Soulforce's Equality Ride

Shane over at Wesley Blog has issued a rather one-sided attack on Soulforce. Shane’s view is one-sided because he mentions only those colleges on the Equality Ride that chose to arrest the Soulforce Equality Riders rather than agree to dialogue with Soulforce, and he seems to recommend a similar course of action to the United Methodist General Conference.

Here is a link to a press release from Abiliene Christian University where both Soulforce Riders and University officials believe the Soulforce event yielded valuable, Christian dialogue. The Chicago Sun Times reports much the same about Soulforce’s visit to Wheaton College. In neither of these cases were there arrests or even complaints about anything untoward. Soulforce volunteers were able to deliver their message and to dialogue with students and faculty. Official positions did not change, but respectful dialogue occurred. Without such dialogue, meaningful change is likely not possible.

The Wheaton dialogue is an especially good example, because, as Soulforce leader Jake Reitan says, in many respects Wheaton has some of the harshest anti-gay policies of all the schools visited, forbidding students from even holding contrary opinions. Even here there was respectful dialogue (though Wheaton faculty and students are apparently not free to hold opinions contrary to the official doctrine of the school).

Shane takes the very unusual position that Soulforce volunteers should be arrested for simply showing up at the next General Conference. I don’t think the United Methodist Church wants to follow the example of Falwell’s ironically named Liberty University, rather than associate itself with the kind of openness to dialogue demonstrated by Abilene Christian University.