Entering College

 

s high school graduation came to an end, I poured through a Michigan Tech brochure of extracurricular activities. Feelings of excitement grew within me as I embarked on my mission to discover the best Christian organization to engage with. Campus Crusade for Christ stood out to me like a lightbulb to a moth. It sounded exactly like the kind of organization I desired: Christians with purpose. I wanted none of this “Intervarsity Christian Fellowship” stuff which sounded like a group of people smiling and relaxing in their little faith-bubbles while ignoring the ultimate demise awaiting everyone else around them due to their lack of obedience.

             Campus Crusade for Christ impressed me immediately as I made my way to my first meeting. I could hear the praise music coming through the walls as I walked through the Cafe in the basement of Wadsworth Hall. I relished their lack of fear to be singing the praises of our mighty God in such a public space. I walked in and everyone smiled joyfully as they sang. The praise leader, Dan, rocked-out his electric guitar while the drummer banged away rhythmically. After the music, Dan welcomed all the new students. I no longer have a clue what he talked about, of course, but he appeared to be a confident senior student in charge of the meeting and brimming with the adoration of all the members. I loved that the students were the ones running the meetings and that everyone had the opportunity to participate if they so desired.

             I soon joined The Elite Forces, one of many men’s Bible studies hosted by the Crusade students.  We each had our own code name to solidify our awesomeness and we even purchased chooks (a knitted hat) and hoodies. They both sported an emblem of a beret with a dagger and a Bible along with our code name and a reference to Joel 2:11: “The Lord thunders at the head of his army; his forces are beyond number, and mighty is the army that obeys his command.”

My friend Harvey and I chose our code names from Final Fantasy IX. I dubbed myself Zidane and he went with Vivi. We were the best of friends in college and I somewhat partially took credit for his conversion to the faith. It is a fairly simple yet perplexing story in that Harvey one day got a call from someone named Sean who told him to check out Crusade. This call did not come from me, however, and he knew no other Sean. Nor did I know any other Sean. He had yet to even meet me when the call came in, and there were no other people named Sean in Crusade. So when he did meet me, he saw this as a sign from God to follow me into Crusade.

             Harvey and I got along great; we were a lot alike in many ways. He had a wry sense of humor and a no-nonsense kind of attitude which I resonated with greatly. We would often challenge each other about all kinds of things and we kept a not-so-accurate mental record of wins and losses. Well, at least I did. Two of the most prominent events were in the pronunciation of the words finite and archangel. Up until this time, I had always thought finite was pronounced as it is in infinite. He rightly mocked me for this when he heard me say it so wrongly and we opened up Merriam Webster Online to determine my failure.

I clicked the speaker icon beside the word in order to hear the pronunciation. This triggered the Winamp media player to open which happened to be set to repeat and at a significantly loud volume. My defeat echoed loud, clear, and all too repetitively: “FINITE, FINITE, FINITE!!” I made sure to set it up the same way for his benefit when we looked up how to pronounce archangel. He had thought the arch portion was pronounced the same as in arch-enemy and I enjoyed the retribution of the correction.

             Harvey and I talked a lot about God together and I acted much like his mentor since he had only just accepted Christ. We spent most every day together and had many serious conversations. We also engaged in some serious brawling in Super Smash Brothers and dancing in Dance Dance Revolution—a very serious friendship to be sure. We stayed around each other when going on retreats with Crusade and we made a ritual of doing skits together for the talent show nights. I generally had to beg him to do it, but I always felt he enjoyed the peer pressure.

One retreat in particular, Harvey and I both wore one of a pair of boxing gloves up until the skit we had already planned to perform. He played the character of Strong Bad and I played Homestar Runner—both from the then-popular video comic at homestarrunner.com. During that retreat, I hosted a workshop where I used Trogdor, a comedic sketch of a dragon who “burninates” thatch-roofed cottages from that same comic series, as an acrostic for what we should be hunting: Truth, Righteousness, Openness, Goodness, and some other words to make the acrostic work. I had hoped to make my workshop interesting, memorable, and useful.

             The volunteer staff person, Bill, paid my way for each retreat—about $80 if memory serves me right. I had not fully understood this since he presented the option as a scholarship that I simply applied for and always received. I had in my mind that I gained access free of charge as opposed to putting the burden on someone else. I probably would not have done that to him if I had known. Bill was a very kind and gentle person. He had many children who were all homeschooled by his wife. I never saw him raise his voice and he always wore an expression of interest, concern, kindness, and gentleness. He helped orchestrate Crusade, but he almost always had the students act as the real leaders. I saw him as the glue that held everyone together.

