Travis Pelletier is not only a graduate student, but also the president of Ratio Christi, an apologetics club here at the University of Maine that examines the basis of Christianity. When asked about the unfalsifiable nature of religious faith, Pelletier believes that faith and reason can coexist with one another.
“We believe that there is good evidence for believing in, and following Jesus Christ as he is presented in Scripture, and this follows from the Christian idea of loving God with all of our minds,” said Pelletier
Ratio Christi, according to Pelletier, is concerned with examining the evidence for a God in the Christian tradition, as well as evidence supporting the claim that Jesus of Nazareth was divine, including evidence supporting the concept of Jesus’s resurrection.
The club also involves itself with the challenges presented by other faiths against Christianity.
“And we also like to talk about other worldview perspectives as well,” Pelletier says, “Things like ‘What do atheists critique Christians for?’ What do Muslims say about certain Christian claims? We try to interact with those in an intelligent, thoughtful way.”
The chapter has existed on campus for roughly seven years. The parent organization, which is national, dates to 2013, when an apologetics group was started by several undergraduates in North Carolina to counter something that contemporaries termed the New Atheist Movement.
Pelletier described this movement as “a bunch of fairly ardent, aggressive Atheists in those days, like Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins and so on, very aggressively attacking Christian faith.”
Despite the blustery rhetoric of the New Atheists, even critics of Christianity held a low view of the movement. It just needed a group to point out the rhetorical sophistry of Dawkins and his ilk, as Pelletier told it.
“So a bunch of students got together and said ‘Hey, we need to have answers for these, so that Christians aren’t confused by these poor arguments,’” says Pelletier
Since then, students struggling with the idea of faith in the Christian God have gathered on college campuses in pursuit of truth and reason. The path that led Pelletier to volunteering with Ratio Christi was hard enough.
“I had just gone through a bit of a struggle with my own faith,” Pelletier describes, “You know, why do I believe that God exists, why should I believe that Christianity is true? And it was through looking carefully at the evidence that I came to a very confident faith in Christ.”
Shortly after this epiphany, Pelletier encountered the group, and found that the reason-focused work of Ratio Christi fit with his experience and interests. So he helped to start a chapter on the UMaine campus in 2019, and has been involved ever since.
Pelletier made it clear that Ratio Christi is not a denominational club, competing with other Christian groups on campus for a greater student attendance rate. Instead, it is meant to be a supplement for the other groups, specifically when faced with struggles with their faith.
“If there’s a member from…CRU…struggling with questions about their faith, we want to help them out with that, and help strengthen them in what they’re doing, and encourage them, but we don’t see them as competitors.” Pelletier said, further emphasizing that Ratio Christi defends what is known as a “mere Christianity.”
“It’s just the basics of Christian faith that we want to defend, so we would see any Christian club at UMaine as brothers in Christ that we want to help” Pelletier said.
In terms of political discussion, the club primarily focuses on theological issues, like the trustworthiness of biblical narratives. If a topic has political implications, such as the definition of humanity, or the ethics of pregnancy, the club would not avoid them. That said, these implications are secondary to the club’s purpose, according to Pelletier. The club is, above all, dedicated to explaining Christianity to those who wish to understand it.
The club meets on Thursday evenings at 6:00 p.m. in the Coe Room of the Memorial Union. The club contact information is travis.pelletier@maine.edu.
