Charlotte and I were able to have conversations with two people: a female Penn student and a middle-aged man, who was there with his wife and young child.
The female Penn student comes from an Anglican background and is clearly familiar with some things about Christianity. But she doesn't see the Bible as "literally true," but rather approaches it as a collection of really interesting stories. She might even say that those stories are "true" in some sense, I think, in that they communicate spiritual truth, but not in that they actually happened. This was actually a difficult conversation, in my view, because in a sense, my responses to her, which pointed out that Jesus not only gave us an example but died to accomplish something objectively true, were basically saying, "Your view of Christianity is inaccurate." Of course, even though I said these things very gently (I THINK I did, but you can ask Charlotte...I really do think I did! :), she was basically not too happy with my responses.
The middle-aged man has an interesting background. He grew up in a Methodist church, I think and had a bad experience when taking confirmation class when he was 12 years old. Basically, when the pastor asked him if he believed in Jesus, the man said no. The pastor responded very harshly to this, according to the man, saying that he would go to hell and other things as well, apparently. The man has also seen a lot of hypocrisy in the church, and he basically is a Daoist now and tries to live "according to the balance of nature." He was open to hearing the gospel, and I think he appreciated hearing the story and having Christians, even "fundamentalists," listen respectfully to his views and his experiences. His name is Brian. Please pray that God would stir his heart to continue seeking the truth.
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