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10/15/97 Norm Sanju urges educators to dispel destructive ‘myths’


JACKSON, Tenn. (BP)–Dispel the myths of American culture and prepare students well for the world of employment, urged Norm Sanju, a former sports executive who spoke at Union University during a conference Oct. 10-11 on “The Future of Christian Higher Education.”
Sanju listed four myths that are destructive to American society, crediting the list to Christian author and speaker Charles Colson:
— Humans are good and innocent and not responsible for any wrongdoing.
“This is a sick myth,” declared Sanju, who is the founder and former president and general manager of the Dallas Mavericks pro basketball team. “Unfortunately, many people in society today have bought into this myth.
“All you have to do is watch television after a riot. I defy you to find a commentator who is not going to blame society or everybody in general (rather) than the rioters. … This secular myth will always produce a weakened society.”
Sanju urged Christian educators to instill in students responsibility for their actions and a belief in Scripture. “The truth of God’s Word always produces confidence,” he said.
— There are no absolutes; all moral values are relative.
“My challenge to you Christian leaders is to guard against becoming ‘bias-neutral’ toward religion,” Sanju cautioned. “It is so easy to start to compromise. … It might be that you want to attract somebody to come to your campus to join your faculty.
“It takes a little softening over here, a little easing up here — and in no time, you’re going to see a watered-down, weak and ineffectual student body and school.”
To the skeptical who might think such a thing could not occur on their campuses, Sanju countered, “It’s very easy to think that it simply could never happen at your college. But I want to assure you of one thing: No liberal has ever founded a college. They don’t have to. They just take them over — and don’t think I’m wrong on that issue.”
— The cult of radical individualism is superior to everything.
Such a philosophy is self-centered and dismisses church, community and family as irrelevant, Sanju noted.
“It produces people who do not feel the need to honor their commitments,” he said. “The result of this philosophy has generated an epidemic of bankruptcies, of flippancy toward marriage and abandonment of family.”
— Government can provide utopia.
“An awful lot of people enter the post-college world thinking that government is some kind of paternal, nice, grandfatherly type of an entity that is somehow supposed to care for them from the cradle to the grave,” Sanju said.
He acknowledged governments should and must have certain kinds of involvement in society. “I believe that government is extremely important (and) needs to be involved in several areas and do it very, very well.
“However, it does not need to be involved in every area of life. We need to instill in our students that they need to take responsibility for themselves,” Sanju said.

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  • Keith Hinson