 Welcoming the wind  The Layman Volume 37, Number 4, Posted November 8, 2004
In the sixties, Berkeley made news as unwashed iconoclasts took over Freedom Park and the cult of the imperial self started its eastward trek. In the ensuing maelstrom, campus ministries increasingly shelved the gospel, embracing instead a passion for liberation and movement politics. Westminster Fellowships became staging areas for campus demonstrations, as their bulletin boards promoted the most recent cause celebre. Lamentably, Presbyterian campus ministries across the country followed that flow. Soon, this thin gruel left students hungry for more substantial fare. They abandoned Westminster Fellowships and cascaded into evangelical para-church ministries like InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Campus Crusade for Christ. Attracted by a gospel that affirms Truth with a capital “T,” students and faculty members began to entertain intelligent encounters between the small “t” truths of academia and the revealed Truth that they found in God’s Word. The engagement changed lives. Dwindling denominational ministries sought campus survival, not in reformation, but retrenchment. Alliances like United Ministries of Higher Education consolidated their failures, but that only exacerbated the downward trend. Meanwhile, the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church (USA) launched the National Network of Presbyterian College Women, with a Web site that included among its “recommended resources” a link to lesbian dating services and a discredited “Human Sexuality Report.” Some denominational leaders replaced Scripture with “justice love” as its proffered standard for sexual relationships. But there is hope on the horizon. Ironically, Berkeley, the very place that figured so prominently in the nationwide blight on Christian higher education, is now coming to life with a vibrant, intelligent infusion of the gospel. Under the entrepreneurial leadership of a visionary Presbyterian minister and his talented staff – and bankrolled by Baptist bonds – Westminster House is charting a new course for campus ministry. Passionately committed to the gospel and having honed his skills through 17 years of employment with InterVarsity, Randy Bare has forged an intersection between campus and the Christ. Assisted in his mission by area Presbyterian congregations that see mission on their doorstep, Bare and his team envision Westminster House as a launching pad for the gospel at one of this country’s most prestigious academic institutions. If it can happen at Berkeley, a place that is fiercely secular (the university will not list Westminster House as a recommended student residence because it is explicitly Christian), it can happen anywhere. And as the false gods of inclusiveness and diversity inevitably wane, the Truth that these Berkeley Presbyterians proclaim may, in fact, send a fresh breeze across American academia. We welcome that wind! A column by Parker T. Williamson, chief executive officer of the Presbyterian Lay Committee and editor in chief of its publications. |
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