Christian Union: The Magazine Summer 2017 | Page 53

a space for students from other uni-
versities and even homeless veterans
to seek the Lord.
Alongside constant prayer, Penn
for Jesus organized coinciding events
in order to reach out to members of
the campus community and share the
good news of the Gospel with them.
These events included performances
by Full Measure (the premier Chris-
tian a cappella group at Penn) and
the New Spirit of Penn Gospel Choir,
a worship open mic night, a Christian
town hall event, a prayer walk, and a
screening of The Passion of the Christ.
Penn for Jesus—which seeks to
promote missional unity and strategic
collaboration among Christians “to
see their entire campuses reached with
the Gospel”—also organizes weekly
prayer meetings throughout the aca-
demic year, in addition to larger out-
reaches such as the prayer tent.
This spring, the presence of the
prayer tent helped Penn believers
reach out in a significant way. Due to
the grace of God and the dedication of
the members of the Christian commu-
nity at Penn, Sophia and many others
were prayed for, heard the Gospel, and
experienced the love of Christ on the
days leading up to the celebration of
His resurrection. | cu
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P E N N | On Campus
“Does Truth Matter?”
D R . R AV I Z A C H A R I A S S P E A K S I N P H I L A D E L P H I A
By James Supplee, Penn ’17
F
2
drastically waned in
recent history, he
said. Beginning with
the skepticism and
outright denial of
absolute truth, the
process of the rejec-
tion of truth has cul-
minated thus far in a
political age that is
often identified as
post-truth, causing
many to dismiss for-
merly respected news Dr. Ravi Zacharias spoke at Temple University this spring.
organizations as “fake
news” and deny their
the truth doesn’t matter.” Zacharias
relevance outright.
It was into this cultural moment set out to demonstrate that truth, in
that Zacharias stepped. Dressed in a fact, does matter for everyone. In his
blue blazer and a button-down shirt, unique style, Zacharias provided
the white-haired, 71-year-old author many stories to illustrate the flaws of
and radio host addressed the crowd a society without truth and the process
with youthful vigor and certain poise by which the west has arrived at this
as he began his analysis of this culture. point. Primarily, Zacharias argued that
After opening with an anecdote, he secularization, pluralization, and pri-
observed, “When the truth doesn’t vatization are the three nails in the
serve your purposes, all of a sudden coffin of the relevance of truth. These
ew Penn students ever make the
trip on the Broad Street Line to
visit North Philadelphia during their
undergraduate years. The comforts
of University City and the allure of
Center City usually provide enough
excitement to whet their appetites.
However, on the evening of Wednes-
day, April 12, one man gave many
Penn students a reason to visit North
Philadelphia. Dr. Ravi Zacharias, an
internationally renowned apologist,
came to the Liacouras Center on the
campus of Temple University to ad-
dress a packed house of students from
universities all over the city concerning
the question, “Does Truth Matter?”
Zacharias is quite familiar with the
City of Brotherly Love. He has ap-
peared in Philadelphia many times,
most recently in February 2014 in
Irvine Auditorium at the University
of Pennsylvania, where he addressed
the topic, “Is Truth Real? A Conver-
sation on Science, Ethics, and Philos-
ophy.”
The importance of the truth has
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