One of my favorite passages in the book of Acts is in chapter 17 when Paul visits Rome and preaches in the Areopagus to the intellectual elites of the city, telling how he saw an altar “To An Unknown God,” and how he was there to reveal that God—Jesus. Recently I came across this blogpost suggesting that America as a whole is now in a similar position. We have forgotten who the God is referred to in our pledge, our currency, and in our patriotic songs. Thus, in reaching out to our fellow Americans, we can adopt Paul’s Athens methodology.
I think it is a provocative idea and is a quick read with some great history about how that altar came to exist in the first place. What strikes me is that Paul was preaching to the intellectual elites of that culture, which when translated forward 2000 years corresponds to university faculty.
Here’s where the challenge begins. Paul acknowledges the deep spirituality of the Athenians as a precursor to his message, commenting on the vast numbers of gods in their pantheon. As I look over the current university pantheon, I see precious few deities, and either a severe animosity towards the Christian God (or anything that hints at Him) or an even more profound, even herculean effort to ignore Him. The basic academic pantheon consists of about three deities with different areas of campus honoring them in different proportions, based on area of study.
We have Knowledge, sometimes called Science, whose gender identity is generally ambiguous.
