education – La Vista Church of Christ

There Is No Such Thing as Safe Teenage Sex

Jeffrey Hamilton — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 18:05:35 +0000

by Walter L. Bradley
via Sentry Magazine, Vol. 20 No. 3, September 1994

Once upon a time, in a faraway place, in a lovely little town, a problem arose that sparked a great controversy. Some small children had developed the careless habit of playing in the street. The untimely death of several children who were hit by passing cars caused a true and appropriate crisis in the community. Subsequently, a debate raged over what should be done to prevent this needless bloodshed, either entirely or at least minimize it in the future. The most "enlightened" people argued that it was hopeless to try to persuade children not to play in the street, and that the only possible course of action would be to teach them how to play in the street safely (as if playing in the street is ever really safe). Some old "fuddie-duddies" questioned the wisdom of teaching children how to play safely in the street, arguing that persuading children not to play in the street at all was practical (and had been done with considerable success for many, many years). Naturally, the "enlightened" modernist prevailed, and vigorous instruction in safe play in the street was instituted in all schools and churches.

This strategy had a most unfortunate and unintended effect. The education program was so successful that the number of children playing in the street dramatically increased, since the children had been taught that playing in the street was indeed safe after all, and of course, everybody was "doing it." Though the children did sometimes remember their lessons and play in the street more carefully, the occasional exercise of greater care by the children did not compensate for the much greater number of children playing in the street, with a tragic increase in child fatalities. When the old "fuddie-duddies" questioned the efficacy of this "play safely in the street" strategy, they were rebuked and told that an even greater effort was needed regarding the educational program.

In a few neighborhoods, the parents rebelled and banded together to insist that no children play in the street. Working together, their collective ban on street play was highly successful (though not perfect), resulting in a dramatic decrease in child fatalities. Did their success influence the rest of the city, where children played "safely" in the streets? No way! These parents were told by international authorities, Dr. Elders and Donna Shalala, that their positive results were not statistically significant, but that the current educational program would be modified to mention in passing the option of not playing in the street, as a comprehensive "play safely in the street" program is being taught. And to this day, it remains so, almost all children playing in the street as they have been taught, sometimes carefully, often not, with many tragic fatalities.

Education

Jeffrey Hamilton — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 21:27:34 +0000

https://www.lavistachurchofchrist.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Education.mp3

by Jeffrey W. Hamilton

Download Audio

Text: Psalms 78:1-8

I. Why go to school? What use is all those endless facts?

A. A question I’m sure more school-aged children ask.

B. Does an education have value?

1. To answer this we must compare the alternative.

a. Solomon did this and concluded wisdom, which is gained by learning, is better - Ecclesiastes 2:13

b. Why?

II. The impact of ignorance

A. An ignorant person believes that the way he thinks is the only way - Proverbs 28:26

1. Alternatives are not checked. Actions are not questioned.

2. This becomes particularly dangerous when we deal with matters of right and wrong - I Corinthians 15:34

a. They act without knowledge of what is right

3. If they don’t know something, then it must be “bad” - Jude 10

4. Quarrels often start because an ignorant person doesn’t see things from another’s perspective - Proverbs 20:3

B. If a person wants to do something, why question it?

1. It is why we have so many who refuse to call sin “sin” - Proverbs 14:9

2. The ignorant person doesn’t know that he is ignorant - Ecclesiastes 2:14

3. He boasts in his ignorance - James 4:16

a. My ignorance must be good. After all, look how well I turned out!

C. The ignorant person lives in the “now” and doesn’t consider the consequences of current actions in the future - Proverbs 22:3

1. It is because he is unaware of possibilities beyond his own knowledge

2. The naive young man was caught in the prostitute’s snare because he did not know the danger - Proverbs 7:21-23

3. I had parents tell me that they didn’t want matters, such as sexual sins, discussed with their children, even those past puberty.

a. I understand the desire to hang on to past and to keep innocence

b. But Satan isn’t stopped by innocence. Ignorance won’t keep a child out of Satan’s traps.

