CU Alumna and Hamilton Cast Member Finds Identity in Christ
By Ashley LaLonde
Growing up in the heart of New York City, I often struggled to connect with other believers. Though my parents were both faithful Christians, and we attended church nearly every Sunday, almost all my close friends were people of other faiths or no faith at all. I often felt like the oddball. I loved Jesus and knew I had a relationship with him, but I would frequently downplay it with others just to fit in.
ChatGPT Just Transformed Education
By Anne Kerhoulas
Chat GPT arrived at the end of 2022, bringing with it a slew of problems—both ethical and practical—to the university setting. The AI program is capable of producing high-quality written content and is adept enough to imitate specific voices, styles of writing, and even well-known authors. This powerful tool is now posing an unprecedented threat to education, and educators from middle school to the university setting are scrambling to adjust to a new world.
Choosing To Forgive Rather Than Be Easily Offended
By Michael Racine, Writer and Ministry Fellow, CU Lux
Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. – Proverbs 19:1
The biblical proverbs are so very practical. They don’t try to ennoble us with any Kantian notion of moral virtue detached from self-interest; rather, they tell us what wise, insightful people do to make things go better, and what ignorant fools do to make things worse. If we will only pay attention to these instructions and remember them, we won’t need a heroically self-sacrificial heart to put them into practice; we all naturally want to see life go more smoothly.
CU Vita Leaders Pray Weekly With Other Ministry Leaders
By Anne Kerhoulas
It’s 7:15 on Monday morning and the sun hasn’t yet risen. Most Cornell students are still in bed, groggily awakening from the weekend to face another week of classes and problem sets and essays.
7:15 on Monday morning is a bleak time for most, but for a handful of CU Vita students and leaders from other campus ministries, it’s a time to be awake, alert, and engaged. It’s a time for prayer—prayer for revival on campus. And for the group that gathers, it’s one of the most important times of their week.
CU New York Hosts Dr. Ryan T. Anderson
Christian Union New York invited Christian Union Alumni, CU New York participants, and friends of Christian Union to gather on November 29, 2022, for a virtual forum with Dr. Ryan T. Anderson. Drawing on the best insights from biology, psychology, and philosophy, Dr. Anderson offered a nuanced view of human embodiment, a balanced approach to public policy on gender identity, and a sober assessment of the human costs of getting human nature wrong.
On behalf of all the staff and students at Christian Union Lumine, let me wish you a Happy New Year. We pray you had a restful holiday season.
By the grace of God we were able to have a vibrant, impactful Fall 2022 semester.
It's been quite a year.
As 2023 begins, let's take a moment to look back to see how far we've come and all that God’s accomplished. As we reflect on all that has happened in the past twelve months, it's important to take stock of where we are and where we're going. God has built on our strong foundation to position ourselves for even more success in the years to come. Here's what God has accomplished in the fall semester.
- More than 2,000 hours of student prayer.
Greetings from the campus of Yale!
Spring Semester is beginning and although you are not on campus with us, God has you in just the right place He needs you—in prayer for the work of the Kingdom at Yale. Please join us in prayer for four major events this semester: winter retreat, Bible courses, outreach, and campus-wide prayer.
Penn Sophomore Became A Christian Through CU Martus
By Anne Kerhoulas
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. -1 Corinthians 3:5-7
For every Christian, the Lord appoints servants whom he uses to bring about our faith. Whether you grew up in a Christian home or an atheist home, God, in his perfect plan and kindness, placed individuals in your life who would speak the gospel to you, embody the love of Christ, help solidify theology, and love you into the kingdom of God.
For Stanley Liu, who grew up in Los Angeles in a secular household, the Lord appointed the Boy Scouts and a Catholic girlfriend to plant and Christian Union Martus to water.
