“I was dumbstruck during my three short lunch periods on a recent visit to a college campus.  Greeting me at the entrance to the Student Life Center and Food Court were four tall, glass walls on which students were asked to write their opinions and attitudes concerning sex, sex education, access to contraception, and abortion.  I would honestly bet that you couldn’t imagine some of what was written there, in clear English and large letters.  I’m no prude, but I blushed.

I visited the Barnes and Noble-sponsored University BookStore, and browsed the end-of-aisle display to see what is marketed to students.  Here is a selection of the encouraged titles:  “Awakening Your Ikigai: How the Japanese Wake Up to Joy and Purpose Every Day”; “A Sucky Love Story: Overcoming Unhappily Ever After”; “Queer Eye: Love Yourself, Love Your Life.”  There was not a recognizably Christian title on the recommended list.

That is not your grandmother’s college campus—nor your mother’s.  And I am willing to bet dollars to donuts, as my English teacher used to say, that this is nothing extraordinary today. It is the new normal.  The campus is one of more than 2500 colleges where these messages confront students every.single.day.

As I reflected on what I had encountered on this campus visit, one Bible verse washed over me, Matthew 9:36, where, “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, He had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”  This generation—indeed our society increasingly—is this flock of sheep without a shepherd.”

  • 2019 Letter from St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Seminary in PA

***Now and then we include a particularly thought provoking or inspiring excerpt not from one of our regular ‘Elders’***