March 10, 1999
Prayer request nixed student's run for office
___CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (RNS) --What happens when an evangelical Christian runs for student body office at an Ivy League school like Harvard?
___Such a person is likely to encounter stiff opposition from the student newspaper, which by its own admission is heavily influenced by the school's large Jewish presence.
___The Harvard Crimson has been "a very Jewish newspaper, disproportionately, since the 1970s," said Noah Oppenheim, a junior from Tucson, Ariz., who is one of the paper's two editorial chairs.
___That spelled trouble for Chris King, a sophomore and evangelical Christian from Winter Park, Fla.King ran, and narrowly lost, a race for president of the Harvard Under-graduate Council in December.
CHRIS KING
___He ran his campaign on the unusual--for campus politics--and faintly spiritual terrain of "community-building," "shared vision" and "values-driven leadership."
___"In my private life, I was a Christian, and that was part of who I was," said King, who belongs to a Harvard prayer group called Christian Impact. But King said he assembled a diverse campaign--people of every race, faith and even no faith--and did not inject his religion into the race.
___But then Megan White, a member of the student government election commission, wrote a fateful e-mail to fellow members of the thriving Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship.
___In the e-mail, White noted she had to remain neutral in the election, but went on to ask for prayers for King and his running mate, Fentrice Driskell. "Please pray for their protection from Satan's tactics," White wrote, adding, "I know that God's hand is directing them to run." She signed the e-mail, "In Jesus' grip, Megan."
___That language was not understood by others outside the group who eventually saw the e-mail prayer request.
___"Evangelicals have a real talent for alienating people," explained Andy Crouch, the Christian Fellowship chaplain, noting that language that would seem perfectly normal to someone in the fellowship or from a part of the country where evangelicals are in abundance can sound strange and scary to the uninitiated.
___White's talk of Satan probably cost King the election.
___The e-mail became the subject of a Harvard Crimson story, and ultimately the Crimson did not endorse King's ticket, noting that "their ties to religious groups have raised concerns among students."
___Editorial Chairman Oppenheim admitted that while his own politics are conservative, "I'd be lying if I didn't say that the Crimson has a secular, fairly left-wing editorial staff that wouldn't want a Christian fundamentalist student government leader."
___But King felt prejudged and condemned. "This could have never happened in the South. I don't think it would have happened to a person of any faith," said King, who was shaken by the experience.Frontpage / Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!