Spritual State of the Campus Apathetic, say Leaders

TRINITY INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY - tiu.edu

Last semester individuals started noticing it, before the break they voiced their concern about it and this semester they are acting upon it.

A few weeks ago, Trinity International University (TIU) Director of Chapel David Whited called a meeting with the TIU Residence Life team – all shared concerns for the spiritual state of the campus, said Assistant Resident Director (ARD) Hillary Leeper.

Christian apathy was the subject that dominated the conversation. Resident Directors and Assistants addressed the problem, asking each other if there is something they are doing – or not doing – to contribute to the apathy.

“It's been on our hearts since last semester,” said Leeper who joined with Resident Director Heather Harms and ARD Heather Armstrong to schedule a few get-togethers throughout the semester with their Resident Assistants to pray for the campus.

Prayer groups have been sprouting up all over. A group of students meet with Senior Vice President for Student Affairs William “Coffee” Washington to pray every-other Wednesday night from 8-11 p.m. in the Arnold T. Olson Chapel.

Over 30 students are involved in a group called Penuel that meet on rotation during Chapel Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to pray for the service while it is in session.

Senior Daniel Frampton organized an email prayer chain that united the School of Language, Literature and Communications.

“I feel like everyone started noticing it at the same time,” said Junior Heather Hershberger, a Christian Ministries major. She was convicted about her own proneness to slowly becoming a fence-rider last semester.

Hershberger is currently taking “Strategies for Discipling Ministries” with Professor Sundene, who facilitated class discussions last week about apathy and complacency, complimented with a study on the neither hot or cold, but lukewarm Church of Laodicea.

Christian apathy is being countered on campus with awareness and prayer that will ideally lead to revival. “An important aspect of collective revival is a personal revival in each individual heart,” said Women’s Softball Coach Kelly Bergmann.

“Repentance. That is where revival begins, with a personal humility and brokenness before God, allowing Him to search the heart and shed light on areas that need to be dealt with,” said Bergmann. “When individuals begin to do this in their community, that is when collective revival happens…and this ‘revival’ spreads like wildfire in a powerful way.”

Over a third of TIU’s students are athletes. Athletic Director Patrick Gilliam, aware of the impact of the athletic community, challenged athletes to take an intentional role in praying for and promoting spiritual revival on our campus.

Gilliam, a current Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) student, gathered information on how to promote a revival and presented it to his women’s soccer team during their weekly team bible study Tuesday. According to his studies, TIU’s spiritual state is compared to fallow ground; ground once farmed, but which now lays waste.

In “Lectures on Revival,” Charles G. Finney wrote, “If you truly intend to break up the fallow ground of your hearts, begin by looking at your own heart … prepare the mind into a state where it is fitted to receive the Word of God.”

It is written in Hosea, “Break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till He comes and rain righteousness upon you.”

Luis Palau Speaks Next Door

PALAU HAS SPOKEN IN PERSON BEFORE LIVE AUDIENCES
TO MORE THAN 25 MILLION PEOPLE - luispalau.net

Sixty years ago Wednesday a 12-year-old Luis Palau entered into a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” and a 72-year old Palau stood at the pulpit of Christ Church Lake Forest (CCLF) Sunday morning to tell about it. Palau was guest speaking at CCLF for their Global Ministries Celebration, “From neighborhoods to nations: reaching the world near and far.”

Senior Pastor Mike Woodruff introduced the world evangelist and doctor of theology, highlighting that he has preached the Gospel to more than 1 billion people worldwide and has spoken in person before live audiences to more than 25 million people.

“My life goal was to win as many people to Christ as I could” said the Argentine, in solid accent, when he first put his foot in the door of evangelism. Palau began preaching at 18 years old and over five decades later he was in town preaching in all three CCLF worship services on “Faith in Action.”

He was a gifted storyteller, capturing the crowd with enthusiasm, charm and comedic technique. With his sport-jacket unbuttoned, Palau paced the stage, dodging the podium, performing impressions and using authoritative hand-gestures in synchronization with the pressing points of his sermon.

“To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some,” recited Palau from I Corinthians 9:22. It is through innovative evangelism that Palau seeks to win people to Christ.

The Luis Palau Association hosts free two-day festivals throughout the western hemisphere, known for their huge concerts and skateboarding demos. Contemporary Christian music accompanied with extreme sports may be an unconventional method to spread the Gospel, but it has exploded over the last decade and Palau is determined to reach, what he calls, the “Next Generation.”

“It’s not for old-timers, it’s for kids,” said Palau. With the same idea in mind, he pioneered Next Generation Alliance, a partnership ministry “to encourage and equip a new generation of evangelists” that specializes in evangelism training and resources through conferences around the globe.

In his clear effort to reach young people, Palau and his son Kevin Palau also launched “Livin It” – a skate tour directed by Stephen Baldwin. It features extreme sport athletes such as Lance Mountain, Ray Barbee, Jay "Alabamy" Haizlip, and Christian Hosoi, who perform stunts and tell their stories to encourage viewers to live life with a purpose and share it.

Trinity International University (TIU) sophomore Michelle Smith and junior Chad Reilly attended CCLF Sunday morning with no idea that Palau was speaking, a story that may be shared by handfuls of TIU students.

