IVY LEAGUE THE
Volume VII • Issue IV • Fall 2008
CHRISTIAN
OBSERVER
Penn’s Ashley Gunn Represents Young Voters at Republican National Convention
The Call for a New Sexual Revolution at Princeton
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Serving Dartmouth’s Sophomores in the Summer Columbia Ministries Join NYC Prayer Movement Page 20
Seeking Student Finds Answers at Brown Page 28
Harvard Alumnus Starts Baseball Camp in Brazil Page 29
Cornellians Have ‘New Attitude’ After Conference Page 35
Medical Professionals Discuss Faith and Healing at Yale Page 39
Brown • Columbia • Cornell • Dartmouth Harvard • Penn • Princeton • Yale
Advancing the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in the Ivy League The Ivy League Christian Observer is published by the Christian Union, an independent Christian ministry.
It is God alone who directs the course of the world. It is only by His power that the 8 Ivy League campuses can be dramatically transformed to increasingly reflect His presence and lordship. Prayer for the Ivy League is launching a new year-long initiative called “1,000,000 Minutes of Prayer” mobilizing family, alumni, and friends of the Ivy League to pray 1,000,000 cumulative minutes for the Ivy League.
1,000,000 Minutes of Prayer Initiative
In 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NIV) the Lord says, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” With the Lord’s encouragement in mind, please join together to pray daily for sweeping spiritual transformation across the Ivy League.
To receive a weekly compilation of prayer requests, devotionals, and updates gathered by us from campus ministries, you may signup online at www.christian-union.org/prayer, send an email to prayer@christian-union.org, or write to: Prayer for the Ivy League, Christian Union, 240 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ 08542, indicating your interest for: Fall 2008, Spring 2009, or Both. BROWN • COLUMBIA • CORNELL • DARTMOUTH • HARVARD • PENN • PRINCETON • YALE
240 NASSAU STREET PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY 08542
INSIDE
ILCOEditor@Christian-Union.org
ON CAMPU S
Please help us get this magazine into the hands of those who want it. E-mail or write us in order to: • pass along the names of fellow Christian alumni, parents, staff, faculty, or friends who would enjoy this quarterly update from the Ivy League universities. • update us on any address change you have. • be removed from the mailing list. Editor-in-Chief Matt Bennett, Cornell ’88, *89 Managing Editor Tom Campisi, College of New Jersey, ’88 Senior Writer Eileen Scott, Mount St. Mary, ’87 Field Reporters Grace Chen, Cornell ’10 Biblia Kim, Cornell ’09 Nkem Okafor, Yale Graduate School Ishmael Osekre, Columbia ’09 Joshua Unseth, Brown ’09 Jin Wang, Columbia ’10 Sara Woo, Cornell ’10 Photo Editor Pam Traeger Letters to the Editor Please send us your feedback regarding events and topics described in this magazine at the e-mail or regular mail address listed above.
The Call for a New Sexual Revolution Princeton’s Freshman Orientation Game Is Far From Morally Neutral By Cassandra L. DeBenedetto, Princeton ’07 . . . . . 5 The Ichthus was Forerunner to Christian Journals Campus Publications Represent Depth and Breadth of Christian Thought By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Serving Sophomores in the Summer Unique Class Schedule Keeps Ministry Going on Campus By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 What’s in a Name? Yale’s Residential Colleges Enjoy a Rich Legacy By Nkem Okafor, Yale Graduate School . . . . . . . . . . 9 A Crusade by Any Other Name… Campus Ministry Now Known as Penn Students for Christ By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 IN TELLECTU AL EN GAGEM E N T Lights of the Roundtable Dinner Events Empower Faculty to ‘Bear the Torch of Faith’ By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Words of Wisdom ‘Last Lecture’ Professor Leaves a Legacy By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
By God’s power and the help of other ministries, the mission of Christian Union is to change the world by bringing sweeping spiritual transformation to the Ivy League universities, thereby developing and mobilizing godly Christian leadership for all sectors of society. Matt Bennett (Cornell BS ’88, MBA ’89) founded the ministry with friends in 2002 in Princeton, New Jersey. To learn more about the ministry, please visit www.Christian-Union.org. The purpose of The Ivy League Christian Observer (this free quarterly magazine) is to inform Christian alumni, students, parents, staff, faculty, and friends of the Ivy League universities about the spiritual activity on the campuses. Our desire is that you would be encouraged to pray for these universities, give financially to Christian initiatives on the campuses, and use your influence for the cause of Christ.
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A Distorted View of Young ‘Values Voters’ Barnard College Alumna Presents Only a Filtered Fringe By Ryan Anderson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 MARKETPLACE MIN ISTRY Go Green, Honor God RiverWired Posits Eco-Friendliness in ‘Can Do’ Terms By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Living Life in the Red Zone Former Cornell Football Player Set to Release New Book By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 The Ivy League Christian Observer
The ‘Evolution’ of an Evangelist Princeton Alumnus Is Passionate About Witnessing By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Returning the Favor Ministry Leaders Draw from Personal Experience to Reach Harvard Students By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
P R AY E R P O WE R New York Students Unite for 40 Days of Prayer Columbia University Ministries Join the Movement By Sara Woo, Cornell ’09. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 A Million Minutes of Prayer Christian Union Launches Ambitious Initiative By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 R E A C HING OUT Field of Dreams Harvard Alumnus Starts Baseball Camp in Brazil By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Columbia Student Has ‘Epic Summer’ in Hawaii Missions Work Helps Launch New Campus Ministries By Jin Wang, Columbia ’10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 ‘All Things to All People’ Students Share Christ with Fraternities, Sororities By Sara Woo, Cornell ’09. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Impact Movement Leaves Lasting Impression Princeton Alumna: College Was a Spiritual Training Camp By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 A BOUT MINIST RY Present Day Power at the Penn Club Jack Deere Urges Believers to Seek God’s Miracles Today By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Wilson House: A Ministry Home with a Mission Legacy of Tireless Evangelist Inspires Christian Union By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Cornell Students Get a New Attitude Conference Attendees Urged to Make the Bible Their ‘First Delight’ Rachael Efthimiou, Cornell ’09 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Growing ‘Faith and Action’ at Princeton Christian Union Expands Campus Ministry Team By Catherine Elvy, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Fall 2008
Evidence of Things Not Seen Medical Professionals: Faith Facilitates Healing By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Harvesting Fruit in the Ivy League Yale Alumnus Publishes Devotional Book Based on Sermon By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
IN PERSON Service Before Self Penn Junior Speaks at Republican National Convention By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 A Remarkable Recovery How One Septuagenarian’s Near-Death Experience Lent Fuel to the Fire By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 From the Sidelines to the Frontlines of Faith Injuries Help Lead Brown Football Player Back to God By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Pentecostal Preacher is Political Woman Minister is CEO of Democratic National Convention Committee By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Walking the Road to Damascus Penn Student Experiences the History of the Bible By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 From the Head to the Heart Seeking Student Finds Answers at Brown By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
DEPARTMENTS News-in-Brief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 The Mission and Vision of Christian Union . . 49 Ivy League Prayer Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 A Cheerful Heart Humor Column by Bob Smiley, Princeton ’99 . . 52
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From the bottom of our hearts, “Thank You!” Through your generous giving, students’ lives are being changed across the Ivy League.
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www.Christian-Union.org/Giving Giving@Christian-Union.org
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THE CALL FOR A NEW SEXUAL REVOLUTION Princeton’s Freshman Orientation Game Is Far From Morally Neutral This article, written by Cassandra L. DeBenedetto (Princeton ’07), first appeared onPRINCETON line at the Glenn Beck Newsletter following an appearance by members of the Anscombe Society on Glenn Beck’s cable television program. DeBenedetto, one of the founders of the Anscombe Society, is now the Executive Director of the Love and Fidelity Network (loveandfidelity.org), which equips college students with the arguments, resources, and direction they need to promote the integrity of marriage, family, and sex on their campuses. This column was written in response to “Sex Jeopardy,” a freshman orientation game sponsored by Princeton University.
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“Sex Jeopardy” has been a staple of the freshman experience at Princeton University for a number of years now. Although the game is not mandatory, freshmen are strongly encouraged to participate. To be sure, the university is right to be concerned about the sexual health and safety of its students, especially incoming freshmen.
moves and positions. The fact is that Sex Jeopardy, and other university programs, educates students in sexual liberationist ideals, where anything goes so long as there is consent. In effect, this only results in more, not fewer, cases of unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, and emotional distress. There is nothing “morally neutral” or genuinely “healthy” about it. Furthermore, think of the young students attending these programs: the Orthodox Jew whose modesty gives her reason to cover her elbows and hair; the Muslim girl who also takes care to cover up. Let’s not forget the many Catholic and Christian students who, far from being ignorant about sex, were raised in households where sex was revered as a beautiful part of the union between husband and wife. For many of these students, Sex Jeopardy and other university programs offend their sensibilities. It is an affront to human decency to treat so casually and crudely matters that are respected as being deeply intimate, meaningful, and even holy.
Questions concerning sexually transmitBut many within the university commuCassandra DeBenedetto, ted infections and sexual violence and hanity seem quite ignorant of this body of Princeton ’07, is a founder of the rassment are certainly warranted. Anscombe Society. students. Worldviews that value the instiHowever, university officials are deceivtution of marriage as being between a ing themselves if they think Sex Jeopardy educates students man and a woman, the special role of the family, and prein a “value free” and “morally neutral” way, as the game marital abstinence and sexual fidelity are often either not purports to do. Other categories, such as “Contraception and represented or misrepresented. The fact is, while universiBirth Control” and “LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transties tout neutrality on sexual matters, the notion that pregender) Sex,” suggest that, far from being “morally neutral,” marital abstinence is normal, reasonable, and healthy is the game reflects and advances a particular (moral) view entirely foreign. Take, for example, the final jeopardy quesabout sex. tion in Sex Jeopardy, which asked why someone would choose to be abstinent. One freshman remembers most of This view is that any sexual behavior (even promiscuous her peers’ answers as referring to problems with self-confiand deviant behavior) is morally innocent and even good dence. With such a misunderstanding about the arguments so long as precautions are taken to avoid undesired consein favor of chastity, we cannot be satisfied with mere lipquences. It is not a matter of sexual health and safety, for exservice to the word “abstinence” in university sexual health ample, to know the various functions and flavors of programming. Nor can we be satisfied with the fact that so condoms, nor how LGBT individuals behave sexually. And many young people today are ill-informed and misinformed it is doubtful that a student choosing from the “Grab Bag” on the reasons defending the institution of marriage, the category would be better equipped to guard his safety (or special role of the family, and sexual self-restraint. the safety of the girl he is with) once learning new sex Fall 2008
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ON • CAMPUS This is precisely what motivated students at Princeton to speak out on their campus and launch a student group called the Anscombe Society (www.princeton.edu/~anscombe), through which they have been working with university administrators and staff to reform sexual health programming. These students do not seek special treatment for themselves and their values but are instead committed to establishing a fair and equal platform whereby their reasons for valuing chastity, marriage, and family can be heard and discussed honestly. Since the group’s founding in 2005, it has hosted over two dozen scholars and professionals for campus-wide lectures, where they discuss marriage, family, and sexuality from a variety of different academic disciplines. At Harvard, Yale, William & Mary, and Arizona State University too, students who reject the hookup culture and defend
chastity and fidelity are making inroads with speakers, lectures, and discussion groups offering an “alternative” voice to the standard “safe-sex” programs and hookup mentality. So, despite the gloomy picture of sexual health programming and campus social life, there is indeed hope. Students are recognizing that there is more to sex than scary STI statistics, fun “Sex Jeopardy” factoids, and your typical Saturday night hookup. They are seeking an honest and balanced education in how to make responsible, healthy, reasonable, and moral decisions, and they are respectfully making their voices heard among university administrators so as to benefit the campus community at large. These students are calling for a new sexual revolution – one that empowers their minds and hearts to love responsibly and authentically.
THE ICHTHUS WAS FORERUNNER TO CHRISTIAN JOURNALS Campus Publications Represent Depth and Breadth of Christian Thought In spring 2004, Jordan Hylden, a sophomore at Harvard University, was struck by the need for ALL IVY a Christian magazine to offer intellectual discourse in the academy.
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As a result, Hylden launched The Harvard Ichthus, a campus publication with a Christian perspective on issues, literature, and culture. Specifically, the journalism enthusiast wanted a collegiate magazine with overtones similar to Christianity Today’s Books & Culture, and The Institute on Religion and Public Life’s First Things. Today Hylden, a divinity student at Duke University, is amazed that his efforts helped inspire a plethora of journals on campuses across the country.
“We saw the need for a Christian, intellectual conversation in print in the university,” said Hylden, who graduated in 2006 with a degree in government. In addition to Harvard, Ivy campuses with Christian-themed publications include Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton, and Yale. “It was a way to encourage Christians on campus to rigorously think through their own beliefs, and it was a way of strengthening and building up the level of conversations with Christians on campus,” Hylden said. At Harvard, this year’s editor, Samir Paul ’10 said the Ichthus has a “dual mission. It’s representing the depth of Christian thought to non-Christians and representing the breadth of Christian thought for Christians.”
Students at six Ivy League campuses are sparking dialogue by publishing Christian magazines and literary journals.
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The Ivy League Christian Observer
ON • CAMPUS Likewise, “We are sort of hardwired to discuss God in a communal way. The Ichthus is a great way to contribute to Harvard’s corporate dialogue.” At Princeton, students published their first issue of Revisions in the spring of 2005. “It’s a noble cause. We really just want to show that the Christian worldview is legitimate,” said Richard Lopez ’09, a senior who is majoring in psychology and serves as an editor emeritus. “Christians are always working against so many biases,” Lopez said. As the Ichthus was being launched, leaders of Manna Christian Fellowship (www.princeton.edu/~manna/) founded Revisions, in part, to serve as one of the campus ministry’s “engagement” components. The magazine, which released its seventh issue in the spring, distributes about 1,500 copies. “It’s still young in the lifespan of a magazine,” said Lopez. “I’m still hoping that Christians all across campus will take ownership.” Likewise, students published the inaugural issue of The Dartmouth Apologia in spring 2007 to promote intellectual perspectives that reflect Christianity.
son ’89, a key instigator of the magazine and director of the Chesterton House. “We’re hoping to maintain it.” So far, the magazine has offered students an “opportunity to give voice to their faith in a new outlet. There have been thought publications and creative publications, never a Christian-thought publication,” Johnson said. Meanwhile, at Yale, students released the first issue of The Logos in 2007-2008. “There is something appealing about being part of the media and sharing your views,” said Robert Kruse ’09, production manager. “It’s a great opportunity.” A magazine also offers a “safe” way to share the Christian faith, Kruse said. “It’s not invasive. By reading a magazine, you can, sort of, take in what other Christians believe and decide what you believe, in turn, about Christians, faith, and God.”
“We are sort of hardwired to discuss God in a communal way. The Ichthus is a great way to contribute to Harvard’s corporate dialogue.”
The Apologia has “really caused a lot of Christians to think more deeply about their faith,” said Andrew Schuman ’10, editor-in-chief. Schuman and a team of 15 students are working on their fourth issue; they usually distribute about 1,700 copies. “Some of the most positive feedback even came from nonChristians,” Schuman said. “A lot of non-Christians were very interested. ‘What exactly do Christians believe in?’ They expressed gratitude for attempting to integrate faith and reason.”
Likewise, at Brown, students produced their first issue of Closing Remarks in the spring. Since launching Closing Remarks, editor-in-chief Joshua Unseth ’09 has “found there was a need for this sort of thing, a place for Christians to have a voice. It’s an effective way to convey what we believe.”
Closing Remarks is “sort of literary and artsy, but with a lot of thought pieces,” Unseth said. “It’s a journal of Christian thought. It looks really beautiful. The content is going to improve as we have more submissions.” Other campuses with Christian magazines include Stanford University, the University of Chicago, Duke University, and Georgetown University.
At Cornell, a group of students published their first issue of Translations in fall 2006 and a second in winter 2007.
“It’s been really exciting to see it take on a life of its own,” said Hylden. “It’s so exciting to see groups of Christians at lots of American colleges thinking through what it means to be a Christian economist, lawyer, doctor, whatever you like.”
“We’re trying to find some young blood,” said Karl John-
By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer
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SERVING SOPHOMORES IN THE SUMMER Unique Class Schedule Keeps Ministry Going on Campus Three ministries at Dartmouth College recently teamed up to serve sophomores taking summer courses.
something amazing about crying out to God with one another,” said Sherwin Yeo ’10, a student leader with Agape Christian Fellowship.
Student leaders from Christian Impact, The Navigators, and Agape Christian Fellowship offered a combined service, small gatherings, and activities during the summer term.
“It was really a powerful experience to pray with people that we sort of know.”
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“When the numbers drop off as they do during the summer, it makes sense to join together and rally our forces,” said Chris West, director of Christian Impact. The collaborative summer ministry dates back to the 1990s and primarily involves sophomores, West said. Dartmouth requires most rising juniors to take classes during the summer after their sophomore year in a term called “sophomore summer.” Students involved in Summer Christian Fellowship realize spiritual, social, and recreational benefits. In addition to a main gathering and dinner on Friday evenings, student leaders in Summer Christian Fellowship organized a variety of activities including camping, bridge jumping, and a trek to Boston for holiday fireworks. As well, some of the students bonded over weekly prayer sessions at 10 p.m. on Sunday evenings. “There is simply
Along those lines, a key benefit for students involved in Summer Christian Fellowship is the opportunity to meet believers on campus. Participants discover that the family of believers is much bigger than they thought. Yeo said, they are enriched, “not only just in friendships formed but also in just having a stronger body on campus.” Staffers with the three participating ministries largely played support roles in Summer Christian Fellowship as many also were involved in separate training, summer missions, and fund-raising duties. Thirty or so undergraduates participated in the combined ministry. West also noted that the combined summer ministry is unusual because most of the campus ministries at Ivy League schools are dormant during those months. Additionally, the summer is an important season for young believers. “You don’t really take a season off from your
Dartmouth Christians came together this summer for activities such as barbequing and bridge jumping.
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ON • CAMPUS walk with God,” said West of the Campus Crusade for Christ ministry. “The need for encouragement is constant.” However, he also noted that attending summer school at Dartmouth is not an unpleasant experience. Rather, some students refer to the term as “Camp Dartmouth” because of the college’s proximity to outdoor treasures including the
Appalachian Trail. Yeo said the summer term provides an ideal opportunity for believers from a variety of campus ministries to unite: “It is a good time to try to break down those walls and get to know one another.” By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer
WHAT’S IN A NAME? Yale’s Residential Colleges Enjoy a Rich Legacy The Yale campus includes 12 undergraduate residential “colleges” where students enjoy the YALE cohesiveness and intimacy of a small school at a large Ivy League university. The names of these colleges give honor to theologians, ministers, professors, philosophers, and scholars–leaving a legacy of history for each undergraduate who resides within its walls. The Ivy League Christian Observer has compiled a brief history of each college’s namesake.
