This past interim I stayed on the hill and braved the cold. Meanwhile, I fulfilled my theology credit in a class titled "Political and Liberation Theology" taught by Professor Phil Stolzfus. The class was an excellent introduction to the usage of the Christian religion (as well as perhaps other religions) to liberate peoples in Latin America, Africa, and the United States from oppression. Liberation theology is specifically interesting as a discipline, because in order to study it, one must also live it. Thus, instead of testing us on trivialities of various authors, the professor decided that a good deal of our time should be spent on practicing liberation theology in our own community.

So, we divided into groups and began working on a project that involved an oppressive element of our community. As one might expect, finding things which are truly oppressive on the St. Olaf campus is difficult. It dawned as me during the final group presentations that perhaps students of this campus have little understanding of what it is to live in oppression, without freedoms and liberties.

My next thought however was the most disturbing. To what extent are we ourselves the oppressors? No, perhaps we as students of St. Olaf College are not responsible for world poverty, for racism, for female circumcision in Africa, for forced child labor, for disease and hunger, or for multi-national corporations exploiting third world nations. But are we responsible for their continuation?

As children of the information age, from the richest nation in the world perhaps our duties have not become clear to us. Perhaps we have yet to see the light. We are the next generation of leaders, of teachers, of pastors, and of business people. We, collectively, have a great deal of power. It seems as though people in our age group tend to feel powerless, as if they have no voice. I often become jealous of my parent's generation. During a time of horrible conflict and struggle, it was our parents who stood up and took a stand. In some cases, they even put their lives on the line in protest to stand up for their ideals.

What has happened to that sort of passion? Fortunately, thousands of our countrymen are not being killed in a war. Fortunately, blacks and whites can ride the same bus. But is that it? Do we stop here? Just because things are going well for us and we are on our ways to being consultants, analysts, scientists, teachers, lawyers, and doctors ­ fulfilling our dreams‹does that give us the right not to care? Does that give us the right to look the other way?

Apathy is a sad state. Fortunately there are still those who stand up against the things they see as unjust. But how many of us can say that we do this? How many of us belong to a cause? And if we don't have a cause, what in God's name is this all for? So that we can receive our degrees and drive BMW's and have three children in the suburbs? May God have mercy on us all if this is the case.