When it comes to engaging anti-Christian ideas, the two major groups of people that you must deal with in the university are the students and the professors. From the spiritual standpoint, they fall under the same category – they are unbelievers – so that we take the same philosophical stance toward both groups. But from a social perspective, there are marked differences in the positions that they occupy in our lives, and these differences carry practical ramifications as to how we must relate to them when preaching the gospel, defending the faith, or just standing our ground. Therefore, for our purpose, it will be helpful to consider the two groups separately.

Then, let us not forget the anti-Christian ideas coming from those who call themselves believers. When you strive to articulate your faith with biblical faithfulness and precision, sometimes the strongest opposition will come from Christians, or those who claim to be Christians. But there is no need to give them special attention here, since it remains that most of them will be either students or professors, so that our discussion will apply to them as well.

Now, we will not spend much time on the students, since they are your peers, and there are no special restrictions when it comes to how you must relate to them.

Perhaps the first thing you should know is that just because a person is a college student does not make him intelligent or rational. In fact, his pride and what little he thinks he knows might make him even more careless. The two implications for apologetics is that there is no need to be intimidated and that it is a mistake to assume that your opponent will readily understand anything about the ultimate questions or the rules for valid argumentation. It is impossible to underestimate unbelievers – most Christians make the mistake of overestimating them, and this generates a mental block in their own minds that prevents them from optimal performance in debate.

As for the practical aspect of dealing with students, I recommend for most cases the use of informal and extended conversations when discussing matters of faith. By "extended" conversations, I refer to repeated discussions that can last from days to months.

Some Christians are used to packaging the entire gospel and its defense in a ten-minute presentation. But this hit-and-run approach is often less than ideal. It takes time to say all the things that you need to say, to dismantle your listener's beliefs, and to fully present your own. Therefore, it is best to take the long-term approach, and maintain communication with the unbelievers. Of course, sometimes this is impossible, God will often do a quick work of conversion through a five-minute presentation of the gospel. But this should not be the norm. There is no reason to hurry with people that you will see over and over again.

How a conversation on faith begins is also important. Some teachings on evangelism assert that there is something defective with your faith unless you inform someone that you are a believer or preach the gospel to him within the first several hours or days of meeting him. And there is certainly no trace of the Spirit of Christ in you if he still does not know that you are a believer after a whole week! Why, you must be quite ashamed of the gospel.

However, there is no requirement in Scripture as to how soon you must let someone know that you are a believer or preach the gospel to the person upon meeting him. Binding the conscience with man-made rules on this matter is a problem at least as severe as the one that it is trying to fix. Of course, if for some reason you think that you should be the one who preaches the gospel to a certain person, and if you have no expectation of meeting that person again, then by all means initiate a conversation on the subject. There is no need to hesitate.

But if it is likely that you will meet the person again and again, then it is often best to wait for an appropriate opportunity. Perhaps this person will bring up a topic that can naturally transition into a discussion about the gospel. This way the person is committed to carry the conversation to a natural conclusion.

Of course, you can just walk up to someone and say, "Do you know Jesus?" And he will say, "No," and walk away. This is fine when you are using a machine gun tactic in street evangelism, and you will get some people's attention this way. But with people you know, and whom you will meet over and over again, a natural entry into the topic is far superior. In fact, you can spend weeks with a gentle application of the "So? Why? Really?" formula to undermine the person's confidence in his own intelligence and belief system before transitioning into an explicit discussion about the ultimate questions and the biblical worldview. So this is not a call to be passive, but to be patient and strategic.

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