Cedarville University

I spent last week in Chicago and New Jersey with a stop in between at home for a day. In Chicago, Bill Bigham and I had breakfast across the street from the Kluczynski Federal Building on Dearborn. I noticed a battalion of armed guards around the building and wondered what was up. Then I realized that this was where President-elect Barack Obama has his transition office (on the 38^th floor). I introduced myself to the guards and asked to talk to Mr. Obama but they were not interested in letting me in. I even told them that I, too, had been to Kenya a couple of times but no go.

Lynne and I attended the wedding of Jennifer Stevens and Paul Hale, graduates of Cedarville. We are good friends of the family so we enjoyed a lot of good fellowship and food. It was a great ceremony and reception (although we and Paul Dixon got lost on the way; a case of the blonde leading the blonde, I think).

This week I get to stay close to home for Thanksgiving. We’ll have Alex home and some students will join us for a Thanksgiving Day feast. The next day we go to serve a meal at the Dayton Gospel mission, cut down a Christmas tree at Young’s tree farm, and come home to eat what’s left of the Thanksgiving feast. Should be great.

By the way, there was an interesting juxtaposition of two articles in Sunday’s Parade magazine (23 November 2008; www.parade.com).

The first was an interview/article with actress Reese Witherspoon. Of course it is difficult to know a person from any article but in her quotes she accurately portrays a contemporary value that each person is entitled to love, understanding and happiness above everything else. As she explains her recent divorce from Ryan Phillippe, she says:

“Everybody needs love. Everyone deserves it.”

“I wasn’t good about protecting myself. I spent a lot of my 20s just trying to make other people happy, rather than trying to figure out if doing that made me happy.”

“I want to be understood. Even as a child, I didn’t feel like I was. I still see that part of myself that wants approval, and that’s a constant need.”

Turn two pages and you will see the story of Alix Kates Shulman and her husband Scott.

Four years ago, my husband Scott fell 9 feet from our sleeping loft, suffering a traumatic brain injury that changed our lives forever. From that day on, he did not know the month, season, or century. He was unable to find his way home from down the block. His short-term memory and ability to reason were so damaged that he could not remember anything that happened since his fall and could never again be left alone. Suddenly the marriage we had built on independence, equality, and mutual support was radically transformed.

Alix Shulman found herself in a position of having to choose to give to another who could not always give back. She didn’t have the opportunity to think, “Will this make me happy?” She just did it. She goes on to say:

People who assume that our lives since the accident must be tragic and miserable are wrong. Despite the many daily difficulties that we contend with, secure in our love, we are mostly content. Maybe it’s the reward of rising to the challenge, maybe it’s the pleasure of making another person happy, but with the help of a few basic principles, so far I’ve managed to fill both of our lives with satisfactions.

Thinking about Jen and Paul’s wedding Friday night, I still hear the words, “. . . for better or for worse; in sickness and in and health; until we are parted in death.” There’s something about that commitment that is ennobling and dignifies us as humans made in the image and likeness of God.

But even in “doing the right thing” there is great joy:

[Scott] tells me a dozen times a day how much he loves me, and he thanks me for sticking by him. This makes me as happy as he claims that I make him. Love is a continuous feedback loop: It can make the most onerous tasks rewarding, as many a parent will confirm. When we walk through the neighborhood holding hands or share a frozen yogurt in the park, I forget the terror I felt when I thought I’d lost him or the difficulty I have in finding patient caregivers. And though I often fall short of my ideal, trying to keep him safe and happy has given my life a new, vitalizing purpose.

Needless say, the story of Alix and Scott makes me want to love my wife and my Lord even more.

Pray for Reese Witherspoon. She may be legally blonde but maybe she’ll find that Christ can make this life just like heaven.

What a week!  CU Friday (last week) had over 500 people here. This is our “college view” days for prospective students and their families. This was our largest in history. It’s exciting to see so many wanting to come to Cedarville. That night, the finale was David Crowder in concert followed by some pretty nifty fireworks over beautiful Cedar Lake.

The next day, Lynne and I took off for Elkhart, Indiana where we spent some great time with Dr. John Blodgett and his wife Colleen. They are such a gifted and encouraging couple. Their church is a wonderful group of people. Even though they are quite a large congregation, the personal emphasis is evident, no doubt a reflection of their leadership. I enjoyed speaking at their Sunday services.

A few days later we hopped on a plane for College Station, Texas - the Holy of Holies for Texas Aggies. I was speaking at a fundraiser for the Officers Christian Fellowship. The dinner was held in the Corps Center on the campus. It was a nice evening.

We got back Friday night in time for a dinner with Al and Joanna Stevens and then Saturday morning I drove to West Virginia for an alumni gathering and a weekend speaking engagement at River Cities church in Huntington.  I spoke Saturday night and Sunday morning. The people were fabulous. I returned late Sunday in time to prepare for chapel Monday.

Never a dull moment.

We have been owned by a cat for the past sixteen years. I am not a cat person but I’ve had no choice since she was given to us by students who were hiding her in their dorm room (”She’ll have no place to live if you don’t take her. Your kids will love her.”).  I should have been a little more resistant (”Oh, by the way . . . she’s pregnant.”). The gift that keeps giving.

