It was my sophomore year of High School and I was sitting in the school courtyard with some of my friends before Geometry class. We had just eaten lunch and we were probably discussing some of the most important things that fill a 15 year old mind: who’s going out with whom, what we were doing on the weekend, why do you possibly need to take algebra, and of course, being as we were about to go to geometry, who has their homework done. (It was a bad habit, but I think only two of us did the homework on a regular basis, not including myself, and the rest of us would frequently just copy it. Don’t look at me like that, you would have done the same if you had a buddy that was exceptionally good at math too. Thanks Nick.)
Then something really unusual happened.
Just as every other High School had, my school had a large “Gothic” population (by this I of course mean the students that dress kind of like vampires and tend to listen to Heavy Metal and typically have at least a curiosity with the occult or New Age type philosophy). I have always loved the Goths. In fact, I have frequently said that these were my favorite people because they are typically the only honest people that you will find on a high school campus. I am finding in my post-high school existence that this quality is just as rare and I fondly recall my many discussions with the Goths (I should note that I am only using the term “Goths” in order to bring a certain understanding to this story, I would never want to label people, especially people that I admire). We would talk about a lot of things. I mainly would listen. I learned about Wicca, came to understand that just like everyone else these people were just building a community that they could fit into, that many of them had grown up in Christian Churches and that their experience with church was not much different than my own. (I’ll never forget Eric, he told me that the main reason that he was not a Christian was because when he would go to his church youth group and try to ask questions; the youth pastor simply told him to shut up. The guy just wanted to gain some understanding but because he dressed a little differently he was categorized as disruptive and his views were given the label “irrelevant”.)
So there we are, sitting in the courtyard, and one of the Goths came up to my table, which I should tell you, consisted of mainly students that were a part of the Christian Club that I was a leader in. He walked right up to our table and without any emotion said “There is no God.” Every eye at the table turned to me. They had that look of “Go ahead Matthew, help him understand” mixed with “Can you believe the nerve of this guy?” So, what was I supposed to do? I had no clue, so, I started a “conversation” with him.
If I remember correctly, I started by asking why he thought there was no God, but unfortunately, as good of a starting place as that sounds, it was only a starting place. From there, we began to debate, and then, standing to my feet, we began to argue. Right there, in the courtyard of my high school I almost got in the first fist fight of my life over whether or not there was a God. It was becoming a bit of a shouting match, my friend that was good at math put his hand on my shoulder to try and calm me down, but this guy had gotten under my skin.
We decided that neither of us was going to give in to the other and went to our respective classes about 15 minutes late. Yeah, it was quite the event.
The next day the school founder/principal (I went to a charter school, it was a very unique high school experience) came up to me to ask me about the previous day’s faith debate. He just wanted to find out what happened. I admitted that I had lost my cool, but hey, he started it, he obviously just wanted to get under my skin otherwise he never would have said anything. The principal explained to me that the other student walked into his class 15 minutes late and very pointedly proclaimed to his classmates and teacher “What’s with all of these f***ing Christians around here that think that they know everything?” Apparently he didn’t stop there and considering he had been on the school’s “black list” (my charter school was a public school, but it was run by Christian administraitors and the mainly Christian parent population had the administration in a strangle hold regarding the Gothic population-they feared that these very kind young people were going to cause another Columbine type shooting at my school) the student that I had been arguing with was expelled. They kicked him out of school. Now, I’m not saying that I’m responsisble for his actions, but I was AT LEAST a catalyst to his outburst. In other words, it wouldn’t have happened if I had handled it differently, perhaps with more love than self righteousness.
I can assure you that any chance that I had of showing the love of Jesus to that student was gone. As far as he was concerned, I was just another narrow minded, religious, Christian bigot. And you know, I don’t blame him for feeling that way. That is how I treated him.
I’ve thought about this event many times and I have come up with a few questions about what was REALLY going on that day:
Was I just trying to prove that I was right and he was wrong?
Was he just trying to get a rise out of us or was he looking for answers?
Is this how people that are not Christians and who do not go to church view church people, as willing to get into a shouting match at the drop of a hat?
Would it have been better for me to have said nothing and kept my seat?
Was there any way around the whole thing to begin with?
I’ve come to the conclusion that my honest desire was to defend my faith in God and that I thought that if I did so properly that I could maybe even lead this chap to accepting Jesus and becoming a Jesus follower. Unfortunately, it would seem that I did a rather poor job of both.
It’s strange, but looking back at that event I remember what my various friends said. They were all supportive saying things like “Good job” and “That’s what I would have said” and my favorite “I wish I could have had the guts to do that.”
This reminds me of another event that happened in my high school years.
I had gone to hear Raul Rees (I think that’s how he spells his last name) preach. He’s a crusade preacher, a lot like a Billy Graham event really. Contemporary music, old guys doing a bad job of introducing “Christian Rock Stars”, and then Raul would preach. He spoke about the love of God, the sins of mankind, the death of Jesus, the salvation of the resurrection. Pretty passionately too, I might add.
There were thousands of people there and hundreds walked from their seats in the bleachers down to the High School football field to announce there new found faith in Jesus. It was a veritable pandemonium of Christian excitement, pretty cool stuff really.
As I was leaving the stadium that evening I saw protesters, and around them, a large crowd of people that had been in the event. One of the protesters, holding a large sign that said something like “Raul Rees is a liar” was speaking to the crowd. Curious, I inched my way to the front to listen.
He was a part of a small Christian Sect (at least, that’s what he said) that is completely opposed to large Christian events because they believed that such events cause people to worship the person speaking and not Jesus. An interesting concept, I don’t really agree, but it at least makes you think. People were debating with him and you could tell that he was revelling in the opportunity to speak to a crowd (probably because his “Sect” didn’t encourage large crowds). Then something unusual happened.