D. The gospel cannot be spread through ignorance - I Timothy 1:5-7

III. The value of knowledge and wisdom

A. It is foolish to despise instruction - Proverbs 1:7-8

1. The Proverbs were written for a reason - Proverbs 1:1-6

B. A knowledge of history gives appreciation of the present - Deuteronomy 4:32-35

1. It is one reason we study the Old Testament

2. The Old Testament has a purpose - Romans 15:4

C. Knowledge of the past needs to be taught so past mistakes are not repeated and that righteousness is done - Psalms 78:1-8

1. Again, knowledge of the past is important - I Corinthians 10:6-12

D. Wisdom gives strength - Proverbs 24:5-6

E. Wisdom is pleasant and offers possibilities and hope - Proverbs 24:13-14

F. When you know what to do, it shows - Ecclesiastes 8:1

G. Wisdom is a defense and a preserver of life - Ecclesiastes 7:11-12

IV. There are limits

A. You can’t learn everything - Ecclesiastes 12:12

1. Some things are beyond the wisest person’s grasp - Ecclesiastes 7:23-24

2. God’s works are vast and deep - Ecclesiastes 8:16-17

B. Opening your eyes to possibilities means you are also aware of possible difficulties - Ecclesiastes 1:18

1. Paul mentioned this in matters of religion - Romans 7:7-10

2. Still, to know the dangers is better than wandering through mine fields unaware.

C. Wisdom alone won’t change the ultimate outcome. It is not a panacea for life - Ecclesiastes 2:14-16

D. Don’t go overboard - Ecclesiastes 7:16

1. Just as some constantly learn, but never apply to their lives - II Timothy 3:7

E. Trying to purchase an education for someone who doesn’t want it is a waste - Proverbs 17:16

V. Some avoid education, fearing that it is an attempt to outmaneuver God

A. Ultimately, life is in the hands of God - Ecclesiastes 9:1

B. There are things that are out of our control - Ecclesiastes 9:11

C. Things happen, not because I will, but because God wills - James 4:13-15

D. But does that mean we put no effort into learning and planning for possibilities?

1. Obviously not, we’ve seen that knowledge and wisdom have advantages.

2. Look at the verse before. It is not just work, but knowledge and wisdom as well - Ecclesiastes 9:10

E. Especially in matters of religion

1. Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom - Psalms 111:10

2. Buy truth and don’t get rid of it - Proverbs 23:23

3. Understand God’s will - Ephesians 5:15-17

4. Work out your salvation - Philippians 2:12

F. What I fear is that we allow the Calvinistic beliefs of the denominations around us to color our thinking

1. They see God’s sovereignty as complete: where every movement and every thought was planned before the world began.

2. Ultimately this leads to the abhorrence of any exercise of free-will on man’s part

3. Planning for possibilities is seen as a lack of faith

VI. God wants us to use our effort

A. God wants us to work, even though it is from Him we get our food - II Thessalonians 3:10; Matthew 6:11

B. God wants us to learn, as we have seen in today’s lesson

C. He wants us to use our heads, plan ahead, and work in advance of our future needs. This is the lesson of the ant - Proverbs 6:6-11

D. We prepare, and God controls - Proverbs 16:1

E. We need to do this especially in matters of religion - Luke 14:28-32

1. Plan for how to complete what you start

2. Consider the costs of failing

3. How are you going reach heaven if you become a Christian?

4. Could you possibly succeed if you don’t become a Christian?

F. Thus, in all our plans we need to consider what God wants first - Proverbs 19:21

1. And what He wants this day is your heart

2. II Peter 3:9-14

Do I need to go to school to preach?

Jeffrey Hamilton — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 02:46:26 +0000

Question:

Mr. Hamilton,

I have studied the Bible all my life. I read everything I can. I preached for three weeks a year ago in a local congregation and asked all my elders to attend, and one did. He asked me if I wanted to teach in our congregation. I said yes, and never got a chance. They (leadership everywhere) will not let me preach unless I go to a former school. I think about preaching all the time. Help, help, help. Should I go to another church (denomination)? They will give me a chance.

