College evangelists share the 3 most disturbing shifts they have seen among students

Since the 1980s, Cliffe Knechtle has been evangelizing on college campuses as part of his “Give Me an Answer” ministry. His son Stuart joined him in 2015, and together the father-son duo continue to conduct their open-air Q&A sessions on campuses around the nation, addressing students’ questions and doubts with the explicit goal of sharing the gospel.

In the nearly five decades “Give Me an Answer” has been operating, Cliffe has had a front-row seat to observe college students devolve in many disheartening ways.

On this episode of “Relatable” with Allie Beth Stuckey, Cliffe and Stuart explain the three biggest factors that have changed since the dawn of the ministry — and which one has been the most disturbing.

The emotional fragility of students is something Cliffe didn’t have to consider back when the ministry began — but today, it is something he is forced to adjust to everywhere he goes.

“My dad grew up in Switzerland, and when he was 18, he sat up in the Alps with a gun, watching Hitler's Panzer divisions roll toward Switzerland. My grandpa, my dad's dad, was in the front lines with his gun,” he reflects. “Today, when Donald Trump wins the election, university students go to a crying room to get counseling.”

This hypersensitivity has been a challenging factor to adapt to, he admits.

“I'm so grateful for Stuart and for my wife, Sharon, because they've helped me understand that and helped me not be quite as harsh and quite as direct as I have often unfortunately been,” Cliffe shares.

The second shift he has seen is the growing belief in moral relativism — the idea that right and wrong are subjective.

“Moral relativism and sexual immorality has become so commonplace that if you stand against that, you are really, really weird,” says Cliffe.

The third shift he has seen is the rising conviction that science is the ultimate truth.

“Unfortunately, what has become too firmly entrenched is unless you can prove it scientifically, it's not true,” says Cliffe.

“It's fascinating to watch — one group is totally into relativism, and the other group is into unless you can scientifically prove it, it's not true,” he continues, “and so to be able to address both of those camps is a challenge.”

It is difficult, he explains, because the gospel, with a few minor exceptions, is largely opposed to moral relativism, and while the gospel of Jesus Christ is “based on evidence,” it is not based on "scientific proof."

But of all three shifts, Stuart finds the second — the rising belief in moral relativism — to be the most shocking.

He shares a story from one of his college campus visits where a large group of students followed him around, pressing the issue of euthanasia.

“When I started 11 years ago with [my dad], I did not see — for the first few years, at least — any type of devaluing of human life — the relativizing of human value like I do today,” he says.

“[At one campus], this group follows me — very, very progressive group — to a corner where I was eating a sandwich. And they corner me and they say, ‘Hey, how dare you say that you are going to try and save the life of a suicidal 16-year-old woman? That's devaluing her freedom and autonomy. If anything, you should aid her in her decision to kill herself,”’ Stuart shares.

Their certainty, he says, left him “shell-shocked.”

“They wouldn't say get a noose or, you know, push her off a cliff. They were more so saying, though, a type of euthanization like the elderly get, you know, whether it's a pill or something along those lines,” he says, “and so they pressed me for a good hour in a very angry way.”

“Personal autonomy and freedom is considered really the top idea and thing to pursue, even more so than the value of human life.”

To hear more about the Knechtles’ ministry, watch the episode above.

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