Winter into Spring VIII: Muslims

In both Newcastle and Dundee, especially the latter, the events were attended by a number of Muslim students. I was struck by the diversity in this ‘community’. There was the British young lady in her hijab, the mature Iranian man who can’t go back home for fear of the state, the Egyptian post-graduate student who asked me why Christians are so reticent to be public about their religion, the young lady from a very tightly-controlled country who told me she had rejected the Wahabi interpretation of Islam when she saw what IS was doing, and the Arab student who identified as an atheist (more about him later).

Those that attended events listened respectfully and were happy to discuss the issues that arose. There were no heated arguments, no verbal attacks. On first entering the marquee they were perhaps a little uncomfortable, wondering, probably, if they were allowed. But a welcome by a student or CU guest soon put them at ease.

One leader of the Islamic Soc. in Newcastle attended a lunch bar and asked me a load of questions about the logistics of the venue, etc.: he was getting ideas for their own events week!

Another male student, from Pakistan, came during the morning slack time when the marquee was open for coffee. We had a respectful and frank exchange of views and I gave him my email if he should want to contact me later. I received an email a few weeks later apologising if he had given offence (he had not) and said he would come back to me with more questions.

The high point from the point of view of witness to Muslims, was the dialogue between an Imam and a Pastor in Dundee. Imam Jabil, a local mosque leader, shared the stage with Duncan Peters from Glasgow, with the two-hour event ably chaired by a retired Dundee lecturer. The chair had made a list of questions which he asked in turn, with each man having three minutes to answer each question. At the end, questions were fielded from the floor, with the whole event lasting two hours.

About 15 Muslim students attended as well as around the same number of CU members and a few of us others. The Arab atheist stood at the back nearly the whole time (arriving slightly late). He was clearly flabbergasted at what he was witnessing – a friendly sharing of views. He asked me who had organised the event. Afterwards he stayed to talk, not giving too much away but telling me he was unimpressed by the answers the Imam was making.

I thought this event was a modest success. The big gain for the CU is that it provided an environment for building relationships and in which the sharing of the gospel was entirely natural. It was important for those of us who organised this that the event should not be a debate but a dialogue. The former can sometimes cause people to feel threatened, leading them to become defensive and combative. Here no one felt under attack; all were happy to talk afterwards. Duncan’s fresh translation of Luke’s Gospel – Holy Injil: Luke– was available for people to take afterwards. A number of the Muslims who attended came back for subsequent events.

It would be great to see such events put on in universities throughout Europe, especially where there are a significant number of Muslim students. We need to help students to create concrete ways in which they can show love to their classmates, and in which the truth of the person of Jesus and his saving work can be shared respectfully and humanely.

Winter into Spring VII: Hindus

I got to share the gospel with a number of Hindus in all four locations I visited over the past few months. Nearly all were international students.

in Dundee a group of post-graduate students from India joined us for dinner one evening. It was hard to discern if they had anything more than a passing interest in what was going on. They asked intelligent questions and listened respectfully. There was a marked ignorance (I don’t mean that pejoratively) among the group, of our message. One asked me, “You know there are three types of Christianity?” I asked him what he meant, and he replied, “You know, those who worship Jesus, those who worship Mary, and those who worship Satan”! Some serious groundwork needed there. These were intelligent young men but with very little awareness of who Jesus is or what he has done. (On a side note, I just about managed to prevent them from eating the beef – ‘Cottage Pie’ could be anything to the uninitiated. Thankfully there was a vegetarian option.)

Two Hindus stood out for me. One was a young lady in Aber who had migrated from Nepal in her mid-teens. She had heard of Yeshu in Nepal and thought it must be a foreign god. She was astonished when I told her that the Jesus who we talk about here is the same person!

I had the joy of interacting with one recent Indian graduate in Utrecht. He had been involved in a Globe Café and was reading John Uncovered with his new friends. We talked seriously until it was time to leave. His first question to me after hearing Lindsay speak on ‘Why Bother with Jesus’ was this: If this is true what does it mean for the Indian villager who has never heard? Wow! This was no smug attempt to humiliate me – he was probably thinking of his grandmother. I told him how we all alike are held responsible for the way we have handled the light we have received and that we can only be saved by conscious faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. His reaction was to say something along the lines that, if that is the case, people need to get the message out. Indeed.

I wrote a piece on Sharing Jesus with Hindu Friends for bethinking here.

Winter into Spring V: sub-Saharan Africans

In most of the universities I met a few students either from Africa itself or of African heritage. I will mention some under Islam and Roman Catholicism but here want to point out an African group of which we need to be aware – those who are scarred by the prosperity gospel. This is, of course, no gospel at all but a false teaching. In its milder forms it is repeated by poorly trained pastors who are simply not reading their Bibles carefully, leading to disappointment and disenchantment. In its extreme forms it can involve serious child abuse and even murder. In between are a host of different churches and denominations, many of which have a presence in the UK. Young people are coming to university in the UK from a background that is heavily impacted by such groups. 

On the one hand there will be those, like a young lady I met before in Leeds, who are sceptical of the claims of the gospel because they have never had their questions answered. Prosperity preachers confuse the gospel with material success and seem to have no inclination to engage with the difficult questions that are pressing to their young people – sexuality, climate change, work. 

