Not for the fainthearted

I ran into our neighbor Dan on the street, and since he seemed to be angling for an invitation to dinner, I invited him to come to our house in 45 minutes and then went home to stretch four helpings of hamburger meat five ways.

I also asked my father-in-law to get prayed up because I had a nervous feeling about the upcoming rendezvous. Dan is a proud Quaker liberal, with whom I have had fleeting brushes that were like two worlds colliding.

Good thing Wes prayed. In the course of the meal the subject turned to children, and Dan, knowing I am a Christian, tested me with a loaded question: “Would I say, looking back on it, that I had ‘indoctrinated’ my children?” Because I paused for more than a second to mentally consider the permutations of the word “indoctrination,” he pounced on my hesitation with peremptory judgment: “You don’t need to answer. I have your answer.” I then replied that if “indoctrination” can mean inculcating true doctrines, I plead guilty. The comment fell flat.

Next dinner topic: evolution. What you need to know is that I am not good at science, whereas Dan, a man of about my age, is the product of scientists on both the paternal and the distaff side. Moreover, his enlightened parents had broken away from religion and raised him as a Unitarian Universalist (because that church, Dan said, “doesn’t tell you what to believe”). In our few conversations over the years he has often brought up his scientific heritage in a way that I could tell it is at the core of his identity.

So when my husband, over his skimpy burger, hazarded to interject into Dan’s tacit endorsements of evolution that he did not believe in evolution because it was based on bad science, I held onto my seat, as it were, and prepared for a rough ride.

It got unpleasant rather fast. My father-in-law, a country pastor, who had been quiet up to that point, inserted a comment about God’s glory that was surely pleasing to God but red meat to Dan, who already thought Christians simpletons. Soon Dan was pushing himself from the table and announcing his indignant departure. My husband was in agreement with that plan, but I, perhaps not wanting to have to duck every time I leave the house, placed my hand on Dan’s arm and asked him to stay. This seemed to soothe him a bit and he started washing my dishes, which seemed odd, but whatever.

My husband did get a few good words in edgewise, and I mentioned design and “irreducible complexity,” and in the end we achieved a more or less convincing pax Americana. But the thought I was left with was how hard it is for those who have invested their whole lives in another “truth” to consider, suddenly in one sitting, the appeal of the true God. Just think of what you are asking a person to walk away from. From Dan’s point of view, if he ain’t got his image of himself as a scientist and superior intellect, he ain’t got nothin.’

When Jesus asked the rich young man to leave his riches and follow Him, the man walked away sad. Why? Because Jesus was asking him to walk away from not just money but also his lifestyle and his view of himself and the view others had of him in society. At this point, many people choose to slink back into the darkness and pretend they never heard the truth. Like Morpheus said to Neo in The Matrix: “You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want.”

This is why “the cowardly” will never enter the kingdom of God (Revelation 21:8).

But perhaps the rich young man was not a lost cause after all. Perhaps he would be back. For as he slunk away despondent and the apostles asked Jesus “Then who then can be saved?” the Lord said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”