new classes

I started new classes this week, which means I finished up the pathetic excuses for "classes" that I took the first half of the semester. Seriously, they were terrible classes, mostly because the professors seemed to know next to nothing about the topic and seemed to care even less if we ever cared a bit about the subject. But enough of that, this is about the NEW classes.

I started the first one on Monday: Comparative Religions. I was a bit nervous about this class. Secular, public university generally means anti-religious (or at least anti-christian) professors. In philosophy it seems that many a professor has strayed from reason-based thinking into crazy postmodern "whatever you feel is right is ok" thinking. I've taken similar classes and this has definitely been the trend.

But Monday was different. This guy was emphatic that TRUTH exists and to deny that is to be an idiot. He talked about the postmodern fallacy. He briefly mentioned that postmodernism was simply a revision of eastern thinking (and that those who seek eastern religion (Emergent theology anyone?) are going down a self-deflating road. If you have no ground to stand on, at some point you're going to fall.

Then, the professor did the unthinkable. He declared his own bias in class. And it was a pretty bold declaration (remember, this is a large public university.)

He told us that he was a Christian. A converted Mormon to be exact. He grew up in the Mormon church and left it to believe in the real (true) Christ. It was three hours into our first class and our professor just said four words that could get him fired. "I am a Christian."

From my brief conversation with him (and two other believers from the class) afterward, I think this guy is pretty solid. I'm excited for the class. It's the first time I've been excited to go to class since...Calculus? That's right. I had some enjoyable classes in college (and none of them were so terrible as the first two this semester) but I was never excited.

So, good news. Happy news. Great news. A fellow believer is teaching religion and philosophy courses. I'm definitely going to check to see if this guy is teaching anything else that will fit in my schedule.

Good day to you all.

-joe