Crumbs from the Communion Table • Are Christians not interested in dialogue?

Are Christians not interested in dialogue?

An interesting pattern has been emerging lately in the college events I’ve been overseeing.

Conservative Christians aren’t showing up.

At each campus, I’ve been giving one presentation just for the campus LGBT community and their friends, but the day before that, each campus hosts a “dialogue” event, designed to bring people on both sides of the issue together to have a productive conversation and break through the stereotypes that each side has of the other.

When it works, it’s beautiful. At several schools, the dialogue event has blown me away with the sincere, compassionate questions each side asks the other, and the great dialogue has continued beyond those events to late night dinners and conversations afterwards.

But it’s not always that way. At some of the schools, the only people showing up are LGBTs and a few of their straight friends.

It’s not that conservative Christians aren’t aware of the event. We’ve spent hundreds of dollars at each campus on Facebook ads, we’ve covered the campuses with fliers, and the campus Gay-Straight Alliances have contacted leaders of campus Christian groups to encourage them to share the information with their members.

The events are billed as opportunities for dialogue, specifically inviting campus Christians to sit down at the table with LGBT students and have a thoughtful, sincere conversation.

Hundreds of conservative Christian students on these campuses have flocked to our pre-event online surveys, sharing their views on why homosexuality is a sin and gay people need to repent. The surveys include reminders of the time and place for the dialogue, but of the hundreds of students who have taken the time to share their views online, few bother to show up for the actual dialogue.

Why? Are we Christians only interested in preaching our views, but not interested in engaging with people who actually want to talk to us?

Of course, college life is busy, and some of these students may have had other engagements during that time. But plenty of LGBT students are showing up, and there are many more conservative Christians than out LGBT students on any of these campuses.

Perhaps the conservative Christians fear that any request for dialogue is insincere, and that these events will just be opportunities for the other side to preach at them. But that fear works both ways, and if no one is willing to take a chance when the other side reaches out in a genuine attempt to build a bridge, how will we ever accomplish anything?

It’s not happening everywhere. At the most conservative campuses, a good number of conservative Christians have shown up. Even then, though, there seem to be far fewer people willing to show up to dialogue than are willing to be outspoken in condemning homosexuality.

Jesus didn’t just stand and preach. He got involved in people’s lives. We’re called to do the same.

So what do you guys think is the problem? If you’re a conservative Christian, what would it take to get you to come to a dialogue with the gay community?