             The retreats were easily the most memorable parts of Crusade. We usually had both men’s retreats and co-ed retreats each semester. The women, of course, had their own retreats as well, but God only knew what happened at those—apart from the women, of course. The co-ed retreats were always much larger and had a lot going on with workshops, talent shows, praise music, Bible studies, and other events like rock-wall climbing. We would also merge with a Crusade group from Northern Michigan University so we met a lot of new people as well. The men’s retreats, though smaller, were an amazing time to bond and talk about perceived manly things. This usually dove into the realm of relationships and sexuality while often having a masculine theme of fighting the good fight and warring against the devil while watching movies like Braveheart.

             One men’s retreat had a fairly ritualistic indoctrination into an Authentic Manhood fraternity. We were all blindfolded as we followed one another in a line as Dan led us. We found ourselves near a campfire and one by one we agreed to abide by purportedly godly and manly standards of this authentic manhood. The ritualistic aspect had no real meaning except to be fun and memorable, of course, but I certainly took my vows seriously to reject passivity, accept responsibility, lead courageously, and to expect God’s greater reward. We each accepted the challenge to forever abide by these principles in the way which they were each explained to us, and we were given a card to keep in our wallets to remind us day to day. I felt as if these kinds of events were invaluable since they focused on practical application of the faith and how we ought to behave unlike the teachings of many churches that care more for the theology of God’s sacrifice and pander to those who need to hear “God loves you” on a regular basis.

             Much of my first year in Crusade consisted of these experiences as I tasted what Crusade had to offer. I took part in things that were opened up to everyone, but I did not take much of a leadership role except for during Freshman Night when we took over the weekly meeting to do our own thing. I actually began my journey into playing the guitar during Freshman Night in order to briefly mimic Dan in a comedy sketch along the lines of Celebrity Jeopardy as made famous by Saturday Night Live. Instead of celebrities, we mocked our student leaders. I dyed my hair yellow to match Dan’s interesting attempt to bleach his black hair, and I learned to play the chorus of the song Days of Elijah which he disproportionately loved more than other praise songs. I would often answer the religious-oriented questions by busting out into song as part of the gag.

             This simple act of succeeding at playing the chorus of a single song encouraged me to learn even more. Before I knew it, I found myself quite capable—even if a tad imperfect—and so I joined the Crusade praise band the following year. I then became a co-leader of the band the year after that. Along with leading the praise band, I began going to the leadership meetings, volunteering to lead a few nights of the Elite Forces Bible study with hopes of taking it over later, and joining the leadership Bible study hosted by Bill. I presented some of my own talks at the weekly meetings and I took over leading a prayer group every morning as well.

             For my first talk, I discussed how we ought to spend our free time focusing on outreach. I explained the great commission to go and spread the good news and how Jesus said he would make us fishers of men rather than consumers of media. I presented the many verses of extremism regarding the futility of this life and how we should give up everything in order to seek the kingdom of God. I complemented this by explaining that life is temporary prior to eternal life which made this life fairly meaningless and quite worthy to trade in. This made an exquisite argument in my eyes. This life meant nothing at all and many unaware people would be cast into a lake of fire for all eternity if we did not stop it. We could not possibly consider ourselves loving if we did not warn people and show them the way. Such logic could not be refuted in my eyes.

             Of course, most people did not seem ready for that kind of commitment which had always shocked me. It seemed as if they did not really believe or understand the gravity of the message Jesus preached. Why did they care so much for things of this world which would merely pass away prior to eternity? It would leave them unrewarded “as a man escaping a fire” as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 3:15. It made no sense to me, but indeed Jesus said in Matthew 7:13-14 that the path is narrow that leads to life and few there are who find it. This concept would forever stick with me throughout my spiritual journey. The Bible warned about selfish thinking and worrying about this life rather than considering the next, but most everyone seemed to ignore such warnings. I found it quite foolish and unloving to forget the rest of the world and to think only of one’s own career, relationships, and entertainment. It also appeared quite short-sighted to live in such a way as to merely escape a fire and to be left unrewarded in heaven.

             The song “That’s All the Lumber” by Eli rang continually in my mind. Eli sang of a man who died and went to heaven where St. Peter met him and led him toward the house he had built given the actions of his life. They walked past great mansions and the houses dwindled down as they continued until they stopped at a simple shack. The man was taken aback that he deserved a mere shack. Peter explained that the builder could do no better with the amount of metaphorical lumber that the man had sent up with his actions throughout his life. The man, understandably saddened, wished to do it all over again and to live a better life full of actions like helping old ladies across the street such that he would deserve the greatest mansion ever. This song resonated with me deeply, and I certainly did not want to earn a mere shack for myself.

