Campus Freethought Alliance

Last night I had the pleasure of attending the latest event by the Campus Crusade for Christ, also known by their more ninjavangelist name, CRU. The surprising bit is that this time there is no sarcasm present when I say that I had the pleasure of attending the event. From past experience CRU tends to be one of the more radical and outspoken Christian groups that I have met on campus. I’m not sure what their affiliation/relation, if any, with groups such as Inter Varsity is, but there is a noticeable difference between them. So when I saw this event advertised in Leutner my hopes for it were not particularly high. The ad(attached) seemed rather biased and evoked images of religion bashing by the speaker(a pastor) and the from the members of the organization. Because of this I figured it would be a worthwhile venture to attend, it would either be really good, or really bad.

Upon arriving it was the same as most of their other events, held in the same place at the same time as their usual meetings, as most of their events are. One thing that I think is worth mentioning was the glaring lack of refreshments, come on guys this is a college campus. I expect food at my events! All kidding aside I conversed with a few friends, as well as fellow members Sam and Robert, who were also in attendance. The speaker was a young, typically charismatic, master’s student and presumably youth minister named Dan Larison. At the beginning of the event a few members handed out packets outlining the various religions [strawman]that were annoyingly stapled on the right hand side[/strawman] that seemed pretty straightforward except for the very end that compared Jesus to the other religions, the wording of which was suspect.

Dan began by trying to explain how we could go about analyzing these various religions in the most unbiased way possible. He started by making sure that we were not analyzing them through the lens of western thought or Christianity. I guess that is a good place to start since at the very least he would not be doing the common, “lets see how XYZ matches up to the Almighty God” approach. Though a minor relief, it was one nonetheless. He also made the interesting comment that we could not evaluate all of the religions categorically from an atheistic perspective, because we needed to assume that a god exists. I must point out that I am being very careful not to misquote Dan on one major term, which he seemed to be using intentionally, and by doing so gained a large amount of respect from me. Whenever he used the term atheistic he was very careful to pronounce it as A-theistic, implying the definition of atheism instead of the common misconception held by most theists. Instead of implying that being atheistic was as good as being in another religion he used it only by its definition, “the lack of a belief in any deity.” This was very encouraging and gave me hope that this would be a more objective take on the issue instead of a subjective one. Now I can agree with him that it is difficult to compare religious beliefs from an atheistic perspective, except that he included Buddhism on the list, of which most of the sects are atheistic. It seems to me that this could have been a clever way of including atheism on the list without falsely labeling it as a religion. Though this may not have been the case. This issue aside the talk went very well, though it was a bit lengthy. I’m not docking him for this because there was really no other way of getting the information across in an effective way. He stuck only to the objective facts and history behind each of “the big 5”(Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). He had a textbook like frankness that really helped him gain a degree of academic honesty. I really had no major complaints about how or what information was presented.

There was no detectable bias in the information presented or any wording meant to demean them. Even when he got to the part where he compared Jesus to all of the other faiths he kept with a very academic approach. He began by making the statement that he wanted to see how Jesus stacked up to the much older and established religions, not compare them as inferior to Christianity. I was not expecting this from the wording of the handout but he did just that. Dan showed that most of the other religions were concerned with a sense of “self worth” and attaining grace while Christianity believed in eternal love and salvation that is given. All of this is very true and actually constitutes one of the major beefs that I have with the Christian faith. I indeed recognize and am somewhat appalled by the near self-loathing that is demanded and even desired by those of the Christian faith. This idea that we are nothing and should not take credit for our achievements is very central to the Christian faith and very self-limiting to those who believe it. I am yet to understand where the satisfaction comes from in believing that you are evil, worthless and only have God to thank for anything that you have done.

The Q&A session was typical of most that happen at religious themed events and quickly degenerated into audience fueled debate and no real questions regarding the material presented were asked. Most of the questions consisted of what I call “big pin” questions, which I will discuss in a later entry. Luckily CRU made quick work of ending the session once this was realized and left it up to individuals to talk amongst each other as they pleased. The conversations continued on until midnight and for the most part seemed friendly and well intended. Overall this was a very good and mostly objective event that I feel was very much needed for the Christians in the audience. It has been my experience as a former Christian that those who were born and raised in the faith know very little about other religions and do not lend them much credence as legitimate beliefs. Maybe now they will be less stigmatized and not immediately discredited as either misguided fools or pawns of Lucifer… or maybe they will; I can’t really make that call. I just hope that educating them will help to resolve some of the conflicts and misconceptions caused by differing faiths.
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