linkin park, harvard, quantum physics, & hilary clinton?

I read this blog entry this morning by J.D. Greear, Pastor of The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina. Pretty interesting. Bruce Riley is the actual author of this particular entry. J.D. and Bruce went to college together.

Bruce Riley Ashford is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Intercultural Studies, Director of the Center for Great Commission Studies, and Fellow for the Center for Faith and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

What have Linkin Park, Quantum Physics, Hillary Clinton, and Harvard University to do with the Christian life? The answer is: a heck of a lot; they have everything to do with faithful Christian living. And I’m going to spend the next few paragraphs trying to flesh this out.
Another way to ask the same question that I just raised is, “What does it mean to glorify God in all that I do?” More to the point, what does it mean for a college student or a professional to glorify God in all that he does? For most of my life, I thought that the answer to this was limited to the private and church-centered: I needed to feel more love in my heart for God, stop doing earthly things, and be involved with more things inside of the church building.

But there’s a lot more to glorifying God than the private and churchly. God’s existence doesn’t matter merely for evangelism, preaching, and moralizing. His existence and His Word are equally significant for the public and world-centered, for the arts, the sciences, business and economics, education, and all of public life. It is He who created the universe out of which such public life flourishes, and He who gives us the abilities to participate in such things. In other words, His existence matters for every square inch of our lives, and in every fiber of the universe that He Himself created.

But what has Linkin Park to do with the Christian life? Of what significance is art, music, theater, and architecture? The answer begins like this: If God has gifted a person in the arts, that is a good thing. God Himself is the first artist, and it is He who created us in His image, giving us the ability to be creative like Him. Art can be a powerful instrument for God’s glory. Not only is it able to depict the beauty of this world, it is also able to transcend the fallenness of the world in which we live, pointing us to the new heavens and new earth that is to come.

What has quantum physics to do with the Christian life? Of what significance is biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, and sociology? The answer begins like this: If God has put a person in a position to be a scientist, that is a good thing. Indeed, it is God who gave us the universe that scientists now study, and He who gave us the ability to study it. Science can be a powerful instrument for God’s glory. Christians who are scientists should allow their love for God to form in them a love for His handiwork. A Christian should have more than sufficient motivation to do his work with excellence—it should be done to the glory of God.

What has Hillary Clinton to do with the Christian life? Of what significance are socio-political issues, law, philosophy, journalism, and other public matters? The answer begins like this: If God has put a person in public life, that is a good thing. It is He who created us in His image, as social and relational beings, and it is out of those qualities that our socio-political life arises. Christians should be salt and light in the socio-political, cultural, and moral arenas. We should flesh out the implications of Christian theology for these arenas.

What has Harvard University to do with the Christian life? Of what use are the four years of a college student’s life? The answer is that they are of great significance. Your four years of college are not merely a bridge to your “real life.” Your four years of college are a gift from God, possibly the four most fruitful years of your life.

On a college campus, you have the opportunity to learn to glorify God rationally (e.g. the sciences), creatively (e.g. the arts), relationally (e.g. the public square), morally, and spiritually. You have the opportunity to interact with some of the best minds, and some of the most interesting people, in the world. The fact is: your college years matter; your degree matters; your classes matter; the people with whom you interact matter. How you glorify God in your public and intellectual life is every bit as important as how you do so in your private and moral life.

If you’re an evangelical, especially from the Baptist or charismatic traditions, you might think I’m a fruitcake for saying this. And the reason you do is that many years ago, at the beginning of the 20th century, many in the evangelical church quit caring about intellectual and public matters. They recognized that there were many antagonistic unbelievers in universities, especially in the arts and sciences, and they retreated. They retreated and formed little Christian colleges (there is nothing wrong with a Christian college. But there is something wrong with retreating), wore Christian t-shirts that said “I’m Cross-Eyed”, bolstered their Christian bumper sticker collection, and sucked on Test-a-Mints®.

In other words, the evangelical church abdicated its responsibility to the world and fled to a Christian ghetto. And the result is that when an 18-year old goes to college at most public or private universities, his New Testament professor is most likely a militant atheist who wrote a dissertation with some freakish title like, “Buddhism, Tantric Sex, and the Falsity of the Gospels”. And that’s not to mention the philosophy, psychology, or biology professor. Why can’t it be the case that we refuse to retreat any longer, that we refuse to abdicate our responsibility to glorify God by being salt and light in every square inch of his universe?

Why can’t it be the case that many of you college students excel in your studies, and rise to the top of your professions, allowing yourself to bring great glory to God along the way? Why can’t some of you make it your goal to enter a Ph.D. program, embrace your studies, and use your minds to glorify God in the academy? Why can’t you be the person who teaches an 18 year old when they enter a course in philosophy or psychology or education or physics?

I say all of that to say this. God doesn’t just care about your quiet times or your Sundays. He cares about every facet of your life, including your time as a college student and then as a professional. So don’t do what many of us have done. Don’t waste your college years. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that the life of the mind doesn’t matter, that public life doesn’t matter. They do.

So back to the title. What have Linkin Park, Quantum Physics, Hillary Clinton, and Harvard University to do with the Christian life? They themselves are not the point of this blog; rather the spheres of human culture that they represent are the point of this blog. These spheres are important to God, and are important arenas in which Christians need to interact. So that is what I mean when I say that Linkin Park (the arts), Quantum Physics (the sciences), Hillary Clinton (the public square), and Harvard University (the university) have everything to do with the Christian life. Public and intellectual matters can never be disconnected from the life of a Christian who is committed to glorifying the Lord in everything he does.