250 students, faculty, and other inquiring minds packed into the largest lecture hall in the Lab Sciences building for the first ever Veritas Forum at Wash U last Monday night. I will post a link to the audio and video files as soon as they become available.
It is partially true that the evening came together thanks to the hard work and dedication of the students on the planning team and some surprising partnerships within the campus community. I think it is more true that the success of the event bears witness to the faithfulness of God.
The conversation between the two presenting professors was incredibly cordial. While there was much that they agreed on when it came to the science behind the topic, the divide between the Christian worldview and an atheistic worldview was made evident. As the event came to a close and I thanked people for their attendance as they were leaving several people asked when the next Forum was taking place and commented on what a thought-provoking dialogue this first Forum had been.
On Thursday morning I met with three Christian professors from Wash U to pray and encourage one another. Two of these professors attended the Forum and one of them just happens to teach in the same department as the non-Christian professor who participated as one of the Forum presenters. Already this Christian professor had sent an email to his non-Christian colleague, thanking him for his presentation. He also plans on having lunch with his non-Christian colleague to further the conversation about belief that the Forum began. "It was clear to me that [the non-Christian professor] knew how to talk about what he does not believe, but when he was asked to articulate what he does believe he didn't have a well-thought through response. I'd love to talk more with him about the basis for what he does, in fact, believe," my Christian professor friend said.
It appears that some of the first fruit of hosting a Veritas Forum on campus is taking the form of faculty members inspired to minister to their peers. Praise God!
