Emerging Scholars Blog

InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network

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Summer Snapshot: Finding God When It’s Tough

lab photo

In today’s Summer Snapshot, an emerging scholar in our network shares about God’s faithfulness in a summer that turned out to be tougher than expected. Because some details in the post may be sensitive, at the request of the author we are sharing it anonymously, as we often do in similar cases. We are grateful for this very thoughtful contribution to the Summer Snapshot series, and pray that it is a blessing to others encountering challenges this summer. If you’d like to read other Summer Snapshots, you can find them here. 

I had high expectations for this summer. I was headed for a research internship at a prestigious institution, working in my first-choice lab out of over 100 in the department. I was also headed to the city I most wanted to be in for the summer. Shortly before leaving, one of my friends asked me if I was nervous. Almost immediately, I said, “Not really. I can’t wait.” [Read more…] about Summer Snapshot: Finding God When It’s Tough

Issues in College Christian Humanitarianism: Part 2

World Vision is a global Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender. Photo from WorldVision: Help Asia Tsunami Victims.

Is humanitarian need blind? In college, my Christian fellowship sponsored a fundraiser for victims of the Southeast Asian earthquake and tsunami, sending money to the explicitly Christian humanitarian relief organization World Vision. During the fundraiser, several people approached the coordinators and expressed relief at being able to donate to a Christian organization. One person said, “I don’t mind donating to a secular organization, but it somehow feels better to give to an organization that shares the same faith.” As one of the organizers, I asked myself, “What’s the difference between secular and faith-​​based groups if they’re doing the same thing? Do you need to be a Christian to hand out food and medical supplies? Can’t we all just work together?” All of these questions and struggles probe the complex issue of college Christian humanitarianism.

Wikipedia.org defines humanitarianism as “an informal ideology of practice, whereby people practice humane treatment and provide assistance to others . . . based on a view that all human beings deserve respect and dignity and should be treated as such.” We colloquially use the term “humanitarianism” to describe the general spirit behind the charity work that goes on in the world, but we must recognize that doing so ignores the fine distinctions between the philosophies that motivate such work. At first blush, these differences seem trivial or even unnecessary. We think, “Surely we can lay aside our prejudices and work together for a common cause.” There is an innate belief in our culture that charitable actions are — or at least can be — transcendent over differences, whether in race, culture, or religious belief. The chorus of the Nickelback song “If Everyone Cared” puts it starkly:

If everyone cared and nobody cried

If everyone loved and nobody lied

If everyone shared and swallowed their pride

Then we’d see the day when nobody died.

Prayer in Christian Medical Missions.

After all, does a person who is sick care about the ethnicity of the person administering medicine? Does a person starving to death care about the religion of the person handing out food? Probably not. We tend to assume that acute need is blind in the same way that justice should be blind: unbiased, unassuming, and “fair” to all people and all needs. [Read more…] about Issues in College Christian Humanitarianism: Part 2

College Christian Humanitarianism: Part 1

Picture from Blessed Are Those Who Mourn. Chris Nelson. InterVarsity Urban Project Blog. 3/23/2012.

Not long after graduating from college in 2005, I interviewed students on campus about their involvement in community service. All of them said that they spent less time doing community service in college than in high school, and most of them said that they felt disappointed or even guilty that this was the case. All of them had difficulty articulating why this shift had occurred. No one claimed a lack of opportunity or motivation, but two main barriers emerged. The predominant factor was about structuring time (as seems to be the case for most stresses in college life). One student noted that extracurricular activities, even the service-​​oriented ones, tended to be so organized that they required lots of time to participate; it seemed hard to find a service project that didn’t entail a weekly or regular commitment. Some said that social activities within the Christian fellowship consumed most of their scheduled time for extracurricular activities with the unfortunate consequence of squeezing out community service. One student said that he felt schoolwork was so intensive and pervasive that he “needed all the down time he could get” in order to maintain sanity and that, while community service was a good and worthwhile extracurricular, it wasn’t the best way to relax. Time spent with people in the Christian fellowship served a cathartic purpose in helping to de-​​stress with friends, focus on spiritual development, and restore a proper perspective and context for academics. However, even that time was rarely dedicated to service.

It should not come as a surprise that many college students feel a vague sense of dissatisfaction when it comes to the exercise of “compassion.” In the university, we become acutely aware of how unaware we are about the world’s condition and its disparities. We walk through the student center and pass by fundraisers for starving and abused children while on our way to eat buffet-style in dining halls. We pass by flyers about discussions on poverty and structural violence while on our way to formal parties and dinners. We may take on one or two causes with passion, but our knowledge of the world’s needs easily outstrips and exhausts our available time to do something about it. We feel guilty over not doing or caring “enough” about the throngs of causes and crises crying out for our attention, but when pressed for a response we sheepishly (or angrily) confess that we don’t even know where to begin. What is compassion and what does it mean to live compassionately? [Read more…] about College Christian Humanitarianism: Part 1