Bob Jones' University, Bob Jones' Theology, Bob Jones' Hospitality

Our worst-case scenarios came true at this stop.

Speaking to a someone earlier today i articulated finally what i had been feeling about BJU for the last few days, " If someone had walked up to me a punched me in the face as I approached the school, i would not have been nearly as wounded as what truly occured there. The power of words is something that has increasingly become more and more clear to me as we continue on this ride, and BJU finished off any denial i may have attempted of it.

We stood outside of the school, surrounded on three sides by groups protesting our presence. They were all affiliated with Christianity. The most cruel, base misinterpretation i've ever witnessed. And they yelled the most dispicable things at us throughout the morniing, for hours without taking so much as a break from the microphone. I asked myself what would push a person into such a place that this is what they feel is put forth by Jesus as loving others. I wondered at times, if they had ever read more of the bible, then the 7 verses they perpetually quoted. And while I kept attempting to find the places in myself that perhaps could try to love, at least, at very least i found i did not hate them, nor even hold what they were doing against them.
There was a frightening emptiness i had to fight in the midst of it, but to absorb hate is a facinating process, and I could feel how quickly the situation could elevate if we were not so devoted to non-violence.

Samford

who knew?

Samford is located in one of the deep southern states we have visited. in Alabama and Birmingham at that was one of the places where the hardest civil rights battles were fought and today was home to one of the schools that brought us in. It was only the second so far on the ride to allow us on the campus, welcoming and participating in dialogue.

It was a short short day, but one of challenging questions, asked by riders and students, and i had never been more overwhelmed the initiative of students. I had to check myself several times to make sure I was awake, and this was not a daydream of mine, wiht students calling others out on what it may or may not mean for someone to be gay and christian, or the absence of parody present in school policies between heterosexual and GLBTQ students.