She is a small, seven pound calico but she knows who is in charge.  She is.

Our dog is a different story. Kia loves to play. Obey is her middle name. She loves raccoons (they taste like chicken) and she lives to make our lives happy.

The cat’s major decision each day is where to sleep. She is getting old so she has cut down her options quite a bit. Last week we did not see her for a number of days. Frankly, we thought she had gone to the old cat burial ground and said good bye to this dog-eat-cat world. Then, Lynne had an inspiration: the maintenance department had taken our patio furniture to the university for winter storage. Maybe the cat was sleeping in one of the chairs. Yep. That’s where she was. They moved all that furniture and transported it to the University and she didn’t even wake up.

Now she’s home acting like she’s just returned from vacation.

This week is exciting. Tuesday is our Veteran’s Day celebration. Friday is Parents/Grandparents Day. This weekend we host the national championship for cross country (both of the Cedarville teams are nationally ranked; the women are #1).

I am looking forward to staying in town for a few days. Next week I head to Chicago and then to New Jersey. In the meantime, I’ll make sure the cat is properly ruling the house.

We had a super time at White Sulphur Springs, PA for the Officer’s Christian Fellowship (OCF) board meeting. It is always such a spiritual refreshment to be a part of these meetings (yes, a board meeting!). I think of the hundred of military families that are encouraged by OCF at their conference centers. 

Busy week. While we’ve been here in Cedarville, the beat goes on. We sponsored a dinner Friday night for those who give financially to assist students who attend Cedarville. Over 250 people were there. I am always so humbled by those who choose to invest in other people.  Without their giving, most of these students could not attend CU. Story after story was told of how a scholarship appeared at a crucial time for the amount they needed.  Those who give in this way are investing in eternity - may their tribe increase (as Howard Hendricks would say!). 

This week is Alex’s birthday. He ceases to be a teenager and becomes an adult. Well, we’ll see. Lynne is still waiting for me to make it to adulthood. 

We go to Elkhart, IN this weekend. I’ll be speaking at Dr. John Blodgett’s church. Should be a lot of fun. 

Some people are talking about Religulous, the movie by Bill Maher, which, according to Filter magazine, provides “good-natured mocking” of religion in general (and Christianity in particular).  

 French writer Emile Zola is quoted: “Civilization will not attain perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.” Bill Maher is trying to speed up the process by casting as many stones as he can. 

For Maher, agnosticism is the most ethical position because whenever Christians “. . . start to answer these questions about what happens when you die, it gets bound up with saving your own ***. Just ask any Christian - it’s about salvation. Ethics and good works run a distant second and third to salvation.” 

Maher may be right about many Christians who are “too heavenly minded . . .” but the incredible good that has been accomplished by believers from the first century until the present is never addressed (where are the atheist groups providing aid to victims of natural disasters?).

There are tragic horrors that have ripped through history in the name of religion but any thinking person can see these as an aberration of the faith. The fact that hundreds of millions have been murdered by atheist regimes gets a special spin by Maher.

He tried to dismiss the atheists (i.e., Stalin, Mao and Hitler) by claiming they were really religious.  He says, “The truth is, they were secular gods. They set themselves up as gods, and everything about their regimes were set up as religions. They were ‘gods’ on earth.” 

Such big thoughts seem too much for Maher because he has set his sights on conquering the hearts and minds of the average person.  People are “. . . not very religious but they’re not very anti-religion. And I think that there’s a large audience of people who are ready to be shown something new about [religion].”  He wants them to realize that religion “isn’t just something that is neutral and benign; that it’s actually really destructive.” 

European culture provides the model (and future) for America, Maher says:”The answer is that the European common man is not religious. It you look at any Western European country, atheism runs anywhere from 50 to 90 per cent - even in Italy! That’s how the American gets tricked into voting against his interests; he votes against gay marriage or winds up voting on abortion and on Teri Schiavo, and all these other nonsensical issues.” 

While I disagree that these are “nonsensical issues,” I do think he has a point. We must make a good case for Christ and live it out. Christians must commend the Gospel to the world with our hands and our heads - by our lives and our thinking. 

It is no surprise that someone like Bill Maher has such antagonism toward religion. I remember when Lynne and I were in Poland and we were talking with a Slovakian student named Janush. He described how he was ridiculed at the university in Bratislava by the professors because he was a Christian. I told him that we felt it was wrong that he was treated this way. He looked at us like we were nuts. “But, Bill,” he said. “They don’t know the Lord.” His point was this was how non-Christians were supposed to act. Even more humbling, he considered it a part of everyone’s walk with Christ to be so treated. “Don’t pray that our persecution stops,” he said. “Pray that we will be faithful.”

Our faithfulness is crucial. To a world of despair we must live and speak of hope (1 Peter 3:15) because there are many who have never heard the truth about why Jesus Christ came. 

Bill Maher wants to get to them, too.

“I think there are a lot of people who haven’t thought about religion, so they’re up for grabs. And I’m trying to bring them over to this side.”