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CALHOUN COLLEGE John C. Calhoun was a Yale alumnus, U.S. senator, vice president, and orator. He is most known for being one of the staunchest pro-slavery supporters and defenders of states’ rights. His ideologies laid the foundation for the establishment of the Confederate States of America, believing that slavery was a “positive good” for blacks since he was
certain that they lacked the intellectual ability to take care of themselves. Calhoun College opened in 1932. JONATHAN EDWARDS COLLEGE Jonathan Edwards was Yale’s first and foremost child prodigy and theologian of The Great Awakening. He matriculated in the Collegiate School (later Yale College) before he was 13 years old. Within four years, he graduated as valedictorian, received his Masters of Divinity from Yale, and went on to become one of America’s most well known theologians and philosophers. Jonathan Edwards College opened in 1932. DAVENPORT COLLEGE Rev. John Davenport (1597-1670) co-founded New Haven, Connecticut in 1638. Davenport was a puritan clergyman
Courtesy of Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale
Jonathan Edwards (left), Rev. John Davenport, and former Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull are among the Christians after whom Yale’s resident halls are named.
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ON • CAMPUS born into a wealthy family and educated at Oxford University. Even though Davenport died before Yale College was founded, his dream for New Haven was that someday it would have a college for educating ministers. Davenport College was completed in 1933. SAYBROOK COLLEGE Saybrook College obtains its name from the original location of the university, Old Saybrook, Connecticut – a town where undergraduates were taught for 15 years before the Collegiate School (later Yale College) moved to New Haven. As one of the original Yale residential colleges, it was founded in 1933 by dividing the Memorial Quadrangle into two parts–Saybrook and Branford. PIERSON COLLEGE Pierson College is named after Abraham Pierson (1646-1707), the first president and one of the founders of the Collegiate School (later Yale College). While president of the college, he served concurrently as an ordained minister of the Killingworth Congregational Church. He also served as pastor of the First Congregational Church in Newark and in Greenwich. The Pierson College buildings were constructed in 1933.
BERKELEY COLLEGE Rev. George Berkeley (1685-1753) was Dean of Derry and later Bishop of Cloyne. Berkeley’s primary philosophical achievement was a theory called “immaterialism.” He is known for his philosophy that “to be is to be perceived.” In 1734, he published a critique of the foundations of calculus, which was influential in mathematics. He earned his Doctorate of Divinity, and helped to found a Bermuda college to train ministers. Berkeley College was completed in 1934. TIMOTHY DWIGHT COLLEGE Timothy Dwight College was named in honor of two Yale presidents: Timothy Dwight, Yale’s eighth president from 1795-1817, and his grandson, Yale’s twelfth president from 1886-1899. The elder Dwight started reading the Bible at age four, entered Yale College at age thirteen, and wrote one of the first noted American poems. In 1886 his grandson, the younger Dwight, became known as the “Father of the University.” It was under his direction that Yale became a university rather than a college bordered by graduate schools. Timothy Dwight College opened in 1935. SILLIMAN COLLEGE
Trumbull College was named after Jonathan Trumbull, the first governor of Connecticut. Trumbull studied theology and was called to be a minister of a church, but, at that time, his elder brother became lost at sea. Trumbull abandoned his ministry plans to go into business with his father, and then studied law. He held public office and became governor of Connecticut and helped to establish the Yale University Art Gallery. Trumbull College was completed in 1933.
Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864) was the noted father of American scientific education. Before becoming a wellknown geologist, Silliman was the first chemistry professor at Yale. He was largely responsible for the creation of the Yale Medical School, Peabody Museum, Yale Art Gallery, and American Journal of Science. His role in organizing the Sheffield Scientific School marked the beginning of U.S. professional scientific education. Silliman College opened in 1940 as the last of the original ten residential colleges to be completed.
BRANFORD COLLEGE
EZRA STILES COLLEGE
Branford College was named after the Connecticut town where the Collegiate School (later Yale College) was founded. The town of Branford was originally named “Totokett” (or “Tidal River”) and was later renamed “Branford” after a town in England. Branford College was founded in 1933 by dividing the Memorial Quadrangle into two parts–Saybrook and Branford. The coat of arms of Branford College features ten books to represent the ten ministers who pooled their books and resources to establish the Collegiate School.
Ezra Stiles (1727-1795) was a prominent American theologian, minister, lawyer, scientist, philosopher, and Yale College president. He was born to a Congregational minister and obtained a master’s degree in theology at Yale. Even though Stiles was licensed to preach, he was hesitant to enter ministry and decided to study law. He later became a church rector and minister, drafted a charter to establish the College of Rhode Island (Brown University), and served as the seventh president of Yale College. The cornerstone of Ezra Stiles College was laid in 1961.
TRUMBULL COLLEGE
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ON • CAMPUS MORSE COLLEGE Morse College was named after Samuel F. B. Morse (17911872), a noted American painter, creator of a telegraph system, and co-inventor of the Morse Code. He was the child of a pastor and studied religious philosophy at Yale Col-
lege. Several American paintings in the nineteenth century had religious themes and tones, but Morse was the forerunner–whose father’s Calvinist ideas were reflected in some of his artistic pieces. Morse was also known to be a staunch pro-slavery activist. Morse College was built in 1961. By Nkem Okafor, Yale Graduate School
A CRUSADE BY ANY OTHER NAME… Campus Ministry Now Known as Penn Students for Christ Following a trend initiated by Campus Crusade for Christ chapters at other Ivy League camPENN puses, the team at the University of Pennsylvania has changed its name and began this academic year as Penn Students for Christ (www.pennstudentsforchrist.org).
something that God laid on my heart. I guess you could say that God used me to be the ‘instigator’ here,” said Jordan Regan ’09, who serves as worship leader. “When I was given the leadership position, it was a high priority for me to think and pray through it.”
“The term crusade seemed to wrangle some people,” said Steve Baker, director of Crusade operations in metropolitan Philadelphia. Students involved in Crusade at the University of Pennsylvania debated the issue and studied name changes at other universities before deciding to roll out a new moniker. “I wanted them to own the process of it and not just make a snap decision,” Baker said. “A lot of our identity is in the brand ‘Campus Crusade for Christ.’”
David Rice, a junior majoring in business, agreed. “At a place like Penn, the name ‘Crusade’ carried some very negative connotations. I had a number of Jewish friends who openly told me they thought [the ministry] had an awful name,” Rice said. “The name change will make dialogue with non-Christians easier. Or, at least, the flashpoints and disagreements will be about something more substantive than our name.”
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Students said the new title will help them to promote their campus ministry. The change is an “excellent idea, as it was
Reaction to the change has been positive, says Regan, who is a senior majoring in business. “It’s already been given a pretty awesome response as I live in a house with many
Members of Campus Crusade for Christ at Penn decided to rename the ministry Penn Students for Christ in an effort to more effectively reach the campus.
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ON • CAMPUS people who haven’t experienced God’s love before. They have taken very well to the name change. It’s given me any opportunity to talk about God’s love.” The campus ministry joins a growing number of Ivy League chapters sporting a new identity. Among them are Columbia Students for Christ (www.columbia.edu/cu/ccc/), Yale Students for Christ (www.yalestudentsforchrist.org), Brown University’s College Hill for Christ (www.collegehillforchrist.com) and Dartmouth’s Christian Impact (www.dartmouth.edu/~ccc). Even some divisions of Campus Crusade for Christ International have made a change. The overall branch in Canada operates as Power to Change (www.powertochange.com/corporate/canada/), and the outreach in New
Zealand runs as Tandem Ministries (www.ccc.co.nz). Bill and Vonette Bright began Campus Crusade for Christ at the University of California in Los Angeles in 1951. In the ministry’s first year, more than 250 students accepted Christ. Today, Campus Crusade for Christ International maintains ministries in more than 190 countries. Baker said he is pleased that his students tackled—and handled—the thorny issue: “We wanted to define who we were. We can explain a little better who we are and bring down some of the stereotypes and unnecessary concern.” By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer
INTELLECTUAL • ENGAGEMENT
LIGHTS OF THE ROUNDTABLE Dinner Events Empower Faculty to ‘Bear the Torch of Faith’ “All great change in America begins at the dinner table,” said Ronald Reagan. And it is in that HARVARD spirit that David Thom, founder of the Leadership Connection, invites some of the nation’s most gifted scholars to dine together and bring great change to America’s most prestigious universities.
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The Roundtable on Science, Art, & Religion is a capstone event sponsored by the Leadership Connection, a non-profit, faculty ministry based in Boston. Serving the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Massachusetts, and Harvard, these dinner events occur throughout the academic year. They offer faculty the opportunity to come together and discuss matters of faith and society in a venue that is absent of judgment and full of inquiry. According to Thom, the Roundtable has established a foundation for trust and ease among the faculty as they “explore the intersection of contemporary academic and Christian thought on issues related to science, art, and religion.”
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Faculty at Harvard have a sense they ought not talk about such issues within the classroom, Thom said. While the reality may be that there are ways in which to have such dialogue, he contends many faculty members don’t know how. By engaging them in discussion at the Roundtable events, Thom hopes to empower scholars to a level of confidence to discuss their faith comfortably within the university setting. “We think religion is culturally controversial, but it doesn’t have to be,” Thom said. Through open dialogue he believes faith can be a natural part of the conversation. The challenge is getting people to feel comfortable entering into that dialogue.
David Thom, founder of the Leadership Connection, creates a comfortable environment for Harvard faculty to discuss faith and society.
“The messengers make the difference,” said Thom. People need to recognize messengers of faith and find them credible and relative to their own experiences, he explained. The Roundtable, Thom hopes, will edify messengers of faith at Harvard who can share their beliefs and knowledge within the community. Offering dinner presentations by renowned
The Ivy League Christian Observer
INTELLECTUAL • ENGAGEMENT leaders of thought in the arenas of faith and culture also helps to provide credible messengers the faculty can respect. Past speakers have included authors and scholars such as Michael Behe, Stephen Prothero, George Marsden, and Naomi Schaefer Riley. This November, the Roundtable will host Princeton Ph.D. Michael Lindsay, author of Faith in the Halls of Power. As a ministry to faculty, the Leadership Connection is unique. Student ministries on campus deal with young adults who are psychologically and sociologically at a point of establishing their independence of thought, Thom explained. Faculty are at a different point in their lives and careers. “Suddenly they are the torch bearers for secularism,” said Thom. Through the Leadership Connection, he works to make faculty more comfortable being bearers of light for faith in Jesus Christ. Recently, Thom has decided to focus the majority of his efforts at Harvard. “Harvard is more raw and [spiritually] underdeveloped,” he said. “I wanted to be at Harvard because I felt God calling me there.”
“If Harvard is known as the best educational institution and its faculty are what drive it, why wouldn’t you want to address Caesar in Rome [so to speak]?” Thom said. Because of its renown, Thom believes that to inspire scholars at Harvard toward open dialogue about faith and culture is to subsequently inspire other scholars to do the same. Additionally, he hopes that through each simple meal the Roundtable provides, an appetite for inquiry and answers will emerge, inspiring future messengers to deliver the word that faith and intellectual pursuit can share the academic floor. These events are more than a dinner party; they are an entrée to a richer experience that can ultimately bring that great change within the university. As Leon Kass, Harvard Ph.D. ’67, wrote in The Hungry Soul, “Dining is both excellent in itself and a token of something more: Its amiability anticipates friendship, its free speech anticipates pursuit of truth or philosophy, its beauty (or nobility) promises and beckons to the good.” By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer
WORDS OF WISDOM ‘Last Lecture’ Professor Leaves a Legacy
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As he died, Professor Randy Pausch, Brown ’82, gained fame for the way he lived.
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Pausch didn’t intend to become famous. He simply carried out the academic tradition of delivering his professorial last lecture at Carnegie Mellon as many do when they leave the university. What made the occasion exceptional was that at 46, Pausch was dying of cancer. Still, the lecture was not one of sorrow. Instead, it was a rallying cry to others, telling them to live their dreams through the life they’re given. Pausch used humor in the lecture to help relax his audience, and even dropped to the ground to do a series of sit-ups at one point, which went a long way to put many at ease. He stood before his crowded auditorium seemingly the picture of health despite ten tumors on his liver. Pausch showed the tumors to the audience via CT scans to expose what he called “the elephant in the room,” one of the many
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clichés of which he was fond. There wasn’t anything in Pausch’s message that many people don’t already know; there were also no references to faith or Christianity. Though raised a Presbyterian, Pausch later turned his attention to the Unitarian Universalism Church. Therefore, his message did not make mention of faith or Jesus Christ. InterVarsity Press editor and Christianity Today columnist Al Hsu wrote on his blog that “Randy Pausch is a wise man. He knows not only how to die but how to live. He says that each of us must decide whether we will be a fun-loving Tigger or a sad-sack Eeyore. Given the choice, whatever the circumstances, Pausch would exhort us to choose Tigger every time.” Although Hsu called the professor a wise man, Proverbs 1:7 states that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Hopefully Pausch cried out to Jesus Christ in his final days
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INTELLECTUAL • ENGAGEMENT or hours and perhaps recalled scriptures from his Presbyterian upbringing such as Acts 2:21, “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” or John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Pausch’s favorite cliché, “experience is what happens when you don’t get what you want,” best summarized his lecture and life. Certainly Pausch wanted to live a long life with his wife and three young children, and undoubtedly hoped to see his kids graduate college and get married. He surely wanted to celebrate his tenth wedding anniversary, but Pausch received none of those things. However, he did get an experience. His words and a joie d’vivre inspired multitudes of people.
ney he was not alone. It was, he believed, the ability to achieve his dreams. “My uniqueness, I realized, came in the specifics of all the dreams—from incredibly meaningful to decidedly quirky—that defined my 46 years of life. Sitting there [at Johns Hopkins], I knew that despite the cancer, I truly believed I was a lucky man because I had lived out these dreams.” And it was from those dreams fulfilled that he built the wisdom he would share with his children when they became old enough to understand.
But for many in attendance at the lecture, Pausch’s words and actions were already deeply Brown Alumnus Randy Pausch ’82 understood—so much so that the lecture was left a legacy of posted on YouTube, where it met with tremeninspiration through dous response. From there he appeared on several Pausch later referred to the lecture, “Really his “Last Lecture.” television shows, and then Wall Street Journal Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” as a ploy. writer Jeffrey Zaslow approached him about writing a book. As “I knew what I was doing that day,” he wrote in his book, of the summer, The Last Lecture was among the best sellers. The Last Lecture. Under the ruse of giving an academic lecture I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day In the book, Pausch recounted that immediately after the lecwash up on the beach for my children. If I were a painter, I ture his wife, Jai, held him and said, “Please don’t die.” Howwould have painted for them. If I were a musician, I would ever, on July 25, Pausch did die. As a man who lived so many have composed music. But I am a lecturer. So I lectured.” dreams and shared his wisdom with the world, he will unIn preparation for that lecture, Pausch pondered what made him unique. It wasn’t the cancer, he decided, for in that jour-
doubtedly live on in the dreams he bequeathed to his children and those he inspired in the many who watched him live. By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer
A DISTORTED VIEW OF YOUNG ‘VALUES VOTERS’ Barnard College Alumna Presents Only a Filtered Fringe Editor’s note: This story, an analysis of Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth ALL IVY Movement, originally appeared in First Things and is used with permission. The article was written by Ryan T. Anderson, assistant editor at First Things, a Phillips Foundation fellow and assistant director of the Program in Bioethics at the Witherspoon Institute, and a 2004 graduate of Princeton University. Lauren Sandler, the author of the book, is a 1996 graduate of Barnard College.
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Depressed by the re-election of George W. Bush—which, she says, “knocked the air from my lungs and the hope from my heart”— Lauren Sandler set out across the country to
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discover exactly who the “values voters” were, particularly the young ones. Socially liberal, ethnically Jewish, and theologically atheistic, Sandler—a fellow at New York University’s Cultural Reporting and Criticism program who previously worked as a producer of cultural segments for National Public Radio and as the Life Editor of Salon—had the advantage of an outsider’s perspective. Or so she hoped. Her results, offered in Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement (Viking Press), are provocative. The “Disciple Generation,” her name for Christians aged 15 to 35, have rebelled not only against their parents The Ivy League Christian Observer
INTELLECTUAL • ENGAGEMENT but against everything secular as well. How? By appropriating the trappings of popular culture and saturating them with the gospel of Jesus Christ. This results in tattooed, skateboarding Jesus freaks; rapping, prosperity-gospel-preaching fundamentalists; and grunge, Rock-for-Life anti-abortion groupies—alongside threepiece-suit-wearing collegians; Bible-carrying Capitol Hill staffers; and frappuccino-sipping, mega-church-attending suburbanites. In other words, for every secular walk of life, there is the Disciple Generation equivalent, breathing in the same cultural air but exhaling the name of Jesus. Sandler offers many amusing, sometimes disturbing, vignettes from her journeys with the “Disciples.” Reporting from a skateboarding festival, she tells of pro skater Josh Casper, who became a Christian after “depression set in” when his father passed away. He tells the crowd during a break in the skating: “It’s all about God. That’s what I’m skating for. That’s what I’m living for.” For the skater who is often a cultural outcast, Josh’s message offers “hope, connection, and community all mixed with cool,” Sandler argues. “This is how they got these kids to buy into religion, by delivering something larger than themselves, their troubles at home, and their adolescent pain.”
As Sandler sees it, young Evangelicals recognize the central failures of modern society: brokenness, disconnection, and lack of community. They turn to Evangelicalism for emotional security and meaningful relationships, and they are given doses of biblical absolutism and culture crusades in addition— for on her view, they obsess over politics and cultural changes, particularly regarding abortion, same-sex “marriage,” prayer in schools, and evolution. Sandler would view it this way, though, for in important respects her book tells us more about her—and her fellow secularists—than about Evangelicals. A liberal “unrepented atheist Jew,” she simply lacks the theological sensibility needed to analyze Evangelicals through anything other than political or cultural categories. Her commentary and periodic sarcasm make her limitations all too clear.
Princeton alumnus Ryan Anderson ’04 takes issue with the book, Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement.
