To the editor:

I read a report today about the Red Letter Evangelicals. I had never heard of them before. In some Bibles every word that Jesus spoke is in red letters. One of their leaders works with the poor, visits the condemned in prison on death row, attends the sick and homeless and sews his own clothes. The leaders decided to hold a Red Letter revival in Lynchburg, Virginia. They rented a 2,000-seat arena and began to advertise in the local newspaper. The sheriff soon showed up and told them that if they persisted, they could be fined and jailed. Undeterred, they soldiered on. Soon, some local pastors of the nearby Baptist churches asked for private meetings in clandestine settings. They begged the leaders, Shane Claiborne and Don Golden to go away because they had been warned that anyone who attended the revival would be fired from their job. What job you ask? Why everyone knew that the largest employer in Lynchburg, Virginia, is Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. The revival proceeded as scheduled. About 350 people attended over two nights from 28 states around the country, along with two dozen students from the university itself. The revival leaders wanted to leave a memento on their way home and decided to hold a prayer vigil on campus and/or leave a gift for Mr. Falwell. Mr. Falwell really didn’t need the gift, as he had just finished paying $3.2 million for a gun range to be built on the campus of Liberty University. Now I asked myself, “Would Jesus have owned a gun?”