The Cornerstone

Now that the semester is steadily underway, and your schedule is more consistent, it is time to find a campus ministry to be a part of. There are a diversity of Christian clubs at Boise State that meet at different times. Although they have different names, are organized differently, or have different emphases, they all belong to the body of Christ and love serving together. The unity of the Christian clubs makes interaction with and between them very enjoyable; it also makes it easier for someone who is trying to find a club that suits them. On our community link, we have listed several of the Christian clubs on campus with a short description (click here).

Being a Christian without any peer fellowship can feel like being lost in the middle of the cosmos: which direction do you go, is anyone there for you, how can you help others? It is refreshing and encouraging to meet with people who hold similar beliefs – to mutually support each others struggles and joys. Many college students find themselves “loosing touch with God” when they go off to college (away from their close friends and family). This is not because there are doubts and questions that cannot be worked through, but often because people become weary and discouraged when they try to work through them on their own.

Besides the support of others, being a part of a club has the potential for much growth, learning, and fun. Experiences like taking a weekend to go on a prayer backpack rarely happen on one’s own, and never have the same results when done in a group (who doesn’t want to throw a campus minister into a pond, or discuss God’s love while gazing at the night sky). Not to say that individual experiences are not valuable, but that group activities are also important. God is doing different things in different people: they can bring perspectives different from your own to discussions. Interacting in groups also gives you a chance to practice using the gifts that God has given you to encourage others.

If you are not already part of group, begin by looking at our community page and see if there are any groups that interest you. Go check a couple of them out, and find some people that you can grow in God with. The benefits of fellowshipping with others are far reaching, but they include helping and being helped by others, practicing gifts, sharing insights with each other, working through struggles together, and being able to pray for one another. Don’t become discouraged by being isolated!

The modern university is supposed to be a place of intellectual stimulus and growth – an environment where students and faculty can explore new ideas. It is thought that an environment with a diversity of ideas that can be tested against one another, no matter how unlikely the ideas may be, will produce truth. However, there is a growing complaint that universities have grown narrow in their criteria for what ideas are worthy to be tried, and that professors are only teaching biased sides of controversial issues. This complaint has led some to examine the university system to test whether there is real academic freedom.

On Tuesday, September 15^th, David Horowitz will be speaking at 7:30 pm in the Jordan Ballroom at BSU on academic freedom.

The event is free of charge, but donations are accepted.

This event is presented by The College of Idaho Students for Economic Freedom, The Boise State Conservative Student Coalition, and The Idaho Freedom Foundation.

What do Ben Stein and Teddy Roosevelt have in common?  If you have seen the movie Expelled and read the Teddy Roosevelt quote below, you will know.  If you haven’t yet seen the movie please come to Boise State University’s SUB Lookout Room on Thursday, April 9th at 7:00 p.m. It’s FREE, so come and bring your friends. As you can tell from the quote below, Teddy would have liked the movie!

Teddy Roosevelt says:

There is superstition in science quite as much as there is superstition in theology, and it is all the more dangerous because those suffering from it are profoundly convinced that they are freeing themselves from all superstition. No grotesque repulsiveness of medieval superstition, even as it survived into nineteenth-century Spain and Naples, could be much more intolerant, much more destructive of all that is fine in morality, in the spiritual sense, and indeed in civilization itself, than that hard dogmatic materialism of to-day which often not merely calls itself scientific but arrogates to itself the sole right to use the term. If these pretensions affected only scientific men themselves, it would be a matter of small moment, but unfortunately they tend gradually to affect the whole people, and to establish a very dangerous standard of private and public conduct in the public mind.

Theodore Roosevelt

The Search For Truth In A Reverent Spirit, Outlook, Dec. 2^nd, 1911