God's Not Dead

Its Complicated

After his introductions, Mr Radisson handed out pieces of paper to the students.

"God is dead." He reiterated. "This is of course is a metaphor but an illustrative one, meaning not that God has somehow died, but rather that he never existed in the first place than in the depths of our forbearers imaginations."

Josh shook his head at the outward lie that the professor was teaching the students who because of his strong denial to the existence of God, would prevent them from thinking otherwise if their thoughts ever questioned it.

"He was a useful fairytale in ages gone by when his fiery anger was used to explain away plagues and crop failures, diseases and disasters which we now ascribe to bacteria and viruses, chromosomes disorders and plate tectonics and in short, science and reason has surpass superstition and we are all the better for it. With your permission, I would like to bypass this senseless debate all together and jump to the conclusion which every sophomore is already aware of- There is no God."

Josh let out a troubled sigh. Up to this point, he kept his cool and did not raise an argument against his professor's statements but this was going too far. Yet, for fear of standing out, he refrained from saying anything.

"All that I require from each of you is that you write on the paper that I just gave you, three little words; 'God is dead', along with your signature. I assume when we reached the anonymous consensus which I expect we will, I will be spared the tedious duty of slogging through dry and dusty arguments and you will bypass the section of the course in which students conditionally receive their lowest grade of the semester."

He gestured for them to begin and they went scribbling away.

"And when you are finished please pass your papers to the right."

Josh, though unpleased with the set of views put forth, saw that no one raised an objection and everyone wrote the statement in accordance to the professor's wishes. He didn't know what to do but he knew that he wasn't going to write on the paper. It would go against everything he believed in, and for what? Because a man told him so?

Mr. Radisson, unaware of Josh's struggle, started to collect the papers from those at the end of the row.

"Lowercase G. Maybe this one ought to get extra credit." He smiled as he saw the students accept what was the real truth in his eyes but when he approached Josh, who was at the end of the last row, he saw that he had nothing on his paper and was disappointed.
"Excuse me, Mr?"

"Wheaton, Josh Wheaton." Josh said nervously knowing that his disobedience would cost him.

"Something wrong?"

"Yeah, I can't. I can't do what you want, I'm Christian." Josh admitted and hoped that the professor would understand.

Mr. Radisson smirked, "Now don't worry, you can still go back to your dorm room, sink to your knees and pray at your bedside if you like. What you do in your personal life is your business. But what you do in this class is mine."

Josh still was unmoved.

"All right, Mr. Wheaton. Allow me to explain the alternative. If you can not bring yourself to admit that God is dead for the purposes of this class, then you will need to defend the antithesis- that God is not dead and you'll need to do it in front of this class from the podium. And if you fail, as you shall, you will fail this section and loose 30% of your final grade right off the bat. Are you ready to accept that?" Mr. Radisson gave his strong proposal and thought to himself that Josh will surely back down from doing this and will submit to his authority.

But he had never encountered someone firm in their faith as Josh. He grew up in the church. Both his parents were Christians and took positions in the ministry. When he was 12 years old, he gave his life to God. Since then, he had been living faithfully to the One who was faithful and he refused to denied the God that set him free. So, the proposal didn't sound like a bad idea. "Who would decide whether I won or lost the argument?" He challenged the senior professor.