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HOW TO STAY CHRISTIAN
IN COLLEGE
J. Budziszewski
(NavPress, 192pp, $16h)
Its no secret, college can be injurious to your faith. Thats why parents are uneasy when their once-sheltered kid heads off to college. They worry that they will lose their religion in liberal arts classrooms. J. Budziszewski (pronounced Boo-Jeesh-Ev-Skee) knows this personallylosing (then, thankfully, reclaiming) his faith while a student at the University of Florida. He tells his story in the first chapter of his book How to Stay Christian in College (300,000 now in print). Entering UF during the turbulent 60s, when it was cool to be radical, to question everything, to experiment with sex and drugs, to re-create God in your own image. It was chic to be avant-garde at least, at first. Soon enough, he discovered that life without God everything is wrong, that some forms of stupidity only highly intelligent and educated people commit. I mean, who knows enough to say there is no God, much less elevate themselves to that status, no matter how much their mulish pride tells them they can? Today, Dr. Budziszewskis vocation is instructor in government and ethics at UT Austin, but his avocation is helping university students struggling with their faith find answers to the nagging questions t higher education raises.
So Budziszewskis wrote his book for three specific groups: 1). those planning to go to college; 2). those already in college; and 3). their parents. His aim is to equip each with the tools they need to remain firm in their faith in the midst of skepticism they will inevitably confront. He understands the initial loneliness students feel when they are suddenly thrust, often unprepared, into a world where social pressures are acute and for the first time they are labeled adult. Then theres the overwhelming blitz of opposing worldviews, like the Mars Hill (Something New) syndrome, Naturalism, Postmodernism, DIY Spirituality, and exposure to a host of conflicting Truths. Budziszewski spends time confronting varying campus myths students will inevitably confrontthe fiction of confusing fact as truth (hopefully, they will discover that a person can learn all the facts and still miss the truth and they will never know enough to know absolutely that there is no God); of relativism (that will tell them truth is what you sincerely believe); romance (that sex is love), politics (the idea that God belongs to a preferred usually liberal party) and more.
The final section of the book gives the reader coping skills they will need in college: surviving campus social life, religious life, and maintaining their Christian faith even in hostile classroom environments.
In conclusion, Budziszewski shares with students how they can fit Christ into their lives and, more importantly, their lives into Christ while at university, saying, Christ doesnt want a place in your life; he wants it all. He doesnt want you to fit him into your plans; he wants to fit you into his. Youre called to belong.
-------------------------------
Author bio
J. Budziszewski is professor of government at the University of Texas, Austin, where he has taught since 1981. He specializes in ethics, political philosophy and the interaction of these two fields with religion and theology. He received both a BA and MA at the University of Florida and a PhD from Yale.
Budziszewski has written widely, in both scholarly and popular venues, about a variety of moral and political issues including abortion, marriage, sexuality, capital punishment, and the role of judges in a constitutional republic. His principal area of publication is the theory of natural law. He has been a leading advocate for natural law theory over the past twenty years. In this context, he has given particular attention to the problem of moral self-deception: What happens when human beings tell themselves that they don't know what they really do. Among his research interests are also virtue ethics and the problem of tolerance.
Apart from his scholarly philosophical work, Budziszewski is known for articles and books of Christian apologetics, addressed to a broad audience including young people and college students. On Easter Sunday, 2004, Budziszewski was received into the Catholic Church. However, he continues to address his writings and lectures on Christian themes to both Protestants and Catholics, as well as to those who are uncertain of their beliefs but are sincerely seeking.
His books include The Resurrection of Nature: Political Theory and the Human Character (Cornell, 1986), The Nearest Coast of Darkness: A Vindication of the Politics of Virtues (Cornell, 1988), True Tolerance: Liberalism and the Necessity of Judgment (Transaction, 1992), Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law (InterVarsity, 1997), The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man (Spence, 1999), What We Can't Not Know: A Guide (Spence, 2003), Evangelicals in the Public Square (Baker Academic, 2006), Natural Law for Lawyers (Blackstone Fellowship, 2006), The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction (Intercollegiate Studies Institute Press, 2009), On the Meaning of Sex (Intercollegiate Studies Institute Press, 2012), and How to Stay Christian in College (NavPress, 2004, reprinted 2014). His Commentary on Thomas Aquinas' Treatise on Law will be published by Cambridge University Press in Summer, 2014.
