Thank you for publishing the piece about the similarities that exist between liberal and conservative students in today's strained, faith-divided society ("Crossing the God Divide," March/April).

Too often we close our minds to the world around us and the possibility that people of such different beliefs might be struggling with the same day-to-day issues. As a Bible-believing Christian, I applaud the adventuresome curiosity of Kevin Roose '09. He is an inspiration, and I hope that others will use his compassionate report on the student life at Liberty as an example to open their minds to the value of faith in God.

Aubrey Meador '82
Mebane, N.C.
aubreym@arcatechsystems.com

I found Kevin Roose's '09 essay to be more newsworthy for mainstream media that portray Brown as a radical institution in which right-wing conservatism has no place.

At Brown, I was primarily involved with the arts community, LGBT community, and various communities of color, and I encountered as many conservatives on campus as liberals. Consequently, I felt that Roose's generalization about Brown students was problematic.

It appears as though Roose came to his conclusions about the similarity between Brown and Liberty students in part because he was able to easily assimilate at Liberty. I wonder how successful his gay black activist roommate or gay Jewish liberal friend would have been at Liberty. I also wonder how Roose's process would have unraveled had he chosen a Buddhist or Muslim educational institution in which he may have stood out as a "minority." Americans who, like me, pursue non-Christian spiritual paths, are constantly inundated by the predominance of Christianity and the lack of separation between church and state at so many levels of our society. In the future, I hope the BAM will be more innovative in selecting its cover stories, rather than feature stories I can easily find on Yahoo! News.

Gigi Otalvaro-Hormillosa '98
San Francisco
aeromestiza@sbcglobal.net