Science

Republished with permission from Baptist Bulletin Nov/Dec 2010. All rights reserved.

By Liz Gifford

Challenges and Opportunities on the University Campus

Dad and Mom and their high school son or daughter sit at a table piled with college catalogs, applications, and scholarship forms. “I would really like to study chemistry or biology at the university, Dad.”

“But you know the big news stories coming out of the universities are about professors not getting tenure or even being fired because of their Christian stand on contemporary issues. What are your chances of having classes under an instructor who isn’t an atheist?”

“All I hear is how the university is a negative influence on Christians. Not the place I want to send you,” Mom adds.

“But I enjoy physics and chemistry and math, and I get good grades in those classes. I could help find a cure for cancer or work with plants and find a source of food to end hunger around the world.”

So the discussion goes as parents struggle to help their young people make the right choice of a place to study to be what God wants them to become.

Christian young people who wish to take advantage of the programs offered by a secular university, who wish to study under professors who are leaders in their areas of expertise, who want a diploma from an outstanding institution of higher learning are going to have to confront ideas that challenge their Christian beliefs. These are found in most areas of study, but highly volatile topics come under scrutiny in the sciences. Biology, archaeology, chemistry, and physics classes will force Christian young people to examine what they believe.

Have you noticed the spike of interest in extraterrestrial beings lately? As scientific evidence for intelligent design continues to defrock the theory of evolution, leading atheists are lining up to concede that life on planet earth may have been seeded by designing aliens. The notion of a creator God is unconscionably irrational, we are told. Apparently the idea of paternalistic aliens should pose no problem for the enlightened.

Whatever contribution aliens may or may not have made in generating life on earth, we ought—so the thinking goes—at least introduce ourselves. Since 1960 scientists in organizations such as SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) have dutifully cupped their technological ears toward the heavens in hopes that aliens will contact us, or that we might at least intercept an errant radio transmission emitting from some extraterrestrial source. Hearing utterly nothing for four decades, NASA retooled in 2001 and began attempting to contact them.¹