worlds apart in the white city.

"I find that really surprising."

"Why?"

"Because I would just think it'd be mostly older people."

"Yeah, I get that. But lots of younger people, also very modern younger people, in dress and mannerisms, and humor."

"I would never expect them to be modern. The beliefs seem really outdated for there to be young, modern people involved."

Finally, she told me to write an ethnography--that people would be really interested in hearing what I was saying about the view from inside the conservative Christian community. She was enthralled. She also must have had no idea that people have beat me to this "going deep with the Christians" thing--conservative Christianity is not exactly America's best-kept secret.

All of this is from a conversation I had with a friend this weekend, from the 40th floor of a hotel in downtown Chicago. As we talked, I watched the lights turn on and off in the high-rises across from us, and gazed out onto Lake Michigan, twirling the cross on a silver chain around my neck.

"They're also highly intelligent and well-reasoned," I told her.

"Ok, but only so long as they're just towing the line on their particular beliefs, right?"

"No, not so much. A lot of them are quite conversant with their beliefs, and other belief systems. They have good reasons for believing what they do."

My other friend's mom pipes up, "Yeah, but you have to ask, why would they want to believe those things. That's the problem."

I answer, "They believe them because they find them to be true."

"Or because their parents have always believed them," added my friend. "Most Christians just get their beliefs from their parents--they can't think for themselves."

The conversation comes to a close as my friend told me a story of how someone she knew in high school had gotten so upset for my friend's lost soul that he cried once in conversation with her. My friend was angered by the crying. She felt like it would be okay if he were upset because he really understood the beliefs and felt sorrow for her, but because it was just because his parents had raised him to be indoctrinated by those things...well, how insulting.

There was a lot of talk of forced conversion episodes--stories of coworkers who pushed Jesus, and classmates unwilling to entertain other religious ideals. The inevitable nod to relativism. And the suggestion that I would never be happy at seminary--I'm too intellectual for it, apparently.

We were in the same room, and worlds apart.