The pastor of the large church that had coordinated the event came walking out of the stadium. Several of the people in the crowd around the protester knew him and called him over. When he saw what was happening he walked over, more or less put himself between the protester and the crowd, told the crowd to leave because this protester was just trying to get a reaction from the crowd, and then told the protester that he should leave too.
He was very hostile, the pastor that is.
When the protester realized that this was a pastor, he tried to start a discussion with him. The pastor, not interested in said discussion, told the protester and the crowd to leave again, saying something about how we “shouldn’t waste our time talking to this guy,” and walked off obviously bugged by the whole thing.
At that point the crowd left, except for me. I stayed. I just didn’t feel right about walking away. Not because I agreed, and not because I thought the pastor was wrong (fact is, these guys were probably just interested in causing a disturbance). I stayed because I thought that these guys were treated badly by the pastor and the crowd. I stayed so that I could hopefully show them some kindness.
I didn’t leave the stadium parking lot until much later. In fact, the thing that stopped the conversation that I had been having with the protester was not time, it was the other protesters: they wanted to leave.
I can’t remember alot of what we said to each-other, I just remember doing a lot of listening. I remember thinking about how I would feel if I had been snubbed by the people there that evening. I remember thinking that this guy walked away with even more reason to feel the way that he felt because he had been treated badly. I remember thinking that that pastor really was mean to those guys, and that the crowd just followed his lead blindly and that the way they were treated was the only thing that the protesters would remember from that night.
I bring up these two events because I think that they are relatable. It seems to me that if you have been a Christian for very long, or have known a Christian for very long, that you would find yourself in a similar situation. It is sad really. Just think about how silly my reaction or that pastor’s reaction was. Our ways of thinking were challenged and rather than listening, we shot back. I think that is the definition of being narrow minded: defensiveness brought about by something new.
Looking at these two situations reminds me that Jesus never once spoke about winning debates. He never told His followers to defend what they believe. He never told people to reject people because they were different, He never said to turn your back and ignore people. Jesus’ message is unique in that fashion. He only taught His followers to leave when they had been rejected. Interesting, if the message is rejected don’t stand around and argue about it, just leave because they aren’t rejecting you, they are rejecting the one that sent you.
Why did Jesus teach this way?
Shouldn’t we defend what we believe in?
I think the confusion comes because, if your experience is anything like mine, we have been taught to “stand up for what we believe in.” The problem here is understanding what this means. The phrase bears with it the implication of defensiveness, that is to say, it sounds like we should defend our beliefs in order to “stand up” for them.
But what do we believe? If we believe what Jesus taught then we must believe that God will be our defense and that if He would not even spare His own Son (who by the way, did not defend Himself when He was questioned) then perhaps it is important for us to not try to convince the whole world through pious debate but rather through actually standing for what we believe.
Standing for what we believe.
That means living what we believe.
Jesus said that the two greatest commandments were to love God and love people.
That’s what I think a Christian believes.
It seems to me that we associate standing up with defending, which usually becomes arguing. I would say that there are two types of arguments: good ones and bad ones. Most arguments are bad.
A good argument is birthed not out of defense but out of a sincere desire to help. The trick with these types of arguments is focus. As the argument progresses, it becomes easy to lose focus of “a sincere desire to help” and thus, the argument digresses into a fight. That is to say, into a defensive action.
And that’s where the bad kind of arguments come from. These kind are birthed out of a desire to prove one’s self right and often extend into the realm of trying to prove the other person wrong. These arguments continue on because we crave the satisfaction of winning. There’s a major problem with this: it’s a very shallow satisfaction. In fact, it lasts only as long as we have people to boast to about our victory. Then the satisfaction wanes.
This brings the worst part: in order to find the satisfaction again we get into another argument with the same person over something different and bring up our previous victory as a bit of ammunition to be fired at our victim. This is the most terrible form of selfishness that can be displayed; satisfaction at the immediate expense of another.
I can’t help but wonder if my high school debate or that pastor’s snubbing of protesters wasn’t birthed out of this place. Perhaps not intentionally, but from a deep rooted sense of insecurity spilling into self contempt that spawns a need to be viewed as somehow important; a need that is ravenous for fulfillment.
I bring this up because Jesus’ command to love God is easy to understand. God is portrayed to us as a beautiful, honest, loving father. He is easy to love when we see Him this way. (Sometimes people don’t see Him this way, we’ll talk about that in my next entry.) But the second command, the one to love people is a bit more difficult, at least, it can be for me. Here’s why:
Jesus said to love others as much as we LOVE OURSELVES. When our insecurities are pushed to the point of defense our self love and need for self preservation becomes so intense that we can’t see beyond it. And thus, we hurt others. Or, worse yet, our self contempt spills into contempt for others, and in the instant that our self contempt encounters our contempt for others only one thing is clear: we don’t want to be as bad as this other person, and so, we excuse ourselves and condemn another.
If being sinless means that we love people and God with a real and genuine love, then it means that petty fights over disagreements are absolutely destructive to our relationship with God and people. And that is the point. Sin destroys relationships. A constant desire to defend what we believe builds a mindset that is hostile towards those of differing opinions. That is not love.
So, how then, do we stand up for what we believe in? I think that standing means living and that living means expressing and in this case, it is the expression of love. One thing is certain to me, had I shown more compassion, more love to that kid on that day in high school, then we would have been able to discuss not argue. Perhaps he and I could have been friends. Perhaps he would not have been expelled. Perhaps I would not regret that event and it would have been a moment that more positively reflected my character. Whatever the case, I am sorry for that day, I’m sorry for what I said, and hope that somehow this apology reaches the one that I wronged.
And that is the beginning of sinlessness: confession. The denial of selfish desires to accomplish a selfless life.
