© 2014 Bob Osburn
A friend in Indonesia reported that, morally and spiritually, the nation is rotting. I responded by saying that Western modernization/globalization, which is really a material bastardization of Christianity, has spread like gangrene into much of the world including Indonesia. It offers economic development, which is surely worth celebrating, but cannot offer meaning. The result, which is all too prevalent in the West, is nihilism, for which the only true answer is Christ, but for which the deceptive alternative is radical Islam. The latter appeals to nihilists who expect meaning in the final, bloody exit of terror.
As you can see, I believe that modernization/globalization is, one way or the other, a significant breeding ground for both nihilism and jihadism. We have to work on the main institution that serves the breeding ground—the modern university. Thus, I advocate a strong and consistent effort to see that people like you successfully get PhDs and return to the institution as professors who dare to advocate an alternative worldview and are willing to engage other worldviews in the pluralistic university (which, in turn, must replace what we have now, the secular university). Christian academics must know their job is to advocate the humanization of an institution which has lost its humanity because it has become naturalistic and thus secular.