Repeatedly she fails to understand the Disciples, expressing incredulity, frustration, and angst: that of all the people she met, only one would “admit” to believing that “faith is necessarily divorced from reason”; that the students of Patrick Henry College who have read the entire Western canon still believe that the Bible is true; that pro-life missionaries “travel to see babies dying across the globe and still focus their energy to save the unborn instead of the living”; that women forfeit equality to stay at home and raise kids.
She repeatedly dismisses the intelligentdesign (ID) argument as nothing more than the “Whoa Principle,” as in “Whoa, the level of complexity in a cell is mind-boggling.” Even someone with reservations about the ID argument, as I have, can see that it is much more serious than this.
But with the religion comes the politics, and the t-shirts Sandler sees at Rock for Life, Stand True, and Cornerstone events speak volumes to her. She describes “a black shirt with an image of the American flag, only a white swastika replaces its fifty stars. Under the flag, his shirt says WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DON’T VOTE. . . . Beside it another is printed with the words PERSONHOOD REDEFINED: DRED SCOTT, THE NAZI PARTY, ROE VS. WADE.”
Everyone she features had to have something about him that would scandalize her readership. They’re misogynistic! They’re anti-intellectual! They’re consumerist! They’re conformist! They’re Republican!
At first, she thinks these are a “nice reminder of the importance of participatory democracy.” But later she concludes, “I’m what happens when they don’t vote. To these dissidents professing Christ’s love, I’m a Nazi in the abortion holocaust.”
But granting that the stories she relates are true, her omission of all but the extremes of Evangelicalism undermines her conclusions. She focuses only on the cultural aspects that set it most apart from mainstream life, and even then her examples would make most Evangelicals blush.
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INTELLECTUAL • ENGAGEMENT Her ideologically selective reporting conflicts with her thesis that for every walk of life in modern culture there is a Christian counterpart. For every graduate of Patrick Henry College now working on the Hill, there are several from Princeton and Yale. For every grunge Rock for Lifer, tattooed skater, and prosperity-gospel believer, there is a prison visitor, a student government leader, a soup-kitchen organizer. For every emotion-based conversion, there is a reasondriven encounter with the gospel. There are Evangelicals in the subculture she describes with such anxiety, and there are Evangelicals in the Ivy League, at the Supreme Court, and on Wall Street. Her selective reporting has other effects. She set out to write after the 2004 election, and at the beginning of the 2008 election, the big story in religion and politics is “the Evangelical crack-up,” particularly among young Evangelicals. How strange that she saw no signs of this during her investigations. She might have seen it coming if she had looked at Evangelicals more widely and fairly. Nonetheless, Sandler’s description should make Christians pause. Portions of the Disciple Generation have uncritically baptized many forms of modern culture, and much of it is coarse, vulgar, and vain. Portions have rejected “churchy” religion, which includes much of classical Evangelicalism, and have thereby forfeited the great wisdom of the liturgical, doctrinal, and spiritual traditions of historical Christianity. The continued emphasis on emotion and the relative neglect of reason are problematic, to say the least. But while she found their fideism off-putting and their politics terrifying, she admitted the poverty of secular alternatives. “The secular left can’t even find the words to express why life is worth living; we can’t even play the game,” she says at one point, and at another, “We need to lift people out of their own personal hells to find some heaven on earth.” Again, we see that she can only account for the appeal of Evangelicalism by means of social analysis. If only she had seen that the Disciple Generation wasn’t primarily a response to the social woes of contemporary society. The response is theological, and you can hear the Disciples pray, with Augustine: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” This isn’t
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a response to modern life—it’s a response to the human condition. Sandler might have seen this if she had broadened her travels. I wish that her Evangelical sightseeing had brought her to any of my Evangelical former roommates. She wouldn’t have found them in mosh-pits, prosperity mega-churches, or the front lines of defense for Young-Earth Creationism. Instead, she’d find one at Oxford doing graduate work in philosophy and ministering to prisoners on the weekends, one in Philadelphia helping the urban poor find employment, and another in graduate school studying Islam after learning Arabic in Cairo. If she is correct that Evangelicals come from all walks of life, she might have spilt some ink on those whom it would be harder for her audience to dismiss out of hand. But no one like them, or like any of the Evangelicals I have met at Princeton and in Manhattan, makes an appearance in her pages. Which is too bad; they might have helped her come to a more complete understanding of the Evangelical phenomenon, and maybe even to embrace it herself. For while she found the Disciple Generation’s religious beliefs silly and their political agenda scary, repeatedly she was moved— sometimes even to tears—by their genuine goodness and compassion. Their love moved her to her own near-conversion experience. One night during praise and worship, she felt what so many had described to her: The worship band is playing. Suddenly, I feel a brokenness inside. And I can’t stop crying. . . . In my moment of vulnerability, had I desired to open my arms to a community of believers who would welcome me with potlucks, punk rock, and all the agape a girl could want, their ready-made package of support and certainty would have fallen into place. But she praises herself for being too smart—with the “volumes that line my bookshelves” and the education that “steeled my rational philosophy”—to fall for Evangelicalism. Had she realized that the great majority of Evangelicals wouldn’t compare her to the Nazis, aren’t looking to get rich quick, and don’t use their faith as an emotional crutch, she might have discovered what really drew them to Christ. She might have found that faith and reason go together for the Disciples, and that they lead to Truth.
The Ivy League Christian Observer
M A R K E T P L A C E • M I N I S T RY
GO GREEN, HONOR GOD RiverWired Posits Eco-Friendliness in ‘Can Do’ terms Despite the significant media focus on being green, for many it just isn’t easy—some strugBROWN gle with getting recyclables out on the right day or figuring out how to decrease the size of their “carbon footprints.” Others, like Catherine Billon, Brown ’85 and Columbia MBA ’89, have decided to help ease the transition from consumption to conservation.
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demand for news, information, and tools that help provide a solution to some of the challenges we face in these turbulent economic times, particularly information relating to energy, consumption and saving.” “Stewardship of the earth goes beyond economic need or national trend,” says Billon. “It’s also a Christian principle. Usually Genesis is the reference point, but living more sustainably and responsibly to help feed, house and provide clean water to those in need goes beyond Genesis and is a mandate throughout the Bible.”
Formerly a media pro with such outlets as National Geographic Television, Time Inc., and Time Warner, Billon has recently launched an internet-based media company called RiverWired to provide tools, information, and resources for the ecoCatherine Billon, Brown ’85 and Columbia *89, friendly and eco-novice alike.
In fact, a Christian Environmental organization called Arocha and its founder, Peter Harris, initially ignited founded the ecoBillon’s interest in preserving the en“Our mission at RiverWired is to help friendly internet site vironment. Additionally, she said that RiverWired to help inspire folks to live a little greener in Matthew Sleeth’s book, Serve God people learn more practical, achievable, and local about environmental Save the Planet, really impacted the ways,” said Billon who left the corpostewardship. way she thinks and lives. Billon also rate arena to “do something entreprebelieves that the issue of faith and neurial that would positively impact the world.” At a time ecology is one that should be “somewhere in the mix of when talk of global warming tends toward the cataclysmic, church activities and messages. There are a number of pasBillon interjects a positive voice. tors and churches already going green or greener,” she said. “I noticed that a lot of the media addressing this market deSome are doing simple things such as focusing on recylivers gloom and doom information and sometimes contracling, while others are creating leadership in energy and environmental design certified buildings and organic dictory messaging. I figured that given the current community gardens. “I was very impressed with a number economic conditions, the three Rs of the original green of pastors, teachers and others I met at Gabe Lyon’s Relemovement—‘reuse, recycle, repurpose’—make a lot of vate conference, many of whom are extremely forward sense for most individuals, families and organizations.” thinking, in terms of thinking and living green,” she said. With that simple focus, RiverWired opens its cyber winDue to the relationship between Christianity and the envidows on a repository chock full of articles, videos, and tips ronment, Billon hopes to include a faith component on at on how to shop, live, and work in a greener world. “On our least one of their Web sites. “We are always looking for talnetwork of eco-friendly Web sites, we deliver positive, soented bloggers, but we have limited resources,” she said citlution-oriented content and community,” Billon says. “Our ing the constraints of being a start-up organization. And, as newest Web site enables and encourages local volunteer iniBillon works to educate others about sustaining the viabiltiatives by providing a platform, including all the tools and ity of the planet, she relies upon her own faith in Jesus how-to information you need to mount and manage all Christ to sustain her personally and professionally. kinds of green-up activities.” “I pray a lot, that’s for sure,” she said. “I know that during some RiverWired also aims to debunk the notion that environmenof the tougher times— and there have been many—prayer with tal awareness is for new-age extremists and tree-huggers. other believers is what has gotten me through. Launching a “The practical, positive, money-saving, and sustainable instart-up ain’t easy, and it ain’t for the faint-hearted. But by formation we provide is more mainstream than a lot of sites God’s grace we will succeed in building a great company.” that have a political agenda,” says Billon. “We see growing By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer Fall 2008
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M A R K E T P L A C E • M I N I S T RY
LIVING LIFE IN THE RED ZONE Former Cornell Football Player Set to Release New Book Joe Cervasio, Cornell ’69, is a storyteller. And oh, what stories he tells. From New Jersey ItalCORNELL ian-Americans in his book, Bad News on the Doorstep, to ancient Arimatheans in his new book, Now or Never, to a touching tribute to his Aunt Maggie and her “gravy,” Cervasio writes of the richness of the human experience with insight, empathy, and creativity. But Cervasio also lives with a richness and loyalty to Jesus Christ and family that solidly create his own life story.
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two daughters; Tina Cervasio was a television reporter for the Boston Red Sox for two years before going to work as an on-air personality for the MSG Network in New York City. “It was a spiritual decision to stay in Jersey,” Cervasio says. “We were developing a spiritual base there.” Although Cervasio says he and his wife had been “good Catholics,” he didn’t become saved until after he graduated Cornell. “The Lord found me through a salesman who was a madman,” Cervasio said of his business associate, “crazy” Bobby Bonanducci. According to Cervasio, Bonanducci had a checkered past but had been saved by the Lord.
For Cervasio, that story began in New Jersey, where he came from humble Italian-American roots that keep him grounded today. Cervasio has lived his whole life in Jersey, except for the time spent at Cornell.
“He led me to the Lord one day in my kitchen,” Cervasio recounts. “I said the sinner’s prayer in 1973.”
One of his teammates at Cornell was running back Ed Marinaro, who was a Heisman Trophy runner-up before playing in the NFL and going on to television stardom on “Hill Street Blues” and “Sisters.” The two men remain close friends. Cervasio is still involved with the football program as a member of the Cornell Football Association, and as a motivational speaker, spent time this summer talking to the team. But motivational speaking is only part of what this writer/businessman does.
Joe Cervasio, Cornell ’69, shares his secrets of success in his new book, Now or Never: The 11 Secrets of Arimathea.
In his book, Bad News on the Doorstep, Cervasio mixes his true-life experiences and characters with a fictional flair that leads to an endearing, nostalgic look at life in the 1950s. Cervasio’s latest book, Now or Never: The 11 Secrets of Arimathea, which is in the pre-publishing stages, is also based on truth, loyalty, and family. But this time, the setting takes readers back 2,000 years to the Judean town of Arimathea.
In addition to writing the two books, Cervasio is president of the Bluegreen Institute in Florida, a leader in the resort timeshare industry. But it’s not his professional or financial success that he primarily seeks to inspire.
The book focuses on Joseph of Arimathea, and fills in the gaps between what we know of the Arimathean and what might have been. But like Bad News on the Doorstep, this book isn’t just a story; it’s a life lesson.
What gets the most attention on his Web site is a telling paragraph of “interests” that go far beyond movies and sports. The list is really a record of the people and activities that have enriched Cervasio’s life. It includes “the Number 10 grammar school and the neighborhood” followed by names of childhood friends and Mrs. Ellen Angus, his 7th and 8th grade teacher.
So what can readers learn from a 2,000-year-old obscure man from Arimathea? A lot, according to the modern-day Joseph of Nutley. For within the story of the ancient Joseph is revealed 11 secrets of success that can impact the lives of today’s readers.
And that’s what one might expect from this Nutley native who married his high school sweetheart and chose to commute from Jersey to Florida so his kids could grow up near family. The Cervasios passed on their love for sports to their
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Cervasio began uncovering these secrets while a football player at Cornell, where he noticed specific traits of successful players and leaders. And from then on, he kept observing the winning attributes of those he encountered. However, instead of just writing another “how to succeed with 11 easy steps” sort of book, Cervasio interwove the seThe Ivy League Christian Observer
M A R K E T P L A C E • M I N I S T RY crets within the didactic stories of Joseph and other key, but obscure, figures like Duca, Joseph’s servant. The lesson Cervasio believes can most dramatically help young people today is to “stay in the moment.” It’s a lesson inspired by Exodus 3:14 where God says to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.”
consumption of the moment.” That means not thinking about past failures or potential future profit; it means focusing on the task at hand and giving that your very best, he explained.
“Too many of us are in the past and the future,” Cervasio says. “God is not in the past or the future. He is right now.”
And that’s what Cervasio does each day as he builds his personal story moment by moment, serving the Lord, loving his family, and sharing his talents and faith through stories that engage readers and inspire lives.
Cervasio’s attributes his personal success to an “ego-less
By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer
THE ‘EVOLUTION’ OF AN EVANGELIST Princeton Alumnus Is Passionate About Witnessing
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As an undergraduate at Princeton University in the early 1980s, George Vergis said he didn’t fit in with the prep-school crowd.
Vergis ’83 described himself as a jock and partier – a bit “rough around the edges” and, more importantly, far from God. But, as academics and athletics became more challenging, he turned to prayer and eventually, to Christ. Today, the wrestler turned biotechnology executive has a message to Christians in the Ivy League – always be prepared to share your faith. Vergis, the president and chief executive officer of Neose Technologies Inc., makes it a point to discuss his relationship with Christ. The Ph.D.-credentialed scientist wants to promote the scientific basis of creationism and prepare Christians for professional discussions with supporters of evolution.
during a church service over the reunion weekend in June. As for Vergis, he was raised in a family with moral and religious values, but he lacked a personal relationship with Christ. While at Princeton, he “participated in much of the loose moral behavior that college athletes are stereotyped for,” but he also began to pray. As the pressures of Ivy League studies escalated, his prayers expanded, but his “loose lifestyle” continued into graduate school. While at Penn State University, he experienced the presence of God in a powerful way one night as he stayed up preparing for two major exams. He wept for nearly an hour with an overwhelming sense of thankfulness and appreciation for God’s goodness in his life. The experience marked a major turning point in his faith. “I was lacking a real relationship with Jesus Christ,” said Vergis.
“I pray that I’m always ready to share and “I started consciously withdrawing form to give an answer just like 1 Peter 3:15 inPrinceton alumnus George Vergis ’83 challenges the partying lifestyle, the drinking, that dicates,” said Vergis, who lives in New Christians to always be part of the social scene of the university Hope, Pa. “I pray, personally, for me that I prepared to share their faith. campus. I started running with a different do it in a sensitive, nonjudgmental way cut of people, attending church, and looking for new ways within the context of how it’s being asked, almost specific to grow.” to the person. I also pray that I don’t waver from the Scripture in doing so.” One particular senior, who subsequently returned to pursue a Vergis, who co-chaired Princeton’s reunion for the class of 1983, shared his testimony and commitment to the gospel
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master’s degree in physiology, played a significant role in Vergis turning to Christ, and the pair married after grad school.
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M A R K E T P L A C E • M I N I S T RY Years later, Vergis also became comfortable with sharing his faith, even in difficult situations. He realized, “Wow, this really has grabbed my life.” Today, Vergis said he tries to take advantage of opportunities on airplanes, trains, and the like to witness. Often, he asks, “How can I help you know for sure that you’re going to Heaven?” Once while returning from a ski trip to Colorado, Vergis witnessed to a woman who was grieving the loss of her brother. At the conclusion of the flight, Vergis recalled the woman saying, “You’re the second person who has gone out of their way to ease my burden and talk to me about Christ in the last couple of weeks.” Believers need to be aware that they may not always be able to lead someone to Christ, but “our role is just as important along the way,” Vergis said. Indeed, friend Matt Toll said he admires Vergis for his Christian witness. “George’s faith radiates from him, in ways that are both overt and subtle,” said Toll, an elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Doylestown, Pa. Likewise, Vergis is passionate about sharing his Christian
worldview on creationism. “I don’t accept evolution on a Biblical or scientific basis,” he said. “I am always looking for opportunities to have the discussion on how creationism is scientifically as well as Biblically supported.” Vergis, who earned a Bachelor of Arts in biology and history from Princeton in 1983, also completed a Masters of physiology in 1986 and a Doctorate in Physiology in 1988 from Penn State University. In 1997, he earned a Master’s of Business Administration from Columbia University. Over the last 20 years, he has held research and executive roles with major pharmaceutical companies. In 2001, he joined Neose as a senior vice president, and he rose to president and chief executive officer in 2006. Neose, based in Horsham, Pa, is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that focuses on developing next-generation therapeutic proteins. Ultimately, Vergis wants believers in the Ivy League to take advantage of opportunities to share. “The Lord is going to guide you and help you pick your spots,” he said. “What better place to be than in a very target-rich environment for evangelism?” By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer
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NEW YORK STUDENTS UNITE FOR 40 DAYS OF PRAYER Columbia University Ministries Join the Movement The year is 1857. The place: New York City. The time: noon. In a mission building on Fulton COLUMBIA Street, adjacent to the site of the World Trade Center, a man named Jeremiah Lanphier kneels in prayer. The prayer movement that began with a handful of people expanded over the course of the year to overflow sanctuaries, churches, and eventually, the entire country, as thousands joined Lanphier in prayer. At its peak, New York nearly grounded to a halt every day at noon because so many people would stop working to pray. It is estimated that as many as one million people nationwide came to Christ as a result of the movement.
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150 years later, another movement is stirring – on the campuses of New York’s universities through the prayers of today’s college students. Jeremy Story of Campus Renewal Ministries (www.campusrenewal.org) partnered with Columbia University ministries and others around the city for the 40 Days of Prayer Jeremy Story, event from August 3 through Sepfounder and tember 11. president of Campus Renewal Ministries, led a 40 Days of Prayer initiative with Columbia University and other colleges in New York City.
Individuals and groups prayed around the clock, with students signing up for hourly slots via a Web site ( w w w. c a m p u s t r a n s f o r m a t i o n . com). Although separate campus prayer revivals have taken place in the past, it was the first time that the The Ivy League Christian Observer
P R AY E R • P O W E R students of New York came together to pray corporately as one body.
having a vision of what it means to have a missional vision on campus.”
