Some time ago I wrote a short text entitled “The Young Christian and the University”. I recommend you read it in due course. Basically, what I am proposing in this article is that it is a mistake to imagine that people are departing from exclusive faith or mainly for intellectual reasons, when a teenager or young person abandons the Christian faith because he encounters certain ideas, one imagines that the cause of abandonment was this encounter, that is, he abandoned faith because he found a more rational understanding of reality and its existence. However, this relationship is not necessary. And, according to biblical anthropology, this is not the most suitable.
Writing to the Romans, the apostle Paul describes the condition of man without God in the second half of chapter 1. And if there is something that makes this description clear, it is that the dimension of our moral choices precedes our rationality. From the beginning, he affirms that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all wickedness and perversion of men who consider the truth unjust (v. 18). Because what concerns us here, which is extremely significant in this statement by Paul, is that he presents man without God as someone who upholds (represses, rejects) the truth not because of lies, but because of injustice. This underscores an important point in biblical anthropology, that our intellectual dimension is a reflection of our moral dimension. Later, in verse 21, Paul goes on to argue that the nullity of reasoning (intellectual dimension), which is characteristic of the wicked, is the result of the darkening of the heart caused by their refusal to glorify God (spiritual dimension). This argument deepens our understanding of biblical anthropology. It shows that, according to her, our thoughts are the result of our moral choices and that, in turn, they are the result of our spiritual choices.
- The implication of this for our purpose here is as follows: we must understand that no one abandons the Christian faith simply because he has found ideas contrary to Christianity; ideas may be the trigger needed for a process of abandonment of faith.
- But their causes are deeper.
- Moral and.
- Above all.
- Spiritual: when someone abandons the faith.
- Having found ideas contrary to Christianity.
- He does not do so precisely because he has found something new.
- But because he has found something that allows him to experience.
- Without problems of conscience.
- A lifestyle appropriate to the methodist devotion previously wrapped in your heart.
- My goal in doing this tour is to clarify that the answer we usually offer (you have to be intellectually prepared!) is not enough.
So what can we do to maintain faith in a mostly anti-Christian educational environment?Let me suggest four things:
1. Think of your true spiritual condition. To maintain something you have to have it, you can only keep something that has it previously, this means that the first thing you have to do is reflect on your true spiritual condition and make sure that your religious life is more than just a matter of tradition or custom; If so, you must be born again, because as Jesus told Nicodemus, a man who was a good friend of the Church, if someone is not born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. God (John 3. 3).
2. Cultivate humility. Sin is essentially pride, autonomy. And if there’s one thing that can nurture these things, it’s knowledge. The Bible itself says that knowledge is inflated. Often, the first step for adolescents and young people on the way to abandoning faith is to ignore the directions of people they previously respected. their parents and pastors, for example, why they gave in to autonomy on the path of knowledge. Cultivate humility!
3. Have good company. In general, the abandonment of the faith is accompanied or even preceded by the abandonment of the Church; If the first step of many adolescents and young people who leave the faith in school is pride, the second step is to try to live the Christian life in isolation, as if it were possible to be a Christian without being in the community of faith. This is especially true in college days, when many teenagers and young people leave their parents’ home for other cities.
4. Et now yes: prepare yourself intellectually. Of course, knowledge is important, and there are two things you need to know: the biblical truths articulated in a coherent system of thought and the main ideologies you face in the academic context. Achieving the internal coherence of the Christian faith, its correspondence with Reality and Beauty, in contrast to the confusion and ugliness of non-Christian thought, will certainly encourage it to stand firm while living in this environment.