935 - School Spirit, Part 3 – True Religion
Friends: Meet Cliff. Cliff’s awesome. If you haven’t run into him on the internet, you might run into him on an American college campus explaining Jesus. Posting early this week due to MCA Fall Break. Blessings, Bob
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Spirituality
Column #935
October 15,
2024
Common
Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
School
Spirit, Part 3 – True Religion
By Bob
Walters
“But in
your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to
everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. Do this
with gentleness and respect.” – 1 Peter 3:15
“What I
am saying is true and reasonable.” Paul to Festus and King Agrippa, Acts 26:25
Over the
past couple years Cliffe Knechtle has become something of a YouTube, internet,
and college campus sensation with brief videos airing all over social media.
Ask Cliffe a
hard question about Christ, the Bible, or religion in general, and right there,
whether amid Christians or – quite frequently – a skeptical crowd on the campus
square, he’s always prepared to provide true, reasoned, gentle, and respectful
answers.
Whether it is
a Christian school or even the lion’s den of the Ivy League, dialogues range
from reassuring explanations to rebuttals of challenges. My favorites are the arrogant, cynical, know-it-all
undergrad philosophy majors who take the tone of patronizing this poor sap who
actually thinks Jesus, salvation, eternity, the Bible, God, and the Holy Spirit
are true. And, for questioners from other faiths, that God is the One True God.
Cliffe immediately says things in reasoned ways I wish I could think to say.
Cliffe is
fun to listen to. But an overnight sensation?
He has pursued his “Give Me an Answer” college ministry for 40-plus
years, including television in the 1990s.
A gifted
street preacher and apologist, Cliffe is also senior pastor of Grace Community
Church in New Canaan, Connecticut, which was actually organized in 2001 around
his Bible teaching talents. His books include Give
Me an Answer (1986), Help
Me Believe (2002), and Heaven
Can't Wait (2005).
Turns out
Cliffe and I are the same age, born days apart in May 1954. And, the church he
pastors first met on Sept. 2, 2001, the exact date I first attended church as
an adult … any church. It’s what I call
my “Awake Date.” Maybe that’s why I like
him.
Age 70,
then, and Cliffe isn’t slowing down. Three weeks ago at the invitation of the
Yale Christian Union, Cliffe (and son Stuart, a minister) spent six hours sharing
with and being challenged by Yale students in Beinecke Plaza. Here is a
five-minute clip of a discussion with a Jewish student about the Bible,
morality, and modern values (LINK).
Video
snippets of Cliffe’s encounters pop up regularly on social media. His ministry has 719,000 subscribers on YouTube
and 1.4 million followers on Instagram.
Cliffe won’t
solve the entire problem of the Christian deserts that American colleges have worked
so hard to become – officially and administratively – but ministries like his
prove the Spirit moves in places where Christ’s truth is attacked.
And one more
thing about the event at Yale … it was not a “school sponsored” event by an
approved student body club. ChristianUnion.org (LINK) is a
ministry based in Princeton, N.J., that has a dozen chapters around the Ivy
League and other schools. My guess is that “Christian Union” is on the more
liberal side of the Christian doctrinal ledger: its website talks a lot about
“transforming society” but not much about Jesus.
That’s a
warning light, to me, but as long as Christian Union is willing to put Cliffe unmuted
on the college green, the seeds of Christian truth are sown.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com)
prays the soil is fertile, not fallow. Come, Lord Jesus.
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