God's Harvard by Hanna Rosin

Author:Hanna Rosin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mariner Books

Please God help me.

How will I know?

By faith alone

Go to Nineveh

Farahn felt like stubborn, resistant, desperate-to-run-away Jonah. A stronger power was making her do something she really did not want to do.

On the drive home, she said, “Mom? Do you think I am what you wanted me to be?”

WHAT DOES GOD want me to be? What does He want me to do? God, give me a clue here!!!! These sentences showed up in the Patrick Henry kids’ personal diaries, on their Facebook entries, in their Xanga posts. Should I apologize to my roommate? Should I study or go see a movie? Should I date this guy or not? Farahn was growing up in an age when a “personal relationship with Christ” meant exactly that—Jesus was held as close as a mother, a best friend, a girlfriend or boyfriend and, ultimately, a husband or a wife. No shift in routine or daily decision was beneath His attention.

The intimacy gave Patrick Henry kids a feeling of being guided, of things always being just as they should be. “Everything happens for the good, in a local and geopolitical sense,” one freshman told me. But it also made them panic about losing the thread. The predominant view among Patrick Henry students was that “you choose your life path, not that things happen to you,” Farahn once explained to me. “A lot of people here, if they lose control—even for a second—they have a breakdown.” Sometimes among these type A overachievers faith felt like yet another tool for maintaining discipline and control, part of the daily checklist of obligations (“take vitamins, do sit-ups, study, read Bible,” read one student’s Post-it above her bed).

“No excitement, no element of surprise. God is the God of order. And so they are psycho every minute of the day,” Farahn said.

Farahn believed what her mom told her, “that you are created by God for a reason and that reason will be revealed in God’s time.” But there were degrees of humility in how a believer approached that question. For Farahn, life was less a bright yellow brick road with a few distractions along the way than a minefield to be braved. “People say, ‘With God’s strength we will overcome,’” she said. “But in my view God puts those obstacles in your way to help you be who you are.” We are all Jonah vomited out in good time.

The Patrick Henry kids came of age when Bush was elected president. For most of their conscious lives, he served as the most prominent Christian in America. During his presidency, the same kind of doubt-free faith common at Patrick Henry prevailed at the White House. Every morning Bush was supposed to have read a book that showed up on many Patrick Henry reading lists: My Utmost for His Highest, a calendar of Bible thoughts by turn-of-the-century Scottish minister Oswald Chambers.

Chambers discourages second thoughts or critical reevaluation. He argues against layered readings of the Scripture or consorting with the “wise and prudent” to find hidden meaning.

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