We are just two weeks away from the start of the spring semester at Cornell, and we are looking forward to all that our faithful Savior is going to do through our students in Ithaca in this new year. I was so encouraged by a recent conversation with one of our students, a member of the Cornell wrestling team. After battling back from a serious injury last year, he recently began wrestling again with great success, only to injure himself again a couple of weeks ago. And this injury could end his wrestling career. But even in the face of this disappointment, his faith is strong, trusting in God’s plan and providence. As we talked together over lunch, we rejoiced in the goodness of God and the amazing gift of eternal life through Christ, which put everything in perspective. Seeing the faith of this student in the midst of trials and challenges reminded me that God is surely with us and He is faithful to preserve and sanctify His people at Cornell.
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. — Hebrews 12:28,29
Greetings from Penn!
Hope this finds you well!
As we look to the year ahead we have a few exciting things on the horizon, particularly our winter retreat, Bible courses, and prayer workshops.
Ignoring Religion Fails To Prepare Students
Anne Kerhoulas
While it may not be surprising to hear that Christianity is declining in America, religion as a whole is actually growing throughout the world. China is on track to have more Christians than America in the next decade in spite of being an openly atheistic country. In the Middle East, the Islamic revival is producing more pilgrimages to Mecca than ever before. In Latin America, a once predominately Roman Catholic region, pentecostalism is booming. Even in America, though Christianity is waning, new-age spirituality is increasingly popular, and more and more people are religiously unaffiliated but interested and open to spirituality.
Can A Christian Nurse Participate In Gender Reassignment?
By Anne Kerhoulas
It’s becoming a question more and more believers in healthcare will have to face: can a Christian doctor or nurse assist in gender reassignment surgery?
In this article for Desiring God, John Piper addresses the question from a biblical perspective to help believers understand the gravity of their actions as well as their responsibility to God and his creation.
Start Your Year Off With A Great Book
By Anne Kerhoulas
Our 2023 book recommendation list includes an array of Christian books. From classic theology to leadership development to biography, there is sure to be something that will encourage your spirit this new year.
God in the Dock is a collection of essays and speeches from C.S. Lewis. Its title implies "God on Trial" and the title is based on an analogy made by Lewis suggesting that modern human beings, rather than seeing themselves as standing before God in judgment, prefer to place God on trial while acting as his judge.
Recommended by Chris Coppernoll, Ministry Director, CU Nova
Orthodoxy’s Commitment To Truth and Love
By Anne Kerhoulas
Truth and love often seem at odds in our culture today. Everyone has their own truth and wants the freedom to believe what they want. So to hold fast to the truth and conviction of orthodox Christian faith is challenging. All too often believers settle for bland acceptance of everyone’s truth as being valid in the name of loving them. But as Trevin Wax argues in this article for The Gospel Coalition, this radically opposes the pursuit of sound theology and doctrine as presented in the gospels and New Testament.
Why the Practices Are Both Challenging and Invaluable
By Anne Kerhoulas
Silence and solitude are unpopular disciplines. In our fast-paced, technologically connected, over-worked world, who could possibly have the time and energy to prioritize being alone in silence? And if we had the time, who would choose it?
A Jazz Musician Found His Way In CU Lumine
By Isabella Campolatarro
There’s a Christian aphorism, often attributed to St. Teresa of Avila, that “God draws straight with crooked lines.” Christian Union Lumine student Michael Manasseh ’23 has experienced this truth first-hand.
A Network Helping Alumni Connect and Flourish
By Anne Kerhoulas
Christian Union has served undergraduate and graduate students at some of the most influential universities in the country for decades. But what happens to these students after they graduate? The transition from college to the working world is not only challenging on a personal level, but it is also one of the times individuals are more likely to walk away from their faith.
Author and Scholar Joseph Laconte Discusses C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien Projects
This article was originally published in the Tristate Voice. Blake Whitmer ’23 is a Dartmouth student.
Joseph Loconte, PhD., is an author, Senior Fellow in Christianity and Culture at The King’s College, and the Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation. In 2015, he wrote the New York Times bestseller A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War. In 2016, he wrote the award-winning op-ed “How J.R.R. Tolkien Found Mordor on the Western Front.” His most recent project is a documentary on Lewis and Tolkien, with an emphasis on the way that war shaped their friendship and writings. Tri-State Voice writer Blake Whitmer recently sat down to interview him about his work.
