This letter is in response to Steve Witucki’s Viewpoint article, “Pride in religious faith” (April 16, 1997). I do not understand why you are so insecure about your religious faith. Could it be that a university education is too much of an enlightening experience for your restricted habits of thinking? I’m sure you don’t challenge Darwin’s theory of evolution in class because you are unable to. It makes great sense, doesn’t it? It isn’t the tidy, convenient little bedtime story that you are used to like that of Adam and his rib-woman. Newsflash … it’s the late 20th century!
Only racists and pigs tell sick, racial or raunchy, sexual, misogynist jokes. It has nothing to do with being non-Christian. It’s called being inhumane. By the way, when Noah (Genesis 9:18-27) declared that the sons of Seth and Japheth could enslave the offspring of Ham, the sons of Canaan, was that an endorsement of theft, as well as rape and murder? Or just your everyday enslavement of innocent women and children with a different culture? It didn’t take the Bible long to concentrate on an agenda of racial prejudice once that evil woman destroyed the goodness of all men. Of course, I know that these are only myths, so let’s not go there.
You complained that there is no religious education on campus and that you are ashamed to ask theological questions in class. Hello? Turn over your rock. There is a religious studies department on campus. Is that “academic” enough for you? You can inquire about all the things you so blindly have faith in any day of the week unless, of course, you fear that the professors are in the grips of Satan and will try to turn off the little, fundamentalist penlight in your head. So far this year, I have read major sections of the works of St. Augustine, St. Francis and Thomas Aquinas … Ssshhh … I forgot … They represent the institutional Catholic Church, and you are way beyond that.
An erudite Episcopalian once told me: “My young friend, if you want to be a good Christian, you must challenge your faith daily.” Hey, kind of like what Socrates (that “Egypt-thieving,” blasphemous pagan) was saying about knowing thyself. Ooh, scary concept. Probably “satanic.”
“God bless” the secular university! Nobody is keeping you from being a Christian at SDSU. You have more support groups on campus than an overeating, hypochondriac, gambling alcoholic. If you really want to eat, sleep and drink the Lord all day, Point Loma Nazarene is a hop, skip and a leap of faith away. They have bigger … golden … rocks to hide under.
Theo van Joolen
European studies senior
co-founder of the SDSU Secular Society
e-mail: vanjoole@mail.sdsu.edu
