the face of the report, the committee has decided that an academic demolition derby should commence on the student. This demolition is to involve “an entire way of living.” And the beauty of it is, from the institutional point of view, the parents are financing this derby of destruction.**

Are there parallels in the mission of the church? Should not the intent of the Harvard committee’s report be intent of the Bible-believing church? Should not the strong Bible-believing church be conducting its own demolition derby, a Sunday by Sunday, Wednesday by Wednesday, ministry by ministry demolition?

Paul said: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (II Cor. 10:5). The strong Bible-oriented church challenges the entire belief system of the unbeliever as well as his modus vivendi. The church challenges his belief system because the Bible, not a finite committee, reveals that the belief system of every unbeliever, religious or non-religious, church attendee or church neglecter, do-gooder, moral or immoral, is wrong.

Just as the Bible challenges the unbeliever’s idea that goodness and works are paving his way to heaven, so do we, as we fulfill Acts 1:8. Our aim is to shatter his concept of salvation by works. Instead of his viewing himself as being or becoming good enough, we want him to see that he’s a hopeless and helpless sinner. We want to rid him of that soul-damning concept and reorient him to the salvation found in faith alone in Christ alone. We want our demolition derby to show him, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy.” (Titus 3:5)

After salvation, we want to reorient his service to the point where he’s no longer a slave to himself, but to Christ. This reorientation is discipleship. Like the Harvard report, we, through discipleship “imply an entire way of living,” an entire way of living which brings the abundant life, a promise no Harvard committee can make.

But we shouldn’t press the Harvard report too far; there are dissimilarities. Whereas they charge tuition for their demolition, our derby is free. Harvard coerces and manipulates with grades, attendance records, term reports, exams, and degrees. We use no coercion because, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” (II Cor. 10:4) Our weapons are prayer and the ministry of the Word buttressed with the humbling knowledge that we can’t conduct this demolition derby; such is the work of the Holy Spirit (Jn. 16) as we make the truth clear (Col. 4:4). Ours is a divinely energized work; Harvard’s is not.

Has the intent of the Harvard report been successful? I believe it has been; look at our culture.

And yet, here and there, there are those faithful believers, those faithful families, and those faithful churches who keep on keeping on passing the truth to the next generation by conducting their own demolition derbies and seeing the Holy Spirit regenerate and change lives.

Will you actively join us in the demolition?

**However the student is not defenseless. Through the ministries of campus Christian organizations, there is help against the demolition derby. Intervarsity, Campus Crusade for Christ, the Navigators, a strong Bible-teaching church, and Probe Ministries, offer intellectual and spiritual guidance for the student.

Dr. Mike Halsey, Pastor

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