![]() Maria Ferrari is a Speech senior. She can be reached at [email protected]. |
The jury is in. I too agree with Marvin.
Before you hand me a T-shirt, understand that Marvin was very agreeable. Marvin told me the story of his life and I agreed: Yes, that’s the story of Marvin’s life. But Marvin’s speech was over as soon as we established this level of agreement.
Unfortunately, you can’t have a really gripping theological debate based entirely on personal testimony and Marvin forgot to tell me much about God.
Wednesday’s so-called panel discussion, which kicked off the week-long “Veritas Forum” sponsored by 15 Christian organizations, was an exercise in false advertising. Unless you are legally blind, you will have noticed the university Christians in their “I agree with Marvin” T-shirts and the fliers plastering campus like unto the dust of the earth. It was a masterful public-relations coup. Pick-Staiger Concert Hall was filled, orchestra and balcony, almost to capacity.
Kelly Monroe, editor of the book “Finding God at Harvard” and founder of the Veritas Forum, explained a peculiar trick of semantics in her introduction to the panel. We would be discussing, she explained, veritas: “truth not as an abstraction, but as a person.”
In a word, Jesus. With the redefinition of “truth” to refer not to the concept of “truth,” but to the person of Jesus, the Truth Forum became the Jesus Forum. And as the entire allotted hour and a half ticked away before the floor was finally opened to questions, the Jesus Forum became the Jesus Monologues.
There’s nothing wrong with a good, old-fashioned testimonial or seven but this was not the show I’d been promised. There was little point in having panelists of “different cultures and generations” because all of them were speaking from the same religious viewpoint. How can this help students, as Monroe suggested, “see if this vision of truth (Jesus) might sort of hold water from any angle?”
You don’t do a survey by sampling a wide demographic of people who agree with you already if you’re really hoping to learn something. The only “angle” explored here was that of the college-affiliated, post-conversion, non-denominational Christian and let’s face it, that’s a fairly specific view of Jesus.
That this massive event, which traveled all the way from Harvard to Northwestern, opted not to move beyond that view says little for our capacity to explore our “deepest questions,” as Monroe promised to do over and over again.
C.S. Lewis was quoted frequently throughout the evening, but had he been there, he would have been either bored to tears or horrified at the brief, facile Q&A.
Panelist and NU Associate Professor of Music Theory Richard Ashley was profound in describing what this campus actually needs: a forum in which persons of many faiths (including skeptics, I would hope) can engage in “serious, committed, truth-seeking dialogue.” I agree with him wholeheartedly, but this particular event hardly fit the bill.
Let us hope that the remainder of the Veritas Forum grapples with the issues a little more thoughtfully. Sitting through Wednesday’s session was like thinking you’ve won a vacation and then spending an hour in a cubicle listening to the benefits of time-share.
Dear Lord, I have been hoodwinked by Your followers.