Story, the founder and national president of Campus Renewal Ministries, shared about the ways in which he saw God moving throughout the 40 Days of Prayer. He spoke about a Navigators (www.navigators.org) campus minister who said he’d never witnessed so many students reaching out on campus during the first week of school. Many other campus leaders throughout New York shared similar testimonies. “I’ve seen a lot of things coming together,” he continued. “Things God seems to be divinely orchestrating, key things gelling together…in terms of leaders praying together and students
The vision of prayer stretches beyond New York City – leaders like Story are already looking ahead to next year and planning to hold a 40 Days of Prayer event for the entire northeast. And why is prayer so important? “We can try to do what we can – but this can’t change campuses,” Story said. “But we believe that the Lord can and will bring revival if we will seek Him…The Lord wants to do these things more than we do – God wants to change cities and campuses.” By Sara Woo, Cornell ‘09
A MILLION MINUTES OF PRAYER Christian Union Launches Ambitious Initiative How many minutes of prayer does it take to bring change to the Ivy League? At least a million, says Christian Union Ministry Fellow Quincy Watkins. And that’s why he has introduced a new prayer initiative called “One Million Minutes of Prayer.” The Ivy League campuses can only be dramatically transformed by God’s grace and power, according to Watkins. Therefore, to increasingly reflect God’s presence and lordship, the ministry has launched this revitalizing year-long prayer initiative. As the project manager for Prayer for the Ivy League, Watkins (Temple ’91 and Wharton School of Business *95) is working to take the existing program to a new level of prayer-partner networking.
“We estimate an average of fifteen minutes per day for each prayer partner, seven days a week,” said Watkins. Further, he said, cumulative minutes will be updated bi-weekly on the Christian Union Web site. Prayer partners are praying for weekly requests submitted to Prayer for the Ivy League on behalf of each of the Ivy campuses. They are also encouraged to pray for sweeping transformation at all Ivy League universities, according to Watkins.
Christian Union’s Prayer for the Ivy League has launched a new “Million Minutes of Prayer” initiative.
“One Million Minutes of Prayer is a new campaign I developed to further harness and expand Prayer for the Ivy League’s impact on the Ivy-League campuses. Our objective is to galvanize and marshal off-campus support (family, friends, alumni, and neighboring churches) to pray consistently for campus prayer requests and a sweeping transformation in the Ivy League,” said Watkins. The program goal is to recruit and sustain 244 ministry Fall 2008
“FANS” over the course of thirty-nine weeks, to pray cumulatively one million minutes of prayer. FANS consist of family/friends, alumni, and neighboring churches.
Watkins hopes partners will remain inspired by having a sense of involvement in such a dramatic program. He intends to keep prayer partners informed of special activities and of answered prayers. It is a powerful mission to pray for such sweeping transformation, but one Watkins believes to be increasingly necessary. “The Ivy League Schools were founded on rich Christian principles,” Watkins says. “God is calling for his sons and daughters to return to their first love. More spiritual awakenings have occurred on Ivy League campuses than any other colleges or universities.” Page 21
P R AY E R • P O W E R It is Watkins’ hope that through one million minutes of unceasing prayer that an awakening will once again hit the Ivy League. “This is the right season for a spiritual awakening for the Ivy League,” he said. “If we [FANS] can come together and pray fervently for one million minutes, we will see a deluge of answered prayer and miracles in the Ivy League. We are asking for those who are connected any way to the Ivy League to
join us in this prayer endeavor. We believe the consistency and fervor of our prayers will produce prodigious miracles/experiences that will sweep across the lives of the students, faculty, staff, family, and alumni of the Ivy League.” FANs interested in joining the One Million Minutes of Prayer can sign up at the Christian Union Web site at www.christian-union.org/prayer. By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer
IN PERSON
SERVICE BEFORE SELF Penn Junior Speaks at Republican National Convention When Ashley Gunn, Penn ’10, appeared before thousands at the Republican National ConvenPENN tion in Minnesota this summer, she had a plan to take on Democrats—and Socrates.
below market value to lower income families. Students provide the labor for the renovations, thereby helping to keep costs down. She said the mission of SAIF is to “deliver hope through home ownership.”
The Mississippi native wanted to disprove the philosopher who 2,500 years ago said that “Children today are tyrants.” She told the gathering of delegates and attendees that she doesn’t “have the credentials to contradict Socrates, but I hope my story might disprove his statement, at least in part.” Gunn told of starting a non-profit housing relief organization when she was only twelve—an account that stood in sharp contrast with the notion that today’s youth are self-serving and apathetic.
The overall theme of her speech was service before self, in keeping with the overall theme of the Republican Convention of “country first.” Gunn says she still doesn’t know why she was selected to speak. “It was completely out of the blue,” she said. “I didn’t apply or anything. I told them ‘I would love to.’”
and not me?’” Though she couldn’t answer the question of why not her, she did pledge to “make a positive difference,” and has kept that promise to the needy of her home state. As the founder of Students Aiding Indigent Families (SAIF), Gunn, with the guidance and help of her parents and community benefactors, developed a model whereby SAIF buys cheap, abandoned homes, fixes them up and sells them
“I wouldn’t say I’m a role model,” Gunn said. “Everyone makes their own path. If I can help someone, that’s rewarding. But role model? That’s too lofty. I was just doing what I thought was right.” Doing what’s right through service is something Gunn’s parents instilled in her at a young age. “They always taught me the importance of volunteerism and service and to find a goal and accomplish it,” she said.
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One reason they might have asked Gunn to speak, is her receipt of the 2006 “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” award from the National Federation of Independent Business. The NFIB was a sponsor of the Republican Gunn shared her story of returning from a Convention. The award brought media and mission trip to Africa with an acute awareAshley Gunn, Penn ’10, community attention to Gunn, yet she acness of what poverty looked like. “Being was selected to represent cepts it with humility. Although the RNC young voters by speaking there opened my eyes to a different world at the 2008 Republican wanted Gunn to represent the younger voter beyond America, and beyond my home town National Convention. and a younger perspective, she doesn’t see of Brandon,” Gunn told the convention. herself as a role model for her peers. “When I witnessed the suffering, I wondered, ‘Why them,
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The Ivy League Christian Observer
IN PERSON And when the challenges came while pursuing those goals, Gunn found her faith in Jesus Christ to be her strength. “There are some times when you don’t think it’s worth going forward,” she said, “the trouble seems too great. I think at those low points God really helped give me inspiration and a sense of grounding; [He helped me see] and seeing the overall picture, and not just those things causing problems.” Her faith also led her to Penn Students for Christ (www.pennstudentsforchrist.org), where she is part of the leadership team. Gunn struggled during her freshman year at Penn, feeling like a minority as a Christian on campus. “That’s why I got involved [with Penn Students for Christ]. I can’t do things on my own. I need other people along the way,” she said. She and some of her sorority sisters also meet for a small
group Bible study, from which receives further encouragement and the Christian camaraderie she needs. Despite the work Gunn has done to establish SAIF, the Wharton real estate major is unsure of her post-graduation plans. “I would love to keep working in the non-profit sector, but I don’t really know. God is teaching me a lot,” including how to let go of the plans she had coming in to Penn and embrace the plans He has for her. Whether or not Gunn continues non-profit work after graduation, it is clear that service will always remain a part of her life as she continues to look to Jesus Christ for her inspiration. “Jesus obviously had a passionate way of serving others while on earth,” she said. “He is the model for service.” By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer
A REMARKABLE RECOVERY How One Septuagenarian’s Near-Death Experience Lent Fuel to the Fire “They said I would never live. I lived. They said I would never think. I think. They said I would COLUMBIA never walk. I walked. They said I would never dance, but I never danced anyway.”
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That’s what Franciscan Benedict Groeschel, Columbia Ph.D. ’71, says about his recovery from a near-fatal accident that brought him to the edge of death and the summit of prayer. In 2004, the then 71 year-old Roman Catholic priest was struck by a vehicle while crossing the street in Orlando, Florida. The accident broke his bones, kept him hospitalized for months and left him unable to speak for weeks, but did little to break the spirit and faith of this life-long Catholic who has championed civil rights, the dignity of the poor, and the orthodoxy of his faith.
cause I was on a respirator. There wasn’t anything else to do but pray,” said Groeschel in an interview with Ignatious Insight.com. “And during those quiet days and weeks I met myself. I cannot say I did this perfectly, but I came away from those times with a clearer realization of my absolute dependency on Christ, of the many ways in which I have failed Him, and of my great need for repentance. Where then do you turn in such a realization? To the Redeemer and Savior of the world,” he said. Since the accident Groeschel continues to recover and serve the Lord, the poor, and his church.
Although he is assistant director of the Trinity Retreat Center, a facility for priests located on Long Island, Groeschel is far from reclusive. He still works with the poor in the South Bronx as Father Benedict Groeschel has often as possible and is the host of “Sunday Three times following the accident Groeschel long championed Night Live” on the Catholic television network nearly died. At one point a fellow priest stepped civil rights and the EWTN. During the show, Groeschel answers in to encourage doctors to keep working to save sanctity of the Gospel. questions from callers seeking wisdom and unhim. derstanding regarding their walks with the Lord “During my recovery period I had an opportunity to pray, and their Catholic faith. particularly during the two months when I had no possibility of speaking, eating, or even drinking a drop of water be-
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However, callers to the show don’t receive a watered down
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IN PERSON version of the gospel or a “liberal” interpretation of the tenets of Catholicism. Groeschel believed so strongly in the heart of the gospel and in the orthodoxy of Catholicism that in 1987, along with seven other friars, he founded the Franciscan Order of the Renewal to “rebuild the house of the Lord.” “That house needs rebuilding,” says Groeschel, “because the church exists inside society and is affected by the culture. Since 1968 the U.S. has been passing through a cultural revolution. Morality has severely declined; family life has severely declined. Education in many ways has lost its whole classical orientation. I think the U.S. is not in good health culturally.”
has his own history of working for the impoverished and oppressed. He once told The New York Times that “Probably the most beautiful and moving thing I’ve been involved in was the Civil Rights movement. It was the most interesting and creative period of my life.” Groeschel was very active in the off-campus civil rights movement while at Columbia. He knew Martin Luther King, Jr. and sees the civil rights movement from a faith perspective. “At that point the Civil Rights Movement was rather religious,” he said. “It was led by ministers and many songs had origins in the black Baptist churches.”
“Probably the most beautiful and moving thing I’ve been involved in was the Civil Rights movement.”
The Franciscan Order of the Renewal strives to serve as a rock of commitment and faith in the face of that cultural malaise. “Franciscans are supposed to identify with the poor,” according to Groeschel. “Unfortunately you tend to become rather middle class during the course of time. We wanted to get back to original ideals of St. Francis. We are rather orthodox.” Although Groeschel lives in a converted garage at the Retreat house in Larchmont, the Friars of the Renewal are located in Harlem and the Bronx, working exclusively with the African-American and Hispanic communities. Groeschel
Having championed the rights of the oppressed for many years, he is not surprised by the candidacy of fellow Columbia alumnus Barack Obama ’83, but he does find it “a bitter frustration.”
“I would love to vote for a non-white candidate,” Groeschel said, “But I can’t vote for someone who is pro-abortion.” The soft-spoken Groeschel has been outspoken about the sanctity of life and the gospel. He has protested abortion clinics and even an off-Broadway play that depicted a gay Christ, and he continues to rely on the Lord to champion the truth of the Gospel in a world of doubt. By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer
FROM THE SIDELINES TO THE FRONTLINES OF FAITH Injuries Lead Brown Football Player Back to God Biblical writers used references to athletic and physical training to depict the importance of DARTMOUTH spiritual strength over physical prowess. “They do it [run] to get a crown that will not last; yet we do it to get a crown that will last forever,” writes Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:22-27.
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Dartmouth senior Kyle Cavanaugh knows first-hand about the importance of spiritual training in a world of athletic competition, and through adversity, he has learned to return his sights toward the prize and is keeping his priorities straight. Four years ago, Cavanaugh came to Dartmouth ready to
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study economics and do what few Ivy League students do— play two varsity sports. A lifelong athlete, Cavanaugh played football and baseball his freshman year despite the demands of being a first-year student in a rigorous academic program. It wasn’t easy balancing two sports and academics, Cavanaugh admits, and it was not without a price. Cavanaugh was raised in a Christian home and he occasionally attended fellowship meetings at Dartmouth, but his priorities became academics and sports. “I still read the Bible and tried to be a good person,” he said, but “faith took a back seat.”
The Ivy League Christian Observer
IN PERSON Ultimately, it took being sidelined by injuries to turn the athlete’s attention toward a spiritual triumph.
Cavanaugh also received inspiration from former Navigators director Steve Spaulding, who was also a college football player.
An ankle injury his sophomore year and surgery as a junior kept Cavanaugh from completing the football season and eventually led him to give up playing baseball. However, instead of becoming embittered by the injury, he became empowered. “I’m thankful for my injuries, because the Lord used them to get me back to Him,” said Cavanaugh.
“He had such a huge impact on my life,” Cavanaugh said. “He would always be there to help with the answers. He helped guide me through some issues in the Bible.”
Dartmouth senior Kyle Cavanaugh said his sports injuries have helped him get his priorities right.
Where some students might have turned to parties and friends to forget the disappointment of not playing their beloved sports, Cavanaugh turned to his Christian friends, his pastor, and a leader in Navigators (www. dartmouth.edu/~navs/) to help put it all in perspective. Cavanaugh’s pastor, Rev. Norm Coop, talked with him about going through hard times. Through that, Cavanaugh said he learned that God doesn’t send affliction to punish, but to develop a stronger alliance. “It [the injury] was something that was necessary for me because I was so focused on sports,” Cavanaugh said. “That’s where my commitment and time and energy went. The injuries brought me back down to earth and drew me closer to God.” Cavanaugh also learned that even though his attentions were on the huddle and home plate, God was right there with him. “Maybe I pushed Him aside for sports,” he said, “[but] He was there from beginning to end.”
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Spaulding’s athletic background and strong conviction to faith and discipline helped him Cavanaugh navigate through the difficult times. “It had a strong
impact on me,” he said. Now attending regular church services, Bible studies, and ministry meetings, Cavanaugh believes his life and priorities are in the right order. “I know what’s number one,” says Cavanaugh. “I’ve just got to keep praying and reading the Bible; that keeps God first.” Cavanaugh’s plans are to make it through this, his final football season of his collegiate career, without injury. But, if those plans don’t come to fruition, he knows that there is life beyond the gridiron. He also knows from this experience that life will undoubtedly throw future curve balls. But through this time of spiritual training and endurance, he knows how to react to them. “I now know God will use it for something,” He said. By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer
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IN PERSON
PENTECOSTAL PREACHER IS POLITICAL Woman Minister is CEO of Democratic National Convention Committee The Democratic Party has had an unconventional election year with the first nomination of DARTMOUTH African-American presidential candidate. Therefore, the selection of a woman minister to serve as chief executive officer of the Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) is perhaps business as usual for the party that touts change and hope while striving to show that Democrats are Christians, too.
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The Reverend Leah D. Daughtry, Dartmouth ’84, was named CEO of the DNCC by Chairman Howard Dean in the spring. In his announcement, Dean said the party was thrilled to have Daughtry lead the convention team.
ers within the party to show its Christian side and dispel the notion that faith and the Democratic Party are mutually exclusive. The weeklong convention included nightly invocations and benedictions delivered by nationally recognized faith leaders or individuals active in their local faith communities. These included author Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz), Greek Orthodox archbishop Demetrios of New York City, Catholic nun Sr. Catherine Pinkerton of Ohio, and Evangelical pastor Joel Hunter of Florida. According to Daughtry the convention was designed to demonstrate faith in an unprecedented way. She also said she was “incredibly proud that so many esteemed leaders of the faith community” were on hand for the occasion.
Daughtry has also served as chief of staff of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). “Her strong guidance, skilled leadership and counsel have been invaluable to me during my tenure as DNC Chair and to the Democratic Party as whole,” said Dean, who also noted her key role in the convention’s success. As chief of staff, Daughtry has been responsible for managing the daily strategy and operations of the party and for the DNC’s outreach to faith communities. Daughtry has a history of civil service, including serving as assistant secretary for administration and management at the U.S. Department of Labor.
Prominent Democrat Leah Daughtry, Dartmouth ’84, served as CEO of the Democratic National Convention and strives to bring faith to the party.
According to the DNC, “Daughtry has been widely recognized as bringing sound, principled management and leadership practices to organizations with which she has worked.” Apparently she was also credited with bringing a resounding “faith element” to the convention. Daughtry oversaw the Denver event for the Democratic Party, which has been more notably aligned with liberal views on gay marriage and abortion rights than with Christian values. For example, after the 2004 campaign, The New Republic described Dean as “one of the most secular candidates to run for president in modern history.” Hence the deliberate effort on the part of Daughtry and othPage 26
“Democrats have been, are, and will continue to be people of faith,” said Daughtry, who pastors the Pentecostal House of the Lord Church in Washington, D.C. At the same time, Daughtry’s own views are exemplary of the latitude Democrats apply to that faith; as the daughter and granddaughter of ministers, she believes in the gifts of healing and speaking in tongues and is decidedly pro-abortion.
“God allows us to choose in the biggest matter,” Daughtry told The New York Times, “whether to accept Him in our lives. How then can we take away choice on other profound issues? We don’t believe the government should interfere. The wonderful thing about the Democratic Party is that we have room for all kinds of opinions.” The sanctity of life, however, is not a matter of opinion or political affiliation, but a biblical mandate for many Christians. “I don’t think the pro-choice community has ever really conceived of the anguish and moral outrage experienced by pro-life people over the issue,” said Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, in The New York Times. The Ivy League Christian Observer
IN PERSON As the historic 2008 presidential campaign draws to an end, Daughtry, who is seemingly as comfortable in business suits as a minister’s robe, continues to work to keep faith in the public square and the Democratic Party. Ultimately the
election itself may be the best indicator of her success as Christians prayerfully pull the lever in November and discern between political rhetoric and true Christian principles. By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer
WALKING THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS Penn Student Experiences the History of the Bible While many Christians can relate to Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, fewer have PENN walked the actual road and been able to bring their faith into clearer historical context.
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Penn art history graduate student Shannon Martino experienced several sites with biblical significance while participating in a summer archeological dig in the heart of Syria. As a member of an excavation team in the Syrian city of Aleppo, Martino has uncovered relics from the past that give clues and spawn mysteries into how the region’s ancestors lived and died. Among her finds are the bodies of people who were crushed by a great city gate as well as an infant burial site. But while she dug for traces of the past, the biblical history that surrounded her brought to life the Word of God as she walked in the footsteps of her Christian ancestors. Martino also visited a restaurant in the Christian district of the city which is located on Straight Street — the very road on which Paul met Ananias.
