One evening you are walking back to your dorm from your daily pilgrimmage to the library. As you pass your dorm lounge, you overhear a friendly but heated argument. One of the disputants sees you and calls you in for support. (In psychology this is called 'triangulation'.)
The debate seems to be over God. On one side are several students who come from the more traditional Protestant denominations. These grew up into Christian faith in churches with formal liturgies, went through their catechism and confirmation classes, and were involved in their youth groups. They are arguing with another small group of students who have come to Westmont from Pentecostal and charismatic churches. These found Christian faith, they say, when God "called out their name." The most formative moments for them were in encounters with the living God. Two point especially to when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit, meeting God in a new way that has developed into a relationship of daily interaction.
You have noticed that each of these groups quietly weirds out the other one. Tonight in this lounge the two worlds have collided in a heartfelt discussion where neither side is backing down or shrugging off the other one. Being good Westmont relativists, they of course affirm the authenticity of the other's faith, and that means they need to affirm at some level the ways each other came to faith. But they don't understand each other's faith, and at some deep level they don't really buy it either. And as their suspicions emerge in the little words and phrases that erupt out from the soothing nondenominational evangelical niceness they are trying so hard to maintain, each group is irritating the other more and more.
You certainly aren't going to solve anything by quoting chapter and verse from Kallenberg, Abraham, and Deere! That would weird out everyone. However, it comes to you that the Holy Spirit may just have been readying you for such a time as this.
Write an open message to me and to your peer reviewers, as fellow learners in our course, on what you would hope to do and say to them, and why your response would be legitimate. You will need to draw materially on Kallenberg, Abraham, and Deere. If you also find additional course materials (Newbigin, Buckley and Yeago readings, Athanasius, and Work's assorted on-line mumbo jumbo) helpful, you may appeal to them as well, but do not go out of your way to do so.
Please keep your paper four pages, double-spaced, and follow the directions in my handout for writing papers.
Remember, I want to see proper style, clear writing, a thorough answer to the question, and explicit citations of course materials.