Parade of Fools

I think they’re having a competition over at Free Dartmouth (from what?). They’re looking to see who can make the most boneheaded statements with respects to the Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) — statements that will reveal the speakers’ numbing ignorance, their blind bigotry, or maybe even both.

Karsten Barde gets an honorable mention for his easy equation of religious belief with religious intolerance. Jonathan Eisenman’s platitudinous repudiation of Christians who (Heaven forbid!) actually live by their faith wins him second place. But the enchilada goes to the redoubtable Jared Alessandroni, who delights us with not one, but two glaring examples of his rabid intolerance. Alessandroni not only links the CCC with the KKK; he also repudiates the notion that people with deep convictions should actually try to espouse them.

Funny: the West has managed to replace arms with argument in the advocacy of deeply-held beliefs. Most of the world sees this as a triumph, yet Alessandroni sees this as an inividous evil.

What time will you be throwing the Christians to the lions, Jared?

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To provide perspective… this nation suffers in the hands of those conservative Protestants who dominate in Congress, and we owe it to ourselves to fight the spread of religious intolerance tooth and nail. While CCC may be a sufficiently circumspect and politically cautious organization on the Dartmouth campus, religious pluralism is under direct threat from CCC and other fundamentalist “student evangelists” (read well-funded apparatchiks) on campuses around the country.

– Karsten Barde

Well, no, [CCC] never actually enacted violence as a tactic. But, I mean, the KKK hasn’t for awhile either.

– Jared Alessandroni

See, it’s one thing to go in with swords and armor, clanging around about what you believe. But a crusade of thought, against other people’s beliefs and ideals, this is in some ways even worse.

– Jared Alessandroni

[I agree] with Jared. I have no love of CCC, or the values they seem to espouse as an organization. I am reminded of something I once heard – the biggest obstacles to understanding and appreciating the teachings of Christ are Christians.

– Jonathan Eisenman