Is Veritas deceptive? ...part three...

This is the final installment in my series of posts to answer the question, “Is Veritas deceptive?” In my first post, I outlined the Biblical imperative to avoid deception and the impression of deception. In my second, I confessed my tendency to veil the fact that we are a Christian organization and encouraged us all to clearly represent Veritas as a Christian movement. But on a deeper level, we are being honest when we say that we are hosting forums on truth. We don't have to shout out that we are Christians in everything we do to avoid deception. Allow me to explain.

National Veritas says this:

Our job is to raise the level of dialogue on campus by drawing out the deep questions of the campus and seeing if Jesus’ answers ring true. After all, we only want to follow Christ if he is the way, the truth, and the life, and we need each other in order to more fully understand this.

Let me make this clear: the purpose of a Veritas Forum is not evangelism. We are not proselytizing. We exist because, especially when it comes to the interactions among God, truth, and science in the academic community, open dialogue does not. Scholastic arenas often prove tragically hostile to people of faith. Veritas seeks to encourage the free and open exchange of ideas (which is an accepted principle of academics) when it comes to God and science, including the nature of truth, philosophy, origins, and questions of existence.

And so, to answer the criticism: no, we are nothing less than sincere. We don't seek to get you involved in Christianity. We aren't hosting a sermon series. We purpose to bring together the best and brightest minds of the Georgia Tech community to evaluate a multitude of worldviews, including the Christian one, doing so in the pursuit of veritas—truth and true life.

We give the community our word on this: a Veritas Forum is an even playing field. An open forum is just that, and we intend to keep it that way. There is no need for bias, intolerance of ideas or people, or unwillingness to change one's mind. After all, the truth will out. Jesus Christ made a lot of claims about life and His answers to our questions. If He was right, then we have nothing to worry about—Veritas is just a way to evaluate the Christian worldview and let it compete in the marketplace of ideas. We believe that our academic community can rise above the exclusion of "religious" answers to life's tough questions and evaluate everyone's ideas through free dialogue. We don't want to dominate or just talk about what we believe, we want to open up the lines of communication about all the worldviews out there. We want to facilitate informed decisions about who and what to believe. We want to conquer the ignorance and misinformation that so often clouds the interactions between God and intellect. Sure, we think we're right—but don't you think you're right, too? That doesn't mean we can't coexist in the Georgia Tech community. Why can't we sit down over coffee or hear a lecture and learn from each other? Let's introduce a little sincerity into how we discuss these matters.

If that's your heart, you'll want to be on-board with the Veritas Forum @ GT. We're not going to hide the fact that we're a Christian movement, but our desire is to treat every worldview fairly and foster that sort of dialogue on our campus. Because part of what we believe is this:

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. (Hebrews 4:12-14)

We're just putting the answers that Jesus Christ provides out there and letting His words do the work. We won't try to enforce anything, add anything, or suppress anyone. We're just sticking to our confession and bringing that to the table. Will anyone join us there?