Answer:

A preacher does not need formal training in a seminary or preacher's school to learn how to teach the gospel. There is no such requirement in the Bible. See:

By not giving young men opportunities to learn to preach, the elders are indicating that they are failing one of their duties. "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (Ephesians 4:11-12).

Leaving the church to attend a group that is not teaching the truth simply because they offer something you want doesn't show a commitment to the truth. Depending on where you live, there are often small churches that would like someone to help with the preaching, including reaching out to people in the community. For that matter, nothing is stopping you from talking to people in your area or holding Bible studies in the area. Preaching is far more than delivering lessons in front of a congregation.

Is the Bible only for the less educated?

Jeffrey Hamilton — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 02:19:45 +0000

Question:

Dear Jeffrey,

I recently came across a paper written by a preacher of a brotherhood Church of Christ, and here is what it says: “The Bible was not written for the highly educated, but rather, for the simple (I Corinthians 1:26-27)." It does puzzle me, and I would like to hear your view on that statement, as well as your thoughts on the use of 1 Corinthians 1:26-27 to support that argument.

To add background to this. I completed my PhD education due to job needs. With a PhD, I consider myself highly educated. This statement would mean the Bible is not written for me. I like to hear your views on this.

Thank you.

Answer:

"For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, 'Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord'" (I Corinthians 1:22-31 NAS95).

The person who wrote this was an educated man, taught by the finest Jewish scholars. His point is that God's message is not sophisticated. People tend to place emphasis on education and believe that a highly educated person knows more about the Bible.

Just a few days ago, I was talking to a young man who was about to graduate from a seminary because he wants to be a "pastor." He was asked which denomination, but his answer indicated that he didn't care. He just knew that people would hire someone with credentials, so he was getting a degree. Which group hired him didn't matter in his mind. As we discussed various subjects, I noted that he often cited books he had read, but rarely did he turn to the Scriptures to support his points. He was interested in accuracy. He was more fascinated by various theories about why there were so many denominations and their origins. The pride in his education blinded him to the truth.

Because men, through their concept of wisdom, do not arrive at a knowledge of God (John 1:10; Romans 1:20-21), God was pleased to select a method that appears foolish to men to save men through belief (Luke 10:21). The reason men reject God’s teaching is that it isn’t what they were expecting. Jews tended to demand miraculous signs, although even when signs were shown, they rejected them because they did not align with what they wanted to believe (Matthew 12:38; 16:1; Luke 11:16; 12:54-56). The Greeks tend to demand deep philosophy (Acts 17:21). While deep discourse does exist in the gospel message, it is also rejected because it does not match what the philosophers demand (Acts 17:32). However, what God gives men is a message concerning a crucified Savior. To Jews, this was a stumbling block because they refused to accept Jesus as their Savior (Isaiah 8:14-15; Matthew 21:42). To the Greeks, this was foolishness because this isn’t how they imagined the world could be saved.

Yet to people who respond to the message, Jews and Greeks alike, the Gospel is seen as the power of God (Romans 1:16). One message brings a division between the worldly and the spiritual, thus demonstrating the wisdom of God. In other words, Paul is stating that what both the Jews and Greeks were seeking is found by believers to exist in the Gospel message. What appears to be foolishness to men instead demonstrates the wisdom of God’s method. What appears to men to be weak instead demonstrates God’s power to save men (II Corinthians 13:4).

The wisdom of God’s method is seen in the response it gains. When we examine who responds to the gospel message, we often don’t see great intellectuals, the wealthy, or influential people submitting themselves to God's will (James 2:5). This demonstrates that God’s ability to save does not depend on human intellect, wealth, or power. It does not mean that no intellectual, rich, or powerful man could be saved. Paul is only pointing out that few in these categories wish to be saved. God purposely selects methods to save people that do not require or appeal to the intellectuals, the rich, or the powerful to emphasize that man cannot save himself (Psalm 8:2).

