Surviving Religion 101
Surviving Religion 101: Letters to a Christian Student on Keeping the Faith in College
By: Michael J. Kruger
[Fulfilling “A book with a number in the title” as part of the 2021 Spring/Summer Reading Challenge]
“We must remember that Christianity is worthy of our belief not because it always feels better—or even seems to work better than other systems— but because it is true. If Jesus is really the Son of God, if he really rose from the dead, if there really is eternal life only through him, then that is enough to make him worthy of following.”
I wish I had this book when I went to college.
It is short, to the point, easy to understand, and fairly comprehensive. Written to college students (not to scholars) it provides an excellent resource for confident, preliminary answers to all the most pertinent questions high school grads will encounter as they go out into the world, namely in institutions of higher learning.
I used to give the book ‘Just Do Something’ for all the high school grads, but I think I might switch to this one.
I believe this book should be owned by every adult leaving home and entering the world.
I grew up in a Christian home. My world was pretty black and white. I knew what was wrong and what was right. It was pretty easy for me to determine truth from lie.
But then I went to college.
And not just any college. A conservative Christian college. I did not anticipate any theological dissonance; after all, we’re all Christians so we all believe the same thing, right?
But even there, I was challenged in my beliefs. Things I thought were standard beliefs turned out to be disputed. Questions were asked of beliefs I held that I never really had to defend. It rocked my world a bit. What do I do now? Have I believed a lie? Can I trust the Bible from which my whole worldview stems?
In fact, I saw many people go through college with me and essentially give up on their faith. As soon as the foundation of their beliefs were questioned and they couldn’t come up with an answer, they threw their entire faith away. ‘I guess we can’t really know anything,’ they thought.
If that’s the experience at a conservative Christian college, then how much more opposition do Christians face in secular universities? This book is so important.
It’s hard to push back against people of authority and higher education. We tend to think ‘Well, my professors must know more than me. This is their job and they have a PhD so I should probably believe them.’ Especially if they are professing Christians.
But just because professors have years of schooling, doesn’t mean everything they tell you is completely true and unbiased. Kruger reminds us that everyone operates and discerns out of their own worldview:
“People (including your professors) are not neutral. They have a worldview, a paradigm, that shapes everything they see. World views involve our most foundational commitments: where the world came from, our place in it, the purpose of life, the meaning of ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ the existence of God (or gods), what happens when we die, and so on.”
Dan Crenshaw lists a shocking stat in his book Fortitude: only “9.2% of academic faculty members identify as conservative.” While this is more along the lines of politics instead of theology, it is still indicative of a striking worldview-shaper and no doubt influences how they teach their classes.
Tellingly, what Haidt and Lukianoff show in their book, The Coddling of the American Mind, is that universities are straying from encouraging intellectual freedom and a fair representation of all ideas. Kruger agrees- “It seems the modern universities are for every sort of diversity (gender, race, ethnicity) except diversity of ideas. And nowhere is this trend more evident than in religion classes.”
Michael J. Kruger, this book’s author, attended college at UNC. One of his professors was Bart Ehrman, one of Christianity’s profuse critics. Everything Kruger believed was called into question by a very respected and intelligent man. But instead of just accepting the words of a professor, he did his own research. Now Kruger is a leading scholar on the origins and compilation of the New Testament. His faith weathered the storm.
Kruger’s daughter, Emma, is now attending UNC which is the inspiration for this book. Surviving Religion 101 is loosely structured in letter format— letters to his daughter—addressing many of the questions she will face at college and why we, as Christians, can be confident in what we believe.
‘Confidence’ is a good word to describe the tone of this book.
Speaking from experience, it doesn’t take much to shake your confidence when you are away from home, coming into yourself as an adult and hearing things you’ve never heard before. Things that, if true, would completely topple or significantly change your belief system.
These years of education are very formative and influential on a person. In today’s culture, the concept of ‘how you were raised’ is almost synonymous with ‘misguided’ and ‘preferential.’ The pressure to trade in your parents’ beliefs for whatever feels right to you and how you want to live is forceful and encompassing.
Students need to be prepared to engage in conversations with people who oppose their views without being defensive or blind. We, Christians, need to know that our faith is not baseless. There is significant evidence for the beliefs we have, and we do not need to be ashamed of the Bible.
My years at college were years of tremendous growth in my faith because I didn’t just cast-off my upbringing or shut down what threatened it. I engaged the opposition and I vigorously looked for truth.