Ref: How to Stay Christian in College : All Non-Fiction
IN COLLEGE
J. Budziszewski
(NavPress, 192pp, $16h)
Its no secret, college can be injurious to your faith. Thats why parents are uneasy when their once-sheltered kid heads off to college. They worry that they will lose their religion in liberal arts classrooms. J. Budziszewski (pronounced Boo-Jeesh-Ev-Skee) knows this personallylosing (then, thankfully, reclaiming) his faith while a student at the University of Florida. He tells his story in the first chapter of his book How to Stay Christian in College (300,000 now in print). Entering UF during the turbulent 60s, when it was cool to be radical, to question everything, to experiment with sex and drugs, to re-create God in your own image. It was chic to be avant-garde at least, at first. Soon enough, he discovered that life without God everything is wrong, that some forms of stupidity only highly intelligent and educated people commit. I mean, who knows enough to say there is no God, much less elevate themselves to that status, no matter how much their mulish pride tells them they can? Today, Dr. Budziszewskis vocation is instructor in government and ethics at UT Austin, but his avocation is helping university students struggling with their faith find answers to the nagging questions t higher education raises.
So Budziszewskis wrote his book for three specific groups: 1). those planning to go to college; 2). those already in college; and 3). their parents. His aim is to equip each with the tools they need to remain firm in their faith in the midst of skepticism they will inevitably confront. He understands the initial loneliness students feel when they are suddenly thrust, often unprepared, into a world where social pressures are acute and for the first time they are labeled adult. Then theres the overwhelming blitz of opposing worldviews, like the Mars Hill (Something New) syndrome, Naturalism, Postmodernism, DIY Spirituality, and exposure to a host of conflicting Truths. Budziszewski spends time confronting varying campus myths students will inevitably confrontthe fiction of confusing fact as truth (hopefully, they will discover that a person can learn all the facts and still miss the truth and they will never know enough to know absolutely that there is no God); of relativism (that will tell them truth is what you sincerely believe); romance (that sex is love), politics (the idea that God belongs to a preferred usually liberal party) and more.
The final section of the book gives the reader coping skills they will need in college: surviving campus social life, religious life, and maintaining their Christian faith even in hostile classroom environments.
In conclusion, Budziszewski shares with students how they can fit Christ into their lives and, more importantly, their lives into Christ while at university, saying, Christ doesnt want a place in your life; he wants it all. He doesnt want you to fit him into your plans; he wants to fit you into his. Youre called to belong.
-------------------------------
Author bio
J. Budziszewski is professor of government at the University of Texas, Austin, where he has taught since 1981. He specializes in ethics, political philosophy and the interaction of these two fields with religion and theology. He received both a BA and MA at the University of Florida and a PhD from Yale.
Budziszewski has written widely, in both scholarly and popular venues, about a variety of moral and political issues including abortion, marriage, sexuality, capital punishment, and the role of judges in a constitutional republic. His principal area of publication is the theory of natural law. He has been a leading advocate for natural law theory over the past twenty years. In this context, he has given particular attention to the problem of moral self-deception: What happens when human beings tell themselves that they don't know what they really do. Among his research interests are also virtue ethics and the problem of tolerance.
Apart from his scholarly philosophical work, Budziszewski is known for articles and books of Christian apologetics, addressed to a broad audience including young people and college students. On Easter Sunday, 2004, Budziszewski was received into the Catholic Church. However, he continues to address his writings and lectures on Christian themes to both Protestants and Catholics, as well as to those who are uncertain of their beliefs but are sincerely seeking.
His books include The Resurrection of Nature: Political Theory and the Human Character (Cornell, 1986), The Nearest Coast of Darkness: A Vindication of the Politics of Virtues (Cornell, 1988), True Tolerance: Liberalism and the Necessity of Judgment (Transaction, 1992), Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law (InterVarsity, 1997), The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man (Spence, 1999), What We Can't Not Know: A Guide (Spence, 2003), Evangelicals in the Public Square (Baker Academic, 2006), Natural Law for Lawyers (Blackstone Fellowship, 2006), The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction (Intercollegiate Studies Institute Press, 2009), On the Meaning of Sex (Intercollegiate Studies Institute Press, 2012), and How to Stay Christian in College (NavPress, 2004, reprinted 2014). His Commentary on Thomas Aquinas' Treatise on Law will be published by Cambridge University Press in Summer, 2014.
Ref: How to Stay Christian in College : All Non-Fiction
