Today was an experience! Or as I told Marc, "a day for the blog"!
We woke up this morning and drove from Phoenix to Tempe to go to ASU (Arizona State University), which apparently is the largest university in the nation. Interesting tid bit there for you. They have a religious group on campus called CoRA (Council of Religious Affairs) that set up an event called "I <3 Faith" where various religious groups on campus can come set up a table so that students can walk around and see their options of what is available to them.
Today was definitely an eye-opening day for a few reasons. You spend so much time around friends from church and just doing the same thing all the time that you don't really interact with new things/ideas so to see so much going on at one time was just crazy to me. But anyways, back to the story....
So we teamed up with YWAM, which stands for Youth with a Mission. That mission is to raise up and send out missionaries all over the world. We got there around 8:45 and helped set up, prayed for the table, and was introduced to a few people. Firstly, we met the leader of CoRA who reminded me of the Unitarian lady from The Truth Project. She said overall that their goal was to encourage spirituality on campus. Coming from a Christian, this kind of confused me, for what good is it to be spiritual if the spirit you're connected with is not true? Moving on from there, we walked around the campus. Marc talked to a couple people who were generally disinterested. They gave him the time of day but just didn't care about the whole "God thing". So we headed back to the table but on the way make a couple of stops. One of them was at "Youth Life", a Christian organization on campus that is all about fellowship. The guy was really into the fact that they are all about hanging out an developing relationships and the thing that drew him in was that "they're not always talking about stuff and trying to shove stuff down your throat". This made my heart sad to see Christians who weren't interested in the word. A woman from the group came over later and was talking to us about it and she said that at every meeting they share the gospel and a message and go into small groups so that was a little more encouraging.
Next we headed to the Mormon table! Exciting for me :) First I talked to the girl at the table who seemed a bit naive. We talked for about 20 minutes till this other guy, Mike, came and took over. He knew a little bit more than the girl did but I brought up a lot of questions to him that he wasn't really sure of. We talked for about 30 minutes and he agreed to go home and look up the different problems with the book of Mormon. He promised me that he would and in the mean time he told me to do 1 of 2 things. I replied with, "I'm not going to pray about the book of Mormon, so what's number 2?" I explained to him why and he said the other thing was to meet with a missionary. I told him that I am not new to talking to Mormons and about how many I've talked to in the past. He seemed a little astonished and told me instead of talking to a missionary to go to the institute of religion on campus (basically an LDS church where they teach their doctrine) and talk to one of the professors. Coincidentally, he happened to be walking by at the time so Mike pulled him over and I briefed him on what we had been talking about then I shared with him as I shared with Mike my skepticism of the Mormon beliefs/doctrines. It was really cool because I was able to give them the gospel, the true gospel, and also shared with them Galatians 1:8 which says, "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed." and then shared with them that if they died today I don't want them to be deceived by this other doctrine and go to hell because they believed wrongly. It was cool talking to this guy who has been a leader and a missionary and just educated and high up and giving him the gospel. Pray for the 2nd guy, Mike, because I really think that seeds were planted.
Moving on from there, Marc had been talking to this Christian guy named Rich (I think) who was super encouraged by our trip. He was really, really nice and showed us to our next destination: a religious panel of "experts" who were going to explain to us their religion's stance on the end of the world. First up was a professor of anthropology who spoke on the 2012 end of the world controversy. Long story short, myth busted, they don't believe it. It's just a difference in calendar styles.
Guy #2-Rabbi Lee, who was, obviously, Jewish. Strangely enough, the Jews apparently don't have a definite belief on what will happen in the end. They have ideas of peace & justice where the enemies of the Jews are destroyed and the Jews are regathered to their land and another view of a day of wrath but there is no definitive prophecy of what will happen. He even said, "We're not even sure if it will happen." Crazy!
Up next we had a pastor of a Methodist church. I was thoroughly disappointed with the lack of knowledge he had on the subject. He read a couple verses from Revelation and spent most of the time discussing whether or not the book was to be taken literally or figuratively. He spoke of the peace that would come in the end but said nothing of the rapture/tribulation/armageddon. I was totally disappointed.
After him was a representative of Islam who was extremely thorough in the things that he presented. A lot of it sounded similar to what Christians believe. He even had a very evangelistic approach as he spoke. Totally showed up the pastor.
Lastly we have the Mormon professor who spoke from Matthew 24, also explaining WAY more than the pastor did. The whole experience was an interesting learning experience but it opened my eyes to see how "politically correct" people have become. People won't stand fully for what they believe because they want to appeal to their colleagues and audience. The best one, sadly, was the Muslim.
After leaving there we left ASU and went back to Phoenix. In the morning we will be heading out to Flagstaff and from there, Utah.
:) see you soon
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