The Everyday Club

9/22/10     Dave     early 20's
Martin (a church brother) and I went to the student center at IIT to initiate a gospel conversation. We met Dave, who is a chemical engineering student and a member of the armed forces, having been stationed recently in Turkey. Dave grew up in a Catholic family and, after exploring other religions and philosophies both through study and experience, still considers himself to be Catholic. He believes everyone will go to heaven, with no one being punished for sin because he thinks that, deep down, everyone is basically good at heart. He acknowledges the evil that is so prevalent in this world but attributes it to peer pressure - that otherwise good people do evil actions because of the bad influence of being in groups. When asked about how he thought God would judge him his focus was on the corporate sin that all of us are caught up in as part of being in this sinful world, such as our support of companies that use child labor or pollute the environment. After hearing all this my goal was to help him take personal responsibility for his sins against God. I started with Adam and Eve, and how they rebelled against the one simple law God gave them not because of peer pressure but because though they knew right from wrong they chose to disobey anyway. From there we see God holding all humanity responsible because we all have "the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 3:22) and choose to disobey regardless, putting ourselves first over obedience to God. I went on to explain how God's love for justice and his love for the world were both satisfied at the cross of Christ. Dave was running late for a meeting, but was clearly considering much that he hadn't considered before.