Once again, I'm sitting in Eli's, reading my tenth or eleventh book of the summer. I'm going to miss this once camp starts.
I just started a book called The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose. The subtitle is A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University. Obviously, I had to demand that the library ship it in from wherever they could find it so I could read it immediately. It's the one-hundred percent true account of a student at Brown who attended Jerry Fallwell's Liberty University for a semester. He tried his best to blend in and get the full Christian college experience, but he was not looking to ridicule or laugh at the Christians.
I was drawn to this book because Liberty isn't that different from OC. Sure, they're a little more strict, with rules against R-rated movies and kissing, but essentially we have the same idea. The biggest surprise of my college life has been the unanticipated feeling that I am an outsider. Somehow I identify with Kevin Roose, even though he was an atheist with no knowledge of Christian culture and I am a dyed-in-the-wool, evangelical Christian nearly from birth.
Until my freshman year, I thought there were just two groups of kids: Christians and non-Christians. Right now, I'm not really talking about religion or spirituality, but more culture. There are high-schoolers and college students who acted like Christians, and ones who acted like normal kids. I had no problem with the fact that I was not part of the "normal" group. That idea, naive as it was, wasn't disturbed until I came to OC. In my blissful ignorance, I thought that Christian university meant Christian university, regardless of denomination.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that I am not in a tiny minority and that on essentials, I am in the majority at OC. On most of the things I consider important, I fit in perfectly with our severely denominational school. I didn't know there were any Christians who honestly believed that it was a sin to play piano as an act of worship. It's one of my favorite things to do, and I was excited to go to a school where worship would be a big thing. I don't like discussing the issue anymore, because in my mind it is a matter of preference, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss worshipping with my friends as fully and emotionally as I do when I'm home.
The instruments aren't the only thing that separate me from the majority. I've had people tell me tattoos were wrong, that God hated smoking, and piercings on men were a symbol of slavery to the devil. I came to OC instead of a state school so that I could finally be around like minded people, there wouldn't be as much temptation, and I could be part of the majority. I quickly learned that there are very few truly like minded people, the temptations are still there, and I am not accepted by the majority.
This is not to say that I dislike my time at OC; I complain about it, but if I didn't love it, I would leave. And I have so many friends who encourage me, accept me, and enrich me. But I can't be completely comfortable somewhere the administration is figuring out how to handle the issue of the growing number of Christians who aren't CoC or where the handbook says it's against the rules to be gay. I've accepted that these things won't change, and for the sake of the people who want these things, I don't really want to change them. I'm also not leaving, and I'm not going to pretend to be a perfect little CoC-er when that is so far away from who I actually am.
Well, this post got really long. I didn't mean for it to. If you're still reading, I'm surprised and I thank you.
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