God used the apparently foolish, the weak, and the despised to overthrow the current order of things created by men (Acts 17:6). God creates things from what did not exist before (Romans 4:17), which is often why He takes men off-guard, such as with the saving of the Gentiles (Romans 9:25; I Peter 2:10). The result is that man cannot take credit for his salvation; the glory belongs wholly to God (Romans 3:27; Ephesians 2:8-10).

But Christians are in Christ because of God. And Christ is our source of wisdom from God. Thus, Christians do not claim to be wise in and of themselves, but rather that they are taught wisdom through Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:1-3). Christ is our source of righteousness. Again, Christians do not claim to be righteous in and of themselves, but that they learn righteousness through Jesus Christ (Romans 3:25-26; II Corinthians 5:21; Philippians 3:9). Christ is our source of sanctification. Not that we are holy in and of ourselves, but that we are taught holiness through Jesus Christ (John 17:17-19; Ephesians 4:24; 5:26). Finally, Jesus is our redemption. Not that we can buy ourselves back, but that we gain redemption through the efforts of Jesus Christ, our Savior (John 11:25; Romans 3:24; Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 2:8-10; I Peter 1:18-19). Therefore, none of our glory is in ourselves or other men. All glory belongs to God (Psalms 115:1; Isaiah 45:25; Jeremiah 9:23-24; Galatians 6:14; Philippians 3:3).

Question:

Dear Jeffrey,

Thank you for your detailed response. I fully understand your point and agree with it. However, in my view, none of these negate the need for highly educated people to humbly study and learn from the Bible and practice God’s word. Paul is highly educated. Luke is a physician and requires a high level of education. Matthew a tax collector should be educated. It is mutually exclusive. To say that the Bible is not written for the highly educated would be telling them not to even bother to study the Bible, because it is not for them.

Best regards

Answer:

I, as an adult, can easily comprehend a children's storybook. But a child struggles to understand an adult book. At the same time, many adults dismiss children's books as too childish and without important meaning. It doesn't mean they can't read a children's book, only that they don't want to spend the time.

A similar thing happens with the Bible. God designed it to be appealing to those who desire Him, but those who depend solely on themselves reject its message. Paul never said that no educated man should study the Bible. He said it doesn't appeal to many who are worldly wise, mighty, or among the elite. That is because the Bible's message is one of humility and submission. The worldly wise, the mighty, and the elite tend to be proud. Some grasp the message, but not many. The educated need the message, but it is usually rejected because it doesn't further their cause. God isn't going to change the message to make it acceptable to the worldly.

Education’s Stance Against Boys

Jeffrey Hamilton — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 20:02:33 +0000

Source: Brian Mark Weber, "Boys and Young Men Are Hurting," The Patriot Post, 30 May 2025.

“School has changed in ways that favor girls, and work has changed in ways that favor women. Boys are often seen as troublemakers, and men have heard that masculinity is ‘toxic.’”

"Schools have become hostile to boys, forcing them to act, think, and learn in ways that are antithetical to their nature. For one, the nature of boys to be more fidgety and playful is now viewed as a disease requiring medication or at least some type of intervention to stop them from being who they are."

"Boys are naturally impulsive, risk-taking, and physical in their behavior."

“By most measures, the well-being of boys has been declining for quite a while. Educational achievement has been going down, suicide is on the rise, and men are less likely to enter the workforce and rise up the ladder than in the past."

"The rising rejection of feminism among young men is almost certainly linked to growing feelings that American society has become more hostile to men. In 2019, less than one-third of young men reported that men experienced some or a lot of discrimination in American society. Only four years later, close to half (45 percent) of young men now believe men are facing gender-based discrimination. For some young men, feminism has morphed from a commitment to gender equality to an ideology aimed at punishing men.”

"The glory of young men is their strength, and the honor of old men is their gray hair" (Proverbs 20:29).

