Purple State of Mind

When I started this blog, I was determined to stick to my main theme (stories from my seminary days) and resist the urge to describe my trip to the dentist, analyze the 49ers' draft picks, etc. But I must mention the movie Purple State of Mind, which I saw in San Francisco last night. This film is essentially a collection of conversations between two friends who met in college as evangelical Christians, then took very different paths over the next 30 years. One is still a Christian, while the other is now an atheist--and I was struck by the way they disagree sharply while still maintaining a strong friendship and acceptance of each other.

The only quibble I have with the film is that I expected their points of view to be farther apart (a true Red State/Blue State discussion), but both of them are fairly "Blue" in their thinking. The Christian (Craig) espouses some opinions that place him outside the evangelical mainstream--at least the one I left behind. That said, they still find plenty to hash over, and the result is sure to stir discussions among viewers.

Lastly, thanks to the Progression of Faith blog for making me aware of this film.

Elisha and the Bears - Part 1

After sitting through countless sermons and Sunday School lessons as a kid, I thought I knew Scripture pretty well. But just to be sure, I decided to read the Bible from cover to cover the summer before entering seminary. And I quickly encountered several stories that had not made it onto the flannel-graph boards at First Baptist Church.

Take the story of Elisha in 2 Kings 2, for instance. As this great prophet traveled from Jericho to Bethel, a group of young lads began to taunt him, calling out, "You baldhead!" In response, Elisha cursed the boys, whereupon two bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of them. As I read this tale for the first time, several problems became immediately apparent:

1. It seemed like Elisha—being a prophet and all—could have been a shade more thick-skinned about these little jests. Why so touchy?
2. How did 2 bears maul 42 boys? After the first 6 or 8 went down, you’d think the rest of them would run like hell. Were they trapped in a box canyon or something?
3. What spiritual lesson is being imparted here, exactly? "Thou shalt not ridicule middle-aged prophets with male-pattern baldness?"

And that was a fairly mild example of the bloodshed—much of it apparently ordered by God. What was going on here? Fortunately, I had signed up for an Old Testament class at Golden Gate, where such questions were sure to be resolved. And on the first day of class, my hopes soared when I found the OT professor to be smart, engaging, and dedicated to the integrity of Scripture. But as the semester wore on, we focused more on the formation of the Old Testament than the meaning of individual texts. And learning about the JEPD theory of the Pentateuch’s authorship didn’t help much with Elisha and the bears.

After a while, I feared we were ignoring the elephant in the room: a literal reading of the Old Testament left us with the jarring notion of God-sanctioned violence. And I was about to discover that others sometimes bumped into the same elephant.

Baptist in Berkeley

One advantage of Golden Gate Seminary’s exotic location is that it gives Southern Baptist students hands-on experience with reaching a bizarre culture for Christ. Any lessons learned in Marin can then be applied to other alien locales like Papua New Guinea or France.

The school’s Evangelism 101 class sought to impart such practical knowledge by sending us out into the community to share our faith. Course requirements included write-ups of two "evangelistic encounters" in which we had to document our efforts to win lost Marinites to the Lord. A daunting task, to be sure, but the class provided plenty of preparation. We spent weeks analyzing the characteristics of rival belief systems such as atheism, Mormonism, and the New Age movement.

To be honest, this was my favorite part of the course. I enjoyed poking holes in other people’s beliefs and making snide comments like, "Why is no one channeling an ascended master named ‘Ted’?" But when the fun ended and we set off in search of evangelistic encounters, I found that hole-poking cuts both ways.

Somehow I hooked up with a group that was doing street evangelism in Berkeley, which is not exactly going after the low-hanging fruit, I realize. But folks in Berkeley did prove more than willing to talk about spiritual issues, even if their views were a little, well, "out there." Take Ronald, a middle-aged man who was sipping coffee at a sidewalk table. After I offered him a booklet with a 4-point outline of the New Testament, Ronald stated that he had already taken a class on the Bible in college. In his opinion, the gospels presented an entertaining but illogical account of Jesus’ life.

