Crossroads: Where Love and Faith Intersect

One of the most famous passages from the Bible is Mark 10: 17-31. In it, a man walks up to Jesus and asks him what he must do to go to heaven. Jesus told him, "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." At this the man went away sad, because he was wealthy. Then Jesus turned to his disciples and said, "How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." When I heard someone bring this up in my political philosophy class, a began to think what would the kingdom of God would look like on earth. I think it would look a like an egalitarian society, with almost everyone having the same amount of possessions. The reason why I believe this is Jesus' frequent disdain for money and greed. Possessions seem to be the most frequent failing among human beings, causing us to sin. There would be no sin in the kingdom of heaven, thu...

Michelangelo's The Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden            College students should always be in search for knowledge, but the question ought to be asked, "Is the pursuit of knowledge worthwhile?" While many would argue that knowledge is practically worthless, it could also be argued that knowledge has a corrupting effect on human nature, and given the story of the fall of man from Genesis, this appears to be the case. After Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they become corrupted and sinners, and thus all of humanity is also. St. Augustine calls it "original sin", that human beings are corrupt by nature and that this trait has been passed down from Adam to all of us, caused by Adam eating the forbidden fruit. Thus if eating from the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil corrupted all of mankind, this means that knowledge corrupts. This produces a paradox for college students if knowledge is sinful and y...

Today on campus there were hate preachers in the CSU mall causing a lot of heavy sentiments to be thrown from both sides. The preachers undoubtedly chose today to do the demonstration because it is National Coming Out Day, and on the other side of the mall there was the LGBT community handed out popsicles and causing no trouble. Now friends, as you all know, Crossroads is friends with the LGBT community, and acts of hatred against them should be frowned upon by our community. A crowd began to gather around the hate preacher, who stood on top of stool to look down upon us, and from both sides hatred was in the air. I saw one of my friends, who in a big supporter of the LGBT community, light a cigarette and blow the smoke into his face. Shouts of anger and hatred were thrown at him.    I ask of my fellow brothers and sisters, that we not answer hatred with hatred. That is like trying to put out fire with fire, the fire only spreads. We must answer hatred with love, for with lov...

     One of my favorite parables that Jesus tells is that of the tax collector and the Pharisee (Luke 18:9 -14). Jesus tells about how a tax collector and a Pharisee went to a temple to pray. In Jesus' time tax collectors were looked down upon as wicked people and Pharisees were teachers of the law. The Pharisee praises himself, he thanks God for making him better than other people. The tax collector on the other hand asked God for mercy. God blessed the tax collector, not the Pharisee. Jesus then says, "For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." This, I think, is one of the most valuable lessons that the Bible has to teach. That we should not think as ourselves better than other people, even if we are trying to help them or have clear evidence that we might be better than them. The problem with that way of thinking is that you forget of your own flaws. We should constantly look inward to better our own selves, ...

        In my  studies of ancient philosophy I came across a passage from Plato’s The Republic that struck me. It was in a discussion as to whether it would be better to live an unjust life and have people think you were just, or to be sincerely just. Then Glaucon, a man that the protagonist Socrates is arguing/ teaching, stated, “They will say the just man … will be scourged, tortured, and imprisoned, his eyes will be put out, and after enduring every humiliation he will be crucified.” [1] This sort of thinking would make it seem that being unjust pays much more dividends than doing the right thing. My thoughts then made me think of Christ and of all the suffering that he was put through, and then to other martyrs in Bible and elsewhere. They appear to be like the just man, or in the case of Christ, the full embodiment of the just man. I think this in itself proves that being just is better than being unjust. To the just person, the appeals of being unjust,...

Hi everyone!  I'm Wes Huntington, and welcome to the Crossroads Blog.  This is sadly going to be the last blog post I'll write for it as I have graduated from Minnesota State University, Mankato with a Bachelor of Science in Mass Communications.  My career goal in case you don't know is that I want to work for a radio station doing what I do now at KMSU: hosting, producing and doing a radio program.  God surely has blessed me with me being here with me maintaining the building as the sole resident this spring semester. I want to say a bunch of thank you's first, if I may.  To Pastors Tammy, Roger Haug, Al Girtz and Scott Olson, thank you for your kind words and whatnot this semester.  You always make me feel like I truly belonged here at Crossroads with your kind words.  I want you to know that all four of you will make the building and Crossroads a better place to be in the future.  The same goes for the rest of of the board members as well. ...

This is the third and final part of an overall theme of bullying. The topic was discussed April 13th at Crossroads during the annual Youth Night. To read Wes's click  here  or to read Katie's click  here .  This one was written by Kaarina Maki, a student here at Crossroads.              I’m sure we can all relate to Katie and Wes’s stories of bullying in one way or another. Some of us are being bullied, some of us are bullies, and some of us are both. Like Martin Luther implied in his teachings, we are at once the saint and sinner. When it comes to bullying, though, this can be changed, though. It needs to be changed!             We are all wounded spirits. I read this in Frank Peretti’s book, The Wounded Spirit, and it makes sense. Nobody has lived a perfect life; one without some sort of hardship or another. Bullying doesn’t always manifest itself in outright teasi...

This is part two of a three-part blog post that started with my personal story of being bullied last week. So, if you want to learn my story, click  here .  These parts form the basis of the talks that Katie, Kaarina and I, Wes, did for Youth Night on April 13, 2016. Hello everybody! My name is Katie Murphy. I'm a junior here at MSU. I'm studying Recreation, Parks, and Leisure services with an emphasis of Leisure Planning Management. Of course nobody know what that even means right? Basically I want to plan fun events and create programs for communities and recreation facilities. And I'm also a student leader here at crossroads.  Today we’re talking about bullying. You’ve all seen it happen. Maybe some of you have been bullied. Others were the bully.  I'm going to talk to you guys a little bit about how I was actually the bully. Which is hard to admit. You know, where I'm at in my life now, I don't want to tell people that's who I was. It's not a...