PRIYA SHARMA/Daily Bruin Ryan Callis
(foreground) and Tim McMullen participate in a
graffiti art battle prior to the opening of the Veritas Forum’s art
exhibit.
By Shauna Mecartea
Daily Bruin Contributor
Os Guinness told the story of a small Guatemalan town where 23
Marxist guerrillas were burned to death in 1979.
The event, he said at Monday’s Veritas Forum, was recorded
by a young woman who received the Nobel Peace Prize for her
documentation of this horrific story.
Upon investigation of the event, a professor revealed that her
story was exaggerated.
But the public ridiculed the professor and not the woman,
showing that fiction is more important than truth in today’s
society, said Guinness, author and founder of the Trinity
Forum.
With an aim of stimulating dialogue about Christian faith
between students, professors and scholars, Guinness discussed such
stories at the forum, which was held for three days on campus this
week.
Speakers at the Christian conference focused on finding the
truth ““ or “veritas” in Latin ““ in life and
religion this week.
According to the Veritas Forum Web site, their goal is to
resurrect such events at 200 major secular universities in 20
different countries by 2010.
Guinness said modern society emphasizes image as opposed to
character ““ and this indicates a shift from the truth.
“The art of living is the art of impression,”
Guinness said regarding modern culture, adding that truth can be
found through Christianity.
Another speaker at the forum was David Hill, a physicist
developing nuclear fusion power plants, who said science has a
philosophical bend. He said people should read literature to
understand God’s role in life and science.
Other speakers discussed where science and religion can
coincide.
Rev. Lee Irons, an organizing pastor of the Redeemer Orthodox
Presbyterian Church, addressed whether the seven-day creation
process in Genesis is in a literal or figurative framework. He said
the seven-day creation process is figurative, and each day is a
snapshot of what occurred in a long process.
“They are being narrated in a topical rather than a
sequential order,” Irons said.
An art exhibit, “The Already and the Not Yet,” was
also added to the UCLA forum for the first time.
Having art as another medium to express personal experiences of
faith is a great addition to the Veritas Forum, said Amanda
Cunagin, an artist who graduated from Biola University in 2000.
“(Christianity) is not what I gear my art toward but it is
an important aspect,” said Ryan Callis, a fourth-year art
therapy student at Biola University.
A graffiti art battle, which opened the exhibit, was carried out
by two other Biola University students, Callis and Tim McMullen, a
fourth-year art student at UCLA.
The founder of the Veritas Forum, Kelly Monroe, has been the
only woman in the past two years to speak at the Veritas Forum at
UCLA.
But Kyle Gladden, UCLA Veritas Forum chair and fourth-year
English student, said this was not intentional, and organizers sent
invitations to many women and men. The people who spoke at the
forum happened to be male, he said.
Also, seven out of the 18 artists in the Veritas Forum art
exhibit, “The Already and the Not Yet,” were women.