Wednesday, February 25, 2009

CRU/LGBT Panel Discussion - Overview

Thursday night (February 19) there was a panel discussion to discuss issues related to the Christian and LGBT communities. The discussion, one in a five part series sponsored by Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ) about differing worldviews, brought together 4 Cru panelists and 4 LGBT panelists. Before a large crowd, composed of ~2/3 Cru and ~1/3 LGBT members, each group was posed five “difficult” questions by the other group, and each group had a sum of 45 minutes to answer these questions (~9 minutes per question). After having alternated between groups to answer each of their five questions, and after a ten minute break, there was a one hour question and answer session consisting of questions taken from the audience via text message.

This panel discussion is worthy of multiple blog postings, so I will be addressing aspects of the event as follows:

Questions asked of each panel by other panel
Questions asked of each panel by the audience
How LGBT performed well
How Cru performed well
How LGBT performed poorly
How Cru performed poorly
Final comments

That’s right, we have a lot to discuss!

2 comments:

Pomoprophet said...

Wow. this is really great! Were you on the panel?

This is the type of dialogue we need! While it may sway some in the moveable middle what its mostly going to do is allow people to see the other side as human and hopefully respond with more grace and compassion.

And if this can take place in the midwest (albeit at a university which is by definition more liberal than many other placeS) then there's hope!

By the way, I'm expecting a full report when Iowa rules on marriage...

Topher said...

I agree, the dialogue is amazing to have.

I wish I could've been on the panel, but no, I was not. Maybe I can participate in something similar in the future though!

And both of us are eagerly awaiting the Iowa ruling. Probably won't be for a few months still, but I'm hoping for the best!