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This is very interesting. Thanks for sharing it, Unwoke. I am the child of missionaries, so I’ve often heard about Urbana, but I’ve never been.
On black-only chapters: what does a couple do when a young black student attending a black-only chapter starts dating a white student and wants to attend with her or him? (This is somewhat the situation of my white daughter married now for 20 years to a black man and trying to choose a church in our rural county of North Carolina.) Having different chapters for different ethnicities sounds a lot like segregation to me.
Were there any Catholic presenters to give the Catholic view of Revelation? I think that would be, um, revealing.
Or the Orthodox interpretation?
The title did say “Evangelical.”
Interesting array of things to ponder about this gathering.
I agree entirely in your assessment of their racial-group division problem. On the one hand I have absolutely no problem with various groups voluntarily meeting to address issues unique to themselves (be it race or something else), but on the other hand I would not ever want those groups to come to predominate. It is an interesting social problem when you can have an African-American sub-group, but not a White-American group, nor can one freely speak of a white culture. This is something America will have to work out sooner or later.
I wouldn’t worry about the long-term viability of Protestantism per se, but definitely some denominations do rise and fall. I do wonder, however, at the prospects of Evangelical Protestantism because as it is currently constituted, it is very much a reactionary cultural outgrowth of the 60s-80s, and as what it reacted against (the so-called Mainline Protestant denominations) is much diminished, it it can be self-sustaining – there are indications that it may not be so.
TLDR; commenting so that I can get back to it later and do the close read your post deserves.
Fair enough if the questions are rhetorical :)
If not, no, there were no Catholic or Eastern Orthodox speakers to a general audience at the conference, that I’m aware of. Catholics were represented at the conference in that they had a “lounge” (many interest groups had these—grad students, “global students”, Asian Americans…), open throughout the week, which may well have had its own smaller events and speakers at scheduled times, as other lounges did.
Heh. Before writing the post, I actually did an Internet search and read this article:
http://www.phairadvantage.com/2014/09/more-than-you-wanted-to-know-about-op-ed-length/
(tl;dr: It convinced me I should aim for a length of around 750 words.)
Then I promptly went and wrote this 2,000-word piece…
2,000 words? Cherry.
Heh. It is nearly a perfect 750 words, you just—er—added an extra zero…
Some of us view op-ed advice as just that: advice. Others of us are just over-achievers.
Or the church I visited once (Lutheran, actually), an all-black church in a generally black neighborhood, where even the (black) guy passing by outside (he wasn’t going to church, he was walking the other way) saw me park and walk to the church, and said to me something like, “We appreciate you patronizing”…
In fairness to them, the people of that church may prefer it that way, and who am I to say they shouldn’t get to have an all-black church if they want? In fairness to Intervarsity, in effect that’s all they’re saying, too—that some black students (and Asian American students, and Latin American students) want a group where they can feel at home around people they have a little more in common with culturally. I guess that would be fine, if we could all at least agree as a country that that’s how it works. Instead, we get the Catch-22, we get it coming and going: People criticize, say, the church I go to (and the leaders within the church also earnestly wring their hands), saying that it’s too white, not diverse enough. People criticize the white kids sitting with their white friends in the cafeteria, saying, Why don’t you have more black friends? Your church doesn’t “look like America”, your circle of friends doesn’t “look like America”. It’s true that America is diverse, but often, this is exactly what America looks like: diverse people, separated into their various more and less homogeneous silos. The implication that we need to work hard to acquire more black people as if they were some kind of valuable commodity (which is really awkward, if you think about it, historically speaking…), combined with the fact that a lot of them have already been taken off the market.
White is beautiful baby, even if a little pail. ;) No disqualifiers.
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Study groups by race? I can just see Jesus under that tree in his gown, “You black kids, over there. Samaratans, over there…”
“There are some ideas so absurd only an
intellectualadminister would believe them.” –paraphrasing George OrwellLoaned out my copy, maybe 20 years ago, and never got it back.
It’s about not forcing it. People self segregate. And sometimes, it’s really hard to express yourself over a difficult passage while trying not to hurt someone’s feelings. And that happens, too.
Some things are more relevant to one group over another. Something I’ve noticed in mixed churches is there’s a lot of talk about one group being more welcoming, accommodating, apologetic while the reverse is not on offer to the other side – respecting the country’s culture, being a good samaritan, and forgiveness.
Same happens in co-ed studies. Women are going to come out really shiny in a co-ed study where in a well done women’s study, they’ll drive down into the sinfulness of women without being able to deflect onto men.
I see nothing wrong with empowering minorities to form minority only groups as part of a wider group… meaning it can’t be the only thing there… and not when they won’t let white people do the same.
Small groups are like that and we segregate a lot without thinking anything of it (old vs youth, singles vs couples, mom’s groups, etc), but corporate study/worship has to also be a part of it.
If the racial difference is like the sexual difference, maybe. I don’t buy the premise. Do it by father’s income and you will make as much sense, maybe more. Yes, of course, friends can pick friends. Just keep the institutions out of freedom of assembly.
If all men are created equal, why need we separate to discuss the Creator?