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Students Discuss Religious Beliefs
By Jacob
Davis
22 Oct 2007
The
sanctuary of the Salt Lake Christian Center was filled with
students as a film played, marking the beginning of the 2007 National
Student Dialogue Conference.
The film
showed two LDS missionaries knocking on the door of an evangelical woman’s
home. As she opened the door the missionaries introduced themselves and
explained that they had a message to share. She said that she was
evangelical and that she already had a relationship with Jesus Christ and
believed in his saving grace.
Members of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Evangelicals met in a
conference Friday to foster dialogue among the two faiths.
Standing
Together Ministries, founded by Rev. Greg Johnson, hosted the conference in
conjunction with the Salt Lake Theological Seminary.
“It blows
me away we can be candid and build these kinds of relationships,” Johnson said.
Organizers
of the conference used dialogue as a way to setup the conference.
Participants were encouraged to talk to each other with what organizers
called “convicted civility” rather than to talk in “absolutes,” as the
missionaries and the woman in the film had.
Six
students of various faiths and a moderator sat together and asked religious
questions such as the difference in the nature of God and their faith’s
definition of trinity.
“I’ve
learned the difference between truth and myth,” said Dana Dill, an
evangelical attending Biola University in California. It’s a time when both
sides can come together without the worry, but with gentleness and
humbleness and still stick with our beliefs.”
As students
discussed their different faiths they found that while they had a lot in
common, the differences were usually more important.
“The
hair-splitting isn’t necessarily hair-splitting,” Dill said. “These are
deep convictions.”
BYU
students Aaron Christensen, 19, and Kelsey Jones, 18 enjoyed the atmosphere
of the conference.
“We loved
it.” Jones said. “It’s cool to meet people of other religions that are as
sincere as we are.”
Christensen
stayed longer than she expected to for enjoying it so much.
“We were
going to stay for just the first session, but the spirit of friendship was
so strong we decided to stay,” Christensen said.
The
conference also had five plenary sessions each with a well-known LDS and
Evangelical speaker. After the formal lectures, the speakers had a
30-minute conversation, and then students asked questions of the speakers.
“I think
one thing this does is it forces you to ask yourself what is it you believe
that is unique and is it exclusive,” said speaker Doug McConnell, academic
dean of the Fuller Seminary.
Another
speaker, Robert Millet from BYU, had a similar comment.
“It’s all
based upon the premise, ‘I can learn something from someone that’s not of
my faith,’” he said.
Many
students found that the conference was a good way to learn the truth about
each others religions and would attend again next year.
“I would
recommend this to every Christian and Latter-day Saint because there are so
many miscommunications and errors,” said Megan Falese, an Evangelical from Pikes Peaks Community College in Colorado.
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