double-vision.

I went dancing at a gay bar on Saturday night. And I am excitedly awaiting the James River Women's Conference in October. I spend early Saturday evenings in bible study at the home of a guy who plays in JRA's worship team. And my closest friends are either agnostics, atheists, or Christians to the left of John Shelby Spong. I go to church two times per week, sometimes three. And I have a million reservations about the megachurch model.

I live in two worlds. And I won't leave either.

Let me tell you about late Saturday night.

I turned 25! And another friend turned something else, so I went out to celebrate with the crowd, whose preference was a gay club in downtown Springfield called Martha's Vineyard. I'm no stranger to gay bars--one of my closest friends from home is the most outrageously attractive gay guy you've never met, and he would take me out with him in Boystown, Chicago. But it has been a while since I've been in any crazy bar scene, and I felt the clash between the culture I've been learning (conservative evangelicalism), and the culture of my past (over-the-top bar scene).

I've been experiencing a lot of culture shock recently. Not a bad thing. On the contrary, I think it's good for me to be on my toes.

So we're at this bar, and I've got full-on double-vision. I see through the secular lens, and I've got the evang-i-vision going. Let me tell you, that's a lot to process with the strobe lights on. I'm thinking about something that this guy said to me at bible study earlier that night. He asked if I took him with me into the secular world of my friends, what it would be like.

I don't know. Television? But dirtier, because you can't drop an F-bomb on TV.

Anyway, I liked the question, and being in the bar reminded me of him. Made me think that if he were with me, he might pass out. I walk outside and there's a girl heatedly telling her friends why she doesn't have a girlfriend, "Being a bisexual, I love men, and I love women, but the women have f***ed more people than the men. I like women more, but I can't find one that's not a slut." She went on to name names, "Kendra, Jessie, Stacey..F***ing everybody." I walk into the bathroom, and there are people doing it in the largest stall. Back out on the dance floor, there's some girl way past drunk crying in the corner. In the background of the photos I took of my friends, you can see girls getting pretty dirty with one another on the dance floor.

Yeah, this might be a bit advanced for my bible study friend.

I know that many would frown on my presence, but I'm glad I was there. I didn't cross any lines--no drunkenness, or sexed-up dancing, or inappropriate innuendo. I do the crossword every week in MSU's student paper, and right next to the puzzle is an AGTS ad that says "Made for the edge, not the center." Well, friends, these are the edges I think we need to be on.

I was in a place where few conservative Christians go. And I was there not as a person who gets drunk at night, and prays in the morning. But as a person who is not afraid to walk the line between temptation and sin. As a person who is willing to have a drink, and dance, and accept criticism of the Christian church (all notably NOT sins). I want people to see that Christianity isn't easy--it'll take all of the heart and intellect and creativity that you've got--but it's not so out there as you think.

I fear that so many see the often-misleading culture of the conservative evangelicals (which comes off puritanical to the outside), and decide that Christ is so "other," so impossible, and undesirable. I think it's time that those of us are inside the fold start building some bridges. We have to be willing to hold our beliefs, but admit that faith is not certain. To live those beliefs, but not turn from the grittiness of the world.

When I joined my friends at the restaurant before we went dancing, they asked me if I was still going to James River. I said yes, to a table full of groaning and shouts of, "No, don't do it, don't do it." Not unlike how my James River friends might react internally to read about the rest of the evening.

The reality is that God doesn't stand on the outside of the bar. He's inside. When I hit the doors, He didn't decide to give me up to sin. His radical power dwells within me always, as it does for each of the people I saw that night. If God doesn't stand outside, let's you and me not either.