The Challenge of Staying Orthodox in an Anti-Christian Environment
The summer months are coming to a close and many young people will be facing the prospect of heading off to college, some for the very first time. A scripture passage comes to my mind as I think of these wonderful young people preparing to leave home: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16).” College professors, almost universally, enjoy challenging young college students to question authority, yet are taken aback when their own authority is questioned. They know they are addressing a class of impressionable minds and almost make sport of attacking the positions of their students.
When I was an undergraduate, I clearly remember a professor contemptuously asking if there were any students who believed in a personal God. I was the only student who answered in the affirmative, and I was therefore subjected to a rather humiliating taunt (it turned out there were many Christians in the class, all admitting privately to me they thought they would do poorly in his class if he knew). I did manage to recover from his taunting, for unknown to this man I had been a champion high school debater and knew one could win a debate by taking any side, even the side of falsehood. Over the coming year I grew more confident, and would routinely spar with this professor. In the end, we became friends and he became a church going Christian!
My advice to Orthodox students is to refuse to be intimidated, and don’t allow yourself to become discouraged. Most of these professors took years to acquire the knowledge and the skill to successfully defend their belief system, or lack thereof, including atheism. These professors usually only ask you to question the authority of those who have instructed you thus far, such as your parents or your religious leaders, but are highly indignant when someone questions their authority. Their pattern of teaching is nothing new, for there have been antagonists like them from before recorded history. Furthermore, their arguments are nothing new, for there were teachers of atheism and other false teachings who confronted the Apostle Paul when he was preaching the gospel in Athens. The arguments may be new to you, but suffice to know these challenges to your faith have been answered by a great many apologists since the beginning of Christianity.
Textbooks, be they geared towards history, science, or philosophy, have always tended to expound anti-Christian viewpoints, and it is important to remember that publishing companies produce textbooks that will sell to such academic mindsets. Christianity may be ridiculed as being closed minded and backward looking, but academics can not claim to be insulated from the same unhealthy trait. Some of the most closed minded individuals I have ever known were academics. I find it interesting that Christian writers expounding the Christian Faith are often accused of being biased, while secularists thinkers expose their own arrogance, hypocrisy and narrow mindedness, disallowing others their freedom of opinion. Dismissing the faith of young people, these pompous academics move to crush that which they themselves do not understand.
The best advice I can offer the young Orthodox Christian heading off to college is this: Don’t allow yourself to be intimidated or humiliated. Know from the moment you enter the classroom that the professor is a better debater than you, so don’t place yourself in his scope. If you do, expect to be blown out of the water. Secondly, don’t be embarrassed by your commitment to your Orthodox faith. My experience lecturing on both secular and religious campuses is that most students are secretly wishing to find a spiritual basis for the meaning of life. Furthermore, they may secretly envy you for your faith. My final advice, “Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love (Ephesians 4:2).”
Build a support system for yourself by gathering together with other college students to form a chapter of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship. Meet on a weekly basis for worship, study, and networking. Get to know your faith to the degree that you can stand up to the best of them when defending your beliefs. If you do, you may one day be the reason an atheist professor finds Christ, and becomes an Orthodox Christian.
With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Saturday September 4, 2021 / August 22, 2021
11th Week after Pentecost. Tone one.
1Martyr Agathonicus of Nicomedia and his companions: Martyrs Zoticus, Theoprepius, Acindynus, Severian, Zeno, and others, who suffered under Maximian (4th c.).
Martyr Gorazd of Prague, Bohemia and Moravo-Cilezsk (1942).
Venerable Isaac I (Antimonov, the “Elder”) of Optina (1894).
New Hieromartyrs Macarius bishop of Vyazma, John Boyarschinov and Alexis Naumov priests (1918).
New Hieromartyrs Theodore bishop of Penza and with him Basil and Gabriel priests (1937).
New Hieromartyrs John bishop of Velikoluk, Alexis archbishop of Omsk, Alexander, Michael and Theodore priests, Hieromartyr Hilarion, John and Hierotheus (1937).
Hieromartyr Athanasius (270-275), bishop of Tarsus in Cilicia, Venerable Anthusa of Syria (298) and Martyrs Charesimus and Neophytus (270-275).
Virgin-martyr Eulalia of Barcelona (303).
0Iveron Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos at the Monastery of St. Alexis of Moscow (1650).
Venerable Bogolep of St. Paisius of Uglich Monastery (16th c.).
St. Symphorian of Autun (2nd-3rd c.) (Celtic & British).
Venerable Sigfrid, abbot of Wearmouth (England) (688) (Celtic & British).
New Hieromartyr Andrew (Ukhtomsky), bishop of Ufa (1937).
Martyrs Irenaeus, Deakon, Or, and Oropsus (Greek).
The Scripture Readings
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Spiritual Gifts at Corinth
4 I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, 5 that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, 6 even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, 7 so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Matthew 19:3-12
3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
7 They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?”
8 He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”
10 His disciples said to Him, “If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”
Jesus Teaches on Celibacy
11 But He said to them, “All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given: 12 For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.”
The one year my son spent in junior college, he faced exactly what you say. The American Liturgy teacher made the whole class into a debate on Christian vs atheist. My son was chosen as the lead on the faith side(there were several who stepoed up). Another student as the lead on the opposition side. According to my son he routinely demolished the other student and even instructed the guy on how to strengthen the anti-faith argument. He faced discrimination from his biology teacher as well.
He had to appeal his grade in biology. The lit professor gave him a good grade.
He is a natural debater. My late wife and I homeschooled him with no debate training. Unfortunately, the whole experience soured him on “higher education” — having to pay to fight rather than being taught and learning. He never went back.
American Liturgy? Or did something autocorrect? Never heard of an American Liturgy class before.
American Literature of course.
Thank you for sharing this Fr.
Some students go better prepared than others. And while that might sound obvious, I don’t mean that some have more training or have been expose to church more often. When I say preparation, I mean they have grown up with a faith that depends less on “proof texts”, and more on shared experiences.
Anyone who has read Orthodox books on – say, Genesis – knows that the Church Fathers debated creation, and that there were many ways to look at it – all Christian.
A child having grown up in an Evangelical home, believing in the facts of a young-earth creation just because the Bible as they understand it says so, is in a much more tenuous position. Then there are the Christians who believe in a flat earth because of statements like “the dome of heaven”…
A child who has grown up Orthodox is in a much better position to defend their faith than some other Christians whose faith depends upon a single verse or two in a book that the wider world is coming slowly to reject.
Orthodox Christian campus ministry is largely a Potemkin Village. As a lifelong Orthodox Christian who has attend various events, college conferences and basketball tournaments, I was stunned at the level of partying and sexual activity tolerated by leadership. I never thought the place my chastity would be challenged the most would be an Orthodox events. Too many leaders are willing to make the trade-off of tolerating unhealthy behavior to enhance their numbers and personal popularity. What is worse is how chastity is met with negative peer pressure. Having experienced this firsthand I would never let my child go to these events and risk damaging their life to party and hook up under a leadership that likes to look Orthodox more than living Orthodoxy. People do not leave the Orthodox Church because of what it teaches, they leave the church because they see leadership does not believe what the Church teaches.
Lord have mercy.