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The Liberty Experience
Topic Started: Apr 22 2009, 06:45 PM (221 Views)
Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2009/04/22/liberal-student-infiltrates-liberty-university-write-expos-discovers-i
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Oh, the irony.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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blondie
Bull-Carp
Yup.

I went to university so to get a job & pay my bills after graduation. The last thing on my mind was to go "under cover" at some Catholic nursing school.
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jon-nyc
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Cheers
Quote:
 
He lined up a publisher _ Grand Central Publishing _ and arrived at the Lynchburg campus prepared for "hostile ideologues who spent all their time plotting abortion clinic protests and sewing Hillary Clinton voodoo dolls."

Instead, he found that "not only are they not that, but they're rigorously normal."



For me also college was my first exposure to the religious right. I also found them pretty normal as long as the topic stayed away from religion or their view of morality.
In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
People's preconceptions of conservative Christians (including the preconceptions on the part of liberal Christians) is typically so far off the mark that it would be funny if it weren't so sad and tragic - in terms of simple human relations, and even more significantly, for the Christian faith itself.

It would be interesting to see another scenario. What if a person professing to be an atheist attended the school (this has to be a hypothetical in the case of Liberty, which at least used to require a profession of faith before being admitted - I assume it still does)? What would their experience be, assuming they were just a normal student, engaging in all the normal student courses and activities, but who was openly a non-believer?

In our Christology class, we have a fellow student who is, if not an atheist, a skeptic/agnostic who is taking the class as part of her own journey to understand matters of religious faith. She jokingly described herself at the beginning of the term as the "class heretic." She is extremely well-versed in general issues of religion and philosophy, and is far more knowledgable of Christian scriptures than the average professing Christian layperson. She doesn't belittle the Christian faith; she just openly says she isn't at that place, and frankly, may never be.

She is an absolute joy to have in the class. Her comments and questions are always very well thought out and thought-provoking. No one looks down on her for where she is in her own life of faith. The class, which is terrific anyway, and being taught by one of the real up and coming theological minds, is all the richer for her being part of it, and I don't think anyone else in the class would feel otherwise. An assignment, due yesterday, was originally to develop a sermon to give to a congregation of our choice, that addressed some Christ-based theological issue that we had discussed in class. A couple of weeks ago, this student asked about the assignment, pointing out that it would be very hard for her to complete the assignment, since she was neither going on to be a pastor, nor did she really believe the concepts that had actually been taught. After not getting a very good answer for her dilemma from the professor (in short, she was going to have to develop a sermon just like the rest of us), she got very upset, broke down in tears, and walked out of the class. During the next week, the professor thought better of his answer, and told all the class that if they preferred, instead of developing a sermon, they could prepare a paper that explained one of those same Christological concepts (without the aspect of implied belief in the actual concept that would have been inherently a part of a sermon on the same topic). The following week, she returned to class, and I saw at least half the class come up to her to comfort her, offer her support and friendship, and let her know that they were glad she was back.

"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
(Frederick Buechner accepted an invitation to teach at Wheaton College [a Christian college] during the Fall semester, 1985)

I knew Wheaton was Billy Graham's alma mater. I knew it was evangelical though without any clear idea as to what that meant. I knew that, although as only a visiting professor I would myself be exempt from it, everyone had to sign a pledge not to smoke or drink for as long as they either taught or studied there. If I had known that they had to pledge also not to dance, of all things, I think that I would probably have been horrified enough to turn down the invitation on principle. The irony is that if I had done so, my life would have been immeasurably impoverished.

The famous pledge sends out highly misleading signals not only as to what Christianity is all about but also as to what Wheaton College is all about. Because of those signals I was apprehensive about having my students read The Brothers Karamazov as I had planned. I was afraid that Ivan's devastating attack on belief in a loving God might constitute a heresy that the administration would not tolerate, and then I discovered that it was one of the standard texts used in the English Department. Whatever evangelical meant, in other words, it did not mean closed-minded. On the contrary I found the college as open to what was going on in the world and as generally sophisticated as any I have known. What made it different from any I have known can perhaps best be suggested by the college motto, which is more in evidence there than such mottos usually are. It is not in Latin like most of the other mottos I can think of but in English plain enough for anybody to read and understand. "For Christ and his Kingdom" is the way it goes - as plain as that.

(from his book, "Telling Secrets")

"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
The story of the atheist student is really touching, Dewey. For a number of years after leaving Christianity, I was bitter and had a real axe to grind. At the time, I was chatting a lot on mIRC, so I wandered over to a Christian channel with the aim of giving them both barrels. Instead, they accepted me, accepted my questions, and rather than being defensive and angry, they provided thoughtful answers.

I'm friends with some of them, even today, over a decade later.
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
First you demonize your opponent.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
Maybe KathyK could teach a class on elder law at Liberty Law School...
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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