The commencement speech as cultural barometer

May is the month for commencement and for big-name commencement speakers. This year’s addresses ranged from TV personality Meredith Vieira’s touting non-conformity at Boston University to TV scientist Bill Nye at Rutgers University, demanding conformity on the issue of climate change.

This week, I talked with John Stonestreet of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview about how commencement addresses serve as cultural barometers. Stonestreet said he would ask college graduates this question: “Maybe you got a great education, maybe you got a great skill-set, but do you really know what life is all about?”

In today’s culture, young people starting their journeys in life need to wrestle with life’s deeper questions to develop their sense of morality, Stonestreet said. He referenced Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, who said life was not worth living if he couldn’t find the answers to its deepest questions.

“What happened to him is he became a Christian—he found that those answers to those deep questions lead us to Jesus Christ,” Stonestreet said.

Cultural icons like Apple CEO Tim Cook, who gave the commencement address at George Washington University, present an alternative vision of salvation and heaven through worldly gratification.

“These students have to be able, in an age of overwhelming information, to pick out truth and discern meaning and beauty and goodness, and that would be my statement,” Stonestreet said, adding, “If we don’t have any fixed reference point outside of ourselves to try to live moral lives, it’s like trying to find your way out of wilderness using a compass that always points at you. You’re always lost.”

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