It’s a Saturday night, and as you lay in bed at 3:00 a.m., you can hear loud music and people screaming (or rather, chanting) outside of your dorm window. After finally falling asleep and waking up the next day, you walk the quiet Sunday morning street; the aftermath of broken bottles and empty beer cans are strewn about the sidewalk. The occasional puddle of puke can be found, and for your own peace of mind, you stay away from the statue of Wally Witt.
Wittenberg has some parties that would both impress and shame Jay Gatsby from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic, but how does this fit in with our ideal of religious life? Weaver Chapel is beautiful, and offers services frequently, but how many students actually utilize it the way it was intended, for the glory of God and to celebrate life in the faith? Jesus Christ is the center to Christian religious life, and people who say they are Christian are supposed to imitate His beautiful and perfect image. Yes, people are sinners, but there’s a difference between doing the wrong things unintentionally or with malice in your heart.
Being a religious person myself (and heading a Bible study), I’m greatly disheartened to see the presence of the party scene: the alcohol, sex, and drugs. Don’t get me wrong, an occasional celebration with your friends is nice when it’s in a controlled environment and not disrupting others, but when it becomes problematic, it can put those people involved in danger. So many sexual assaults, robberies, and deaths have been caused from binge drinking and crazy campus carousing that would make Christ cry.
If it wasn’t for groups such as the Campus Crusade for Christ (also known as Cru), Common Ground, and Newman Club, campus would not hold so many amazing activities. The events they sponsor promote both living in faith and coming together as a family, a Wittenberg family. People coming to a religious campus expect to see it attempting to be more righteous than universities referred to as “party schools.” While Wittenberg is better than a lot of these schools, there is still a great delineation from God. People have so many opportunities to get involved on campus in wonderful clubs that promote a happy and healthy lifestyle.
Religious life is an essential aspect of a religious campus, and it’s severely lacking here. We pride ourselves on being a Lutheran campus, but unfortunately, a great deal of people’s actions don’t reflect the faith by which we claim to strive.
