I read the book How To Stay Christian In College by J. Budziszewski. It is a fantastic book describing the experience of college life and how it can be harmful to a person’s faith. He then goes on about ways to use college as a way to grow closer to God. He also discusses many different things that can challenge you faith in college like the many different worldviews and people who might urge you to do sinful things and stray away from your faith. It was a great book that provided both an educational and inspirational insight on how to get through college with Jesus.
He starts off talking about his story of struggling with his faith and how he believed in God. He believed in God when he was younger. However, throughout the years his faith started to diminish, because of the type of politics he was getting into and he committed some sins that he didn’t want to repent for. He became uncomfortable with God and decided to push Him away and try to get rid of his idea about belief by doing anything he could to get Jesus out of his mind. This did not workout for him. He slowly started to regain his faith after the many struggles he was going through and realized that the only way to get through those struggles was with God.
He then goes to talk about how you may suddenly feel alone in college, because most of the time you are. Even if some of your friends are already in the college your going to or going to the same college as you they may act differently in college or start to find different friend groups. You are going to feel alone at some point in college, but there are many social opportunities available in college. You just need to carefully find new friends and activities that glorify God. There are many people in college looking for friendships.
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You will also realize that you are suddenly more independent. You do not have parents telling you what to do all the time and as long as you are not disrupting the campus too much or committing crimes the college does not really care what you do either. Having all this independence can be hard on some people, but you just have to adapt to it. College can be a very different place than what you are used to. It can have different surroundings, different people, and many different beliefs. As long as you stay close to God and continue to pray and read the Bible you will be just fine.
You are going to run into a great deal of pressure in college. The college as a whole may put pressure on your faith. He says a good way to deal with this pressure is to pray often and read the Bible. He then goes over the basics of Christianity, but at a more mature level. He does this, because as we grow up we may not get a very full understanding of Christianity and come out with a childish interpretation of Christianity which gets knocked down very fast in college.
He then talks about some of the different worldviews that you may seen in college and in life. He talks about naturalism which says that the physical world is all that exists. He states that most professors are naturalists and that they think supernaturalism is outdated and needs to abandoned. He talks about postmodernism which is the belief that there is no universal truth about the universe and that each culture defines its own truth about religion and many postmodernists do not think there is any meaning to our existence. The last worldview he talks about is do-it-yourself spirituality which is where everyone makes up their own belief about reality. He gives these worldviews and what they mean and a way to challenge their belief and hopefully show them that God is the one true answer.
Budziszewski proceeds to tell us about being friends with non-Christian people and the different types of questions they may ask. There are three different types of questions an unbelieving student may have. The first being what he called plain questions. These types of questions are just genuine curiosity about the faith. The next type of questions are objections to Christianity. The last type of questions are what he referred to as smoke screens which may seem like questions, but are really just ways of hiding from the truth. This is why in an earlier chapter he presents the basics of Christianity again for us. Enabling us to be able to appropriately answer all of these different types of questions.
He also talks about the challenge of living around people with a non-Christian lifestyle and that Christian students have to accept that friendships with unbelievers will be limited, because of the differing things they share in common. There will also be many different myths about the search for truth at college. Budziszewski divided them into general myths, skeptical myths, and relativist myths. General myths are the types of myths that you will hear from almost anyone. Skeptical myths are the types of myths you will hear about from people who do not even want to find the truth. Relativist myths are the types of myths that you will hear from people who believe that we all have our own truth and that they might differ from person to person.
Budziszewski then talks about the different myths about love and sex. He talks about three different types of myths. General myths which is what guys and girls can both fall for. Girl myths which is what girls will most likely believe. Guys myths which is what guys will usually believe. He spends the most time on guy myths, because guys take more convincing when it comes to sex.
The first general myth is that love is a feeling, and the only adult way to express it is sex. The problem with this is that love is not a feeling, but a commitment. The second general myth is that sex is like everything else and in order to make smart decisions about it you have to do it. The problem with this is that you do not always have to do something to make smart decisions about it. The last one being that if you do not have sex with someone you will not know if they are right for you and if you do not live with them first then you do not know if it will work out in marriage. The problem with this is that sex before marriage can often be damaging to your relationships and statistically couples who live together before marriage are more likely to end up getting a divorce.
There are three girl myths he talks about. Sex before marriage is romantic. The only time sex before marriage is romantic is when you are completely safe and the only time you are completely safe is when you know you will be with that man for the rest of your life. Having sex before marriage helps keep the relationship together. Sex before marriage usually does not help a relationship. Sex before marriage shows that you are committed. The only way to show that you are committed is marriage.
There are three guy myths Budziszewski talks about. The first one is that sex is a physical need and physical needs are not wrong. The problem with this is that sex is just something you want not something you need. The second myth is that sex is for pleasure and pleasure is not wrong. Many people do things for pleasure that is wrong. The last myth is that there is not any variety in having sex while married. Real variety comes from experiencing someone’s personality in a deep, intimate way which can happen when you are married.
Budziszewski discusses the myths about politics. He talks about three different political myths: general myths, liberal myths, and conservative myths. Politics deal with what is right and wrong and God says a great deal of things about what is right and wrong. If you do not give much thought to politics then you are more likely to fall for the political myths. No matter what position you take in politics you have to make sure that you are honoring God in the things that you do.
He talks about how to survive on college socially, religiously, and in the classroom. There are two ways you can go about acting socially. You can use this opportunity to socialize to people about God or you can be selfish and just look for friendships that are just for your own gain. As long as you trust in God and have a smart Christian mindset you will be fine in the classroom.
How To Stay Christian In College by J. Budziszewski is a very helpful and educational book. It not only provides an interesting read, but can really help you for the future you have in college. The many different things Budziszewski discussed about keeping your faith do not only help in college but help in everyday life. It was a great book that I will use as a helpful guide throughout college.
