One day, as Joe, a junior at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, sat in his psychology class, the professor turned to him and said, “Now here is a Christian with his head screwed on right.” The professor had been telling the class that Christian believers often do not approach the world with intellectual rigor. But, as the professor spoke he saw Joe and, recognizing him from a previous class, acknowledged that he was a thinking Christian.
After class, Joe invited the professor to continue the discussion of religion. They soon discovered that they had both traveled to Guatemala. The professor asked Joe, “Why did you go to Guatemala?”
Joe answered, “Because I wanted to show God’s love to the people of Guatemala, not because I wanted to feel good about helping other people.”
The professor asked what it meant to show God’s love to someone. Joe thought about the answer to this query and answered with another question, “Would you be willing to die for your son?”
“I never had to seriously consider that, but yes I would die for my son,” replied the professor.
“That’s what God did for you. He died for you,” Joe said.
Joe was asking the professor to consider religion not as a psychological phenomenon, but as a personal relationship with God. This was new information for the professor, and he needed time to process it. The professor and Joe are continuing the dialog.
InterVarsity trains students to be bold in their faith and equips them to share with anyone in the academic setting—students, staff and faculty. More information is also available about InterVarsity’s global projects for the summer of 2005 on our website.
