The following post is from this past April:
I thought that an overnight trip to Princeton University might be a nice getaway if we get the chance. Yale would have been good....but Princeton is closer. We've been to Harvard a number of times....including our honeymoon back in 1976. We didn't have the time but we passed Wake Forest a few days ago on the way home from the shore....and I was really tempted to pull off the highway for a couple hours on campus. I have been on two Christian college campuses in the past few weeks. Some men like NASCAR races.....I like a college or university.
My campus back in the mid-70s was Pitt. My wife and I met while working in the library. She was my boss. I went back to a Christian college when I was fifty years old....to work in a masters degree program in higher education.....just so that I could be of more help to our son who was about to be looking at colleges. We did the normal campus visits back when he was a high school senior....and we went with him to a few places when he was looking at law schools.
Some people use the phrase....paradigm shift....but transformation is big today also....others prefer to look it as....zeitgeist....when trying to describe the mood or the philosophy or the way of thinking for a certain age or period of time. In my day....we were poets and philosophers. Don't misunderstand me....my idea of a great poet is Rod McKuen....and Woody Allen was the greatest philosopher. I use those two words....poets and philosophers....in a very general sense. The music of the 60s was definitely poetry....much of it. As for me....I became a philosopher with an empty pitcher of Budweiser before me. We read philosophical books back then....and went to see artsy foreign films.
It was this poet/philosopher generation....this Jesus freak/peace and love and marijuana generation....in which God moved mightily in the 70s and 80s. Kumbaya! We didn't love Reagan because he was conservative.....we loved him because he was Reagan. We loved RFK because he was RFK. We evangelicals were actually born again. Christian bookstores were everywhere....because they made money.
All of this went south....as we blew it. Whether the power went to our heads I'm not sure. We started building megachurches....as user-friendly replaced mortification. We no longer evangelized....as we recruited. Even our best national ministers started to get too big. Billy Graham had already had a comeuppance of sorts....since he started so long ago....but you could see it in his eyes in his later years....he wanted to warn....he tried....but we were beyond warning.
My dad's generation was the true patriot generation. I don't know how the few generations lumped together today think. They're not poet/philosopher....that's for sure. So I read what they write in their college newspapers.....and visit the campus to get an idea of what's important to them. It is very much like my day in many ways....some things never change....but they do not seem to be interested in the meaning of life....or even the meaning of words. Truth is nothing but a ball to be kicked out of the way....you could see this in the many coronavirus debates....where we had no intention of trying to find truth....only finding points to score with. So they might be classified as a soundbite generation.....or a talking points generation. I do not go on these campuses without praying....and I haven't stopped praying yet for the two campuses that I had been on recently.
I have probably written more praise about R. C Sproul than anyone in these posts of many years....for his ministry has been invaluable....but even this brilliant man made mistakes.....only a few....(compared to my multitude)....and I had pointed them out.....because although his ministry was such a great mentor in my life....in fact because his ministry was such a great mentor....that ministry given the title....Renewing Your Mind....I could see the meaning of....Do not be conformed to this world.....and could understand....but be transformed by the renewal of your mind....and saw the necessity of....testing.....that I might discern.....the will of God. (Romans 12 of course)
