The Everyday Club

11/16/10    Gene,    about 22
When sharing our faith with someone with a post-modern, post- Christian mindset who rejects belief in "God", we must first help them understand more about just what "God" it is that they are rejecting. Today while out jogging, I met an IIT physics student named Gene who quickly displayed many traits of post moderns - a lack of belief in absolute truth, a constant questioning of the basic meanings of words, a lack of meaning in life or any sort of authority to which he is accountable to, and Biblical illiteracy. He even questioned his own existence, taking great pride in his own enlightened acceptance of the meaninglessness of this world. He claims he does not believe in the Judeo-Christian God, yet his biblical illiteracy keeps him from really understanding just what it is he rejects. After we talked quite a while, I asked 2 things: 1.) does he believe the existence of God as described in the Bible is possible (yes) and 2.) Does he know how he would be judged by that God? Like most people, he believes he is a very good person, but the idea of being accountable to God seemed foreign to him. In fact, he said he would judge God, blaming Him for the mess this world is in. I talked about some of the specific commandments God uses as his standard of judgment, and how because he is without excuse he would be found guilty of breaking them because he has a God-given conscience that tells him right from wrong. Gene never had a conversation like this with his friends or other students, and thanked me as I left. Though Gene gave me no outward reason to claim success, I believe God is at work in his life because some seeds of truth have been planted.