Word: melendez
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...Melendez has, in the past four years, made a number of revisions in his world view, attempting to reconcile his intellectual liberalism with his conservative religious beliefs. As a result, he has found himself far to the left of mainstream fundamentalism, defending "a fairly radical interpretation of the gospels that I think is something my Harvard experience has brought about...
...CONFLICTING PULLS of faith and intellect left him at one point last year coping with what he calls a "pretty serious emotional trauma" that caused him to withdraw to his room for two weeks. Melendez says close friends--whom he only half-jokingly calls his "Board of Directors"--"stayed with me all the time, conducted my affairs, ran the Undergraduate Council for me, and basically represented me to the world so that nobody knew I was having problems--and talked me through it until I recovered...
...Melendez, in trademark style, wrote his mother a 15-page letter refuting every objection she made to his summer roommates. He says, "My attitude toward that kind of living arrangement is there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever. My parents are of the opinion that it carries some kind of stigma of immorality, but the basis of that is their upbringing, not any kind of moral standard...
...Dolores Melendez, for her part, says she is confident that her son's rethinking of Christianity will not lead him away from the church. "I can't forsee him turning his back on Christianity," she says. But she warns, "I see a little bit of secular humanism creeping in." Does she condemn that? "No," she says. "I'm not his judge, I'm his mother...
...Melendez's newfound intellectual beliefs mean, however, "that for the rest of my life I'm going to be confronting the kind of conservative--I almost want to say Republican--Ronald Reagan, Jerry Falwell Christianity with my liberal, intellectual Christianity...