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:: Friday, August 26, 2005 ::
A Recent Observation
When I went to my first Quad Day in 2002 as an incoming freshman, I noticed that there were quite a few Christian organizations on campus. This didn't surprize me, since I'd already been warned that Champaign-Urbana was on the very Northern edge of the Bible Belt. When I went to Quad Day this past Tuesday, though, I noticed that almost every third group on the quad was a Christian group. A small amount of this, admittedly, had to have come from the exiling of the Greeks to the area between Foellinger and the Undergraduate Library. However, there were still many groups that I know didn't exist a year ago, let alone three. Where did they all come from? Time was that you'd have the tables that each local church would set up, the Catholic groups (Focus, Network, Catholic Youth for Christ, and the Knights of Columbus), Campus Crusade for Christ, and InterVarsity. Now there's a bazillion new groups, apparently not affiliated with any one denomination (though all heavily Protestant), plus two new flavors of InterVarsity. Where did they all come from?
Did a bunch of denominations decide to start their own groups without their labels on them so as to attract new members? Did other groups split off of Campus Crusade for Christ and InterVarsity in a mirror of modern Protestantism? I was very briefly involved with Campus Crusade for Christ and I quickly found out that I could get a better experience with fewer windbags by going to Mass during the week. Is the explosion of such groups an indication that the local Protestant churches need to implement weekday worship times? Do I need to start wearing tinfoil hats and proclaiming that the End Times are at hand? I don't know, and if anyone with a better/different perspective would chime in, I'd greatly appreciate it.
:: The Squire 12:29 AM :: email this post :: ::
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