I grew up in a conservative evangelical church and school. From an early age I was taught about the misinformed, misguided, and downright foolish beliefs and lifestyles of a host of different people groups. Muslims and Hindus and Gays, oh my! As long as I stayed on the straight and narrow yellow brick road, I would eventually find my way back home to Jesus though, and hopefully, with enough prayer and some good logical defense, I could show a couple of those heathens how wrong they were and get them walking on the streets of gold too.
In fairness, I grew up with wonderful people, and it wasn’t usually stated like that. While there were definite moments of hatred and fear towards the unidentified, stereotyped them who stood opposed to the thankfully saved us, more often it was a sort of well-intended critique of other people groups, blanketed with an emphatic ‘love the sinner, hate the sin.’
So when I went off to college, it was with numerous warnings of the liberal agenda and harsh atheistic culture that permeated the entire (more…)
Securely Insecure 