By Tanner Anderson, Page Editor
After viewing Bill Maher’s documentary Religulous, I was prepared to right his wrongs with this column, until the underlying question finally surfaced in my mind.
How should Christians interact and discuss religion with individuals who find Christianity ludicrous? I do not have the answer to this question, but the university equips its students with enough professors and classes for them to find their own answers.
Although Maher claimed he wanted to find the truth and the reason why people believe in a higher power, he copped out on his documentary. Instead of talking with scholars and professors of theology, he tracked down the uneducated and unprepared who did not know what the documentary was about and perhaps involved themselves in a search for their quick 15 minutes of fame.
Maher talked to truckers in Raleigh, N.C., and traveled to a creation museum in Petersburg, Ky., where it depicted man and dinosaur living together with an animatronic triceratops with a saddle harnessed to its back. He interviewed a man who plays Jesus at a religious theme park in Orlando, Fla., and had a discussion with a man claiming to be the second coming of Christ somewhere in Mexico.
Although the subjects he interviewed were questionable, his questions did contain validity and substance, which brought to surface obstacles people struggle with regarding faith and religion with issues like homosexuality, the Holy Trinity and what sections of the Bible his interviewers took literally.
After living in Abilene, let alone attending a Christian school, the documentary contained an important truth, and I realized that once I burst out of the ACU bubble, I will encounter individuals who have difficult questions and need reasons other than, “because the Bible says so.”
Before coming to ACU, “because the Bible says so” was the only logical argument I had in my evangelical arsenal; I had an ignorant faith. I had faith just because I was told to, and it was not ever really challenged or confronted.
However, ACU prepares its students for difficult questions with classes like philosophy, religion and science; teaching good news; introduction to the philosophy of religion and ethics. And although these questions take more than four years to answer, the university does a great job in providing educated professors and thought-provoking classes to truly educate and challenge young Christians.
I will finally leave ACU after five (cough) years with a degree and faith that is no longer ignorant; and although I am nowhere close to having everything figured out, I will have comfort knowing that although questions and doubts regarding issues of faith will linger, they will lead to a broader understanding if searched for, analyzed and discussed.
