Seminar battles schools' 'de-Christianization'

Seminar battles schools' 'de-Christianization'
Offers 'antidote' to secular influences on students

School managers in Maryland announce they have decided homosexuality is innate, Boulder, Colo., school officials set up seminars where instructors tell kids to "do drugs," and other schools require kids to pretend to be Muslim. Even a Christian college has appointed a Hindu to heads its religion department. So where's a student to go to find the truth any longer?

How about the West-Coast Christian Worldview Conference, which immerses high school students 10th grade or older and college students in hours of daily instruction during a summertime intensive.

"Our conference is for five days, holds up to 25 sessions with break outs, Q&As, and great personal fellowship with fellow students and speakers during break times. We try to reach the serious Christians who want to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ," a spokesman for the conference scheduled July 30-Aug. 4 at the University of Santa Cruz told WND.

"The purpose of the conference is to train the attendees and fellowship with them so that they are able to meet the different worldviews they face at school, work, and in their neighborhoods with the truth of the Biblical gospel. Our goal is to equip Christians to understand and apply the Christian faith to politics, history, education, family, science, entertainment, business, and other areas of our culture, and provide fellowship and opportunities to form great," he said.

Speakers will include Brian Abshire, who has written "Get More from Your Bible," "Discipleship and Biblical Counseling," and "The Church as God's Armory;" Mark Rushdoony, president of Ross House Books; Joe Morecraft, former chaplain for the Atlanta state legislature; John Hodges, a conductor, composer and lecturer; Chris Strevel, a minister; and Charles Robidart, chairman of Robidart and Associates.

Session titles will include American History, Holy Living, Canonization, Our Real Enemies, Overcoming the world, Music, Prayer and others.

The conference mission is taken from Eph. 4:14-16:

That we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ – from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Lee Duigon, novelist, newspaper editor and now a Christian free-lance writer, reported after an earlier event that he wishes such conferences had been available earlier.

He says his college experience was "de-Christianizing" and it took him 35 years to return to the faith of his parents and childhood. He says such a conference serves as an antidote "to the anti-Christian atmosphere at many colleges and universities."

"I can't help wondering what those 35 years of my life would have been like had I been able to hold on to my faith. Had I been armored spiritually by something like the WCWC experience (which wasn't available back then), things might have been very different," he said.

It is sponsored by the Chalcedon Foundation and The Reformed Heritage Church of San Jose, Calif.

The conference website itself asks "Have you ever …searched for God's answers to your questions? Sought clear explanations for your beliefs? Struggled to defend your faith to skeptics?"

"This week-long conference gives you a firm foundation for your beliefs, teaches you to defend the Christian faith, and prepares you to face the challenges of this world," it says.