Johnny the Campus Communist

I saw a funny ad in a popular Christian magazine this past week. It had a picture of some kid with long hair and said something like, "This is Johnny, the campus Communist. He's friendly, he's polite, and some day he'll be talking to your child. Unless they come to our Christian summer camp, your child will be confused about what Johnny says, and maybe become a communist themselves. If they do come, well then Johnny's going to get more than he bargained for."

This is funny to me for a number of reasons. First, can you imagine the opposite sort of ad in popular communist magazines? "This is Patrick, the local campus evangelical...come to our communist summer camp..." Second, why do communists always have long hair? And third, since when is Christianity antithetical to communism? While implemented communism (usually referred to in reference to the implementor, i.e. Leninism, Stalinism, Moaism, etc.) is inherently secular, communism itself isn't. In fact, Christians at such conservative thunderdomes as Grove City College itself are in favor of returning to the "non-proprietary" communities of freedom written about in Acts, which seems to be more inline with the sort of idealistic communism Johnny-the-campus-communist is likely to be pushing.

Personally, I've never spoken to a student who was harassed by a campus communist, or to a Christian whose valuable training gained at some summer camp allowed them to subvert the nefarious schemes of the reds. What I have been is harassed in the name of Jesus by mormons, jehovah's witness' and even the same evangelicals likely to be reading that magazine, and I've been encouraged to do the same at some very popular and prominent Christian summer camps endorsed by no less than Focus on the Family.

If I were writing the ad and running the summer camp, it would feature an attractive and muscular looking football player sort of a kid and say, "This is Bobby, the campus evangelical. He stands outside of the science building with a bible in his hand violently condemning evolution, liberals, France, and homosexuality every day, giving people a poor perspective on what it means to be a Christian and showing not a speck of Christ's love. Come to our summer camp and learn how to both be a Christian and not wind up a mindless and angry hulk like Bobby."