Despite the city’s Muslim majority, many churches are still located there, Martino said. In fact, Aleppo is considered to be the second largest Christian community in the Middle East after Beirut. Yet Martino, who is Catholic, had difficulty finding a church to attend while working in more remote sections of the region. She and one other student set out to find a church around their remote dig site and ended up attending an Armenian Orthodox service. It was far removed from the Catholic services she is accustomed to, she said.
Penn graduate student Shannon Martino stands before relics uncovered during a recent archaeological dig in Syria.
“It was interesting to be in a country where you know the environment was similar to what Jesus experienced,” she said.
Aleppo, located 217 miles north of Damascus, is the second capital of Syria. It is reportedly one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in history. Despite Aleppo’s rich Christian history, more than 70 percent of the residents are Sunni Muslims. Still, said Martino, the city contains a rich Christian district that she and her colleagues frequently visited. Fall 2008
“It’s interesting to see that Christianity was a force in that area and to see it continue in the major cities,” she said.
Despite having difficulty finding a church in the remote regions, Martino said she did not have trouble keeping her walk with the Lord. She makes sure she takes reading material with her when she goes on an excavation to maintain daily and weekly worship and spiritual development.
“Being so far away from home for so long, it was nice to pray and have a connection with something familiar,” she said. “Every day I could pray and do what I do here [in the United States].” The trip from May to July was Martino’s second to the region. And although the official purpose of the expedition was to excavate early Bronze Age sites, the time spent in the historically rich Christian lands revealed the Living Word to Martino and helped preserve her own faith. By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer
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IN PERSON
FROM THE HEAD TO THE HEART Seeking Student Finds Answers at Brown Lisa Gomi ’10 chose Brown University for its strong international relations program, flexible BROWN curriculum, and a general sense that everything about it would challenge her for the better. From a Christian perspective, her senses were right on target.
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Gomi’s journey of faith is like that of many other young people—she was raised Christian and considered herself to be so, but she hadn’t really experienced what it meant to truly walk with the Lord. “I went to a Christian elementary school when I was young,” Gomi said, “so I had a lot of the ‘head knowledge’ of Christianity. I memorized verses, went to chapel and got gold stars all the way up until middle school.” Things changed, however, when Gomi’s family moved to a new city and she started attending public schools. “From middle school to high school, my life didn’t involve Christ or church, but if asked about my religious background, I would answer that I was Christian.” In Gomi’s junior and senior years of high school, things began to change again. Some of her closest friends were becoming more serious about their spirituality, prompting her to face her own. “My approach was to try and figure it out for myself, in an intellectual way, by going to churches, doing Bible study, and trying to learn everything possible to make an informed decision.”
said. “And after an amazing conversation with Brodi Herb, a member of College Hill for Christ staff, I accepted Christ and decided to live my life for Him.” That decision has also encouraged and inspired others. “Some of my friends, the ones who had turned to Christ and instigated my whole spiritual reexamination, were joyful and supportive. For others, my acceptance helped play that instigative role to get them started on looking into their own beliefs,” said Gomi. Today, Gomi is also eager to share her faith with others. “I’m still a little hesitant to approach strangers or people I don’t know very well…but, with non-Christian friends it comes up naturally,” she explained. “Church and Bible study commitments inevitably come up in conversation, and usually lead to questions and conversations about religious beliefs where I have the opportunity to share my faith.” Still, Gomi said she gets “defensive” and “expects to be attacked for being Christian at this liberal school,” but she said most students are very accepting. At worst, they are indifferent. “It’s easy to be accepted but much harder to have a more in-depth conversation about it—something I’m trying to work on.”
Lisa Gomi, Brown ’10, came to Christ in her freshman year.
Gomi was still engaged in her intellectual pursuit of faith when she entered Brown, so she brought the unresolved issues and confusion with her. Then, Gomi took a survey sponsored by College Hill for Christ (www.collegehillforchrist.com). One of the questions was, “Who is Jesus Christ to you?” Gomi’s response was “My savior.”
Though finding true faith in Jesus Christ hasn’t changed Gomi’s path at Brown— she still has an international relations concentration and involvement in the same extracurricular activities—it has changed the way she does things. “I was and still am vulnerable to the constant pressure of feeling obligated to have good grades, a competitive resume, and assurance of a prestigious or financially secure future. But it’s so much easier to put it in a much larger perspective and learn to trust God,” she said.
Gomi would later reflect that perhaps her answer was automatic, but it was still the catalyst to the beginning of a new journey of faith—one she would not travel alone. Gomi was contacted by College Hill for Christ and attended one of their meetings, where she decided to participate in their fall retreat.
It is in that trust that this woman who first learned of God as a child in elementary school finds her peace and grace to face the challenges that the Ivy League presents. “I am considerably less worried and anxious, and recently I’ve really felt so much joy at how God has placed me here at Brown with nearly limitless opportunities for the future.”
“At the fall retreat everything just clicked into place,” Gomi
By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer
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The Ivy League Christian Observer
REACHING • OUT
FIELD OF DREAMS Harvard Alumnus Starts Baseball Camp in Brazil Life-long baseball fan Addison Quale, Harvard ’03, made a heartfelt, unconventional decision HARVARD upon graduation that proved to be an “oppositefield” home run.
has to step up to the plate,” which Quale sees as a metaphor for life and faith. “We tell them to go out and perform and to follow the laws of being a good player. We pray with the kids and teach them about success and giving the glory to God.”
Unsure of his next step after college, Quale remembered the impoverished people in South America where he served during a missions trip his sophomore year. The experience made such an impact upon his life that he decided to return to Brazil and work at a small Christian school in the poverty stricken town of Almenara. Still, Quale—who earned a degree in economics—wasn’t content to teach the academic basics to the young children of the region. He also wanted to inspire passion.
In addition to the poverty, Almenara is also known for voodoo practices and “messed up religions,” according to Quale. Therefore, he encourages the students to not just compete in sports but to stand up against the enemy. “You have to have courage,” he tells them.
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Working from his own love of baseball and passion for the Lord, Quale began teaching baseball to the students during their recess and gym times. “In a country where soccer is the national pastime, it was an opportunity to expose the children to something different,” Quale said.
The camp and the Christian school are both funded through Missão Luz do Vale, a mission organization run by Brazilian immigrants in the Boston area. After graduating from Gordon-Conwell, Quale settled in the Boston area. Currently, he doesn’t feel called to ministry, but believes the work he does in the financial district enables him to continue to financially contribute to the camp he founded.
Although no longer living in Brazil, Quale Quale, Harvard ’03, After spending that first year working at the Addison keeps in touch with the kids and coaches founded the Almanera SOBAM School in Almenara, Quale re- Baseball Camp in Brazil. through Facebook. He also keeps them in turned to the United States and began athis thoughts and reflects upon the lives he tending Gordon-Conwell Seminary. While there he felt God has helped touch for the Lord. He remembers one boy in calling him to start a youth baseball camp in Brazil. particular who was naturally gifted at the sport. “You just During his January term, Quale developed the Almenara Baseball Camp based on the fundamentals commonly taught in gym class. “The primary goal is that through the wonderful game of baseball, the kids of Almenara might come to personally know Jesus Christ. It is also our goal that these kids and teenaged coaches learn important life skills and develop good character so as to become great citizens of their community,” says the camp’s Web site. Camp days include a 45-minute church service with worship, a message by Quale, and the memorization of Bible verses. Having worked at a Harlem baseball camp during the summers he was a student at Harvard, Quale knew the impact sports can have on a child’s life. He also knew how sports, life, and faith can come together at the plate. Quale and the coaching staff he trains teach the young people the rules and how they can apply to life. “In baseball every child Fall 2008
gave him a glove and a ball and he knew how to throw,” but there was a problem—the boy lacked the maturity and respect necessary to be part of a team. Quale confronted the boy and told him he had to play by the rules, respect the coaches, and that he couldn’t come and go as he pleased. Like some of the others, he wanted to be at the camp on his own terms. “You can’t walk into God’s house on your own terms; you have to be humble and repent,” Quale told the boy, who eventually returned to camp with humility. Quale plans to continue a business career and work with the camp. No matter what financial gains he may achieve, perhaps his greatest reward has already come from the boy who returned to camp to tell Quale that “It’s because of you I believe in Jesus.” By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer Page 29
REACHING • OUT
COLUMBIA STUDENT HAS ‘EPIC SUMMER’ IN HAWAII Missions Work Helps Launch New Campus Ministries One year ago, Columbia student Jessica Lui ’09, like most other Ivy League students, was COLUMBIA trying to find the critical summer internship for the last summer before senior year. Lui, a biomedical engineering major, had worked in a research lab for her first two summers in college and was planning on interning in the pharmaceutical industry once again with the hope of landing a job offer after graduation.
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Lui never seriously thought about going on a missions trip, although she had been an active member of Columbia Students for Christ, Campus Crusade for Christ’s Columbia chapter (www.columbia.edu/cu/ccc).
more about themselves, their relationships with others, and their relationship with God through the lens of their Asian American culture. “One of the most important lessons I learned was that the performance orientation of Asian culture had led me to believe that I had to earn God’s approval by working hard at getting good grades or by serving in my fellowship,” Lui remarked. “In reality, God created us to be human beings, not human doings. After years of identifying myself with my GPA, it is such a relief to know that it’s not a number, but my trust in Christ that defines who I am and gives me worth.”
The team launched movements on three campuses: the University of Hawaii, Kapiolani Community ColOver the course of the school year, lege (KCC), and Hawaii Pacific UniGod challenged Lui’s mindset and reversity (HPU). Lui was assigned to vealed His will for her. In October University of Hawaii and helped with 2008, three separate groups of people outreach, which included approaching asked her to consider summer mispeople with short surveys about life exsions, but she pushed the idea aside. periences and spirituality. Lui and her Eventually, she began wrestling with team members also organized events the idea. “God completely trans- Columbia student Jessica Lui ’09 such as a prayer table and a reverse enjoyed her missions trip to Hawaii formed my heart and gave me the with Campus Crusade for Christ. confession booth (where Christians peace to surrender and say, ‘God, I apologize to non-believers for not repgive you my summer,’” said Lui. resenting Christ accurately). At KCC and HPU, where no She then applied to various internships and missions opporministries previously existed, Lui noted the emergence of tunities and was accepted to Campus Crusade for Christ’s new leaders with a heart for their campuses. In total, the Epic Summer Project in Hawaii. Lui turned down an interteam helped 17 people become believers; Lui had the view for her first-choice internship and committed to sumchance to lead her first person to Christ. mer missions. In June 2008, she embarked on her first Lui expressed growth in her ability to communicate her faith missions trip–a spiritual journey in Hawaii. to others clearly and concisely. But Lui also pointed out that Along with a team of 28 other Asian-American college stuGod was ultimately interested in using her, not just her words. dents and nine staff members, Lui focused on reaching out to “What had once been an annoying duty has become a joy and Asian Americans, which make up over 50 percent of Hawaii’s privilege,” Lui said, “I hope that sharing God’s love would population. The team launched movements on college camnot be something confined to this summer and Hawaii, but a puses while also discovering their own identity in Christ. part of my life no matter where I am.” Through Bible studies and large groups, the team learned
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By Jin Wang, Columbia ’10
The Ivy League Christian Observer
REACHING • OUT
‘ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE’ Students Share Christ with Fraternities, Sororities For decades, college Christian ministries have been encouraging their students to go across the CORNELL nation and fly overseas in order to show the love of Christ. At the same time, campus ministries have been realizing that the same call resounds right where they are – on the campus.
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At Cornell University, where roughly one-third of the undergraduate population is Greek, the seeds of a revolution among fraternities and sororities have been taking root. Josiah Pothen ’10 joined the Acacia fraternity in spring 2007 after speaking with a Christian brother who was a member. When asked about his motivation to join the fraternity, Pothen said, “I simply try to be there for my brothers, however imperfectly I may do that…I just let God do what He wants and respond to that. Mostly my ‘ministry’ is just living with my brothers, loving them, and being an Acacian. Not flashy, I suppose. As long as you’re faithful to God’s calling, I think that’s all that matters.”
“First semester, I had three roommates and second semester I had one roommate so I just found that I was never alone,” said Weible. “It was really hard on me and I would find myself leaving the house whenever I could just to be alone and try to spend time in the Word or in prayer. However, I also would have to say that my faith must have been strengthened because I felt it being challenged every day. Girls were never aggressive in the way that they would question me about my faith; but they did question me and, in hindsight, I’m glad they did. It not only allowed me to share my faith with them but also to confirm for myself what it is I believe and why.” Pothen and Weible are not alone by any means. National ministries, including Campus Crusade for Christ, seek to reach out to the Greek community on college campuses through discipleship, house ministry, large group meetings, and events.
Campus Crusade’s Greek Movement (www.greekmovement.com) seeks to “give every Greek in every house the Pothen also held a small Bible study Cornell’s Josiah Pothan ’10 reaches opportunity to leave a spiritual legacy with a fraternity brother, “Joe,” and a out to his fraternity brothers in in their fraternity or sorority.” Their Navigators staff member. They met to- Christian friendship. Facebook group has a membership of gether for about a year, going through over 1,300; Greek Movement holds conferences that span the book God’s Big Picture. the country. “Every once in a while when Joe would ‘get’ a concept his Weible decided to join a sorority after being encouraged to eyes would light up and he’d get excited,” Pothen said. do so by a national ministry at Urbana 2006, a triennial stu“I’ve never seen a Christian – or anyone for that matter – dent missions convention. Looking back, she knows she get so excited about biblical concepts.” made a wise choice. In October of 2007, Pothen was able to see Joe become a “My faith was strengthened by seeing girls open up to brother in a different sense—an eternal one. Christianity and even seeing one of my sisters (and best Katie Weible ’10 joined the Omega Chi chapter of Kappa friends) accept Christ as her Lord and Savior,” she said. Delta sorority in spring 2007. She held small Bible studies “For that, I can never ever regret my choice to join Greek and encouraged her sisters to join her. With the clashing of life or live in the house.” values, lifestyles, and personalities, Weible often felt her faith challenged and questioned from both without and within.
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By Sara Woo, Cornell ‘09
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REACHING • OUT
IMPACT MOVEMENT LEAVES LASTING IMPRESSION Princeton Alumna: College Was a Spiritual Training Camp A recent Princeton University graduate was so touched by her involvement with Impact MovePRINCETON ment (www.impactmovement.com) that she plans on joining the ministry on a full-time basis.
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Francine Saunders ’08, who majored in East Asian studies, expects to take a position this fall at the ministry’s headquarters in Orlando, Florida, where she will assist with fund development and oversee chapters on two campuses. The ministry had “such a significant impact on my life, my spiritual life,” Saunders said. “I really felt like the Lord was leading me to Impact. I wasn’t comfortable with being anywhere else.”
said she enrolled at Princeton after the university gave her the best financial aid package. Shortly after her arrival at Princeton, she became fascinated with Asian studies. During her freshman year, Saunders decided that instead of continuing with French she would learn a new language. Saunders’ studies in Chinese translated to a new passion, international travel, and a change of intended major from sociology. “I decided I really liked Chinese studies,” Saunders said. “It really was the best fit for me.” Saunders’ enthusiasm for Chinese led her to apply for the university’s Princeton in Beijing program. Saunders spent eight weeks after her freshman year in the intensive Chinese language program, which is held at Beijing Normal University.
Impact, a partner ministry to Campus Crusade for Christ, targets students of African descent and has a presence on more than 100 campuses, including Princeton. Following her junior year, Saunders participated in one of Impact’s summer projects in Virginia Beach. During the program, Saunders decided she wanted to venture into ministry and specifically to start with Impact. Saunders said her “heart tends to go out” to reaching African-American students and helping them deal with some of the challenges found in the African-American community. “A lot of those things we face would be solved if people come into a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ,” Saunders said.
A summer later, she taught English for ten weeks in Jishou while participating in Princeton in Asia’s Summer of Service program. Saunders has no immediate plans to return to Asia but is open to ministry options. Recent Princeton graduate Francine Sanders ’08 hopes to help African-American students deal with challenges by taking a position with the Impact Movement in Orlando, Fla.
Impact served as a lifeline for Saunders, who joined the organization as a freshman and later served as chapter president during the winter of her junior year and fall of her senior year. During her time at Princeton, Saunders also was involved with Princeton University Gospel Ensemble; Princeton Faith and Action; and Highsteppers, the university’s step team. As well, she attended the university’s Hallelujah worship service, and she was a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. Saunders, a 2004 graduate of Fort Lauderdale High School, Page 32
“After taking [Chinese] for so long, it kind of put a spell on me. The more I learned, the more interested I became. Mom thought it was out of the blue,” she said. “I’ve had a few people tell me they believe the Lord is going to send me back to China.”
Looking back on her time at Princeton, Saunders described it as a spiritual training camp. “Princeton, for me, was a continuation of what was taking place before I got to Princeton,” she said. “My core circle was Christians. My faith grew over the four years.” As she moves into her new role with Impact, Saunders wants to serve as a spiritual mentor. “I want to encourage students to not be complacent, to not compartmentalize their spirituality. I want to encourage them to allow God in all sides of their lives.” Ultimately, “I really love doing ministry,” she said. By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer The Ivy League Christian Observer
A B O U T • M I N I S T RY
PRESENT DAY POWER AT THE PENN CLUB Jack Deere Urges Believers to Seek God’s Miracles Today On September 16, pastor and acclaimed author Jack Deere had a simple message for a crowd of 70 at the New York City Christian Union gathering: God still moves in supernatural ways. The event was hosted by Christian Union in an effort to enhance the spiritual development of Ivy League alumni and friends of the ministry in Metro New York. The senior pastor of Wellspring Church in North Richland Hills, Texas, Deere is the author of Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Surprised by the Voice of God and The Beginners Guide to the Gift of Prophecy. He earned a master of theology in 1975 and a doctorate of theology in 1984 from Dallas Theological Seminary and did his postdoctoral studies in Europe in 1985. Deere is particularly keen on today’s believers understanding that the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including healing and prophecy, are available today. Ironically, Deere previously maintained that manifestations of the Holy Spirit had ceased. “I just stepped outside that circle just long enough to get a challenge from someone I really respected,” he said.
