The word for Egypt in Hebrew is Mitzrayim, which means \u201cnarrow place\u201d.\u00a0 Geographically, the name makes sense, since almost all of the Egyptian people live in a narrow band of fertile land on either side of the Nile River.\u00a0 The rest of the country is mostly empty desert.<\/p>\n
Metaphorically, the word Mitzrayim has been a rich one for the Jewish people.\u00a0 Their Exodus from Egypt was indeed a liberation from the \u201cnarrowness\u201d of life in slavery.\u00a0 Escaping toward the Promised Land was an expansive experience, both physically and spiritually.<\/p>\n
Last week, the people of the \u201cnarrow place\u201d went to Tahrir (Liberation) Square in Cairo and finally got liberation from the \u201cnarrowness\u201d of 30 years of dictatorship.\u00a0 It was a largely non-violent movement of mostly young people who lost their fear and claimed their freedom.\u00a0 The story is hardly over in Egypt, but what those young people have accomplished so far is a spectacular example for all the world\u2019s oppressed people to emulate.\u00a0 The Egyptians got their own Exodus from bondage when a Red Sea tidal wave of popular resentment flooded over the Pharaoh Mubarak and his regime.<\/p>\n
Another liberation from narrowness is underway in the United States.\u00a0 It is one that has barely caught the attention of the news media.\u00a0 But a portent of this coming upheaval got a report in the\u00a0Los Angeles Times today<\/a>.\u00a0 It happened in the idyllic setting of Montecito, California, home to Oprah Winfrey and others of the rich and famous set.\u00a0 On an oak-studded hillside perched above the Pacific Ocean, below the spectacular bouldered mountains of Santa Barbara, sits a small evangelical Christian college, Westmont.\u00a0 Among other things, \u201chomosexual practice\u201d is barred at this school, in a statement that all students and faculty must sign.\u00a0 But 31 gay and lesbian alumni of the school recently signed a letter printed in the Westmont campus newspaper decrying the \u201cdoubt, loneliness, and fear\u201d they experienced while they were students.\u00a0 Over 100 alumni signed on in support, and 50 of the faculty of 92 penned a letter apologizing for \u201cways we might have added to your pain\u201d.\u00a0 It\u2019s an Exodus from the \u201cnarrow place\u201d of homophobia happening inside the world of evangelical Christianity.<\/p>\n In the past, gays and lesbians in evangelical churches and colleges simply quit and went elsewhere, or suffered in silence.\u00a0 I have been involved in campus ministry at secular institutions, in one role or another, since 1980.\u00a0 In that time, I met many LGBT students who came from evangelical or fundamentalist backgrounds, and they were in \u201cexodus\u201d from their churches.\u00a0 There was no place for them in their tradition of origin, so they either dropped out of Christianity altogether, or joined theologically progressive congregations.<\/p>\n But that is changing fast.\u00a0 Now, LGBT people and their straight allies have achieved critical mass within the realm of theologically conservative Christianity.\u00a0 Rapidly, they are losing their fear.\u00a0 Enough of them have found their voices, and have found support from each other, so that they can challenge evangelical institutions from within.\u00a0 Instead of feeling compelled to leave their churches and colleges, more and more of them are standing up to their pastors and college presidents and demanding change.<\/p>\n Westmont has no plans to change its policy.\u00a0 Few evangelical pastors are ready to give up preaching homophobic doctrines, either.\u00a0 But neither the Pharoah of Bible times nor the Mubarak of present times were ready for change when it came bubbling up from the people and overwhelmed them.<\/p>\n At USC, I have met several evangelical students who, had I met them ten or even five years ago, would have quit their churches or Bible study groups over their objections to the Bronze Age doctrines taught by their pastors.\u00a0 Now, these students realize they are not alone in their distaste for the narrowness they feel in their churches and campus ministries.\u00a0 Instead of walking away from their pastors, they argue with them, or feel comfortable to openly differ with them.\u00a0 Gay and lesbian evangelicals feel more and more comfortable being \u201cout\u201d in their churches.\u00a0 Their straight allies in evangelical circles feel more and more comfortable being \u201cout\u201d about their openness and acceptance of homosexuality and even same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n In Scottsdale, Arizona last weekend there was another portent of Exodus from narrowness in American Christianity.\u00a0 \u201cBig Tent Christianity\u201d<\/a> was an event that brought together evangelical \u201cemergent church\u201d leaders like Brian McLaren and Spencer Burke with \u201cprogressive Christian\u201d leaders like Marcus Borg and John Shelby Spong.\u00a0 The \u201cemergent church\u201d movement comes from the world of conservative Protestantism, uses its language, and expresses itself with contemporary worship and music forms that appeal to a younger demographic.\u00a0 It is abandoning the \u201cmegachurch\u201d model, associations with the political right wing, and the focus on abortion and homosexuality that are so identified with evangelical culture.\u00a0 It maintains a fairly traditional theological perspective, but it is a movement that is much, much friendlier to LGBT people and others who have been marginalized in the evangelical world.\u00a0 The \u201cprogressive Christian\u201d movement is dominated by gray-haired folks who like the top ten hits of the 18th century in worship, but embrace a panentheistic, non-supernaturalistic, non-literalistic view of scripture and tradition.\u00a0 I am told that the meeting of these converging movements in Phoenix was a rich and productive one.\u00a0 (Read an article about the event by editor Cynthia Astle in The Progressive Christian here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n According to the recent book\u00a0American Grace\u00a0by Robert Putnam and David Campbell, \u201c\u2026liberal churchgoers who attend politically active congregations equal about 2% of the population.\u201d (p 428)\u00a0 Progressive Christians are a tiny slice of the religious pie in America.\u00a0 But the same book revealed a statistic that ought to shock evangelical pastors and college presidents:\u00a0 \u201c54% of evangelical Protestants believe that \u201cpeople not of my faith, including non-Christians, can go to heaven\u201d.\u201d\u00a0 (p 537)\u00a0 Religious, social, and even sexual pluralism have infiltrated the theater seats of evangelical megachurches, and it\u2019s hard to imagine this Red Sea tide of change turning back.<\/p>\n As the track of evangelical emergent pluralists connects with the track of theologically and socially progressive Christians, prepare for a trans-continental expansion of faith consciousness.\u00a0 The people, particularly young people, are leading, and someday soon their leaders are either going to have to follow or get out of the way.<\/p>\n