Answering the Critics

In response the the Jason Ray story that was posted on ESPN's web site, someone wrote a fairly grumpy e-mail to the national office regarding us asking Jason to stop leading the Bible study in the bar. The basic gist of it was that Jesus hung out with all kinds of people, why were we making up dumb rules that aren't in the Bible? What kind of message does that send to people reading the article nationwide?

The folks from the national office forwarded it on to me, and I thought I'd post most of my response here--especially since many of you who read the blog are students and might have some of the same questions:

The folks doing the write-up obviously couldn't/didn't include all the nuances of what was involved with it--hopefully I can fill in some gaps and maybe you'll see why we asked Jason and his co-leader to not hold the Bible study in the bar.

Jason and his co-leader Isabel were leading an off-campus, co-ed, upper-classmen Bible study. Most all of our small group Bible studies are dorm-based at UNC. But we realized that as many juniors and most seniors move off-campus they have a hard time staying plugged into a small group community. So we decided to experiment with an off-campus small group targeted to reach out to/care for upper-classmen in our community with Jason and Isabel as the leaders.

InterVarsity has a national policy regarding alcohol at official IV events. As an inter-denominational campus ministry, we have students involved in our communities who have very different views on alcohol: everything from folks who had alcohol at the church picnics growing up to students who have never been in the presence of people drinking. In order to honor all of our students and the varying convictions regarding alcohol consumption, IV as a national organization mandates that no official IV event includes alcohol. This is based on Paul's word to the believers in Corinth that he would not eat meat sacrificed to idols (even though it was allowed) if it would cause a brother or sister to stumble (see 1 Cor. 8).

There were also a couple of other concerns:

We not only have students of varying convictions regarding alcohol, we also have students with varying experience regarding alcohol. Some of our students, again, have never had alcohol and never even been in the presence of someone drinking. Other students are seriously fighting alcohol addictions--alcohol is the drug of choice on the college campus. Again, in order to honor and care for the wide range of students and their experiences, having the Bible study in the bar was not a good idea.

Lastly, the purpose of the small group Bible study was to care for off-campus students. Many of the students who live off campus are juniors or even sophomores who are not yet 21. Therefore, by meeting in a bar the small group was in effect marginalizing many of the very students it was intended to serve.

To clarify a couple of things from the article:

1. Jason and Isabel did not want to meet at a bar as a regular event. They had a regular meeting spot where they did their Bible study and moved it to the bar one or two times before they talked to me about it.

2. The tone and dynamic of the conversation that I had with Jason and Isabel was mostly playful and gracious and fun. They came to me sort of sheepishly and said that they had met at a bar for small group a couple of times. I said, "that may not be the best idea" and then outlined the reasons stated above. It was not that the "power structure" came down on them and squashed their fun. We had a good, fun but serious conversation about it, they totally understood, and we went from there.

3. If Jason had wanted to do a Bible study on his own with some folks from campus or people he met at a bar or whatever, I would have been all about it. This is not about alcohol per se but about the context and the specifics of the situation (an official IV small group and the students that we were trying to serve).

Lastly, I encouraged Jason and Isabel to not have the Bible study at the bar but rather at a neutral site. And I said that if people over 21 wanted to go out afterwards and hang out, do whatever, and if they could do that in such a way that it honored everyone in the group and not cause other folks to stumble or struggle, I said I thought that would be a great idea. My guess is that if that got picked up on ESPN, I'd be getting angry e-mails from people on the other side of this issue!

I hope that this might be helpful in clarifying the issues surrounding alcohol and Jason's small group specifically. You might still not agree with what we did, which is cool. But I hope that you'd be willing to give me/us enough grace to understand it.

I had a great relationship with Jason, his life and death have touched me and so many in our community deeply--and his story and his faith is being talked about on national t.v. to lots and lots of people. I pray that the Lord might continue to redeem this tragedy for his glory to bless many, many people.

With Peace,
Alex Kirk