One of the first miracles involved parishioner Ruth Gay, who was healed of an aneurysm after a prayer team placed hands on her during a visit to her home. Two days later, Gay, who was scheduled for surgery, said the disappearance was a miracle. “When we all left there, we felt like something might have happened,” said Deere. “We’ve seen a number of really wonderful things. We also have a number of prophetic experiences to tell.” In August 1996, Deere witnessed a series of healings when he preached at an ancestral church in Southwest England. The most dramatic involved a woman who was wheelchair-bound. Not only did Anne Roberts, who suffered from inoperable tumors on her spine, recover her ability to walk, but much of her limited vision, which had been damaged from a retinal virus, was restored. At St. Andrews, an Anglican church in Cullompton, Roberts said she heard the Holy Spirit tell her to wheel herself to the front of the sanctuary, where The Holy Spirit told her she could “get up and walk if you want to.” When she started to stand, several members of a prayer team immediately told Roberts to sit down. Nonetheless, Roberts walked to the astonishment of the prayer team, the vicar, David Saunders, and Deere.
Author and theologian Jack Deere spoke about God’s supernatural ways during a New York City Christian Union event at the Penn Club.
He points to 1 Corinthians 14:1, where the apostle Paul wrote “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.” He encourages his congregation to pray for an increase in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and for God to reveal “secrets of the heart” as a witnessing tool when sharing their faith and offering prayer. “Why does he want us to pursue the spiritual gifts? They’re the tools that God uses to build the house.” Deere noted that prophecy can be used to reveal a person’s desires and concerns, predict future events, and share the mind of God for individuals or groups.
Deere said he began witnessing miraculous healings as pastor of Christ Chapel in Fort Worth, Texas. When members embraced James 5:14, which says the infirm should “call Fall 2008
for the elders of the church, and they should pray for him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord,” he said, “we actually started seeing people get healed.”
Deere quipped that non-Christians sometimes have a better understanding of healing. “No one has ever told them that God doesn’t heal,” he said. “It’s just the church that believes that.” Three months later, when Deere saw Roberts again, she appeared healthy and showed little sign of her previous disease. Aside from Deere’s talk, there was also a performance by the Princeton University Gospel Ensemble and a testiPage 33
A B O U T • M I N I S T RY mony from Christian Union intern David Roberts, who studied at Princeton on an exchange program from Oxford University. Participants said they were encouraged by the evening’s lecture.
“It was refreshing,” said James Harshaw, an investment attorney who lives in Princeton, N.J. “What I learned was that humble boldness in stepping out in new spiritual gifts—and in the face of new spiritual challenges—will be honored by God.” By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer
WILSON HOUSE: A MINISTRY HOME WITH A MISSION Legacy of Tireless Evangelist Inspires Christian Union Evangelist Christy Wilson, Princeton ’44, worked tirelessly to bring the gospel to Afghanistan. His triumphant faith and fervent dedication to missionary life have inspired many believers to go beyond themselves and answer the call to fulfill the Great Commission. One of the most renowned is Jim Elliot, who was martyred in the jungle of South America with four other men in 1956. Elliot’s dream of becoming a missionary was notably energized when he attended the national missions convention organized by Wilson in Toronto in 1946 (the convention later became known as Urbana). Wilson passed away in 1999, but his legacy lives on, especially on Nassau Street in Princeton, where nestled between a local deli and a Chinese restaurant is an unassuming, quaint house that welcomes revivalists, seekers, and believers with a spirit of Christian evangelism. Wilson House, the ministry headquarters for Christian Union (www.Christian-Union.org), also houses a comprehensive Christian resource center, bookstore and coffee shop—a place for students, friends and ministry members to come together for activities or private study.
In 1951, Wilson, along with his wife Betty, fulfilled his true call to return to his birthplace and minister to the Afghan people. Because missionaries were not allowed in the hostile region, the Wilsons were considered tentmakers by trade but shared the gospel by God’s grace.
Princeton alumnus and international evangelist Christy Wilson ’44 continues to inspire hearts for Christ through his narratives and Christian Union’s ministry house at Princeton.
“Dr. Wilson was an extraordinary Christian who left a profound impact on all whom he met,” said Matt Bennett, founder and president of Christian Union. “His humility, grace and love for Christ were contagious. As a man who partly grew up in Princeton, attended the University as well as the Seminary, and yet who had a world-wide heart for making Christ known, we thought he was the perfect person after whom to name the Princeton Ministry Center.”
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Wilson was the son of American missionaries and born in Tabriz, Iran. He went on to receive a Master of Divinity from Princeton Seminary, and his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. In the middle 1940’s Wilson served as missionary secretary for InterVarsity.
During his 22 years in the Muslim country, Wilson also taught English to the Crown Prince and Afghan diplomats. He was a fulltime chaplain and also the pastor of the Community Christian Church in Kabul. He and his wife also founded the School for the Blind in Kabul. For nearly 20 years, Wilson was a professor of world evangelism at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary where he also served as senior program associate for the Adoniram Judson Gordon Center for World Missions.
It would be Wilson’s work with the Afghan people and his fellow Christians that fueled his passion to serve the Lord. In his timeless book, More to be Desired than Gold, Wilson recounts many personal experiences and testimonies of others who were saved by the Lord’s grace. More to be Desired than Gold juxtaposes compelling narratives, like the conversion of actress Ingrid Bergman, with stories of Afghan citizens martyred for their refusal to disavow their faith in the one true Savior. Wilson takes read-
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A B O U T • M I N I S T RY ers to the region’s prisons where those who declared their faith to Jesus are held captive. Wilson also writes of the evil of New Age philosophies and its effect on young people. “Not only do we value the marvelous things the Bible says, but I think you will enjoy reading here in this book about the amazing things that the Living God does,” commented Reverend Billy Graham.
And it is those “amazing things” of the Living God that inspires Christian Union staff to carry on Wilson’s passion for reaching souls for Christ through campus ministry. It is the hope and prayer of the ministry that those who visit Wilson House and participate in Princeton Faith and Action will also impact the world for Christ as Wilson did. By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer
CORNELL STUDENTS GET A NEW ATTITUDE Conference Attendees Urged to Make the Bible Their ‘First Delight’ Editor’s note: The following story is a first-person report from Rachael Efthimiou, Cornell ’09, CORNELL on the impact of the New Attitude Conference that drew 3,500 attendees.
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In May, eight Cornell students journeyed to the New Attitude 2008 conference in Louisville, Kentucky. Some members of the group were experienced New Attitude attendees and well-seasoned veterans of Sovereign Grace Ministries–the host organization. The majority of the group, however, had no experience with the conference, but looked forward to four days of passionate worship and pursuit of God’s Word.
and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.” Some 3,500 attendees gathered from over 500 churches across the United States and other nations to pursue a deeper delight in the Word of God. The speaker lineup included: Joshua Harris, senior pastor of Covenant Life Church and author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye; Eric Simmons, singles pastor at Covenant Life Church; Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Mark Dever, senior pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church; CJ Mahaney, author of The Cross Centered Life and founding pastor of Sovereign Grace Ministries; and John Piper, senior pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church and author of Desiring God and God is the Gospel.
Though the group’s journey to Kentucky took place in late May, preparations and prayers for the expedition had been unWith such a pitching rosderway for many months. ter, conference attendees A generous gift from couldn’t help but feel as Christian Union provided though they were entering payment for hotel rooms the “big leagues,” about to and fuel for the entire con- Rachael Efthimiou ’09 joined fellow Cornellians for a journey to swing at theological fastference. Another generous the New Attitude 2008 conference in Kentucky. balls and doctrinal curvecontribution from Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland offset regisballs they might not even be able to see. However, the main tration costs for all in attendance, allowing an affordable and “speaker” at the conference was the One who is the very deeply edifying trip at the end of a hectic semester. epitome of theology and doctrine. The weight of Scripture and its authority was constantly preached as the only decidThe premise of the conference was taken from Jeremiah ing Truth, the highest source of satisfaction and delight. 15:16, which says, “Your words were found, and I ate them, Fall 2008
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A B O U T • M I N I S T RY Post-New Attitude Conference, I am still attempting to sort out each thought and discern it against Scripture’s mandate. My experiences within the church have proven to me the important truth of Joshua Harris’ statement, “I don’t care if you have an entire denomination behind you! If you disagree with the Word of God, you need to be very afraid because it’s God you’re going to answer to!” As a member of the Body of Christ, I find that the hardest decisions to make are those that are under the supremacy of Scripture and forsake the opinions and desires of mankind. A constant exhortation to the assembly at the conference urged this generation to delight in the supremacy of God’s Word, to lose any desire that is not in line with Scripture, and to willingly sacrifice whatever is necessary to follow the commands of God found in His Word.
You might ask, “How will the New Attitude Conference impact Cornell’s campus and, as a result, the rest of the Ivy League?” In talking to the eight students who journeyed from Ithaca to Louisville this past May, the resounding answer to the first question is that the Word of God is to be our first and foremost delight. If the Bible is the Word of God, then we are called to delight in and obey it. We are Christians living on the campuses of sometimes oppressive and most often suppressive academic institutions. As such, we are guaranteed to hear claims from men and women who assert their theories and ideas as “life-changing” or “worldaltering.” In reality, the only One whose Word will stand forever, is the One who speaks from outside the bounds of time. He is the God who has revealed Himself to us, not just so that we can learn about Him, but so that we can know Him. To quote John Piper, “God is the Gospel.”
GROWING ‘FAITH AND ACTION’ AT PRINCETON Christian Union Expands Campus Ministry Team
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Christian Union recently expanded its team at Princeton University, in part to serve the needs of its flourishing campus ministry.
As Princeton Faith and Action grows, it “really is evolving,” said Don Chambers, Christian Union’s new vice president of operations. “We are expanding the reach of the ministry.” In particular, the ministry offered seven Bible courses to female students and another seven courses to male students during each of the fall and spring semesters in 2007-2008. This year, leaders say they hope to boost the number to nine courses per semester for women and nine for men. “It’s encouraging to see that Princeton students have a real hunger to
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study the Bible,” said Ministry Fellow Lorri Bentch, Princeton ’91. As such, Christian Union recently hired three ministry fellows. Among them is Quincy Watkins, a marketing expert, pastor, and Wharton School of Business alumnus. “I’m excited about having the opportunity to mentor and shape college students,” Watkins said. “That’s a real plus for me.” Watkins, who earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Temple University in 1991 and a Master of Business Administration from Wharton in 1995, has more than a dozen years of marketing experience.
Princeton Faith and Action team members: (left to right) Quincy Watkins, Wharton School of Business ’95, David Roberts, Dan Knapke, Chuck Hetzler, Scott Jones, Cornell ’04, (front row, left to right) Lorri Bentch, Princeton ’91, and Laurie Knapke.
On weekends, Watkins serves as the pastor of Greater Rainbow Restoration Church in Darby, Pa.,
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A B O U T • M I N I S T RY and preaches sermons at a sister congregation in Wilmington, Del. He also oversees a church in Baltimore and two in Jacksonville, Fla. “I love to teach and share the Gospel,” said Watkins, who is leading the Christian Union’s “Prayer for the Ivy League” initiative as well. Another new ministry fellow is Scott Jones (Cornell ’04), who earned a Master of Theology in May and a Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in 2007. The opportunity to work in campus ministry especially appealed to Jones, who said he was shaped by his involvement with Campus Crusade for Christ during his studies at Cornell. Jones, who earned an industrial and labor relations degree in 2004, said he is well familiar with the stresses of the Ivy League. “I know the environment of competitiveness, that overwhelming feeling, and the need to achieve,” he said. “I know how hard it can be for the Gospel to be relevant in the midst of all of the other challenges.” Also new to the team is Chuck Hetzler, who will serve as the Christian Union’s first teaching fellow. Hetzler was chosen for the new role, in part, because of his theological training. In the spring, he completed a Doctorate of New Testament from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
presence. “I felt like there was such a need,” he said. “Here’s a place that could really use some more workers.” Hetzler also holds a Master of Theology from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a Master of Divinity from Covenant Theological Seminary, as well as a Bachelor of Business Administration from Stamford University in Alabama. Finally, Chambers is new to the Christian Union and will be responsible for the ministry’s daily operations. “It’s an exciting time,” said Chambers, who has been a consultant for the Christian Union since March. “The ministry is rapidly growing.” Chambers, who earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Wheaton College in 1975 and studied organic chemistry at Fairleigh Dickinson University, operated a consulting firm for eight years. Also joining the team as the ministry’s intern is David Roberts. Roberts, who earned a combined Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in electrical and biomedical engineering from Oxford University in 2008, will concentrate on leading worship, primarily for conferences and Princeton Faith and Action events. Roberts, who earned credits at Princeton last year, also leads worship during the joint campus service for Christian Union and Nassau Christian Center.
Among his duties, Hetzler will focus on creating ministry materials and writing position papers.
“I’m really passionate about worship, trying to create space to be intimate with God,” he said. “I want to create a model for worship that will last long after I’m gone.”
Hetzler said Christian Union’s vision of reaching students on Ivy League campuses “resonated” with him. “This is a place with a lot of need and potential,” he said. “It fits my giftings and callings.”
Another newcomer to the Christian Union is Mike King, the new manager of the Wilson House. King, who graduated in May from Westminster Choir College, is studying options to begin seminary in 2009.
Furthermore, the Ivy League campuses lack an evangelical
By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer
RETURNING THE FAVOR Ministry Leaders Draw from Personal Experience to Reach Harvard Students When Christian Union launched its Harvard Faith and Action ministry this fall, it brought on HARVARD board two ministry leaders who know firsthand the impact that college ministry can have on young people.
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Both Don Weiss and Nick Nowalk sought to lead the Harvard ministry partly because college-focused ministry Fall 2008
paved the way for both men to come to salvation. And as Weiss put it, “It is a privilege to return the favor.” That initial favor was bestowed upon Weiss when Christian students and Campus Crusade staff befriended him when he was an undergraduate at the University of Iowa. In his senior year, Weiss gave his life to Christ. Page 37
A B O U T • M I N I S T RY “The Lord called me to vocational ministry shortly after I became a Christian,” said Weiss, who worked with Campus Crusade for seven years at the University of Wisconsin and also directed the ministry at Cornell in the early 1990s. Weiss then served as a civilian chaplain at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, and as a pastor in Northampton, Massachusetts. He holds a Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Nowalk also came to know Christ through campus ministry during his freshman year at High Point University in North Carolina. “Sharing the Gospel with college students who aren’t believers holds a special place in my heart, as that is precisely how I became a follower of Jesus,” he said.
mate, and also being very intellectually inclined myself, I had long-desired to put down roots permanently in a major city in the Northeast and do long-term ministry there with people of similar backgrounds.” Nowalk said. “When I saw Christian Union’s info and [the ministry’s] commitment to reach the Ivy League schools, the chance to be in Boston and at Harvard, and the emphasis on teaching and contextualizing our outreach and presentation of the faith to these intellectually oriented environments, I knew I was in.” The determination and experience both men bring to the ministry also prepare them for the challenges they face as they forge a new ministry on Harvard’s campus. “Any time you start a brand-new ministry on a campus where you have no history at all, it is difficult just getting people and students to become familiar with you and to meet and attract new students who aren’t sure what or who you are,” said Nowalk.
And Nowalk began sharing the Gospel while he was still a student working with both Campus Crusade and Young Life. “I did two summer projects in New York City with Crusade that were absolutely life-changing and set me on a trajectory for full-time ministry after graduation,” he said.
Weiss said the “greatest challenges are within the spiritual realm.”
Since then, Nowalk has served as a youth pastor in St. Paul, Minnesota; worked on staff with Minnesota Teen Challenge; and taught undergraduate- and graduate-level theology and Bible courses at The Bethlehem Institute in Minneapolis. Both men were drawn to CU’s Harvard ministry due to its northeastern location and Ivy League focus. Weiss said he and his wife Sally Anne shared a strong desire to return to campus ministry and to Boston. “We were amazed to learn of this opportunity with Christian Union. We resonate in every way with the theology, vision, and philosophy of this ministry,” he said. Nowalk also sought to return to his northeastern roots and to delve into the intellectual aspects of the Christian faith. “Being from the Northeast in a very liberal, unbelieving cliPage 38
But whether man-made or spirit-based, both men are ready to face those challenges with a plan, prayer, and a spirit of cooperation with other campus ministers.
Nick Nowalk (left) and Don Weiss are pioneering Christian Union’s campus ministry at Harvard.
“We are meeting some terrific people, some [of whom] are long-invested at Harvard and in the Boston area. We hope to cultivate friendships with fellow ministers, and we will join existing concerted prayer,” said Weiss. Ultimately the goal is to lay the foundation for a student-led ministry at Harvard College and the Harvard Business School, according to Weiss. A key component of that objective is the ministry’s Bible courses which provide the “most strategic venue for connection: teaching and equipping students for personal ministry.” “We will also plant seeds for prayer, local and international outreach and have as much fun as we possibly can while doing it,” he said.
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A B O U T • M I N I S T RY During the first week on campus this semester, Weiss and Nowalk took twenty-four students to a Boston Red Sox game. They also plan to take tours of the city with the students and join them in checking out different churches in the area.
Together Weiss and Nowalk plan to use their gifts of teaching, mentoring, and biblical knowledge to serve the Harvard community and to inspire students toward a life-long faith in Jesus Christ that they themselves found as young, searching students. By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer
EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN Medical Professionals: Faith Facilitates Healing As diseases become more complex, the demand for the medical profession to find ways to treat YALE and cure the sick is greater than ever before. Still, there is a proven healing element of health and recovery that is frequently overlooked, but not by all. In September, a group of renowned physicians, psychiatrists and ministry leaders met at Yale for the “Symposium on Healing, Spiritual and Medical Perspectives.”
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Co-sponsored by Global Awakening and the psychiatry section of the Christian Medical and Dental Association, the meeting drew approximately fifty attendees to Center Church on the Green in New Haven. There, Dr. Harold Koenig stressed the importance of medical professionals treating the whole person, including inquiry into a patient’s spiritual history and medical background. “When you take a spiritual history you’re not trying to correct their theology; you’re a healthcare professional. You are trying to figure out what role religious beliefs play in healthcare of patients.” According to the Duke professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, who is also a cancer survivor, that role is critical. Koenig cited research linking religious beliefs and activities with better immune function, lower death rates from cancer, less heart disease or better cardiac outcomes, lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol and better health behaviors. Additionally, mortality studies have concluded that regular religious participation has the same effect on life span as not smoking—an additional seven years.
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Those findings were not news to Helen Jennings, who traveled from Virginia for the event. She said she was healed of cancer thirty-five years ago after doctors only gave her months to live. Jennings was only fourteen at the time but remembers her parents and church members praying for her, says there is no doubt that she owes her healing to the Lord. Now Jennings feels called to share her experiences and learn more about how to help others through spiritual healing. She took vacation days from her job as a county clerk and drove several hours to hear Dr. Koenig and Christian ministers like Randy Clark, Francis MacNutt, Harvard ’48, and others talk about the clinical and theological aspects of healing.
