A few days ago I was having a conversation with a friend who was reading the book "Pledged." It's written by an investigative reporter who rushes a sorority in order to see what really goes on--as you might imagine, it's a somewhat scathing indictment of the entire system.
My friend who was reading the book commented that she was most intrigued by the amount of group-think that was essential to the survival of the fraternity/sorority system. She then went on to comment that religious groups often functioned the same way. My friend grew up Catholic but is not religious now, and her comment has made me think.
How do I function on campus as a campus minister, working with 300 students, and make sure that our community is not a gigantic exercise in group-think?
Just the other day I was sitting down with a student I'll call Bill. Bill's basic life story: father abandoned him and his family, they moved in with mother's parents, grandfather dies, grandmother becomes alcoholic, Bill has to play surrogate parent to two younger siblings and take care of his mother who's stressed out, dad dies suddenly of cancer junior year of high school after many years of only occasional contact.
Bill needs more than group-think. Bill needs a real Savior, a real dynamic faith, real strength through the Holy Spirit to begin to walk through the emotional hell that trying to forgive his dad will require. Real forgiveness, real power, real redemption of a whole lot of pain. Group-think does not supply this kind of power.
The hard part is, it's almost impossible to tell the difference between group-think and the real thing until after the students are gone. And maybe not all group-think is bad. It's certainly more profitable for a student to be involved in Christian group-think than the types of group-think that are described in "Pledged." Or perhaps for many students, group-think is a part of the process that they must go through on their way to genuinely owning their faith.
But I would love for InterVarsity at UNC-Chapel Hill to be much more than an experiment in the temporary redemption of group-think. I would love for students to really be changed by the gospel. I would love for students like Bill to have more at work in their lives than just a lot of energy and momemtum and mantras that don't yield the fruit of the Spirit in their lives.
I'm just not always sure what that requires.
4 comments:
I once remember commenting to a friend on campus that joining a fraternity is just buying friends. He commented back to me something to the effect of "isn't that basically what we do in InterVarsity minus the money?" I'll let Jim Sutherland remain anonymous since I probably quoted him wrong. Wait ... did I just say it was Jim ... whoops.
I'm not opposed to Christian groups (churches, parachurches otherwise ... hopefully obviously), I've just thought along similar lines before. I think you're right ... perseverence is the key to seeing if it's really a lasting work of the Holy Spirit.
I don't know what I meant by "otherwise".
Litmus Jim rides again!!!!
The secret word to post here is ukankac, which sounds like permission is given to macon to continue expectorating his phlegm.
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