Propaganda Wars – The Use of the Education System

Jeffrey Hamilton — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 23:37:45 +0000

by Terry Wane Benton

The propaganda that God does not exist unless He lets us see Him directly has always been treated as foolish propaganda, and rightly so. Psalms 14:1 says the "fool has said in his heart, 'there is no God.'" Just a few chapters later (Psalms 19:1), the Psalmist pointed out that "the heavens declare the glory of God." One cannot reasonably look at the skies full of stars at night and radiant with rays of the sun filtering through the trees in the day and think, "It all declares the glory of chemical and material accident." You cannot think, "I think," and "I gasp in awe," all because the brain made chemicals that produced emotions, awe, wonder, and thought, with the power to store memories and make decisions and moral choices. You cannot believe that it could happen because of a series of lucky accidents and that humans are no more valuable than stink bugs. No! Yet, even our education system is based upon pushing the propaganda that the universe and life did indeed make itself. Intelligence is just evolving. Well, why are we no more intelligent than the minds that built the pyramids and learned embalming skills that have been lost to us for thousands of years? Why are we still trying to figure out the architectural skills of years ago? Could we have only discovered different uses from God's creation, not that we have become so advanced in thinking and reasoning ability?

Can we believe that even our most ignorant people have far evolved to a superior intellectual capacity than the most brilliant of 2,000 years ago? No! People are still people, foolish and wise, and every bit as gullible as yesteryear and every bit as intelligent as yesteryear. But propaganda has plagued the world to various degrees in every age, including the very beginning. People still are "professors" (Romans 1:20ff) and are still willingly ignorant of the obvious that God's "eternal power and godhood" are obvious from the things He made. Propaganda tries to get the little children to think that dinosaurs roamed the earth a million years ago before man "evolved." There is no proof of that! But the propaganda war for minds begins very early. God tells the truth that man and all creeping things were created in the same six days of creation (Genesis 1-2). Men and dragons (the word the Bible used before the word "dinosaurs" was invented) have walked the same earth simultaneously. Either the Bible and history are propaganda, or the story weaved from stones, bones, and a naturalistic philosophy in the last 200 years is made out of propaganda weaved into a claim of "science."

At any rate, we have to decide where the lies come from and what the actual truth is. Eternal chemicals collided and made everything, or "God created the heavens and the earth." One view makes sense and fits all the evidence. The other view is built on lies and builds a life and mind full of lies. That is the harsh reality of the propaganda wars. You must seek to find the truth, and the truth will set you free!

Propaganda Wars

AI’s Dangers

Jeffrey Hamilton — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 23:24:41 +0000

by Doy Moyer

AI (artificial intelligence) is undoubtedly an amazing achievement for humanity, and there are legitimate ways to use it. I’m not talking here about those ways (There is plenty of healthy debate about this). I will, however, express some concerns, especially as one who has been involved in education for several years.

When a student is assigned to write a paper, there are always concerns about issues like plagiarism. I have had to deal with plenty of cases. I have caught students copying wholesale from the internet. Some others have copied, almost wholesale, from one another. There are multiple lesser cases (I generally have a scale of blatancy), but the point is that plagiarizing is easy enough. It will always undercut the education process and harm the student’s integrity. If I’m comfortable plagiarizing, I’m comfortable lying. No child of God can be okay with that.

The danger of AI is that it can not only serve as a way to plagiarize but can also make it even harder to discover that this is what is happening. This makes the temptation greater because if we can get away with something cheap and easy in the face of crunched time and effort, will we do it? AI can help catch mistakes, but when it is used as a substitute for students thinking through and doing their own work, they are hurting themselves and their education.

Plagiarism is another form of lying, especially when one knows this is what he or she is doing. AI can become the same problem of dishonestly short-cutting to get something written and then treating it as if it were the student’s own work. Students often look for ways to streamline what they have to do, and AI has made it easier to cut out the hard work of thinking, writing, editing, and rewording something they did. This has even discouraged professors from requiring writing assignments because none of us want to waste time reading AI-generated papers.

