Even though the 4 of us went to an actual "top-notch" university, UC San Diego, our involvement with Inter-Varstiy Christian Fellowship meant our faith was in constant action and activity. We didn't have to deal with a university-wide culture of racism, misogyny, and anti-LGBTQIA hatred, but we embedded ourselves in a clatch of moderately conservative christianity that served to tamp down significant parts of our identities and sexuality. For Tim and Kevin, their experiences as closeted gay men added one more layer of shame, fear, and pain. Even still we were leaders in IVCF. Kevin was even a staff person for 5 years. We lived our faiths in "radical" ways before we all deconstructed to varying degrees of faith and agnosticism. 

It is this experience as the best kind of christian in an academic and scientific setting that gave me (in my mind) the authority and the cred to teach at APU, even after I no longer believed in God. And even though we at UC San Diego got incredible educations, we did not escape the harm done to us by evangelical culture. 

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Music by Scott Okamoto, Jenyi, and Shin Kawasaki and Wingo Shackleford

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