             My radical nature grew continually as I read the Bible. So many verses seemed to indicate that we should not care for this life at all and that we should give up everything for God to advance his kingdom. Jesus said that anyone who sets his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God. We were supposed to press on and forget our old life. He said we were to hate our own family for the sake of the kingdom. I personally understood this as hyperbolic metaphor contrasting our love for God, but this is still quite radical in nature. You can find many of these radical verses which impacted me early on in the Scripture section at the end of this book.

My faith in the kingdom of God and our pending judgements to come left me with so little regard for this life that on September 11, 2001, I felt very little as I saw on TV that terrorists had hijacked planes and crashed them into the gigantic twin towers of New York. I was not nearly as torn-up and shocked as everyone else. I felt saddened that our country had so far removed itself from God’s graces that this could happen, and I longed for people to come back to God because of it, but I did not grieve for the loss of lives directly—I instead grieved for the perceived cause. Sure, I thought, people died, but this happens all the time and is expected for all of us. This life is meaningless and our rejection of God is certainly grounds for him destroying us. It is our own fault.

             I determined that those who were torn up about the destruction of the towers were simply misled into thinking that importance should be attributed to this life. I convinced myself further that anyone leading a Godly life would not have been in those buildings or planes when they crashed—unless, of course, God had already planned for their arrival in heaven. The majority of those who died would obviously be the heathens that were evil to their core and would not soon be repenting anyway. It saddened me to think that so many died due to their rejection of God, but it was an expected outcome for all sinners. This could not even compare to what awaited everyone as prophesied in Revelation. And Revelation further paled in comparison to hell.

I actually found it rather exciting that such events were occurring. With every new announcement of war and death, I believed we were that much closer to the return of Christ, and I hoped that I might very well be alive to witness it. While much of the world grieved and worried, I found myself calloused and even slightly bubbly at the inevitable return of Christ as surely as many other Christians in the country felt as well.

             Today, I am sickened by this fact. I now care for all life and not only the life of God’s supposed chosen. I previously reasoned that non-Christians were destined to hell so it did not really matter what happened to them in this life when the next one was so filled with torment anyway. How does blowing up in a building compare if the next minute you begin eternal torment? As a humanist, I now value everyone’s life and it pains me how inhumane in thought I could have been. I can only see that perspective, however, without the threat of hell.

I behaved lovingly to all as best I could in hopes of sharing the love of God, but I really had no concern for what happened to an unbeliever apart from an act of conversion. God had no such care himself, so why should I? Bad events were the just desserts of a heathen. I would simply shrug with an air of, “Well, I guess you should have listened to God” while grieving only in that it had to come to this due to their close-minded ways. God would be doing far worse to them himself so I could hardly consider these events anything worth crying over. I wished such people would come to God and I cared for their eternal souls, but I saw it as their own fault if they refused so obvious and generous a gift as God had given us.

             As a humanist, I do not see much of anything as anyone’s fault anymore. We are a product of our environment and our genes. We are individually responsible for our actions, of course, but I can no longer pass judgement when I am fully aware that if I were them I would have done the exact same thing by definition of being them. I would not wish terrible deeds to go without repercussion and with zero responsibility, but I cannot possibly consider myself a better person any longer. Instead, I merely consider myself much more fortunate. And this has made quite a difference for me.

Mankind is not created equal such that we can compare against one another and consider ourselves better for the choices we have made. It should be obvious by looking around that we are not all equally capable and this is a product of our circumstances rather than our choice. This is exactly what Jesus taught as evidenced by his saving the woman from being stoned by the Pharisees. She had been caught in sexual sin and Jesus merely offered that he who had not also sinned should throw the first stone. He recognized that no one has any claim to superiority over anyone else. We all fail in our own ways, and in any way we succeed, it is not at all something that we so honorably chose for ourselves with some pure moral intention. Chance wrought us our way of life. We should all be treated with dignity and respect, but only a fool would assume that all mankind is on a level playing field and have only their own choices to blame. And a fool I was for some time.

             Despite my obscene outlook for the future of humanity at the tormentous hand of God with the promise of sin running unstoppably rampant, I still welcomed people openly. I focused a lot of my attention on looking out for anyone who seemed down and depressed, confused, or in need of a helping hand. I had a knack for reading a person’s state of mind and engaging if something did not seem right. I readily and willingly helped anyone in need if I knew how to help and even quite often if I had no clue whatsoever. In this way, people often trusted me and appreciated me even if they did not always agree with me. I enjoyed helping the downhearted and mistreated. I still care even today, but I am forced to find new methods—methods far different from the ones I was about to learn which quite often inflicted far more pain and suffering than I could have imagined.