Last night at a campus dorm we witnessed a collision of worldviews and spiritual forces.  A group of students had received permission to hold a 24 hour worship/prayer event in a dorm.  A lot of work went into setting up sound equipment, lights, pictures, prayer areas, food, etc.  The atmosphere was well done.

About 2 hours into the event, a student whom I guess was with the dorm council, stormed into the area and announced loudly and rudely that it was being shut down.  This started a conversation with more of the council which lasted for over an hour.  Their position was that in their understanding the event they approved was not the event which was happening.  Complaints had apparently been received which contended that it was not an ‘inclusive’ event and that students were being pressured to ‘convert’.  So the council said that the event was ‘too Christian’ and not inclusive of all religions.  So, while no student was turned away - anyone could be a part or hang around to check things out and several students did just that - and no one was pressured or even invited to convert, the crux was that an event where Jesus was being worshipped, could not be tolerated.  The authorities could not risk for a non-Christian to be offended in anyway.

So a collision occurred between a worldview that says Jesus is truth and one that says ‘our truth is that there is no truth’.   There was also a very evident spiritual  force at work with one student who exhibited anger and beligerance and even hatred.  Very evident when only  music was being played and sung and students were quietly praying.

On the front lines anything ‘Christian’ cannot be tolerated and the blindness of the other worldview is displayed.  While obviously drunk students were entering/leaving the dorm and using all sorts of colorful language and, assumingly, engaged in various sorts of activites in their rooms, it was not okay for students to be singing about Jesus or praying for the dorm they were in at an event in a common area.

It is the worldview that says ‘I have a right not to be offended.”

This event was admittedly very Christian and may not have been the most effective way to move dorm students towards Jesus, but it was also certainly not deterimental to students well-being and even interfering with their pusuits of the evening.  And so in the middle of a labor-intensive event, a group of students made another group of students tear down and pack up in a hurry so that no one would be offended.