Written in response to the article "SHADOWGRAPHS: Say Yes to Jesus" by Justin Otto, which appeared in The Flip Side Volume 1, Issue 10 (April 14th - 27th, 2004).

Justin, your editorial in the April 14th issue of The Flip Side was well written and, more importantly, made an inspiring and cogent argument toward Christianity. As a Christian I related with the joy you attempted to convey to your readers, but the part that really impacted me had to do with your discussion of the WRONG reasons to turn to Jesus. I am a print journalism major with a minor in politics, and so the balance of religion with political ideology is a very important subject to me. I have experienced great frustration with the on-campus Christian community as a result of many of them engaging in and advocating the support of "conservative" politics, solely because of their views on issues like abortion, gay rights (or the lack thereof), etc.

I don't know what your views are, but assuming you are a progressive from your writing, I would bet that you have a problem with many of the assumptions made by the conservative Christian community as well. For example, so many of them supported the war in Iraq for no other reason than the belief that George W. Bush promotes Christian views and so is inherently correct in his foreign policy. The same people tell me that military and financial aid to Israel is justified biblically because the Israelites are God's chosen people, despite the fact that such aid is a major cause of Middle East violence and the impossibility of reaching a peace agreement in that region. Resolution of the conflict will never be attained as long as the U.S. is looked upon as the big brother of Israel in the eyes of the Islamic community. As I said, I'm not sure where you stand on these views, and I respect your opinion either way.