On the other hand, there will be those, like a young man I met in Newcastle, who have been badly burned by their experience of church. Jim, I will call him, recounted how he had gone with his mother to a big event at the O2 Arena as a child and been thoroughly turned off by the obvious fraud that was going on – fake healing etc. He now considered himself an agnostic.

So young people from such backgrounds arrive at university with a shaky faith (if any) and a tenuous attachment to church. Reaching out to such students in their early days is vital if they are not going to be lost altogether.

Even still, however, events weeks will pull some along. They will listen. They will ask questions. Are we sufficiently aware of these folk and ready to handle them sensitively?

Winter into Spring: Reflections on Student Ministry 2019

As winter turns to spring, it has become my custom, over the last three years, to focus my energies on student evangelism. This year it has been my privilege to be involved in four universities. My first trip was to Aberystwyth (my alma mater) to speak at a special Globe Café; after that I joined others to speak and help out at events weeks in Dundee, Newcastle, and Utrecht in the Netherlands. As in previous years, I was invited to these events especially, but not exclusively, in order to help the students with their outreach to international students.

As I experienced in 2017 and 2018, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and tired myself out in equal measure. I was impressed again with the hard work and dedication of the students in each of these universities. A significant core of leaders were joined by others pitching in to help with the many practical jobs that make an event like this work.

These students were ably supported by their staff workers (UCCF in the UK, and IFES, Ichthus, and CFSR in the Netherlands). One or two decisions that were made by the students might have been better had they consulted their staff worker or experienced guest speaker more closely, but it is easy to see this in hindsight, and I am sure the CUs will learn from experience for future years.

In each place, the students created an atmosphere of warm hospitality; there was a true community feel, which a number of guests remarked on. This is surely very significant. By doing this they are creating a ‘plausibility structure’, as Newbigin called it, for the gospel: as people are welcomed into a room or tent by a group of students who share a love for the Lord Jesus, they are presented with an apologetic for the gospel even before anyone opens their mouth. And as public life becomes increasingly rancorous and nasty, such honest friendliness stands out all the more.

I was struck again this year by the importance of the development of ongoing long-term relationships by CU members with their unbelieving friends. So many students I talked to told me that they had been brought along by a friend and in some cases by one with whom they were already reading the Bible. It is lovely to see the patient plodding of CU members rewarded with the acceptance of an invitation to a special event.

The Utrecht mission – Passion Week, as they call it there – was the first for me in Continental Europe. It was only the second Passion Week they had run – the idea is still quite new in the Netherlands. The week was run by a few keen students who worked well together.

The student scene in the Netherlands is complicated: not only do you have Agape (Campus Crusade) and the Navigators operating on campus (just as they are on a few campuses in the UK) but there are also multiple organisations affiliated to IFES. Ichthus, the group that was mainly running the Passion Week has about 120 students in Utrecht but only about a dozen were really involved in the events. The Passion Week has the potential to make a big impact on the university, but it needs to be brought front and centre of what Ichthus are doing, rather than continue as a side show for a special interest group. The result of the lack of wider involvement was a poor turn out for the most part, although, and I don’t know why, the last night was unexpectedly packed.

One of the key issues for the events is the venue. In recent years many CUs in the UK have hired a marquee. In both Dundee and Newcastle, the marquee was pitched bang in the centre of campus. Handing out flyers and inviting students along was easy. The sheer fact of the tent was a draw, but the value goes far beyond that. The CU make it their home for the week – the hard-core sleep in it overnight to keep any equipment from being nicked – and there is always coffee on the brew so people to drop in for a chat. It comes at a high price – Dundee paid £3.5k for theirs but the Student Union paid for Newcastle’s – but it is well worth it.

In Utrecht the group hired a large open room in the main campus building – a sort of balcony of the refectory – for the lunch bars, which also worked well. I was surprised to find, however, that some students struggled to find it.  Such venues need to be well sign posted. In the evening we met in a welcoming church building in the city centre, which I thought worked fine.

I am impressed with the quality of the talks in these events. This year was no exception, though one talk I heard mixed psychobabble with gospel creating a confusing message in my opinion. How important it is to ensure the speakers are up to the challenge of appropriate engagement with faithful content. When the message is clear and true and warmly delivered it is dynamite. I lost count of the times I heard a student say something like this: “I have never heard anything like that before!” How easy it makes the job of the student friend or CU guest as they seek to answer questions and urge them to consider the claims of Christ further.

We had quite a few interviews in Dundee and Newcastle and I was involved in some myself, as the interviewer. These were a mixed bag. CUs need to be careful who they ask to be interviewed. A guest interviewee who has a dramatic story may get carried away and give precious little for the interviewer to grab a hold of. Or the student might be so nervous he is constantly looking down at his script and it all looks so stilted and wooden. As the majority of guests these days are not from believing families, it is best to carefully limit the number of interviewees who have parents who took them to church from their infancy. It simply doesn’t connect with the experience of the listeners. The best interviews I listened to this year were of two students who, just a year before, had been invited along to an event and had trusted Christ. What a testimony!

Enough for now. In the coming days I shall comment on the students I met – national and international, secular and religious.