Cut, Thrust and Christ Why evangelicals are mastering the art of college debate.

[contemplative]

Cut, Thrust and Christ Why evangelicals are mastering the art of college debate.

By Susannah Meadows
Newsweek

Feb. 6, 2006 issue - When you believe the end of the world is coming, you learn to talk fast. On a Friday afternoon the debate team from Liberty University, Jerry Falwell’s fundamentalist Baptist college, is madly rehearsing for the tournament about to begin. This year’s topic: should the United States increase diplomatic and economic pressure on China. They may just be practicing, but you wouldn’t know it from the menacing mosquito-buzz rising as all 20 debaters read their speeches at once, as fast as they can. Policy debate on the college level has become a rapid-fire verbal assault, an arguments-per-minute game, that sounds more like the guy at the end of the car commercial than an eloquent Oxford intellectual. There is tension and more than a little spittle in the air. The Liberty team is currently ranked No. 1 in the country, above Harvard (14th) and all the other big names. But for the evangelicals, there’s a lot more at stake than a trophy. Falwell and the religious right figure that if they can raise a generation that knows how to argue, they can stem the tide of sin in the country. Seventy-five percent of Liberty’s debaters go on to be lawyers with an eye toward transforming society. “I think I can make an impact in the field of law on abortion and gay rights, to get back to Americans’ godly heritage,” says freshman debater Cole Bender. Read more

 

[sadie2723]

Good luck to them. As a former debater myself, and being very comfortable with the rules of debate, I can say that most Evangelicals are not very good at it. For the most part debate focuses on presentation of the facts. Evangelicals attempt to “win” theological arguements with presentations of their “interpretation” of those facts. In other words, they tell you what they thing scripture means as opposed to focusing on what is actually says. This is how you write propaganda. If you read Mein Kamph, you will discover that Hitler was a master at it. Now, before you all kill me, I am not comparing Protestants to Hitler. What I am saying is that debate is about a discussion of fact, not some person’s interpretation of those facts.

B

 

[sadie2723]

Good luck to them. As a former debater myself, and being very comfortable with the rules of debate, I can say that most Evangelicals are not very good at it. For the most part debate focuses on presentation of the facts. Evangelicals attempt to “win” theological arguements with presentations of their “interpretation” of those facts. In other words, they tell you what they thing scripture means as opposed to focusing on what is actually says. This is how you write propaganda. If you read Mein Kamph, you will discover that Hitler was a master at it. Now, before you all kill me, I am not comparing Protestants to Hitler. What I am saying is that debate is about a discussion of fact, not some person’s interpretation of those facts.

B

 

[Kevan]

sadie2723:

What I am saying is that debate is about a discussion of fact, not some person’s interpretation of those facts.

And yet each college debate team has to argue both sides of the same question–sometimes the affirmative, sometimes the negative.

I wonder which side has the facts and which side is just advocating their interpretation of those facts?

 

[deb1]

I have mixed feelings about their agenda to get more lawyers into the land and thus have more influence in politics.

On one hand it would be wonderful to have some Christian judges who could counter balance the more liberal ones. Yet, there is another factor that nags at me as I read this story. Many conservative Protestants(Not all, though) that I have known tend to see the world through very tunnel vision. Everything is black and white and things that we would not consider sin-like alcohol drinking-is frowned upon. I am not certain that I would like for them to be making our future laws.

Perhaps the folk at Liberty University are not fundamentalists. I really don’t know much about their beliefs.