“I’m encouraged and inspired by his stories,” said Smith, who has heard Palau’s name in an ad on the radio but didn’t know of him otherwise. His message inspired her to focus more on evangelism, as she is looking to combine Christian Ministry to her Elementary Education major.

Palau currently resides in Portland and listeners can tune into his daily radio broadcast and podcast “Reaching Your World.” Lists of upcoming events and more information about festivals and partner ministries are posted at palau.org.

Bioethics Lecture Series Sheds Light on Stem Cell Research

- Gary Varvel, The Indianoplis Star

Cloning and stem cell research are on-going controversial and intimidating issues for a lot of people, causing many to become weary and turned-off. But local disinterest and confusion were discarded Thursday evening as Trinity International University (TIU) Professor of Bioethics John Kilner, Ph.D., told the truth about bioethics to an audience of 50 at the Kenneth Kantzer auditorium.

Stem cells are primal cells that have the ability to renew themselves, divide and grow into a range of desired tissues, such as nerves and muscles. These new tissues are used to replace damaged ones, ultimately improving quality of life for everyone.

Kilner’s listeners left with a firm grasp on the difference between the two basic forms of stem cells: adult (obtained without harming human life) and embryonic (obtained by destroying human embryos), and the ethical issues that ensue. But what they didn’t know is that they would leave with an awareness about the lack of scientific researchers who engage in truthful communication about stem cells.

“Why do we so often try to mislead people, to gain some sort of benefit,” said Kilner, “when it so often backfires in our face?” His concern is that truthful communication; what one says and what one understands, has been replaced by Utilitarianism communication; deception used to advance scientific research that harms the vulnerable.

Potential beneficiaries include: those who are ill or injured, subjects of research; human embryos, and sources of materials; those who donate eggs or somatic cells are being exploited through this deception. The corruption can be traced among scientific circles engaged in embryonic stem cell research.

In 2004 South Korean cloning researcher Hwang Woo-suk claimed to successfully clone human embryos – a medical breakthrough at the time. In 2005 an investigation found that the eggs were purchased and the research was fabricated.

In 2006, Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) removed a single cell from an embryo without harming it, claiming “early embryos can yield stem cells and survive.” Just one problem: all the embryos used in the experiment were destroyed. In a total of ten experiments, ACT implied that 16 cells were removed from 16 embryos, and two stem cell lines were created as a result.

A research investigation found that the two stem cell lines were actually a result of 91 cells that were harvested from the 16 embryos, causing their inevitable deaths.

“History is littered with misguided attempts to relieve suffering by cutting ethical corners,” said Kilner. Putting an end to suffering can also be achieved through adult stem cells, but promoters of embryonic stem cells often disregard ethical routes based on the current assumption that an embryonic stem cell can grow into any cell.

Misleading language is used to smokescreen the fact that producing the desired cells from embryos “requires cloning human beings and then destroying them. Cloning and killing are too high an ethical price to pay,” said Kilner.

Stem cell debates are not about science versus religion, but an entire mindset; biological versus philosophical, according to Kilner. “Is an embryo a ‘being’ or just ‘some cells’? – An adult could be called ‘some cells’,” he said, but scientists don’t kill adults to advance their research.

In 1933, 399 African-American men in Alabama diagnosed with syphilis were untreated and exploited in order for scientists to conduct research on the phases of the disease. It was not uncovered until 1972 that 28 men had died of syphilis, 100 others were dead due to syphilis related complications, at least 40 wives had been infected and 19 children had contracted the disease at birth. None of the patients were told that they were being used for medical research.

Because of studies like Tuskegee, the National Research Act law was passed to protect human subjects from being reduced to lab rats. But this law doesn’t protect human embryos, because the human status of an embryo is still up for debate. To eliminate the ethical dilemma, some scientific authorities redefined an embryo as not human up to two weeks after conception, and some up to eight weeks.

Kilner recognizes these redefinitions as “fancy word plays” that cause a “pressing need for truthful communication” and a call for citizens to “avoid sweeping dismissals” about the effectiveness of adult stem cells.

The National Institutes of Health account for 14 stem cell studies that report adult stem cell plasticity – a wide range of potential for growing and dividing into desired cells. Several science journals have recognized adult stem cells as pleuripotent, including Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of California, Berkeley.

The Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics “Do No Harm” keeps score of stem cell research treatments for diseases – Adult Stem Cells; 72 (including 26 cancers), Embryonic; 0. The “Do No Harm” website is maintained at TIU’s Center for Bioethics.

“There is another safe way to develop the same cures,” said Kilner, who was referring to recent developments in amniotic-fluid stem cells found in the placenta. Adult stem cells are not the only ethical means for advancing research.

This year a study has been published that found amniotic-fluid stem cells are “readily available, perhaps ethically trouble-free and possibly as powerful and flexible in function as their embryonic counterparts.”

“Telling the Truth in Bioethics: Stem Cell Research, Cloning, and Beyond” is only the first bioethics seminar of a series of three held by TIU. The presentations, free and open to the public, are held at 7:00 p.m. in the Kantzer Auditorium. Future seminars are scheduled for Feb. 22 with Lawndale Christian Health Center CEO Arthur Jones and Mar. 15 with Wheaton College Philosophy Professor of Faith and Learning Dr. E. David Cook.