I recently had a healthy discussion with someone over email. I really appreciated the heart of the person I was interacting with. We can never have enough people trying to protect the hearts and minds of college-age people.

We talked about how college-age people are very open minded when it comes to belief and they can so easily be influenced by wrong theology/thinking. Our conversation was really in the context of reading books by authors teaching different doctrine than we would personally hold to.

I’ve had many students reading books I disagreed with the conclusions of. This is typical of college-age people. I actually even think it can be healthy. They are formulating their own belief system and a part of that is reading other people’s thoughts. And there is little more appealing than other views that expand their thinking!

We can step back and “boo-hoo” the idea that our students are reading certain books…or, we can read the book with a shepherds heart that wants to guide our people toward biblically mature conclusions. I personally choose the latter.

In the college ministry world I’d say that reading what they’re reading, knowing what it says FOR YOURSELF, and then helping them think through it is a great way to guide thinking. The fact is they’re going to read it whether we agree or not! Standing back and arrogantly pointing our finger at people, I think, teaches them something just as or even more dangerous.