| "Church" With An Athiest | | Print | |
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By Kimberly Demont It was Thursday. The season had started to turn, and I wore a long-sleeved thermal over my favorite blue camisole, with my black pea coat to keep out the chill. A fringed black scarf, which I would soon lose as we walked along the city's streets, warmed my neck as I waited for my friend to look up from the table. In surprise, he exclaimed, “What a coincidence! I was just about to order the exact same fare." He addressed our waiter, "With onion rings instead of fries, please, my good man.” who received our menus a second later and bowed formally, smirking. This seemed a bit peculiar, as we were only in a pub. But what can I say? My friend had a way of bringing out the unseen sides of the people around us. “So I'm curious,” he started (once the mischievous server had brought our food), in the way of kicking off what would soon become an extremely interesting chat. “Why did you add me as a friend on FaceBook? Why contact me after...” his voice trailed off. “Well, you know. Our last conversation – after so long? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad you did! It just puzzles me. Like I said earlier, I never really expected to hear from you again.” My friend and I had gotten back in touch through the popular networking website about five weeks ago, soon after my family's relocation to northern Vermont. Admittedly, it wasn't odd for him to wonder what had motivated me to reconnect with him. We had been unlikely chums in middle school, for one thing: he a brooding, asocial atheist who more than occasionally chose not to apply his full potential; myself an energetic, sociable type who'd been raised in a “good Christian home.” Back then, on top of all this, I was far too prone to letting people know just what was wrong with them, the way I was sure God saw it; and several times I had tried in vain to get him to confess there must be a deity, considering my own “extensive” experience inside church buildings (at the time, I could not understand why this bore absolutely no significance to him whatsoever). He always seemed frustrated during these times, but figured it wasn't worth it to try and out-argue me over what he saw as such a minor issue, that of course being the existence of a God. Our aforementioned “last conversation” was had over the phone many years ago, when I had apologized for all the times I'd tried to “shove faith down his throat.” Crying in repentance, I'd said that if there even was a God, I didn't think He was anything like what I had portrayed. My friend had just said it was “all OK, Kim.” Then we had talked about something like the weather. And then, as perhaps happens all too often, we hadn't talked with each other again for a very long time. When it just so happened, a few weeks ago, that he realized he would be visiting my area on business, we decided it was fated for us to hang out. Now, inevitably, I was confronted with the question I most desired – and most feared, in all honesty – to answer: Why. I wanted to answer it, mainly because with this inquiry came the hope of righting the wrongs of my past. That is, in my experience, when people presume that what they feel inevitably reflects the way God thinks, they usually end up misrepresenting Him to the people around them, possibly even damaging those peoples' perception of Him forever. Though I certainly had not meant to, I had definitely done this to my friend a time or two in middle school. Now was my chance to expound upon the apology I'd given so long ago, to show him a redeeming side to Christianity through love. On the other hand, however, this opportunity also carried with it, undoubtedly, the risk of being seen as the exact same person I had been in middle school. It was possible that any mention of my faith whatsoever could be perceived as an attempt to renew, instead of our friendship, my earlier shots at “winning his soul for Heaven”; and life had taught me since then that my pushy young self was not a person I ever again wanted to emulate. These cautions in mind, my answer came slowly at first. I was unsure exactly how to explicate the many ways in which my beliefs had evolved over the years during which my friend and I had not spoken, without being misinterpreted. “The only way I can think to answer your inquiry, as lame as it sounds, is with another question,” I replied after a moment's thought. He nodded for me to continue. After some more hesitation, I did. “What would you call somebody who is very insightful, who appreciates the beauty in common things, and who seems wise, compassionate – you know, that sort of thing. How would you refer to such a person?” “I suppose 'insightful' would be the best word I could think of off hand,” he replied, collected but unsure where I was going with my response. He bent his head over his plate to take another bite of his burger, watching me inquisitively through bushy eye brows. I fiddled with my fries, still fumbling for the right words. Finally I just decided to go with what was in my heart to say. (Worst case, I figured, he'd leave me with the bill and a half-eaten Angus.) “You know,” I began with a sigh to soothe my nerves, “that I was raised as a Christian.” He nodded, slurping a stray onion into his mouth. “Mmhm.” “Well, if I were to choose a word – from the limited vocabulary I learned growing up around the Church, that is – to sum up the traits I just listed, and a few more, I would have to describe the person who possessed them as 'spiritual'.” (Here, he did not flinch as I had expected him to, which I took as a good sign.) I continued: “Maybe that sounds really random and irrelevant, but being spiritual like that is a huge part of what I think it means to be a Christian. So when I meet somebody who I think of as having the qualities that I believe all Christians can, and should, exhibit – and yet so many of us don't – who does not believe in the things I believe in, it really intrigues me. You,” I finished sheepishly, “are one such person.” I looked at the wall at the close of my speech and took a long, thoughtful sip of iced tea. Meanwhile, I braced inwardly for an adverse reaction; fearing a rebuke from my friend, or at least for his voice to adopt an edge. Would he think I was just