http://jwinters.com/post/59395539726/miley-cyrus-freshmen-and-the-college-experience
Miley Cyrus, Freshmen, and the “College Experience”
Anyone who was surprised watching Hannah Montana metamorphosize into a meth-addled low-rent strip club hoodrat at the MTV awards has forgotten the vicarious shame that people on every college campus on the planet experience when they see freshman act like they know what college is all about. This year I joined the “2017 FSU Freshman” group on Facebook (because yes, I am just THAT sketchy and curious about what people think and do) and saw plenty of naive freshman put on their best faces.
Just like Miley, girls and boys who had barely stepped out of prom couture hinted at how they were going to be out of control when they got to campus. References to “molly” showed up, as did questionable invitations from girls for guys to give them rides to places late at night, and let’s not forget one of my favorites from a FSU freshman girl, “I admit it, I like to drink, so boys hit me up.”
There are three responses to this kind of behavior. The first is predatory. It’s the guy licking his chops and wondering just exactly how “out of control” things can get so that he can have even more control. The second is fraternal, a “lol’ing” acceptance and resonance with the appeal of the behavior. The last is concern and shame over a campus culture that we have created that makes freshman think that “the college experience” is about being out of control rather than about being fun and social.
Theologically, these three responses are often our three responses to seeing sin in other people. When we see other people sinning, we can respond in a way that is predatory, we can act in a way that is fraternal, and we can act in a way that expresses simultaneous concern and shame.
Unfortunately, there is a fourth response that many Christians default to, which is the response of so-called “righteous indignation”. I don’t know about your social media feeds, but mine was filled with that last night. It was the same thing I first experienced at a Christian conference early on in my campus ministry career when I told people that we did some great evangelistic work in bars - the person said, “Oh, I guess that’s great if you want THOSE people.” Yeah, we do. We want the Miley Cyruses too. Not because they are making awesome life decisions, but because Jesus made a life decision for them - the decision to end His so they could have theirs.
Since we’re sinners, the best that we can do when we’re confronted with a twerking almost naked Miley Cyrus or a vomiting freshman at 3am is understand that we share in their shame as sinners, and that we share in the responsibility for caring for them and speaking the Gospel to them.
The Gospel is “the college experience” if only you don’t reject it. It is the process of realizing that you need saving, and recognizing your savior. For many freshmen, this is going to involve running from one false savior to another, just as appears to be the case for Miley. It’s a love that transcends our prodigal sinfulness and calls us “son”, and calls us “daughter”. It is what we need on college campuses and on the VMA’s, and it is what we need everywhere else.