Francis MacNutt, Harvard ’48, was a featured speaker at the Symposium on Healing, Spiritual and Medical Perspectives.
Clark is the founder of Global Awakening, an outgrowth of the 1994 Toronto Airport Revival. Clark has developed a worldwide healing ministry as well as Global Awakening’s School of Healing and Impartation. MacNutt, who graduated from Harvard with honors, is a former priest who was later baptized in the Spirit. He is also the founder of Christian Healing Ministries and has worked to bring healing and deliverance back to the modern church. Additionally, Columbia Medical School graduate and Harvard Medical School associate professor of psychiatry Dr. John Peteet ’73 spoke on the relationship between spirituality, medicine, and mental health. The underlying theme of the symposium was a whole-person approach to treating illness; none of the ministers or medical professionals recommended any isolated
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A B O U T • M I N I S T RY approach. Rather they emphasized a treatment plan that integrated medical technology and faith. Many also participated in the School of Healing and Impartation’s four-day ‘Spiritual and Medical Perspectives’ symposium that took place September 17 to 20 in West Haven, CT. The symposium was an intensive look into the causes of illness, including psychological and spiritual states such as unforgiveness and spiritual affliction. They also addressed healing prayer and research regarding the effects of prayer on chronic illness such as rheumatoid arthritis.
While the speakers were Christian, the symposium focused on “religious belief,” so studies of faith and healing did not differentiate Christianity from other faiths. Still, Christians present were clear on two things: first, that the healing power of faith comes not from the hands of the healers but by the will of the Father; and second, for those who live out their faith and put their hope in the Lord, all things are possible. By Eileen Scott, Senior Writer
HARVESTING FRUIT IN THE IVY LEAGUE Yale Alumnus Publishes Devotional Book Based on Sermon A Yale alumnus and pastor recently published a devotional book reflecting the series he preached YALE on the fruit of the Spirit to his campus-and-community congregation in Princeton, New Jersey.
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“It started as a sermon series to the students at Princeton. The fruit of the Spirit have to do with development of character – Christian character, which is an obvious concern for students,” said Dr. Win Green, campus pastor at Nassau Christian Church. Green, who earned a bachelor of arts from Yale University in 1979 and a master of divinity from Yale Divinity School in 1983, studied the fruit of the Spirit for two years. Tate Publishing & Enterprises published the results of Green’s research in a 232-page devotional and study guide that was released in September, titled All You Ever Wanted.
study. As well, Green incorporates a variety of anecdotes, including some from his personal life and historical figures, to illustrate the challenges and results of the fruit of the Spirit. All You Ever Wanted is available through www.tatepublishing.com and www.amazon.com. To help introduce the book, Green spent the summer visiting churches across the country where he preached on the fruit of the Spirit. “So far, the response has been excellent,” he said. Green, however, warns that developing the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) – takes perseverance. “We in the church have tended to go for shortcuts. ‘Give me a supernatural shortcut to make it easy.’ The fruit of the Spirit is essentially saying the growth of Christian character is slow, steady work,” Green said.
“Students get a lot of intellectual In his new book, Win Green, Yale ’79, training, but they don’t receive much reminds Christians that developing the in the way of spiritual and emotional fruit of the Spirit takes perseverance. Students in the Ivy League espetraining,” Green said. “Talking about cially need the message of the fruit of the Spirit. the fruit of the Spirit was a way to approach this.” The book devotes one chapter to each fruit of the Spirit and a tenth chapter to spiritual growth. Each chapter concludes with questions and activities that can be used in a group Bible Page 40
“Ivy League folks tend to rely on their abilities, resources, contacts, energies, and ambitions. This is counterproductive to growing the fruit of the Spirit,” Green said. “Chris-
The Ivy League Christian Observer
A B O U T • M I N I S T RY tianity is about dying to self and allowing Christ to live through us. There are no shortcuts.”
25 years before relocating to New Jersey in 2005 to help reach Ivy League students.
As well, the message is especially relevant, given some of the high-profile “upheavals” inside the evangelical community within the last two decades. “The people I’ve met are appreciative of the fact that real growth and honest Christian character require no shortcuts,” Green said.
Green, who also holds a doctor of ministry from Asbury Theological Seminary and a master of theology from Princeton Theological Seminary, founded Everglades Community Church in Pembroke Pines, Florida, in 1995. Earlier, he served as an associate pastor at Christ Church, a 7,000-member United Methodist congregation in Memphis, Tennessee.
“We need to root ourselves in doing hard spiritual work for personal growth and evangelical growth,” he said. “Mindcandy will not suffice.” Dr. Luke Powery, an assistant professor of homiletics at Princeton Theological Seminary, agreed, adding that reading the devotional inspired him. “You begin to get a glimpse of what [the fruit of the Spirit] looks like in our daily lives. It’s not just some kind of theory,” he said. “The way [Green] weaves in examples, you really see this fruit.”
But, today, his heart rests in touching and changing the lives of students, especially those in the Ivy League. “I believe this to be the most influential ministry for the next generation, for the world’s next generation,” said Green. “I could preach to a congregation of 3,000 or to 100 to 150 at Princeton. I’m going to have more influence preaching to the undergraduate and graduate students at Princeton.” “The influence is pervasive,” he said. “I could not think of a more effective way to positively impact the next generation than through this ministry.”
As for Green, he pastored at six churches in three states over
By Catherine Elvy, Staff Writer
Honoring Jesus Christ in the Ivy League ...and on the Internet
Visit us online at
www.Christian-Union.org
Fall 2008
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NEWS-IN-BRIEF ALL IVY Seminars Challenge Connections between Ivy League and Wall Street
Harvard Professor Howard Gardner, ’65 and *71, encourages college students to consider public service careers.
Harvard Professor Howard Gardner made news recently by asking in a New York Times article if Harvard and the other Ivies are “simply becoming selecting mechanisms for Wall Street.”
Gardner, the Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, conducts seminars at Harvard, Amherst, and Colby colleges to encourage students to consider public service careers over more lucrative investing and consulting opportunities. According to the article, Gardner hopes his seminars will “push undergraduates to think more deeply about the connection between their educations and aspirations.” Dartmouth Part of Coalition to Debate Drinking Age Drinking at college is not only a moral issue for some Christians, it’s also a legal one for students under 21. This summer, a group of college chancellors and professors raised some eyebrows when they launched the Amethyst Initiative in an effort to discuss lowering the legal drinking age and deter binge drinking. The initiative includes a public statement that was signed by only one Ivy League university, Dartmouth. The signatories “support informed and unimpeded debate on the 21-year-old drinking age.” They believe that the current legal age “is not working,” iStock and has “created a Dartmouth is the only Ivy League culture of dangerous University in favor of debating binge drinking on the national drinking age. their campuses.” Page 42
Visionary Graduate Students Eligible for Fellowship Christian graduate students in the Ivy League who possess “a unique vision to impact society through their fields” can apply for a significant stipend through the Harvey Fellows program (www.harveyfellows.org). Timothy Shah was The program “seeks to enrecently selected as courage Christian graduate a Harvey Fellow. students to integrate their faith and vocation and pursue leadership positions in strategic fields where Christians tend to be under-represented.” Timothy Shah, Harvard ’92 and *02, is a recent Harvey Fellow.
BROWN Brown Enrichment Program Brings Hope to Children of War A team of fifteen Brown students spent the summer helping restore the lives of children in war-torn Uganda while helping to build a “sustainable commuThis summer, Campus Crusade for Christ ministry leader Brodi Herb nity,” according worked to bring hope to child to Brodie Herb, victims of war-torn Uganda. ministry leader with College Hill for Christ (www.collegehillforchrist. com). The trip was part of a year-long enrichment opportunity called Uganda Hope. Both Christian and non-Christian students spent time partnering with Campus Crusade for Christ in northern Uganda. Following the trip, ministry leaders helped students accurately, effectively, and appropriately process the experience and help them share it with others. The Ivy League Christian Observer
NEWS-IN-BRIEF Brown’s Ministries Host Fall Freshman Outreach For six weeks this fall, Brown’s Athletes in Action (www.aiaatbrown.com) and College Hill for Christ (collegehillforchrist. com) joined efforts to Athletes in Action and welcome the incoming College Hill for Christ united to welcome Brown freshmen freshman class in this fall. Christian hospitality. The overall mission for the Fall Freshman Outreach was to give every student the opportunity to put their faith in Jesus Christ and become a lifetime laborer for Him, according to the event coordinators. Members of both student ministries worked to give every freshman exposure to the person and works of Jesus through a clear presentation of the Gospel and introduced them to the Christian ministries. Catholic Community Hosts Fall Events The Brown-RISD Catholic Community (http://catholic. brown.edu) kicked off the fall semester with a series of events designed to foster friendship iStock and Christian camaraderie. A pancake breakfast Events began with a Welcome was among the Back Cookout on September 7 many events held by the Brown/RISD at Pembroke Field. The annual Catholic Community dessert social was held Septemto welcome students ber 9 for all heads of ministry, back to campus. and a Fall Pancake Breakfast was held September 21. Several students also participated in the Alzheimer’s Memory Walk on September 28 at Roger Williams Park in Providence.
CHRISTIAN UNION Princeton Faith and Action holds ‘Pretreat’ Students with Princeton Faith and Action joined the ministry’s staff in participating in a “pretreat” to plan for the new academic year. Eighteen students attended the early September event in Fall 2008
Princeton Faith and Action students and staff took a “pretreat” in early September to make plans for the upcoming academic year.
Ocean City, N.J., where they concentrated on ways to reach out to the incoming freshman class at Princeton University. The students also prayed for the freshmen and participated in devotions and worship.
“We wanted to focus on providing some time for a spiritual recharger,” said Ministry Fellow Lorri Bentch, Princeton ’91. Christian Union Holds Summer Staff Training Christian Union held its summer staff training August 18-20 at Wilson House in Princeton with three days of worship, prayer, meetings, and teachings from the book of Christian Union ministry Genesis by Founder and members studied in small President Matt Bennett, groups as part of the Cornell ’88 and *89. Benministry’s summer training on August 18-20. nett also gave a PowerPoint presentation entitled “The Pyramid of Success for Ministry,” based on the coaching philosophy of former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, who led the Bruins to an unprecedented ten NCAA titles in twelve years. Members of Christian Union’s campus ministry teams at Princeton and Harvard also spent four days at Beverly and Gary Smith’s Texas ranch. Beverly Smith is the mother of Matt Bennett. Princeton Faith and Action Reaches Out to Freshmen Staff with Princeton Faith and Action started the new academic year with a push to reach out to the university’s 1,200 or so freshmen.
Princeton Faith and Action hosted several social events to welcome freshmen.
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NEWS-IN-BRIEF Staffers spent three-plus weeks attending campus activities and holding a variety of ministry events, including freshman dinners, flag football, and open houses. The team offered “lots of social events as ways for freshmen to meet each other and us, to give them alternative social options,” said ministry fellow Lorri Bentch, Princeton ’91.
COLUMBIA Faith Voters Back Away from Obama A recent survey by the Barna Group, a Christian research organization, concluded that “faith voters” are rethinking their support of Sen. Barack Obama, Columbia ’83 and Harvard *91. “As the finer points of a wide range of issues are clarified by each nomBarack Obama, Columbia ’83, inee, the initial excitement about lost some Senator Obama has lost some luster evangelical to an increasing number of people support according to a whose vote is influenced by their July Barna spiritual perspectives,” stated George Group study. Barna, who is founder of the Barna Group and a former campaign worker and pollster. Barna also believes the faith community may yet emerge as the deciding factor in the race, the report states. Columbia Professor Chides China Prior to Olympics Prior to the Summer Olympics in Beijing, a Columbia University professor spoke out regarding China’s human rights abuses and also commented on the challenges facing evangelicals when it came to sharing their faith.
Columbia Professor Andrew Nathan commented on evangelism in China prior to the Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Andrew Nathan, a China scholar and human rights advocate, predicted evangelicals would find a strict environment in Beijing, where officials had pledged to enforce prohibitions against sharing the gospel. “The Chinese are hyper-vigilant,” Nathan told Public Radio International on Aug. 6. Page 44
Despite the ban, some Christian organizations, including Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Awaken Generation, and Youth With A Mission, called underground evangelizing a success. New Fellowship Encourages Philanthropy at Columbia Students of all faiths are encouraged to apply for a newly established fellowship that encourages Columbia students to participate in charitable endeavors. The Jewishly Informed Giving Fellowship (JIGF) was founded by Amy Schultz ’11 and Rachel Loebl ’10. Fifteen students will be selected as fellows and will be responsible for raising funds for the organization, which will then receive matching contriStudents from butions from donors. JIGF’s goal Columbia’s Hillel have established is to have $15,000 available for a philanthropic philanthropic contributions. fellowship.
CORNELL Outreach Program Steers Freshmen toward Christ Campus Crusade for Christ (www.cornellcru.com/) distributed approximately 500 Freshman Survival Kits on the Cornell campus during the first few weeks of the fall semester to help new students connect with the Gospel and the ministry.
Campus Crusade provided “survival kits” for freshmen this fall.
The kits consisted of materials and resources that introduced freshmen to Christ and let them know where to find Crusade on campus. Contents included Bibles, Christian books, links to Christian music, evangelistic DVDs, flyers, and more. The material was packaged in a mesh laundry bag that could be reused by the students. A grant from Christian Union helped provide funding for the survival kits. The Ivy League Christian Observer
NEWS-IN-BRIEF Campus Crusade Serves Up Ice Cream Social Cornell Campus Crusade for Christ (www.cornellcru.com) held its “Cru Ice Cream Social” on August Cornell Christians kicked off the new academic 27 to kick-off the new acyear with the annual ademic year. The annual Crusade Ice Cream event serves to connect Social. with new students, promote Crusade events, and provide students with a positive Christian ministry experience, according to event coordinators. The social, held on North Campus, targeted freshmen, but also welcomed all Cornell students. Cornell CCC Equips Staff with New ESV Bibles Inspired and excited by the release of the English Standard Version Bible, staffers with Cornell Campus Crusade for Christ (www.cornellcru.com) are working to supply every member of the ministry with the new Bible version. The Bible is being billed as a Campus Crusade for “new, essentially literal translaChrist at Cornell is tion that combines word-forseeking to give all members the new word precision and accuracy English Standard with literary excellence, beauty, Version Bible. and readability.” According to Jerry Bridges, speaker and author of Pursuit of Holiness, “The ESV Study Bible is the finest study tool I have seen in fifty years of Bible teaching.”
DARTMOUTH Students Communicate Language, Love of Christ on Mission Trip Students from Christian Impact (www.dartmouth.edu ~ccc/) participated in a missions trip to China this summer in conjunction with Intercollegiate Summer English Camps (www.isecchina.com). The UK-based organization offers English language training for Chinese nationals while sharing Christ’s love with them. Fall 2008
Campus Crusade Christians at Dartmouth taught English and shared the Gospel in China this summer.
The Dartmouth students served in China from June 28 to August 7. Impact sought to bring the Gospel to “hungry, open Chinese students” while “increasing the vision and involvement of our own students in world missions.” A Christian Union grant program also provided partial funding for the trip.
Impact Students Challenged to Make Impact Christian Impact (www.dartmouth.edu~ccc/) at Dartmouth College spent the summer in spiritual preparation for the new academic year. Chris West, the director of Campus Crusade for Christ at Dartmouth, helped to challenge students to prayerfully prepare for evangelism this summer.
At an end-of-the-year retreat, the leadership encouraged students to take a spiritual inventory and focus on Bible study, prayer, fellowship and evangelism over their break. “If our students had a good summer of meeting with the Lord and connecting with Him, they’ll be ready to come back in a helpful way,” said Chris West, director of Impact. Philanthropy Helps Alumnus Cope with Loss Dr. William Petit (Dartmouth ’78), who was brutally beaten and lost his wife and two daughters during a Connecticut home invasion in 2007, has spent the past year trying to overcome tragedy with compassion. The Petit Family Foundation has been established in Hayley Petit, who was killed along with her mother and sister in a brutal homeinvasion attack, would have been a member of the Dartmouth Class of 2011. A foundation has been established in their memory.
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NEWS-IN-BRIEF memory of Petit’s wife Jennifer and daughters Hayley and Michaela to continue “the kindness, idealism and activism that defined their lives,” the organization’s Web site states. Foundation funds help educate young people, help those suffering from chronic illnesses, and assist those affected by violence. Hayley Petit was to enter Dartmouth last fall with the class of 2011.
Harvard Med Student Ministers in China
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While working on the medical Medical student Elizabeth Shen ’10 reception team, Shen checked spent the summer vital statistics and also shared ministering to the Gospel. “This year I had the residents of the Yunnan in China. amazing opportunity to share the Gospel with one elderly woman who had diabetes,” she said. “She went home with a brand new glucometer, medication, Gospel bracelets to share with her family, and a huge grin on her face.” Harvard Professor Says Children Equal Sadness Sadly, Harvard Psychology Professor Daniel Gilbert believes that children are synonymous with sadness.
The sanctity of family was assaulted this May when Harvard Psychology Professor Daniel Gilbert reportedly told attendees of the Happiness and its Causes Conference in Sydney, Australia that “the more kids you had, the sadder you were likely to be,” according to a news.com report. Gilbert’s presentation received international attention, including the U.K., where telegraph.com quoted the professor as saying, “a desire by couples to get a return on the time and money they have invested in their children is part of the reason they persuade themselves that their offspring are enhancing their lives.” Page 46
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Harvard *60, recently told students at Utah State University that judges should not legislate from the bench. “Nothing I learned at Harvard or in my practice of law qualifies me to decide whether there is a right to abortion or to assisted suicide,” said Scalia, according to several news accounts. “I’m questioning the sanity of having value-laden decisions being made by unelected judges.”
HARVARD Pre-med student Elizabeth Shen ’10 helped minister to the physical and spiritual needs of residents of the Chinese province of Yunnan this summer as part of an annual trip by American Medical and Dental Services in Riverside, California.
Justice Scalia: Constitution Should Be Viewed as Static
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Harvard *60, believes the U.S. Constitution is “a static document.”
The Roman Catholic jurist, who is known for speaking out about abortion, is the father of nine, including a son who is a priest. Scalia said Americans should view the Constitution as a “static” document and hire jurists who confine their role to its interpretation.
