2013 Summer Trip Recap

Every year, one of the high points for our youth group is a summer trip. Generally, we combine some type of service project with some fun activities. This year, we went to Morrilton, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee. 

Old Gym from the 1920s

In Morrilton, we stayed at Southern Christian Home, where we helped to move a ton of furniture, get things organized for a huge yard sale they were having, and also did some painting. It was good to meet the people there and see the campus and the work they were doing, and to help out a little. 

For me, one of the highlights of that part of the trip was getting to work in the main building on the campus, which back in the 1920s served as the campus of my alma mater, Harding University. Specifically, I was working down in the basement, which had originally been a basketball gymnasium. Though in need of a lot of work, it is an incredible building, and still has the original hardwood flooring from 1919!

View from the assassin’s window today (top) and in 1968

After a couple of nights in Morrilton, we headed to Memphis. While there, we visited the National Civil Rights Museum. I wasn’t sure how this part of the trip would go over, because teens don’t always appreciate educational experiences during their summer vacations, but several of them mentioned how cool it was and how much they enjoyed it. The museum itself is across the street from the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, and everything has been carefully preserved. The museum itself is actually the converted boarding house from which the shot was fired.

I like museums, and enjoyed it a lot (even though some of the exhibits were closed because of construction). I learned a lot of details about the assassination which I didn’t know before, and it was pretty neat to watch my teens grasp the significance (or at least some part of it) of what they were experiencing.

Part of our group at Sky Zone Memphis

From there, we spent some time at a mall and then went back to our hotel to swim and hang out. The next morning, we went to Sky Zone Indoor Trampoline Park in Memphis. There we spent a couple of hours jumping, flipping, and playing dodgeball. It was a lot of fun, though exhausting as well (I am still sore a couple days later).

After that, we loaded up and began the process of heading home. All in all, we had a great trip: we were able to accomplish some work at the Children’s Home, the teens had a great time and were well-behaved, and I had some really good chaperones who helped a ton. I think it was the most stress-free trip I’ve ever had, which was awesome.

“Liberal” and “Conservative” as Religious Labels

Liberal.

Conservative. 

They are terms that you tend to hear frequently if you are in ministry, or studying theology, or spend much time at church.* Since all three of those descriptions fit me, I have definitely heard the terms a lot. I have also used them both, and I have even seen or heard myself described with both of them before. Despite their widespread use, I dislike them, and have come to believe that, without significant contextualization, they are basically meaningless. Let me explain. 

What makes someone liberal? Well, there is a wide degree of difference between people who claim to be Christian, so it really depends which type of “Christian” you ask:

• If you ask a Catholic, a liberal might be someone who advocates the use of birth control or believes that priests should have the right to marry.
• If you ask an Amish person, a liberal might be someone who drives a car or fastens their clothes with zippers.
• If you ask an evangelical Christian, a liberal might be someone who denies the divinity of Jesus Christ, or advocates that practicing homosexuals should be able to serve as priests or pastors.
• If you ask a member of the mainline Churches of Christ, a liberal might be someone who believes that baptism is not a part of the process of salvation, or that instrumental music is acceptable in the worship of the church.
• If you ask a member of the Non-Institutional Churches of Christ, a liberal might be someone who thinks it is permissible to eat in the church building, or that churches should provide assistance to the local poor.
• In other sub-groups of the Churches of Christ, a liberal might be someone who advocates having a Bible class for children, or believes that the Holy Spirit personally indwells Christians, or thinks that it is okay to use more than one cup for the juice in the Lord’s Supper.

We could repeat the exercise with the term conservative, but hopefully, my point has become clear: if Person A, who denies the divinity of Christ, and Person B, who zips up his pants, and Person C, who thinks that a Bible class for children is a good idea, can all be described by the term “liberal,” then it’s not a particularly useful term.

How these terms are used depends almost entirely on our own perspective—where we are located on the conservative/liberal spectrum. In my own case, I am definitely conservative in the wide spectrum of Christianity, but would consider myself to be pretty middle-of-the-road within the context of Churches of Christ. Others (on both sides) would dispute where I placed myself though. In fact, based solely on the fact that I am a graduate of Harding University, some would label me as a “crazy liberal” while others would write me off as a “backward conservative.”

All that brings me to this—the labels only have meaning if you’re talking to someone who is in the exact same location on the conservative/liberal spectrum as you are.

Of course, there’s a reason why we like to have labels like this. They enable us to put people into categories and treat them accordingly. If we think of someone as a “crazy liberal” it is much easier to just write them off as unfaithful and never address any of the issues they bring up. And if we think of someone as a “backward conservative” we can condescendingly poke fun of their close-mindedness and never study any of their viewpoints or any of the cautions they raise.

What’s the alternative? Well, I guess we could look at people as individuals and get to know what their specific views are. We could try to learn why they think the way they do on a given issue, perhaps reexamine our own beliefs on that issue, and see to what extent both viewpoints are rooted in Scripture. And when we disagree with them, we could give the benefit of the doubt to people who claim to love God and want to do His will, rather than automatically question their motives or their intelligence.

But…that seems like a lot of work. Labels are definitely easier; maybe we should just stick with those.

*This blog post addresses the terms “conservative” and “liberal” in a religious sense, not a political one. The fact that the two terms are also used in the arena of politics and that they don’t always line up (people who are conservative religiously are not always conservative politically, and people who are liberal religiously are not always liberal politically) adds to my overall point.