trying, in a more subtle (but nonetheless offensive) way than before, to judge his views and convert him to an out-of-touch religion? Peddling the same unwanted product under a new brand-name? To my surprise, the transparency of my discourse seemed instead to put him even more at ease than he had been previously. He tilted his head to one side empathetically and replied, “Yeah. I can respect that.” …HUH?! I stared at him in a relieved state of shock as he went on to tell me about how his own beliefs had also changed during the time we'd been apart. “I no longer feel that the term 'atheistic' accurately describes my outlook,” he explained, “because just as it seems utterly arrogant, to me, to assert indisputably that God exists; it seems equally haughty to claim that there's no way He could ever exist, and that anyone who believes in a God is 'wrong.' Instead, I describe myself as agnostic.” He paused in reflection. “I guess you could say I believe only in the human potential – to accomplish things, both good and evil.” Then he sipped his soda before resuming; at which point he added sincerely, “For all I know, though, I'm just as misguided as the next guy behind a pulpit.” Dumping another sugar packet into my drink, I couldn't help pondering the graciousness of this response. There I was: Ms. Fire and Brimstone, who had spent the majority of our former acquaintance trying to “fix” what I had seen as this guy's rejection of my sovereign ideals, all the while presuming to believe that God agreed with and would support my hypocritical judgments. There I was: me, who had completely failed, day in and day out, to regard with even the semblance of tolerance the views and opinions of my friend. Me, who had treated him like some broken music box to be repaired, rather than as the valuable and complex human being that he is (the one my God loves), refusing to understand him, or even fully hear him out. Me, who had been so brazen as to consider myself somehow superior, solely because someone else had the “audacity” to oppose the message of God I so faithfully accosted them with. There I was: finally speaking like I ought to have spoken all along (in terms of “I have no interest in changing you; only in being your friend”). And in return, this very same comrade – the one to whom I had shown nothing of Christ's true nature – was holding his hand out to me in good will to let me know he would not dig up the bones of my past. While his explanation did not change my personal beliefs about God (for it was not meant to, just as mine was not meant to change his beliefs), his reply was very humbling. When finally I approached him with an open mind, I found him to be more accepting than (I think it's safe to say) the majority of the church-goers with whom I had associated for the first thirteen years of my life – especially myself! I believe if that does not plead with the reader of this article to realize that somewhere along the line, we have a tendency to lose sight of our passion for the pure love of Jesus, and that we need to refocus our hearts toward the way He sees the unbelievers among us, then we need to take a second look at the way He led His life here on earth. Who among us would readily assent, for instance, to a foot-washing with perfume (such as the one Jesus received) from a known prostitute, in front of all our Christian friends, penitent though she may be? Or which of us has ever felt so much remorse for the various ways in which we write people off as “unacceptable” in the Kingdom of God, as this woman felt for her sins? Who among us would be confident enough in the righteousness Christ bestows to shout up a fire escape to the city scoundrel and invite ourselves to dinner at his house, just to spend some time with somebody God treasures? Could we say to a woman with five previous husbands and a current live-in boyfriend, “God wants you to know so much of His acceptance and blessing that you (and the people who knew you as you were before) can't help but worship Him?” I believe our answer to these questions, whispered, with actions, into the hearts of a world that craves authenticity, could change the way the church impacts society – one seeking soul at a time. We will! So for now, I leave you not with a scripture about how “The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'” Nor do I leave you with a commentary on the same; not with a question of who truly denies, in their heart, the existence of an omnipotent, compassionate God: the complacent Christian who forces her beliefs upon others without love, or the atheist who genuinely and actively seeks out the truth (which is almost impossible not to find if you're sincerely searching for Him, anyway). I leave you instead with the words of the Cuban musician, Voltaire, when he sings that, “God prefers an atheist.” * * * The rest of the day with my friend passed by comfortably, teeming with discussions on things like Heaven and Hell; pain and suffering; the virtues and abuses of religion; science-fiction-fantasy novels; and what it really means to have church. We mulled over such topics as world hunger, Halloween, children's television programs, and preventable diseases in third-world countries. Or sometimes, we just shared a good laugh about a strange display in a store window, or the resemblance between a passing dog and its owner. More than not, I found myself nodding in agreement at the things he would say regarding Christianity – and vice versa. “In fact,” I ventured at one point during our meeting, “I don't think church needs to be anything more than what we've experienced today. Each other's company.” We'd been around the block twice searching for my then-missing black scarf, and finally given up by perching on a sidewalk bench to rest. My friend looked me straight in the eye, suddenly intense, almost as if he expected me to be joking. When he saw I was not, he retracted and looked conscientiously at the cobblestone. (Had we been at the grave site of a beloved relative, I imagine his expression would probably have been very similar to the look, which struck me as being strangely akin to reverence, on his face in the middle of Church Street that day.) “I could not agree with you more,” he said quietly. ...And I can respect that. |
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