If a larger pattern can be drawn from my recent perception-changing journey to one of the great bastions of conservative evangelicalism, the walls of division are not as formidable as culture warriors might like us to believe. They might even be shrinking.
Such were the hopeful observations I packed home with me after two days in Xenia, Ohio, on the campus of the evangelical sports ministry Athletes in Action. AIA is the athletics arm of the famed Campus Crusade for Christ International, which has championed Jesus on American college campuses and around the world since its creation by Bill Bright more than a half-century ago. Campus Crusade, like its founder before his death in 2003, has stood tall as an icon of conservative Christianity (and, sometimes, politics) in the fractious national debates of our times. So what would this non-evangelical progressive religion writer from the People’s Republic of Portland find during his two days at AIA’s small-town Ohio home?
Hospitality. Curiosity. Respect. And surprising amounts of incipient change in the air.
My own stereotypes had me in an apprehensive state as I checked into AIA’s dormitory-style retreat center on the eve of my visit. Were these dedicated sports-world missionaries going to scold me for critiquing aspects of their movement in my previous writings? Were they going to give me the hard sell for the rightness of their philosophy and cause? Were they going to question the validity of my beliefs?
No, no and no.
[blockquote]”What if ‘conservative’ … meant doing the right thing in compassion issues like Jesus did: healing the sick, feeding the hungry, appreciating the ‘lilies’ (God’s creation), and freeing the oppressed?”[/blockquote]
It always has. The debate is over big government’s role in doing those things.
Thanks, Drew.