I believe every high school graduate should own this book for this very reason. As Kruger encourages: “Be readers. Be studiers.”
He addresses these questions:
Isn’t it more likely that my professors are right and I’m wrong?
How can we say Christianity is the only right religion?
Aren’t Christian morals hateful and intolerant?
Are we sure homosexuality is really wrong?
Why would a loving God send people to hell?
How can a good God allow evil?
Are science and Christianity at odds?
Can we really believe in the miracles?
How can we trust that the Bible is true and compiled reliably?
Doesn’t the Bible condone slavery, the oppression of women, and genocide?
Kruger is very in touch with what struggles his daughter will face, because he has been there. He writes in a compassionate and understanding way, anticipating ‘but what about…’ objections, and providing well-researched and accessible answers.
I feel like Kruger did a good job of using logic to show how our beliefs connect and build on each other and conversely how opposing viewpoints contradict each other when following the same logic, i.e. relativism. We can’t just critique Christianity without also applying those same critiques to the alternative options. Kruger shows us how Christianity makes sense and explains our world far more convincingly than any other religion, including atheism.
Another thing to note that Kruger also inserts throughout the book, is the acknowledgement of our sin nature—our innate desire to oppose and reject God. Paul tells us in Romans that God has revealed himself to us and it is plain for all to see, yet we choose to reject it.
Romans 1:21-22, 25: “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools… They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator”
Kruger reminds us that no amount of argument and evidence can change someone’s heart. We must recognize that when we interact with people who oppose our beliefs, we are communicating with image-bearers of God who are in need of a Savior. It’s not just correcting their minds, it’s transforming their hearts.
We are all dead in our sin until God makes us alive in Christ. Our sin blinds us to truth until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes. So every discussion on the aforementioned questions must be imbued with humility and love, seeing all as eternal souls yearning for their Creator, not as enemies to be conquered. Our sin levels the playing field.
Lastly, it is so important to remember that the questions and doubts people raise are not new. They have been asked and largely answered throughout many generations. The Bible has stood the test of time and critique over and over again.
God is not threatened by your questions or your doubts. Thankfully, his veracity and sovereignty is not dependent on our ability to prove his existence. Asking a question or not knowing an answer does not automatically make your belief untrue or your foundation for morality crumble.
These are questions that hold eternal weight. Don’t push them aside in the throes of college chaos, but be confident and invigorated to grow in faith and love with your Creator—Truth made flesh.
Good theology matters.
Some other quotes:
“We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking.”- Mark Twain
“We do not claim to have true knowledge of God because we are better or smarter or more devoted than all other people. Our knowledge doesn’t come from our efforts to figure out God but rather is a result of God graciously revealing himself to us.”
“The claim that Jesus is the only way does not mean Christians are out to denigrate, demean, or despise adherents of other religions… Disagreement is not the same as disrespect.”
“You will feel the pressure to pick between your friendships or your moral convictions. And if it’s one or the other, most people will end up picking their friends. But it’s not one or the other. The Bible makes it clear that we can really love people— we can be kind, generous, and respectful— and also believe that they are caught in serious sin.”
“Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong about it.” G.K. Chesterton
'“The fact of the matter is that most of your friends are both moral relativists and moral absolutists at the same time. For some behaviors, they are one; for other behaviors, they are the other. They pick and choose. So when it comes to environmentalism and the treatment of refugees, they abandon moral relativism and act as if there are moral absolutes after all. But when it comes to their sexual behavior, then they suddenly become moral relativists again, insistent that morality is determined by each person and culture. They want to have it both ways.”
“When we doubt some truth of Christianity, we often don’t realize that we are doubting that truth because of some other belief we hold… fight back by challenging the belief that replaces it.”
“When facing doubts and fears, the last thing you want to do is isolate yourself and struggle alone. Sometimes we do that because we don’t think others will understand. Or maybe we feel embarrassed that we are questioning our beliefs. But we have to be honest about our struggles and bring them into the light.”
One thing I wish Kruger would have included was a list of additional resources for further reading and research. I read the ARC version so maybe the published version will have that. But I’ll include just a few here that I’ve also read and reviewed.
Other books addressing common objections to Christianity:
Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion by Rebecca McLaughlin
The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller
How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil by D.A. Carson
What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? by Kevin DeYoung
This book is not related to Christianity at all but is a significantly relevant book when we’re talking about the opportunity to discuss diverse viewpoints in a university setting:
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Jonathan Haidt and Gregg Lukianoff
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
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