Firelance: April 2006

Soulforce

Soulforce showed up on Wheaton's campus yesterday. If you're not familiar with them, I'm going to save my breath and ask you to follow this link before reading further: http://www.soulforce.org/. I think it is interesting that they use these two men on their logo:

What do you all think Dr. King would have really said about Soulforce? Anyway, that's not what I wanted to write about. I went to hear a panel last night where Wheaton's provost Stan Jones and two students spoke, then were followed by 3 "equality riders." Wheaton's basketball arena was completely packed. One of the students presenting was my dear friend Christopher Yuan. He has possibly one of the most radical testimonies I have ever heard. Chris is a former homosexual and drug dealer/user who now lives with HIV. When he told his story to Soulforce I couldn't hold back the tears.
When it was Soulforce's turn to share, one thing became very clear: they did not want to talk about scripture at all. Though they all claim to be committed Christians, they also believe that Christ accepts them exactly the way that they are and does not expect them to change. They said repeatedly that Evangelicals always just hit them with scripture, as if they're just lobbing "scripture-grenades" at them, and they were tired of taking that route. The thrust of all of their speeches was plain: they have been hurt deeply by Christians, among others.
How you can be a committed Christian and not want to pay attention to scripture is definitely confusing to me, but when it comes to their real message, all you can say to them is that we are sincerely sorry for the way that they've been treated. The Wheaton panel did a wonderful job of doing that, and I was proud. What else can you do? It is very sad when Christians come up to them on this "equality ride" and abuse them, vandalize their tour bus, and the like.
It was neat to see the way that a loving apology diffused a lot of their steam. But one thing that I walked away with was this: wounds are deeper than convictions. They are wounded people. How would you respond to a campaign like "equality ride"?