We, the leaders of the Rensselaer Christian Association, are writing in response to the April 17 editorial entitled “Judeo-Christian oppression not appreciated.” While we are not surprised that someone might be offended or irritated by our activities on campus, we were puzzled by the use of the word “oppression.” Whether the choice of word was the author’s or the editor’s is unknown to us, but certainly the choice of word was unfortunate. RCA has done nothing to oppress anyone. Such a word implies that we have power that other groups on campus do not have. Such a word implies that we are harming people, though we are not. We believe that the use of the word “oppression” needlessly minimizes the experience of a large fraction of the world that really is being harmed by those in power—people of virtually every faith.

There is an assumption on the part of the author that we would hold her in contempt if she herself were to demonstrate her own beliefs. Actually we welcome it; we would even be willing to defend your right to do as much! We have been public with our faith because we believe that people at RPI have relegated matters of faith to the sidelines. We believe our faith to be true. We acknowledge that other people also hold their faith to be true even though it directly contradicts our faith. It is our desire to have public dialog about these important matters. We have nothing to fear from such a dialog. We are prepared to answer tough questions that people may have about our faith. We are prepared to ask tough questions of others.

The author also assumes that such dialog is unnecessary given that everyone has heard of Jesus. Yet, it is clear from the author’s own letter that she does not have a real understanding of who Jesus was and the significance of his teachings. We are intrigued by her “respect for the historical Jesus” coupled with her belief that the New Testament is “fiction.” The New Testament is the only documentation of Jesus’ life that has been attributed with a high level of historical reliability even by scholars outside the Christian faith.

Finally, we would like to make clear that our desire is never to “damn” anyone. We don’t have the ability to judge people. God is our judge. Neither is our desire to “save” anyone. We don’t have the ability to do that either. Jesus is our savior. We merely desire to proclaim what we believe to be true. If you disagree then let’s talk about it, even publicly.

Respectfully,

Michael Thompson (RCA Advisor)

Meghan Coursen (RCA President)

Gillian Farnum

Amelia Scharrer

John Westbrook

Will Leiserson

Mary Chu