Seth & Aubrie Drayer

“This is fifty-five years old talking how the Lord kept me when I didn’t want to keep myself . . . I’m a hallelujah chick, and I ain’t ashamed of that.” The only evidence that Lucy, the woman sharing this spoken word poetry on the street of Cleveland, OH, was telling the truth about her age was a dusting of gray in her hair. Her tone was bright, her words infused with passion, and—perhaps most surprisingly—her laugh carried not a note of irony or exhaustion in spite of a story marked by pain. I encountered Lucy while on a mission to encourage the Justice Riders . It was the middle of the week, when the hours start to drag and conversations trend toward stale soundbites. The last Rider I planned to check in on was Megan Smith, a veteran Rider who’s also been an intern on our team. Approaching Megan, I saw her in earnest conversation. When I attempted to take a picture, the woman talking with Megan did not, like many others simply ignore me. She instantly called me out. “Wha...

“Is biological evolution a fact?” This question, hurled downward by a professor strutting up the stairs of a tiered classroom at Purdue University, briefly made me wonder whether I’d stumbled into the wrong lecture hall. Aubrie and I had returned to Purdue three years after my debate with Dr. Ralph Webb , Professor of Communications, for a new faceoff—this time with Dr. David Sanders, Associate Professor of Biology. Bracing myself for a discussion this time grounded in hard science, Aubrie and I invested hours drilling through issues I predicted Sanders might address. But as soon as cross-examination began, I realized this event—while boasting theatrical flair I’ve not seen in other formal debates, from Dr. Sanders’s signature hat to his style of circling the room and sitting down next to students while speaking—reflected the same elevation of ideology over fact we’ve seen countless times before. Dr. Sanders argued that macro-evolution—which we have not observed—is a pro...