As my children entered their teenage years (many years ago), for some inexplicable reason I felt more and more anxiety. For all of their lives–including their schooling–I had nurtured, encouraged and challenged my children to be all that they can be for God. Now, almost by magic, they were leaving me.
Some of my children might be going to college. But whether they are going to college or getting a job, they are leaving me because they are growing up. Counselors call it “differentiation” or “breaking away” and they say that it is a good thing.
Maturation calls into sharp focus our views of reality, meaning of life, and other existential concepts. The character Augusto Perez in the book Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy shakes his fist at God and asks, “Am I a creature of fiction?” This is the central question haunting modern society. In a way, too, it is the question I hear Generation X asking. In Western society in 1998, we are asking that question most often at the university.
The first modern university was Halle University, founded in 1694. From the beginning, universities have wrestled with accepting truth as an absolute reality or seeing truth as an objective intellectual inquiry. The modern university appears to be King Belshazzar’s feast (Daniel 7), an undisciplined intellectual orgy of knowledge worship, instead of a time on Mt. Horeb, humbly bowing before Almighty God, freely admitting human limits and extolling His omnipotence (Exodus 3).
Christian students are called to find their way to Mt. Horeb even if they find themselves in the middle of Belshazzar’s feast. Our children must be salt and light. They need to be prepared.