"Take the story of Jesus healing the man with a crippled hand," Ronald offered by way of example. "We are told that after seeing a withered limb become whole, the Pharisees immediately hatched an assassination plot. Does that seem like a reasonable response to an astounding miracle?"

Here I mumbled something about religious leaders protecting their own turf, but Ronald had plenty more ammo. It was tough to squeeze it all into one "evangelistic encounter" report, in fact.

I guess that’s the problem with poking holes. It’s only fun when you’re letting the air out of the other guy’s balloon.

The Skeleton

During my first few months at seminary, my friend Mike and I worked in a deli that was run by a spiky-haired woman named Mary. Upon hiring us, she remarked, "You’re Baptists, I'm a lesbian. Let’s not have any shit about it." Little did she know that it was our moral fiber that would soon become an issue, not hers.

At first, everything went smoothly. Mary proved to be almost motherly to me, Mike and a local teen named Simon who worked our shift. She often fretted, "You boys are too damn skinny," despite the 6-lb sandwiches we inhaled on a regular basis.

But the good feelings evaporated around Halloween. Mary decorated the place with gusto—hanging fake cobwebs and taping up large cardboard figures of pumpkins and skeletons. Unfortunately, her festive mood faded when she had to fire Simon for cursing at a customer. And when Mike and I showed up for work the next day, Mary had gone from sad to angry.

"Turns out that Simon was one sick kid," she said. "Come see what he did." With hesitant steps, Mike and I followed Mary into the back room, scarcely able to imagine what affront to common decency we were about to behold. Turning the corner, we saw one of the cardboard skeletons fixed to the door of Mary's office. One bony hand had been raised aloft, and all the fingers were neatly trimmed away--save one.

We tried not to laugh; we really did. But it was all too much—the skeleton’s glowing eyes and sly grin, the one arm dangling loosely with the other raised in casual defiance. We just couldn’t help ourselves. And as Mike and I fought to regain our composure, Mary’s wounded cries rose above the hysteria. "Simon gives me the finger, and you think it's funny? You’ll never make it as ministers!"

Maybe it would have all blown over if Mary hadn’t caught Mike and me imitating the skeleton later that day. It’s hard to say, really. As it was, her disappointment with us lingered in the air until Mike and I moved on to other jobs. Simon’s behavior was more or less expected, but Mary had hoped for more from her seminarians.

Sometimes, I still feel bad about the whole thing. But, dammit, that skeleton was funny.

The Survey Says

The Christian Ethics class I took during my first year at seminary was an eye opener. Going in, I expected help with moral quandaries like, say, R-rated movies (some believers think they’re okay as long as the violence and nudity are essential to the plot and not just stuck in there for titillation). But the course covered a list of social ills like divorce, abortion, AIDS, and hunger that were, perhaps, more pressing.

Along the way, we reviewed a report by a Christian pollster named George Barna who had surveyed ordinary Americans about some of the very issues we were studying. Barna’s findings were quite disturbing, because they showed virtually no difference between the moral behaviors of Christians and nonChristians (a trend that has apparently continued).

Various explanations were offered for these results, and the class was evenly divided between two possibilities (my own suggestion of "Mickey Mouse" polling techniques got little traction): (1) nominal believers who did not have a genuine relationship with Jesus were skewing the results on the Christian side; (2) pastors had “gone soft” and stopped taking firm stands on doctrinal and moral issues.

Option 1 struck me as a bit too convenient. Don’t like the results? Just redefine "Christian" to match the group of people who are conforming to expectations! And Option 2 gave me a queasy feeling. Was I supposed to spend my career haranguing people about their lax morals? No thanks. So I continued to push the Mickey Mouse theory.

These days I prefer the simplest explanation of all: people are people. And faith of any kind does not immunize us from human struggles and failings. Even scripture tells us that the righteous fall seven times and rise again (Proverbs 24:16), so maybe the idea is to dust yourself off and start over instead of keeping your nose clean in the first place.

Of course, seven stumbles do wreck the poll numbers, so if Barna calls, just pretend you don’t speak English or something.