Trepidations on Orthodox Youth Going Off to College

"Seriously unprepared am I 

to Face a World of Men...."  From the Sound of Music. 

When you read the ante-Nicene Fathers, you are impressed with the fact that they were both Traditional in that they appealed to the Tradition that had been handed them through apostolic succesion, and Scriptural, for every Tradition they received they also derived from detailed and painstaking and passionate interpretation of Scripture.  It is said that if the Bible was erradicated from the earth, It could be reconstructed just from the quotations found in the writings of the Ancient Fathers of the Church.  

Orthodox graduating seniors go off to college this year. Most have never read the Bible through. Most don't know whether Job is in the Old Testament or the New.  So, off they go to college.

They enter a comparative religions class or an English class where Genesis is viewed as literature.

The professor has studied Graf-Wellhausen, at least once, and loving it, throws it in their face, saying "JEDP". "JEDP"? What's that?  O, he explains different self interested ruling groups of the various tribes of Israel tried to advance their theology and their own names of god, so the Scriptures are a composite of cut and paste attempt to advance their own gods. Jahwe, Elohim, Adonai.  Etc.  O, and the book of Daniel; it was written after the exile during the Macabeean period and so the prophecies that appear to predict the Babylonian Empire, the Medes and the Persians, and the Greeks are not really prophecies but sham prophecies.  (Because, of course, we know that miracles can't happen, and so the Traditional claims that Daniel wrote his book in Captivity, and prophecied that after 70 years the captivity would be ended, are bogus).  So they are slammed with Source Criticism.  Ah, yes, and then there is early Genesis- a literal six day creation; hah! We all Know that the Universe is Billions and Billions of Years Old and that everything is the result of helium and gravity.  And our student, who has never read Genesis, and has never been challenged to think through the meaning of the Book, nor Christian apologetics for it; he has never been shown that literary criticism has overthrown much of Source Criticism, and that archaeological studies explaining toledoths gives great credance to the antiquity of Genesis from a scientific viewpoint, nor has ever been shown the weaknesses of modern Big Bang Cosmology, nor the atheistic arbitrary assumptions that are plugged in to the math to produce their results, nor seen the cavernous weaknesses of the Darwinian theory, nor been introduced to the global evidence of a Watery Catastophe known as the Flood,  nor ever been exposed to the massive flip flops that have occurred in this natural philosophy we call science, can not help but be at grave risk to being reduced to skepticism, not only about the Old Testament, but also the New; for Christ said, if you do not believe Moses and the Prophets, you will not believe Me.  

 Lord, have mercy on him, and on us who have so neglected in this respect to train up a child in the way he should go. What will we say to the Lord, on that day, if that child has departed the faith, as 60 per cent of our Orthodox youth do who go off to College?

Scripture, Youth, and Orthopraxy of the Desert Fathers

When I was a student attending an on-campus class with the St. Stephen's School of Studies in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, I was struck with a study that noted that of the three groups of Orthodox youth- those who attended services infrequently, those who attended services frequently but did not read Scripture, and those who attended services frequently but had a regular habit of reading Scripture- it was the latter group that showed genuine evidence of living lives separate from the world.  We Orthodox for the most part are not known for our deep familiarity with Scripture. Yet, familiarity with Scripture is a very significant part of Orthodox Tradition. I have never known of a great Saint who was not also a great lover of Scripture. The Desert Fathers perhaps more than any other class of Orthodox saints, best manifested the high view of Scripture. The Desert Fathers of Pachomius, first of all, memorized the entire New Testament and also the Psalms as a sort of baseline for Scriptural meditation and prayer. http://users.skynet.be/scourmont/Armand/wri/lectio-eng.htm
Bishop Kallistos Ware in his book The Orthodox Way  quotes St. Anthony in this manner, ' "When St. Anthony of Egypt was asked "What rules shall I keep so as to please God?", he replied: "wherever you go , have God always before your eyes; in whatever you do or say, have an example from the Holy Scriptures; and whatever the place in which you dwell, do not be quick to move elsewhere. Keep these three things, and you will live."'  It was the practice of the desert Father to reference every deed and word to the Scriptures that they knew. From the reference previously cited (Lectio Divina as school of prayer among the Fathers of the Desert, by Armand Veilleux) one reads, " In the desert, Scripture is constantly being interpreted. This interpretation is not expressed in the form of commentaries and homilies, but in actions and gestures, in a life of holiness transformed by the constant dialogue of the monk with the Scriptures. "St. Peter of Damaskos said, "...we...who do no more than listen to the Scriptures, should devote ourselves to them and meditate on them so constantly that through our persistence a longing for God is impressed upon our hearts...For this is what the holy fathers did before they acquired direct spiritual knowledge."   This is the Orthodox Tradition.
When one thinks of the saints, almost all of them had a great love for the reading of Scripture. My favorite Patron saint, Gr. Gavrilia, carried with her only the Bible and read the Gospels exclusively. In the modern Christian world the spirit of the desert Fathers, the Orthopraxis of respect for Scripture, is most clearly seen in the evangelical wing of the Protestant movement. There is the Tradition of Scripture memory advanced by para-church ministries, such as the Navigators. It is common for such folks to be seen carrying Bibles with them, and for those who are serious-minded about faith in Christ, obedience to Scripture is paramount, and courses of action will be couched in phrases derived, often from the memory of the Scriptures themselves. It seems like Orthodox young people bear significant testimony to that for those who stick near to Scripture, better than any of the others, stick next to Christ.  Yet none of us comes close to the high standard of memorization of the desert Fathers except perhaps for Jack van Impe, the prophetic evangelist who has memorized the entirety of Scripture. My hat is off to him.  We must give honor to whom honor is due.