By Andrew
F. Estocin
Each
September a Sunday is set aside for Orthodox Parishes across the country to
focus on the lives of college students. As students settle on campus for
another academic year, it is certain that they will encounter a world full of
questions about the very meaning of life and how best to live it. They will be
challenged by ideas both ancient and new. Campus life will confront them with
issues from what it means to be human to how to understand sex and marriage.
Today’s college students are tomorrow’s parish council members, Sunday School
teachers and youth group leaders. More importantly, they are tomorrow’s parents
and how they understand their faith and the Church will shape Orthodox
Christianity in America for years to come.
Keeping
college students connected to the Church has been the focus of campus ministry
for decades. However, the question must be asked: What kind of Church are we
keeping college students connected to? Is it an ethnic Church that frequently
worships in a language most do not understand? Is it the social Church of
meetings, committees, conventions and festivals? Or is it the Church founded by
Jesus Christ and lived by the Apostles –-a church that changes lives and since
Apostolic times has “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:5-7)?
Church
leaders have underestimated college students for well over thirty years often
avoiding the great questions that society asks in an effort to make the Church
more comfortable and less in conflict with the culture. An example of this is
the issue of marriage. Over the past year there has been a vocal debate on the
meaning of marriage on college campuses across the country. However, despite
the rich moral tradition of the Church, campus ministries have remained silent
and expressed discomfort in addressing such issues often avoiding the moral
debates that are taking place. The end result confuses more than it helps
students live their faith.
Questions
and our ability to answer them matter. As Orthodox Christians, we do a great
disservice to students when we avoid the questions society is asking. We do an
even greater disservice when we do not share with them the answers to these
questions that the Orthodox Church provides for fear of being shunned by
popular culture. Young people do not want an Orthodox Church that is convenient
or comfortable. They do not want a Church where moral questions are nuanced
away as just “difficult issues.” This is not the courage of the Apostles and
the Holy Men and Women of the Church who changed the world as we know it.
The
Orthodox Church has been the greatest agent of human development in history. No
institution has done more for humanity than the Church. Young people want to
experience this legacy and this means presenting them Orthodox Christianity in
all its demanding fullness. It means challenging students with a robust
Orthodoxy that invites them to live the moral heroism and doctrinal witness of
the saints. Orthodox Christianity calls upon us all to row upstream against the
world.
Given
this reality, here are five ideas every college student should consider as they
explore their Orthodox Christian Faith on campus. These ideas can help each
student better live a faith that turns the world upside down:
Morality Matters: One of
the great mistakes of modern times has been the idea that there is no such
thing as a clear Orthodox Christian morality. This could not be further from
the truth. Morality is an essential part of Orthodoxy and what distinguishes
Christians from the world. St. Gregory of Nyssa said it best when he wrote: “If
we truly think of Christ as our source of holiness, we shall refrain from anything
wicked or impure in thought or act and thus show ourselves to be worthy bearers
of his name. For the quality of holiness is shown not by what we say but by
what we do in life.” Being Orthodox means being moral and embracing what the
Church has taught for centuries on such issues as sex, abortion, capital
punishment and marriage. It also means discovering that behind each “NO” the
Church gives us there is a greater and more beautiful “YES”. Keeping connected
to the Church means keeping connected to the moral teachings of the Church.
Difficult Questions Lead To Great Answers: Every
great question we encounter in life is a gift from God to deepen our knowledge
of and relationship with Him. The greatness of Orthodox Christianity is seen
when the Church responds to the great questions of society with wisdom, common
sense and compassion. Keeping connected to the Church means keeping connected
to the teaching of the Church and we cannot learn from the Church if we cannot
question Her. By challenging the Church with loving questions we discover the
depth and beauty of Orthodox Christian doctrine –doctrine that is often
misunderstood. No question is irrelevant to the Church because every question
can help us discover Christ again and again.
Orthodox Christianity is Pro-Life: To
identify oneself as an Orthodox Christian is to stand with a pro-life Tradition
that is over two thousand years old. Human personhood and human rights begin at
conception. The earliest Orthodox Christians understood this and distinguished themselves
from those around them by protecting the weakest among us –including the
unborn, the elderly and the disabled. Frederica Matthewes-Green says it best
when she writes: “ Our Orthodox Christian heritage is absolutely opposed to
abortion and child-killing from its very beginnings. This stand against
abortion and exposure of infants is, in fact, one of the things that attracted
people to the Christian faith.” Keeping connected to the Church means keeping
connected to the great human rights struggle of our time that is the pro-life
movement.
Eric
Metaxas says it best when he writes: “Faith is either something that informs
one at all times or it isn’t anything at all, really. When the …government
tells its citizens that they can worship in a certain building on a certain
day, but once they leave that building they must bow to the secular orthodoxy
of the state, you have a cynical lie at work.” Keeping connected to the Church
means being connected to our faith every day and understanding that Orthodoxy
has a voice in how we all live our lives whether that be on a college campus or
in The United States Congress.
College
campuses today are very much like the world the first disciples experienced.
They are worlds of competing ideas, moral confusion and an abundance of
choices. This is the world in which the first Christians found themselves and
yet it was a world they changed by embracing Jesus Christ with abandon and
without reservation. If Twelve Apostles can alter the course of the Roman
Empire then certainly each Orthodox Christian College Student has the ability
to change the campus on which they live.
Perhaps
the best advice for Orthodox College students comes from the second century
Letter to Diognetus. It is in many ways the best guide for Orthodox Christian
campus ministry. Consider these simple words as advice for every Orthodox
college student:
For Christians cannot be distinguished from
the rest of the human race by country or language or customs. They do not live
in cities of their own; they do not use a peculiar form of speech; they do not
follow an eccentric manner of life. . . They live in their own countries, but
only as aliens. They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure
everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for
them every fatherland is a foreign land.
They marry, like everyone else, and they
beget children, but they do not cast out their offspring. They share their
board with each other, but not their marriage bed. It is true that they are “in
the flesh,” but they do not live “according to the flesh.” They busy themselves
on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws, but
in their own lives they go far beyond what the laws require.
They love all men, and by all men are
persecuted. They are unknown, and still they are condemned; they are put to
death, and yet they are brought to life. They are poor, and yet they make many rich;
they are completely destitute, and yet they enjoy complete abundance. They are
dishonored, and in their very dishonor are glorified; they are defamed, and are
vindicated. They are reviled, and yet they bless; when they are affronted, they
still pay due respect. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers;
undergoing punishment, they rejoice because they are brought to life…
The
second century world of Diognetus is not far from today’s college campus.
Orthodox Christian college students deserve compassion, understanding and
support as they live their faith. They deserve to meet the Church in all its
fullness so that they may struggle, question and grow. This struggle is nothing
new and is the essence of staying connected to the Church.
The
challenge for each of us is whether not we will rise to responsibility of
accompanying them on what is life’s most important journey – a journey that can
help students become the soul of the world and –like the Apostles before them —
turn it upside-down.
Source: http://www.aoiusa.org/turning-the-world-upside-down-five-ideas-for-orthodox-christian-college-students/
CONVERSATION