PENN Newman Center Hosts Conversation with Acclaimed Author The Penn Newman Center recently hosted “a conversation and book signing” with author and theologian Dr. Michael Novak for his new book No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers. The book is receiving great acclaim from fellow Christians, including Dinesh D’Souza, Dartmouth ’83, and Chuck Colson, Brown ’53. D’Souza calls it “a wise and important book.” Colson said Novak’s book will “inspire a lively debate from which we will all profit.” Novak received a master of arts in history and philosophy of religion from Harvard in 1966 and is a former teaching fellow there.
Theologian Dr. Michael Novak was the featured guest for a conversation and book signing sponsored by The Penn Newman Center.
The Ivy League Christian Observer
NEWS-IN-BRIEF Students for Christ Hold First ‘Cru’ of Academic Year Penn Students for Christ (www. pennstudents forchrist.org), Penn’s affiliate of Campus Crusade for Christ, held its first “Cru” of the Penn Students for Christ held its new academic first large group “Cru” meeting of the academic year to welcome new year on Septemand returning students. ber 4. Cru is the ministry’s weekly, large-group meeting where students can worship together. The meeting provided both new and returning students with an opportunity to worship and celebrate the Lord and learn more about Penn Students for Christ. Grace Fellowship Students Unwind with Music and Dinner Penn’s Grace Fellowship (www.dolphin.upenn.edu/ gracef), a Cantonese-speaking college ministry of Chinese Christian Church and Center in Philadelphia’s Chinatown, hosted a DJ and Café Night on September 5. The event offered students a chance to unwind from the hectic back-to-school schedule. DJ and Café Night offered music, dinner, and time to relax with fellow Christians. Grace Fellowship describes itself as “a fun and dynamic group of young people wanting to learn more about Jesus Christ and His love for us through various activities.” The ministry also holds weekly Bible studies and topical Grace Christian Fellowship at Penn discussions. hosted a DJ and Café Night on Sept. 5 to reach out to the Cantonese speaking students in the community.
Fall 2008
PRINCETON Princeton Names Hindu and Muslim Coordinators As part of its ongoing effort to diversify its staff, Princeton University’s Office of Religious Life appointed coordinators for Hindu and Muslim life. The university named Vineet Chander as Coordinator of Hindu Life, a new position, and appointed Sohaib Sultan as Coordinator of Muslim Life. Both posts were effective August 15. The Hindu position is a half-time, oneyear pilot, but the dean of religious life said she hopes the post becomes a fulltime, permanent position. Dean Alison Boden said her new colleagues would help “promote interreligious understanding and dialogue as part of all students’ total Princeton education.”
Princeton’s Dean of Religious Life, Alison Boden, has appointed coordinators for Hindu and Muslim life.
Faith and Triumph of Princeton Alumni Chronicled in New Book
Christian Union Ministry Fellow Lorri Bentch, Princeton ’91, has compiled the testimonies of Princeton alumni for a new book to be released this fall.
In an effort to share the many stories of redemption and faith at Princeton, Christian Union is publishing a testimonial book entitled Under God’s Power: Princeton Alumni and the Pursuit of Faith. Christian Union Ministry Fellow Lorri Bentch has compiled the personal stories of faith and triumph of 30 Ivy League alumni. The book is expected to be available in print this fall.
Spanish Resolution Seeks to Demote Human Beings Spain has moved a step closer to enacting a law that would give rights previously reserved for humans to apes–a move partly inspired by a Princeton University professor.
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NEWS-IN-BRIEF Princeton Ethics Professor Peter Singer is at the forefront of a movement that seeks to give apes the same rights as humans in Spain.
A legislative committee approved a resolution on June 25 for Spain to follow the Great Apes Project, a campaign to grant the rights to life, freedom, and relief for apes, news services reported. The campaign is partly the brainchild of Princeton Ethics Professor Peter Singer. In response, bioethicist Wesley Smith, senior fellow in bioethics at the Discovery Institute, warned the organization seeks to “demote human beings from the uniquely valuable species and into merely another animal in the forest.”
YALE O’Brien Named President of Carson-Newman College Yale Divinity School graduate J. Randall O’Brien *87 has been named the twenty-second president of Carson-Newman College, a fouryear Southern Baptist college located in Jefferson City, Tennessee. Previously, O’Brien served as executive vice president and provost as well as professor of religion at Baylor University.
Among the attendees were Christian Union Founder and President Matt Bennett, as well as ministry team members. Revival leaders such as John Speakers included Nancy Leigh Mulinde met at Yale DeMoss, director of the Revive this summer for the Our Hearts ministry and the au2008 Institute for Campus Revival thor of Lies Women Believe; J.P. and Awakening. Moreland, an author, theologian, and conference speaker; and John Mulinde, founder and director of World Trumpet Mission in Kampala, Uganda. The faculty also included Dr. Kenneth Minkema, assistant adjunct professor in American Religious History at Yale University and director of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale, Caleb Maskell, associate director of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale, Jeremy Story, founder and president of Campus Renewal Ministries, and Dave Warn, director of The Institute of Campus Revival and Awakening. Yale Divinity Professor Slated to Teach with Tony Blair
Yale Divinity
School alumnus O’Brien is an ordained Baptist minJ. Randall ister and has served as interim pasO’Brien *87 has tor of Trinity Baptist Church in San been named the new president Antonio, Texas, since January 2007. of CarsonHe received his doctor of theology Newman and master of divinity from New OrCollege. leans Baptist Theological Seminary and also holds a master of sacred theology from YDS.
Institute of Campus Revival and Awakening Held at Yale The Institute for Campus Revival and Awakening was held at Yale University this summer. Ministry workers from around the globe came together to share stories of Page 48
revival happening throughout the world and to come to a greater understanding of God’s desire for campus revival.
Prominent Yale Divinity School Professor Miroslav Volf is slated to co-teach a faith and globalization course with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair this academic year in conjunction with the Yale School of Management. Volf, who has taken a visible Prominent author role in building Muslim and and Yale Divinity School professor Christian relations through the Miroslav Volf will Reconciliation Program at the join former British Yale Center for Faith and CulPrime Minister Tony Blair in teaching ture, is also known for authoring faith and a variety of works including Exglobalization at Yale. clusion and Embrace, which received the Grawemeyer Award for religion writing in 2002. Blair quoted excerpts from the book during a speech he gave on faith and globalization at Westminster Cathedral. The Ivy League Christian Observer
CHRISTIAN UNION
THE MISSION AND VISION OF THE CHRISTIAN UNION Christian Union Founder Matthew W. Bennett Shares the Vision and Purpose of the Ministry Following is the mission and vision of the Christian Union, which is printed in each issue of the Ivy League Christian Observer to keep new readers informed of the ministry's purpose and passion.
most 50 percent of Americans are in church, however, adding up the involvement of all students every week in all the para-church, and local churches combined it would amount to less than 10 percent of the student body.
The mission of the Christian Union, by God’s power and with the help of other ministries, is to change the world by bringing sweeping spiritual transformation to the Ivy League universities, thereby developing and mobilizing godly leadership for all sectors of society. It’s an ambitious vision, but it’s what God has called us to give our lives to. We have a deep passion to see Jesus Christ honored and exalted at the eight Ivy League universities (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale). As you may know, these universities were established many years ago to bring praise and honor to Jesus Christ, but have drifted far from their moorings. For example, Yale was founded in 1701 by the colonists of Connecticut, and in 1726, Yale College laws, reflecting the students’ and university’s devotion to Jesus Christ, ordained that: “Every student shall consider the main end of his study to know God in Jesus Christ and answerably to lead a godly, sober life.”
You may ask, what can be done to bring these universities spiritually in-step with the rest of the country? The most important means to improve the spiritual dimension is to supply enough long-term, capable, godly campus Christian workers. The spiritual vibrancy of the campuses is most directly related to this reality. Yes, we also need effective strategies, and, of course, we need the Holy Spirit’s presence and power; however, the Spirit works through people, and without campus Christian workers leading the charge, there is little spiritual life. Take Cornell, for example. It has 20,000 students, served by 3,000 faculty and 7,000 staff. That makes a total of 30,000 university people who need to be presented with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and taught the Scriptures. If you were to count all the full-time Christian workers on campus, it would amount to less than five people. Even with the Herculean efforts of volunteers and the local churches, Christian Union Founder and President, there is no way for the university Matthew W. Bennett, Cornell ’88, *89 to be significantly impacted.
The contrast with today could hardly be more startling. The former assistant dean of Religious Life at Princeton stated of all the faculty on campus that he ministered to, evangelical Protestants were the most fearful of disclosing their religious beliefs to others out of fear of discrimination and ridicule. At Dartmouth, the administration tried to ban the distribution of the book Mere Christianity a few years ago until media attention forced them to back down. In spite of all the rhetoric on campus about the “free exchange of ideas,” there is in many quarters, an intense hostility to Jesus Christ. Reflect on the fact that on every Sunday, alFall 2008
Moreover, the few campus Christian workers present are usually not there long enough to become excellent in what they do, nor are they able to establish an institutional memory for the ministry as they transition out. Every few years, most ministries start from scratch all over again through the work of ambitious recent college graduates. After a few years, these dedicated workers usually move and the cycle starts again. The workers move because they see the position as a stepping stone toward other ministry positions, such as the pastorate. What we need are people who see university ministry as a calling in and of itself and not as a stepPage 49
CHRISTIAN UNION ping stone to other ministries. An even bigger reason that people move on is that they get married and have children, and are no longer able to raise the needed support. Living close to campus in these university towns is expensive, and it is difficult to raise the money that’s needed. To provide enough godly, capable, long-term Christian workers and to meet other challenges, the Christian Union was formed in 2002 to trust God for dramatic change on these campuses. A unique aspect of the ministry is our commitment to both help other Christian ministries on campus through fund raising and other means as well as implementing our own direct ministry programs. Our passion is to see these campuses changed, whether or not it happens through one of our particular programs. We only direct our ministry programs to the Ivy League schools because they are among the most hostile to the Gospel, but also among the most infleuntial in our nation. Many of our country’s future leaders will graduate from these schools, and as the leaders go, so goes the country. Thousands of future leaders in business, media, law, government, journalism, medicine, ministry, academia, and the arts are currently enrolled at the Ivy League schools. And when they graduate, they will make an indelible mark on society. Ivy League alumni include the founder of Federal Express, the founder of Amazon.com, the CEO of eBay,
Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Martha Stewart, Warren Buffet, eight of the nine U.S. Supreme Court Justices, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, the head of the FBI, the head of the CIA, the head of the SEC, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, the National Intelligence Director, Donald Rumsfeld, the head of the World Bank, Madeline Albright, Janet Reno, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Howard Dean, Joe Lieberman, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and countless others. The names of those who serve in government are more recognizable than other names, but there is similar Ivy League representation in media, academia, journalism, medicine, and other fields. For the sake of the individual students, staff, and faculty on the campuses who need forgiveness and peace through Jesus Christ and for the sake of the future of our country because of the leadership these people will give, we must do whatever it takes to see these campuses transformed. I want to urge you to pray fervently for these campuses, to give generously to supply more campus Christian workers, and to use your influence in whatever capacity you have to make an impact. By God’s grace and by all of us working together, we can see significant spiritual transformation. Yours sincerely in Christ, Matt Bennett
Advancing the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in the Ivy League
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The Ivy League Christian Observer
P R AY E R R E Q U E S T S B R O WN
HARVARD
• This fall, Athletes In Action is starting two Men’s Life
• Pray for unity among the campus ministry leaders and
Groups for students interested in joining small group discussions about life, faith and sport. Pray for the leaders and that the Holy Spirit would draw students to the groups.
staff workers at Harvard. Pray that God will use them in the lives of many students as they share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• Keep the students of College Hill for Christ in prayer as
• Pray for the groups of students who meet together daily
they gather each morning to pray for their campus and classmates, and the advancement of Christ throughout the Brown campus.
to pray for their peers and their campus. Pray that they will be strengthened each day as they fully rely on the Lord to meet their needs.
C O L U MB IA
PENN
• During the first two weeks of school, Columbia Students
• Pray that the ministry and staff workers on campus will
for Christ (CSFC) were able to show the love of Christ to fifty-seven freshmen, transfers, and graduate students who showed an interest in knowing more about the ministry and faith in Christ. Pray that CSFC members faithfully minister to the new students through their witness and lifestyles. • Pray for members of the Columbia Gospel Choir as they
spread the Gospel through their many musical giftings.
be used by God in profound ways. • Pray for students who are raising their children while
earning degrees. Pray that the College Parents Fund will continue to be a resource for them. • As Penn Students for Christ begins another year of Bible
Studies and Cru (large group), pray that their faith in God grows ever deeper.
CORNELL
PRI NCETON
• Mott House, Christian Union’s ministry center at Cor-
• As the Impact Christian Fellowship begins weekly meet-
nell, is used as a meeting place by many Christian groups on campus. Pray that the house continues to serve as a blessing for the cause of Christ throughout the year.
ings of prayer, fellowship and worship, pray that they will be times of great spiritual growth, renewal, and great fellowship.
• Keep ministry leaders and student leaders of Campus
• Princeton Faith and Action is beginning another series of
Crusade for Christ at Cornell in prayer as they follow up with freshman students who showed an interest in finding out more about Christianity and the ministry.
Bible Courses on the Book of 1 John with men’s and women’s groups. Pray that the hearts and minds of the students attending will be opened to a deeper understanding the knowledge of God.
DA RT MO U T H • Pray for a solid core of student leaders to emerge in the
YALE
Navigators Ministry. Pray that they would be faithful to prayerfully follow God as He guides them in the advancement of the Gospel on campus.
• Pray that the new leaders of Reformed University Fel-
• As a result of First Night, an event sponsored by Agape
• Pray for the Yale Law Christian Fellowship (YLCF). In
Christian Fellowship, many incoming students were encouraged by the strong and supportive Christian community at Dartmouth. Pray that incoming students continue to pursue spiritual growth.
early October, the ministry held its fall retreat in Cooperstown, N.Y. Pray that the retreat would continue to yield much fruit and that God would work mightily at Yale in the lives of students and leaders.
Fall 2008
lowship will be catalysts for ministry growth and provide solid biblical training to their student groups.
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A C H E E R F U L H E A RT
All I Need to Know (about Evangelism) I Learned in College A cheerful heart is good medicine, But a crushed spirit dries up the bones — Proverbs 17:22
Bob Smiley, Princeton ’99
My diploma says I was an English major at Princeton, but please don’t ask me about 18th-century English poetry. I’d also prefer it if we steer clear of 19th-century fiction. Don’t even bother bringing up Native American folktales. You see, it’s been almost ten years since I graduated and, frankly, I don’t really remember any of it.
I’ll be the first to admit I have a terrible memory, but that’s not the reason Wordsworth and Lord Byron and the guy who wrote “Ode to a Grecian Urn” blend together. It’s because I have no recurring use for them. As a comedy writer, it’s more important I remember that odd numbers are funnier than even and that before dropping a mint-flavored Mentos into a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke, it is wise to put down some newspaper. But as a Christian, my time at Princeton remains the period in my life that taught me more about evangelization than any other. A decade removed from the Ivy League, I don’t need a Mentos to bring some of that wisdom to the surface. It sticks with me like I just heard it yesterday, and for that reason alone, is well worth repeating. The Big T • We humans enjoy a good argument. And as Christians in a society which is becoming increasingly dominated by relativism, we’re called to draw a line between right and wrong. But I always remember what a speaker at one of our weekly Campus Crusade for Christ meetings said about these hot button issues: They’re little truths, or “little t’s.” No matter how much we debate, he said, we probably won’t win. Instead, we need to focus our energy on “The Big T” – Jesus Christ. Help someone to understand who Christ is, and chances are those little t’s will soon follow. You Snooze, You Lose • As someone who has spent seven years working in Hollywood, I have some bad news: the world sees us as stiff, humorless, and, in general, dull. And let’s face it, sometimes we are. But Christ said he came not just that we might have life, but that we would have it fully. So enjoy it! This is a somewhat-nicer way of saying what a
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speaker said during a Crusade spring break conference in Florida during my junior year. “Don’t be boring!” he pleaded to a few thousand of us, and I’ve never forgotten it. Your Friends • But this leads to the third lesson about evangelism that I learned at Princeton – you need to have nonChristian friends. We can’t expect to change many hearts for Christ if everyone we’re close to is already a believer. The benefits from having those relationships are not only in how God can use us. It also works the other way. A former coworker of mine who was agnostic (but knew I wasn’t) would routinely walk into our office and hit me with various theological brainteasers. Sometimes his questions were traps. Other times, they were sincere hang-ups he had about Christianity. Either way, he made my faith stronger. We can’t engage this culture if we’re not a part of it. From Here to Eternity • But the greatest lesson I ever learned was also the first. My sophomore year, I went on a Campus Crusade ski trip where the speaker, Crusade’s Ron Bystrom, had strung a piece of rope all the way across the lodge and down the hall. Ron explained that the rope represented time and goes on for eternity. He then pointed to one isolated knot in the line above our heads and described how that knot represented our life on Earth. It made me feel pretty insignificant until Ron made his point. “The choice each of you makes regarding Christ during that one tiny knot will affect you for eternity.” My eyes followed that rope down the hall and out the door as I finally understood that a decision on Jesus was too big to postpone. That was the night I fully accepted Christ into my life for the first time, and that lesson continues to serve as a constant reminder of the importance of sharing my faith with others. With each passing year, literary references will continue to leak out of my brain. I can only shrug my shoulders. But failing to take advantage of opportunities to have God use me will never sit well, no matter how often I blow it. And so I say, with all sincerity: thanks, Princeton. Bob Smiley graduated from Princeton in 1999. He spent 2008 attempting to follow Tiger Woods from the gallery for every hole of his season. FOLLOW THE ROAR, his book about the adventure, is in stores November 11th. He contributes to ESPN.com’s golf coverage and has written for the TV shows Yes, Dear and the Half Hour News Hour. He can be reached at bobsmiley77@gmail.com.
The Ivy League Christian Observer
World Journalism Institute Fall Journalism Conference
in conjunction with the CMA/ACP national convention
October 29, 2008 Kansas City
Chavez
Duin
Parker
Williams
FEATURED SPEAKERS: Linda Chavez, Center for Equal Opportunity Steve Duin, The Portland Oregonian Kathleen Parker, The Orlando Sentinel Armstrong Williams, The Armstrong Williams Show Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA)
Spring Journalism Conference
in conjunction with the CMA national convention
March 13-14, 2009 New York City
Convergence Journalism Course May 10-30, 2009 New York City
For more information or to apply: www.worldji.com. World Journalism Institute
Empire State Building 350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1500 New York, NY 10118 800-769-7870