Students do not like authority, which is a hurdle to the proposition that they submit their lives to Christ. Submission to Christ means following one master at all times. Contrarily, the university allows a student to choose any option he wants. Why would he choose the option that deprives him of others?

They say that college is a place to experiment. It seems that “experimentation” invariably involves indulgence. Mostly drugs, tobacco, drinking, and women. The differences among their options are an illusion. They are all flavors of momentary pleasure provided by sin. And they call it freedom. Freedom, the way they see it, is the ability to choose. Freedom, the way they see it, is a lie. Every choice is submission to the thing chosen, and every sin has a binding effect. In John 8:34, Jesus says “[E]veryone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” No student chooses to asphyxiate on his own vomit. Many students chose to drink until they do. Despite its effects, they persist in sin for the sake of the feelings it gives them. The sensations of sin make their choices for them, and every step downhill makes the climb steeper. 

Freedom is the ability to make a decision independent of the temptations toward pleasure and away from pain. Freedom is to do what you ought. Choosing virtue is service, but it is service to life. Virtue enhances freedom because it does not bind the virtuous with feelings that he cannot resist. Instead, it does him good that his intellect can recognize and that his will can continue to choose. I have never experienced withdrawals from skipping a day at the gym, but its effects tell me that I should go back. Freedom is to follow Christ because Christ makes the right choices for us. Freedom may not feel good in the moment, but it does good at all times. Without Christ, we are deceived to trade our lives for tasty poison.

Serviam is Latin for “I will serve.” St. Michael the Archangel said that in reply to Lucifer’s cry that he would not serve. St. Michael understood that God was life. Lucifer rejected life for his pride. Enslavement to pride gave him eternal death. But Lucifer was the greatest of the angels; I am a fool if I presume that I would have made a different choice in his shoes.

Digression aside, this is the frame that I use with my students. I do not tell them what to do. I tell them the truth that they choose sin because its sensations control them. I tell them that they are not their own masters. They bristle, but they do not hide. In the face of vice and virtue, they understand the reality of their choice. They cannot make the excuse that the Bible wants to ruin their fun. They know that their lungs are for air, no matter how good it might feel to breathe water.

Here, I see that much of the harm that students do to themselves occurs when their decisions pass them by. In daily life, one analogy has resonated with them more than any other: food ingredients. While discussing the true nature of their decisions, I explained that junk food and alcohol contain ingredients that diminish testosterone. Many of my students now refuse to drink beer or eat certain foods, and we have banned seed oils and soy at Bible study.

In the wake of their willingness to give up pleasures, they have begun to translate the concept to their spiritual lives. Prayer is, in some ways, equivalent to reading an ingredient list. Rather than acting on impulse, they have started to reflect on the real effects of their decisions on their souls. Reflection does not always result in the right choice, but they know that the choice is between whom and not whether to serve.

Deo Gratias.