IN OUR OWN BACK YARD

It is always exciting to sit and chapel, seeing and hearing the reports from our student campaigns. Today was no exception, as Chuck Ramseur shared the results of one such recent effort. While we had students travel to Washington, Montana, and Utah, a good-sized group stayed here in the Denver area and knocked doors and campaigned in Wheat Ridge. These homes lay just a few miles north and west of the church building. The thing that struck me about this campaign in a major U.S. city’s suburbs are the types of people our students encountered.

In addition to the expected atheists, there were others you might not expect to be met. One man showed no interest in the creation seminar hosted by the Miller Street congregation because his gods were Thor and Oden. Before the students left, it so happened that the man’s high priest arrived. That apparently made for a memorable experience. Another couple of students met a woman who was a practicing Wiccan. She had black and white stones set up around the perimeter of her house, a superstition that was apparently designed to bring balance and stability to her home and life. Duality is an important element found throughout this neopagan religion. Another pair of student campaigners ran across a “Jewish Christian” whose beliefs must surely be unorthodox. He believes in reading Tarot cards as well as the idea of reincarnation. He also claimed to be able to read Aramaic through his “mind’s eye.”

Why do I point these experiences out to you? This is not the heart of the jungles of South America or Southeast Asia. This is not among the tribes of Africa. This is the urban corridor of Colorado, in America. How is this possible? Many answers might be offered: the embracing of pluralism, political correctness, relativism, eroding moral values, and the like. Yet, it all comes down to a rejection of Divine knowledge. The Bible has, in many corners, ceased to be revered by the average person in our culture. The Bible warns about what follows such changes. In Romans one, Paul writes, “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them” (28-32). Read through that list again. In them, there are allusions to the very things witnessed by our students. The sobering thought is that when we reject biblical knowledge, God rejects us (Hos. 4:6). We have much work to be done, not only on foreign soil, but also in our own back yard!

–Neal Pollard

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