All

The most recent articles, videos, blog entries, and more that have been added to ChristianUnion.org.

Why Harvard is Anything But Godless

Many Harvard professors and students are oblivious to the level of religious devotion that exists at their university. In fact, most people, Harvard affiliated or not, are unaware of the profound faith that can be found on campus, erroneously considering the school to be fairly “irreligious.” However, according to Stephen G. Mackereth – a talented new writer for The Harvard Crimson, and a Christian Union ministry member – Harvard is anything but godless.

Mackereth highlights his own faith experiences at Harvard and explains how this precipitated a close relationship with God. “Though I came from an Anglican family, it was here that the old creeds and old hymns to God in the Highest first really came to life for me. Since then, I have been an active member of the Christian student community on campus,” he writes.

Harvard

Dartmouth Student Leads 24-Hour Prayer Time

On October 31, students at Dartmouth united their Christian peers to pray without ceasing for 24 hours.

The effort was led by Zachary Schmidt '15, who is active with Christian Union's leadership development ministry at Dartmouth and possesses a profound devotion to Christ and a passion for living a life of prayer.

Schmidt, who transferred to Dartmouth as a junior from the U.S. Naval Academy, helped organize a 24-hour concert of prayer, which both encouraged students to seek God wholeheartedly and also united the body of Christ on campus.

"We saw [this prayer initiative] as a great way to get the whole Christian community involved and united in one body to glorify the Lord," said Schmidt.

Dartmouth

Making Sense of True Paradoxes

Christian Union: The Magazine recently interviewed David Skeel, the S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Pennsylvania. A speaker at Veritas Forums on various college campuses, Skeel is the author of several books on law. He recently wrote his first apologetics book, True Paradox: How Christianity Makes Sense of Our Complex World.

How would you define apologetics?
At bottom, I think the Apostle Peter defined apologetics best, at least for Christians, when he admonished his readers to "always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15). That's how I see apologetics, as trying to explain why I believe Christianity is true, especially for those who think an ancient religion like Christianity can't possibly make sense of the complexities of our contemporary world.

Mwangi Thuita '17 Has a Passion for Serving

The Community Service Team with Christian Union at Cornell is working to share the Gospel in Ithaca, New York, and their acts of service are conveying what words alone cannot.

The team serves the university's neighboring community through a variety of volunteer works, quietly modeling Christ's compassion for all people.

"Our students formed the Community Service Team because they wanted tangible ways to communicate the love of Christ," said Anna Shea, a Christian Union ministry fellow at Cornell. "They want others to experience, through their actions, that Jesus is alive—not just on the Cornell campus, but throughout Ithaca as well."

Cornell

A Prayer and Fasting Devotional

Dear friend in Christ,

Our 40 days of fasting and prayer to seek the Lord for 2015 has come to a close, and I am deeply grateful to you for joining with me on this journey. I have been blessed and encouraged by the devotionals, and, as usual, fasting has helped me draw closer to God.

Scholar Exhorts Attendees at Harvard Catholic Center Event

Exercising the constitutional right to "authentic worship" at Harvard was heralded this fall with a lecture from noted scholar Father Peter Stravinskas.

The Harvard Catholic Center sponsored the event, entitled "Give Me Freedom (Religious) or Give Me Death."

Stravinskas, editor of The Catholic Answer magazine and books such as The Catholic Response and The Catholic Church and the Bible, exhorted attendees to refute the bifurcation of religious freedom by a secular culture.

Stravinskas spoke about how society is seeking to replace authentic Christian worship and expression with a more politically correct and passive version of religion.

The right to assemble is tolerated, but the freedom to live out your faith with actionable belief and works is disallowed.

Harvard

A Prayer and Fasting Devotional

How do I know when the Holy Spirit is active and present in my life? What must I do to engage in the Spirit-filled life? What sorts of criteria may I employ to recognize and discern the leading of the Spirit as I follow Jesus in faith? Such questions are no less crucial for being so prevalent among earnest Christians who desire to please the Lord and experience His grace in power.

Cornell Alumnus Joe Holland Challenges Students to Walk by Faith

For believers, God's calling is not an isolated event. Rather, it often plays out as part of an amazing personal movement.

Activist, attorney, and football legend Joe Holland offered that spiritual insight during an appearance on October 16 at his alma mater of Cornell University. The All-American football player spoke about the stages of fulfilling a divine commission during a public lecture in Friends Hall.

"It's not just something that happens, and that's the end," said Holland, Cornell '78, MA '79, Harvard Law '82. "It's a movement that God executes in your life."

Cornell

A Prayer and Fasting Devotional

“Then the women said to Naomi, ‘Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.’” - Ruth 4:14-15

Considering Nietzsche and Jesus of Nazareth

by Jesse Peterson

Apologetics-Love-article

At the risk of an absurd reductionism, I'd like to propose an audacious thesis: that in Western history there have been only two distinct ethical philosophies. Every other ethic ultimately falls under the banner of one of these two. The two stances are represented by two teachers: Friedrich Nietzsche and Jesus of Nazareth. Their fundamental disagreement? What it means to be human, and what it means to love.

The Ethics of Nature

There could hardly have been a more fitting philosopher to follow on the heels of Darwin's mid-19th-century discoveries than Nietzsche. Nietzsche translated into ethical-prescriptive terms ("ought") what for Darwin had merely been biological-historical description ("is"). Darwin's "survival of the fittest" in the war of nature became Nietzsche's "will to power":