Arizona Christian University

Every university has a purpose, a mission. Ours is to prepare students for great jobs in a changing economy by providing a “biblically integrated education” that will prepare them to serve God in “ministries and professional occupations.”

But life is more than finding a good job and career. We all have gifts and abilities, a destiny and a purpose, and as followers of Christ we understand those gifts come from a loving God who directs our path. When we pursue His calling on our life, and take His truth and His principles into the world, we bring godly influence into our culture. And that is the vision for Arizona Christian University – to “educate and equip followers of Christ to transform culture with the truth.”

Can we at Arizona Christian University make a difference for the Kingdom of God? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time in history that God used students at a small college to bring cultural transformation.

A while back I was reading a book that talked about a nation that was “on the verge of moral disintegration.” What did that look like?

• One of the leaders of this nation lived in open adultery; part of the normal educational process was to teach young men the art of seduction;
• Marriage was “as much ridiculed by our young ladies as it used to be by young men” and was generally considered inconvenient – most couples chose to live together rather than marry;
• The moral laxity was reflected in the entertainment culture – popular entertainment was licentious; theatres were filled with “lewdness” and nudity,  and most literature provided cheap titillation;
• “meanwhile, the nation found itself enmeshed in the twin snares of drink and gambling;” every class of society suffered from drunkenness, and public gambling houses were officially licensed -- one writer said that “society was one vast casino”;
• “To make matters worse, the Government itself at once exploited and inflamed the universal desire for gain by sponsoring state lotteries;”
• Statistics on violent crime soared … prisons were overcrowded and tended to harden prisoners rather than reform them;
• Gangs of “hooligans roamed the city streets, clashing with their rivals or assaulting unsuspecting citizens”;
• The churches were empty or dead -- most of the people were completely indifferent to the claims of Christianity – and “little of Christianity is to be found among Christians themselves”;

Much of that sounds familiar to American Christians today, doesn’t it? But the book wasn’t about America today. It was describing Great Britain during the first half of the 18^th century. The book is “The Burning Heart: John Wesley, Evangelist,” and it was written 44 years ago, in 1967.

In the introduction, the author is describing what the nation of Great Britain looked like – laying a foundation for the the moral and spiritual mess into which John Wesley and George Whitefield and other Christian evangelists of that era were born. Now imagine what some followers of Christ in Great Britain might have been thinking in the first half of the 18^th century …

“I sure hope Jesus returns soon because this country is headed straight downhill.” Or: “If God doesn’t judge England he needs to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”

So how did God transform Great Britain?

Well, it started at a small college called Oxford, with a few young people gathering for prayer and reflection on their relationship with Christ, and it shook the world. As God changed and transformed and set on fire the hearts of the Wesley brothers and George Whitefield, the historical evidence is quite clear -- their prayers and their preaching had a transformative effect on that entire nation, and the Awakening that began in England spread to the New World and affected the very founding of the American republic.

All of the issues England was facing were affected by this awakening … Christian leaders like Wilberforce rose up in government and fought slavery … laws changed, behavior changed, crime, drunkenness, gambling, and prostitution declined, marriage was again respected. More importantly, the claims of Jesus Christ were understood and embraced by many millions.

The battles in England today – the loss of faith, the abandonment of Christianity to the sidelines of British culture – remind us that each generation must fight its own battles. Each generation in every nation has an opportunity and a challenge – to continue a culture’s departure from truth, or to be transformed together by the renewing of our minds … even more, to pursue relationship with God with a passion and a purity that can engage and revitalize an entire culture, and nation, and world.

So as we begin a new year, and new traditions at Arizona Christian University, I have two questions for our community:

Why not us? And why not now?