Add to this that people now use AI-generated photos and stories to pass around on social media. Sometimes, that’s not hard to spot, but the problem is that it is getting more difficult to tell. Reality itself is being questioned, and we hardly know what is true anymore. Again, for Christians, this is not acceptable. Truth is foundational for everything else that we believe and do. If we cannot know what is real and true, we have lost our bearings.

I will also add that preachers and Bible teachers must be careful here. Preachers already have access to multiple tools that can help them, but they also have access to outlines and articles that could, if they are not careful, make it so that they rarely study and work hard for themselves. We can go to a website and pick an outline late Saturday night, barely put in the time to study and think it through, and get away with another week of barely any study while we pass off lessons of others as our own. Now, we all borrow from others, and I’m not against that, but when we borrow without doing our own study and reading, that is inexcusable. AI is another way in which this can happen. Perhaps you can get some good points, but if something else is writing everything for us, and we are just plucking it up and using it without personal study, we are cheating ourselves and our brethren. Indeed, we may well be robbing God.

AI can dehumanize, and I often fear this is already happening. Consequently, human beings may think less critically, read far less, and fail to learn how to express themselves adequately. People learn how to use ChatGPT and other platforms, but are they personally learning logic, communication, study skills, and how to write? Are they learning to distinguish truth from error? Are they learning what is real?

While AI has uses, don’t let it take your integrity away. Don’t let it dehumanize you. Don’t let it think for you. Don’t let it become a fake world where reality cannot be known.

Or are we already living in the Matrix?

Should I take courses that teach evolution?

Jeffrey Hamilton — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 23:10:42 +0000

Question:

Recently, I’ve been thinking about the future, how my life will be, and how my career affects me. I picked a job in botany. But after taking an online course, I feel utterly terrified. A lot of history is about the evolution of plants. I know this won’t affect me in the actual workforce, but I just hope that evolution doesn’t force me to drop my aspiration.

My questions are: If I am required to listen to evolution repeatedly, should I drop botany or pursue my career path? Why is evolutionism so infused in our school system, and why do so many people teach it?

Answer:

The education system long ago accepted an anti-Christian bias in all its programs. They think it is a mark of intellect, but in reality, it promotes ignorance by censoring contrary viewpoints. In the sciences, it has become so bad that in many universities, professors who hold religious views are denied teaching positions. Thus, the lock-step promotion of evolution continues despite the mounting evidence that it is a failed theory. See The Bias Toward Evolution.

One way to avoid the problem is to take the classes you need at a religious school. Another is to take the classes you need, and when asked to answer questions about evolution, you can state, "You said in class ..." or the "Book said ..." Neither of these indicate what you personally believe. Personally, I always found it amusing to point out the flaws in evolution. "Oh! So you are saying adding complexity is allowed even though the Second Law of Thermodynamics says it cannot happen." But then, I don't mind watching a teacher squirm. Most teachers don't mind if you answer the test questions correctly. Every once in a while, you end up finding a fellow believer.

Prejudice in the University

Jeffrey Hamilton — Tue, 14 May 2024 16:07:44 +0000

by Ed Harrell
Christianity Magazine, Volume 11, #7, August 1994

In a recent book entitled The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief, George M. Marsden of Notre Dame, an evangelical historian, let the cat out of the bag — the only minority in a university that is not free to proclaim its heritage and identity is Christians. Feminists, gays, Marxists, and members of scores of other minority groups belligerently defend their turf on the multicultural American landscape. And they claim the right to teach from their cultural perspective.

Postmodernist theorists, especially feminists, argue that one’s biography is an inevitable and relevant part of his or her scholarship. In spite of this avant-garde emphasis on the subjective nature of all knowledge, any scholar who confessed that his or her scholarship was informed by a religious perspective would be in deep trouble.

