Well, Actually They Can.......

I thought that I was done with this whole ACU drinking mess and I had decided to move on, no matter what new comment was in my in box, but I guess I am just in the mood to respond to this one.

"Who has the authority to tell us what and what not to do? It is not the Church nor the University. Only God can do this. If the Almighty came today and placed a prohibition on Christian drinking, I would change my stance in a heartbeat, and I hope ACU would too. However, we simply do not have the authority to put words in God's mouth, and it's a very good thing we don't."

Wow! I am sure that I have never said that anyone has the authority to put words in God's mouth and I know that in my blogs at least, I have not really gotten into what the Bible says about drinking. If you must know, I don't believe that the Bible has forbidden anyone to drink, but I do think that God warns against becoming drunk.

Now, on to the authority question. You obviously have only read one of my posts to make a comment like that. Such a "me generation" statement. Only God has the authority to tell you what you can and can't do? Yes, God has the ultimate authority, but, there are other's in our world with authority and this attitude is what is wrong with our society: "Nobody can tell me what to do! Blah, Blah, Blah."

First to address the University. ACU is a private university so yes, if you go to ACU, they can tell you what to do and what not to do. Upon acceptance to the university, every student signs paper work that basically says they understand the rules and will follow them. If a student does not like the rules or policies and does not feel that ACU has the "authority" to have guidelines and rules, they can go somewhere else.

The United States also has rules and guidelines called laws. They make society livable for all of us. If someone breaks a law, they are subject to punishment. Elected officials and law enforcement have the "authority" to tell us what we can and can't do. That is the way our country works. Again, if someone is not happy with the laws of the country, there are ways to work to change those or they are free to reside elsewhere where no one has "authority" over them. I believe that if I am going to reside in the United States, I am going to have to follow the laws or face the consequences. I, like probably 99.9% of all citizens, have on occasion, broken laws (don't worry dad, the only one I can think of is driving too fast), but that does not mean the occasional Highway Patrol Officer did not have the "authority" to correct me and punish me.

"If there is anything we can learn from ACU's decision, it is that we cannot cling to the traditions that detract from what we should really be discussing. Our message is not one of don't (don't drink, don't fight, etc.)it is a message of do (do believe, do be like Christ, do drink responsibly, etc.). The blog is right, we do need to "stand for something," but it does not give us the authority to "stand against something" for which we have no right to condemn in the first place."

I agree that there are a lot of "do's" that are important in Christianity, but I also believe that we have to address the "don'ts" or a lot of people will miss out on the whole truth. There are a whole lot of "don'ts" in the Bible, and God did not put those in to be overlooked or overshadowed, but because he loves us and he wants us to have a good life. A trend in religion has been to make everything happy and loving, and while God is a very loving God, he is also a just God and people have to understand that there are consequences, eternal ones, for sin and disobedience. I think you must have a balance. To tie this back in, God does not forbid alcohol, just drunkenness, but have you ever heard about the snowball rolling down the hill? I don't know many college students who had just a casual glass of wine with dinner. I know about a lot evenings that went like this: the wine led to the beer at the bar, which led to getting drunk, which led to ..........you fill in the blank.

Parents can understand that you have to keep a couple of steps in front of your kids. Put the child safety locks on the cabinets before the kid finds the knives, teach them not to go into the street before they can even walk, pre-act instead of having to react. I think that is what some of the rules at ACU are about. It would be ignorant to think that some college students would not experiment with alcohol. The rules that ACU had did not stop this, but the school took a stand, pre-acted to something they knew some of the students would try, and had consequences when students were caught.

".......the Christian institution cannot be a prison for students whose parents cannot trust them...."

The few times that I thought of ACU as a "prison" were the times when I was doing something wrong. It was simply me not being able to admit that I was in the wrong. ACU was the innocent party when I was looking for someone to blame besides myself. No, parents cannot send their kids to ACU expecting the school to police their every move, although I know families who did just that. Those kids found each other and did what they wanted to anyway, and a lot of them did not return for a second year. The school stood strong and did not back down due to political or society's pressure to change.

"ACU should not be a daycare for college students, it should be a place where the student is prepared to be the "light on a hill."

I could not agree with you more, but having rules and guidelines do not make the school a "daycare", they make it a safe, Christian environment, where students can developer and grow into Christian leaders.

You said you are a "former wildcat". My bet is you have either just graduated or are still at the school. I might have said the same thing 10 years ago.