Being a Fixed Point in a Post-Christian Culture
Author: Abigail Robert
July 26, 2024
Rice University, where I am a student, like many other campuses in the United States, dedicates an entire week to promoting sexual activity. During the most recent “Sex Week,” students were offered subscriptions to “ethical” pornography.
Honored as a “New Ivy” by Forbes, Rice has solid academic rankings but shaky ideas concerning morality. Once founded on Judeo-Christian principles, the school’s new creed is this: “Only your truth exists, and your truth is whatever you feel is right, except if it’s Christian.” Getting in on the action, Rice’s school paper regularly mocks Christian ministries, Holy Scripture, and Christian professors.
At such a university, how should a Christian behave? Christian apologist Abdu Murray urges us to reject two common but harmful responses: “compromising the clarity of scripture for the sake of acceptance and avoiding conflict,” and “indulging the cultural practice of vilifying those [with] whom they disagree.”1
By compromising on the clarity of Scripture, Christian students risk being poor witnesses to those around them and harming themselves. For instance, a Christian, in the name of Christian kindness, might find himself or herself cheering on an LGBTQ+ friend’s exploration of romantic relationships. On the other hand, vilifying others can prevent campus Christians from being lights who display Christian joy and grace. College campuses don’t need more people-pleasing affirmation givers, nor do they need aggressive belittlers.
Instead, campus culture needs a fixed point that shows the way to a more beautiful truth, the absolute truth, and the absolute truth-giver, God. Seventeenth-century philosopher and theologian Blaise Pascal said, “When everything is moving at once, nothing appears to be moving, as on-board a ship. When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving. But if someone stops, he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point.”2
How can a Christian be a fixed point in today’s culture? A great example is given by Paul the Apostle in Acts 17:16-34. In this passage, Paul finds himself in Athens, surrounded by idols. Although the Athenians already worshiped many different gods, they also created an altar temple to an unknown god in case they had missed any. Noticing this monument, Paul uses it to gain a hearing with his pagan audience.
Paul begins his argument with softness. He first commends the Athenians’ desire to be religious (“Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious”). Second, he connects the good in Athenian culture with God’s revealed truth (“What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you”). Paul explains that what they are really worshiping as unknown is the God who made the world and everything in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, who does not live in temples made by man.
Furthermore, Paul uses Athenian poetry to describe the true God by quoting Athenian poet philosopher Epimenides and Aratus’s poem Phainomena (“‘In him we live and move and have our being” and “For we are indeed his offspring”).
However, Paul is not gentle at the expense of truth. He remains profoundly clear. Paul boldly ends his sermon by urging his audience to repent, explaining how God’s appointed one will judge the world, having been raised from the dead. In the words of Pascal, Paul “shows up the others who are rushing on” with his tact and courage, pointing his audience to a more beautiful truth than an unknown god: the absolute truth, the absolute truth-giver, God Himself.
We live in a world much like the Areopagus or Pascal’s ship, where individuals are fixated on chasing their own truths. However, just like Paul, we can impact culture by gently observing and connecting with the good in culture, while boldly proclaiming Christ’s death and resurrection.
Being a leader of my university’s Christian pro-life club, Christian anti-trafficking club, and Christian ministry group, God has brought me into difficult, Areopagus-like conversations. Frankly, sharing my Christian worldview with non-Christian peers can be challenging, but I have found that pointing them to an unknown god can be helpful. In God’s providence, a college campus has many unknown gods to which we can point. Unfulfilled desires to be known, to be a part of a community, or to find peace become unknown gods for many.
When we introduce God as the one who knows them, as the Prince of Peace, as the source of human dignity, as the “unknown god” for whom they’ve been searching, we become fixed points. Our message of God’s good news in Christ will stop people in their tracks. Some, of course, will mock, but others, by God’s grace, will want to hear more. May we be prepared to tell them.
Abigail Robert is studying Classical Studies and Biosciences at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
1 Murray, Abdu, Saving Truth, Zondervan, Kindle Edition, 31-34.
2 Pascal, Blaise, Pensées, vol. 33. Retrieved from Murray, Abdu. Saving Truth, Zondervan. Kindle Edition, 25.
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