Most religious people agree, I think, that a secular university classroom is not the place to proselyte. People hired to teach mathematics, or history, should not use their positions to propagate their religious beliefs. I am sure that has occurred in the past, but I think that one would be hard-pressed to find many examples of such a thing happening in recent years.

What troubles evangelical scholars like Marsden is not that university teaching has become objective and religiously neutral. Rather, universities have become dogmatically secular and overtly anti-Christian.

Furthermore, there is a new missionary spirit in the universities. The new missionaries are not Christians; they are anti-religious secularists with a grudge against Christianity. In classrooms all over the nation, traditional belief is ridiculed and belittled, and young people are urged to embrace a secular philosophy of life and often an alternate lifestyle. Of course, most such proselyting is disguised as objective, scientific truth. Much university teaching is conversion-oriented, but very little of it has to do with teaching young people that they should be Christians.

Much has been said in recent months about making the government look more like America — meaning that women and minorities should be visible in positions of influence and power. Nowhere has the effort to create this multicultural diversity been taken more seriously than in the university.

Ironically, universities look very little like the nation as a whole when it comes to religion. Most polls indicate that more than 90 percent of Americans believe in God and that around 60 percent claim some religious affiliation. Those percentages would probably be reversed in universities. Universities are insulated enclaves of antireligious prejudice in the midst of the most religious nation in the developed world.

I do not believe that religious belief is a precise parallel to gender, ethnicity, class, and race in defining minority communities—indeed, each of those categories has distinctive characteristics. But at times in American history, religion has been the most important hyphenated identification for most Americans, and it remains the critical sub-identification in the lives of millions of Americans.
In most places in the world, religion is the most critical element in multicultural definitions. In virtually every area of Indian politics and society—university admissions, government service, bank loans—quotas are assigned to Muslims, Sikhs, and other religious and ethnic minorities. If Alabama were to adopt the India model of multiculturalism, at least half of the professors and students at all state universities would be Southern Baptists.

Obviously, assigning quotas to religious communities causes many problems in India—and even more in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and much of the Middle East. I remain convinced that every person in a society must be given equal opportunity, but that competence should be the standard by which all are judged. But the quotas in India do mean that the country’s institutions look like the society —even the universities. And to some extent that means that they are in touch with the people.

Most American scholars simply do not take religion seriously. As past generations of historians wrote African Americans, women, and other minorities out of the nation’s history, recent historians have written the religious majority out of American history. In the words of historian R. Laurence Moore, “proponents of secularization theory” judged traditional evangelical Protestantism not to be “helpful to a rational political order.” “Given all of the other troubles that stood in the way of the political enlightenment of Americans,” Moore concluded, “historians wanted to write Americans beyond their religious backwardness as quickly as possible.”

So, the history that students are taught in most universities seems to many of them to be someone else’s history offered in a hostile environment. Furthermore, scholarship flawed by anti-religious bias leaves us open to repeated surprises. The conservative religion that intellectuals have written out of the twentieth-century American story has reappeared over and over in the form of Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, the religious right, and in countless other incarnations. An education biased against religion does little to help students understand the present or predict the future.

Finding Real Happiness

Jeffrey Hamilton — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 15:38:11 +0000

by Richard Thetford

Everyone wants a life filled with joy and happiness, but very few find it. One major reason man fails to find the happiness he seeks is that he is trying to obtain it through the wrong means. Millionaires who have houses, yachts, and condominiums often complain in counseling sessions that they're so unhappy they often think about committing suicide. They have everything money can buy, but they're unhappy with their lives! There's a void in their hearts that has never been filled -- a thirst that has never been satisfied.

Those with college degrees are often unhappy. Physicians, lawyers, and educators often admit that they are very unhappy. This proves that higher education in and of itself doesn't bring happiness. Anyone who is trying to find happiness through wealth, position, education, or notoriety is looking in the wrong place.

The void that people have in their hearts can only be filled through a relationship with the Lord Himself. Jesus stated in John 4:13-14, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."

Only the Lord can fill the deepest longings of the heart. Proverbs 3:5-8 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones."