(World Magazine) Liberal groups in Portland, Ore., are taking an evangelical children’s camp to task for talking to the city’s youngest residents about Jesus. The camps, which operate like a traveling Vacation Bible School, have endured protests, negative advertisements in local newspapers, and accusations of being a fundamentalist sect.
Child Evangelism Fellowship’s Camp Good News focuses for a week or two in different cities each year. During the school year, the group rents public school buildings to host weekly after-school activities. It recently won a Supreme Court case that allowed it equal access to public schools.
The group chose Portland for this year’s summer camps because of the city’s reputation for being un-churched. To put on the five-day camps, Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) partnered with about 30 churches of various denominations throughout the Portland metropolitan area. Each church helps organize camps in three different locations.