We Should All Agree with Matt

Spirituality Column #172
February 23, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

We Should All Agree with Matt
By Bob Walters

In the autumn of 2000 at Purdue University, fliers mysteriously appeared around campus with the question: “Do You Agree with Matt?”

A serious buzz enveloped the campus – Who was Matt? It was almost on par with the buzz created by that season’s Boilermaker football team which would earn its first Rose Bowl berth since 1967.

Matt was Matt Cahill, a non-football playing senior at Purdue who hailed from Hamilton Heights High School, class of 1997, where he had been an outstanding student and soccer player. Even now, just about this time every year, HHHS announces the winner of the Matt Cahill Soccer Scholarship.

Matt was also a serious Christian and something of a marketing genius. As the Purdue Exponent student newspaper reported in early 2001:

“Cahill, a senior in the Schools of Engineering, was the Matt of the ‘Do You Agree With Matt?’ campaign last October. Members of Campus Crusade for Christ wore lime green T-shirts that read ‘I Agree With Matt,’ and they covered campus with fliers asking the mysterious question, "Do You Agree With Matt?"

In the end, Cahill revealed the mystery by giving a speech about how Jesus Christ became the center of his life.”

In the “reveal,” Matt’s testimony ran in the campus newspaper. He wore a t-shirt that said, “I Am Matt.” And at mixed, mass, all-campus rally Matt presented his compelling and eloquent witness, that boiled down to this … he believed Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, and Matt trusted Him as his Lord and Savior. Amen. Most cheered; some jeered.

How big was the buzz? Indy channel 13 put the story on the late news.

Two months later, January 2001 was a bleak month at Purdue.

On Jan. 1, the Boilermakers lost 34-24 to Washington in the Rose Bowl. Putting that setback into perspective, on Friday, Jan. 26, Matt was riding with his friend Jacob Cushman, a Purdue sophomore and Christian musician, when both were killed in a car crash on Indiana SR 26 in Grant County.

The October campaign compelled bold members of the Purdue campus community – professors, students and at least one notable athlete – to sign on to the campaign via advertisements and interviews proclaiming, “I agree with Matt.”

One of those very public proclaimers was the senior quarterback of the Boiler football team, now 2010’s Super Bowl MVP, Drew Brees.

True story.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com), like most of us, has had quite enough of “those” Saints. Gotta love a bold witness, though.

Evidences of God

Spirituality Column #133
May 26, 2009
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

Evidences of God
By Bob Walters

My elder son Eric is taking a Religious Studies minor in college and is always an interesting conversational partner during our car trips to and from school.

Eric, heading into his senior year at Purdue, is a baptized believer in Christ and walks his faith in a number of tangible ways – missions, campus ministries, Bible study leadership, youth group mentoring, worship musician, avid volunteer for assorted Kingdom activities, regular church-goer, chaplain of his fraternity, and (OK, I’m a bit biased) all around good-guy.

Plus, he’s a sinner like the rest of us. It’s ironic that we Christians, so often assailed by secularists for either being hypocrites or goody-two-shoes, are also the first to admit we are sinners.

That’s because being a sinner is the one and only thing that qualifies us for the grace of Christ. But I digress …

It’s easy to get through college thinking there is no God, being confused about God, just plain not thinking about God, or ridiculing God and those who believe in Him.

Eric’s faith, thankfully, is surviving both the college experience and what he’s learning about philosophy and theology.

On our most recent ride back down I-65, Eric mentioned a philosophy class this semester which discussed that there are just two kinds of arguments – evidential and logical.

An evidential argument, for example, would suggest that it is more likely God and evil in some way coexist. We see God, we see evil; both exist. A logical argument, differently, would note that a good God would not allow evil to exist, there is evil in the world, therefore God does not exist.

Conversation ensued … evidence obviates assumptions, while logic is wholly dependent on assumptions. Logic is harder to prove than evidence. “My concept of good outweighs God’s likelihood of existence” is a big, awful assumption, not evidence.

But here’s my point. Secularists – who in my experience are particularly queasy about being called “sinners” – immodestly fight against the idea of God’s existence, eternal salvation by Jesus Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit because they see no evidence … and call their position logical.

Look at a changed human life, look at a church full of believers, look at the Bible, look at beauty, look at love, experience an answered prayer, look at the sacrifice of Christ … evidence of God is everywhere, unless you assume it isn’t.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) was passively confused about God for roughly three decades, including college. Eric, by the way, is majoring in Aviation Management.