“Bubble”: an accurate reflection?

Posted by admin on Feb 3, 2009 in Issues & Ideas, Letters to the Editor | 0 comments

Dear Editor,

Upon reading your latest issue, I was disappointed when I read the ads promoting the Laurentian Leadership Centre. These ads, with the motto, “Get out of the bubble. Get to Ottawa,” were displayed throughout the Mars’ Hill. One ad, to make this message extra clear, even wrote in big bold font, “GET OUT OF THE BUBBLE.”

This message as a means of promotion was very disheartening for me as a student. Is an incentive to attend the LLC prompted by ways of escaping a Christian safety net? Is this really the type of milieu in which we view ourselves being in here at TWU? A “bubble”?

I have nothing against the LLC – I have friends who have participated in the program in the past or who are there this semester, and know many who have only high acclaims of their experience there – but if going to the LLC implies coming out of a so-called “bubble” that is our Christian institute called TWU, then it is unfortunate that we think this way.

The term “TWU bubble” is perhaps all too familiar for all of us, but it has always deeply troubled me. We toss the term around and make jokes about it; but if we sincerely believe it to be true, then what kind of witness is this? What kind of Christians does this make us? Moreover, if the description of our TWU “bubble” assumes that we are all Christians here, then we need to put into consideration the percentage of students on our campus who don’t know God.

All this to say, encouraging students to go to the LLC with the reason that it is a way of escaping our “bubble” raises the question of who we are, and what our roles look like as Christian staff, students and faculty here at TWU. This question, in my opinion, needs to be reevaluated by all of us.

– Melodie Ngo