Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Louie Crew) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: InterVarsity Message-ID: Date: 27 May 91 22:45:34 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 88 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu irani@brahms.udel.edu (Jennifer Irani) writes: > So far we have heard views on InterVarsity from 40 years ago >and 15 years ago. I would like to provide a current view.... Thanks, Jennifer. Can we talk $$$? Can you show me an IVCF budget statement that puts into perspective the amount of giving towards racial justice groups, lesgay pastoral ministries led by lesgay Christians, women's ministries for gender justice.... One of my major concerns in bringing up this subject has been to challenge privatized responses to systemic problems. Any group is by definition a system--i.e., has some structure, some way of negotiating membership and group goals, some way of meeting its expenses,..... When a Moony or an IVCF member or a member of a local church or parish tells me about individual acts of good will, I am always interested in looking at how much those commitments are built into the structure of the group claiming credit for them and how much they are dependent upon the isolated and more capricious acts of spontaneity of individual members. For example, some groups (of all kinds) will inevitably have a member or two to show up in most other movements; but when a group officially sends collaborators and budgets specific amounts for these missions beyond its own house-keeping, then these goals obviously are more integral to the sponsor's identity than are ad hoc responses to throw a nickle in the pot. I picked up a bulletin of a wealthy Episcopal parish in Philadelphia recently and noticed that the annual budget included only one item not spent on itself or on its diocesan assessment--viz., it had given $150 to the local YMCA fund. I fled that place as rapidly and as single-mindedly as Lot fled the inhospitality of Gomorrah. > On campus, we have sought to love those who are not always >accepted--and that includes homosexuals. However, I do not have to >accept the sin to love the person. I am confused. What sin are you talking about? Hetero-idolatry? Homophobia? Judging before listening? Or "The Sin" of lesgay people? If so, which ones? Our sins of not loving our partners enough? Our sins of growing weary and dispairing in trying to educate those who abuse us?..... Your diction strikes me as strange. I am the founder of one of the largest ministries of lesgay Christians, a group that has brought thousands of lesgay people into and back into the Church. We also include in our ministries many who are heterosexual, but it would never occur to me to say about them, "However, I do not have to accept their sins to love them as persons." I leave that judgment to God, and I have it on good authority that She went out the blustering and thundering business long ago. Louie Crew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu Associate Professor . . . . . . . . . . . . . .lcrew@draco.rutgers.edu Academic Foundations Department . . . . . . . CompuServe No. 73517,147 Rutgers: The State University of New Jersey. . . . . . 201-485-4503 h P. O. Box 30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201-648-5434 o Newark, NJ 07101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201-648-5700 FAX [I'd like to note that there is a difference between calling for Christians to serve others and call for justice, and saying that everyone must agree with my ideas of what political stands are correct. Thus I would agree with your assessment of a congregation that only spends $150 on others, but I would have to accept those whose concept of social justice differs from my own. It will surely not have escaped your attention that almost all Christians consider homosexual activity to be sin. While you may attempt to enlighten them on this subject, you should not be surprised if their love for homosexuals involves them in activities rather different than yours, perhaps more along the lines of programs for drug addicts... I do not see that it would make sense to consider them on that account to be cultists. Can we not simply say that someone is wrong without bringing in emotionally loaded (and ill-defined) terms like cultist? Claiming that you don't understand what people are talking about when they refer to homosexual activity as sinful is not going to help anything. I flatly refuse to believe that someone with the intellectual capacity to be a Rutgers faculty member, and who has been active in gay affairs for years, does not at least understand the arguments of those who disagree. --clh]