Content to Simply Be Christian

"We are on our way home, too," she volunteered as we settled into our neighboring seats on the plane.  "We had a foreign exchange student a few years ago who is now living in San Francisco that we were taking our grandsons to visit."

The truth, however, was more complicated -- and better -- than that.  It turns out that this "foreign exchange student" was simply a young man that this woman and her husband met, once-upon-a-time in the Amsterdam airport while waiting for their common trans-Atlantic flight -- they, returning from a European vacation; he, on his way to college from Africa.  He had earned a full scholarship to Drake, and since they live just over a half-hour away, they took him under their wings -- both on the remainder of that trip to Des Moines and for the several years he was a student in university housing. 

And they took on this assignment in earnest.  After visiting with the youth minister at the church in which they were active, they concluded that he was insufficiently open to non-caucasians; so they shopped around the area until they found one more inclusive -- in a completely different denomination, in a neighboring town a few miles away.  They kept in touch, they took him to church, they fed him meals, they housed him during holiday dorm closures; and they celebrated with him when he graduated and accepted his first job as a pharmacist. 

Little wonder that they continue to keep in touch.  And visit.  With their grandsons.  Except that part doesn't turn out to be literally true, either.  Only one of the teenage boys is actually their grandson.  The other is simply a best friend of their grandson whom they welcomed along on the trip, so "for these few days he is a grandson as well," she asserted.

Well, of course.  He was in good hands. 

I am of the humble and often embarrassed mind that Christians persistently and deservedly have a less-than-desirable reputation.  We can be pathetically small in our passions, and distractingly loud in our narrow-minded pettiness.  We commonly pick silly fights while ignoring breathtaking injustices.  In transformational matters where we should be taking the lead, we are often the last to begrudgingly tag along, having squandered our time instead preoccupied with trivialities of no enduring consequence.  But here, in an accidental conversation where I most try to avoid them -- on an airplane, trapped for the duration of the flight beside a total stranger -- I was blessed by the matter-of-fact witness of the Gospel from a woman who had no idea she was being an evangelist.  Without thinking it anything out of the ordinary or special, here was a woman who understands the Kingdom of God...

...and reflects it...

...and welcomes into it anyone who could use a place to stay.

She hardly used any "Jesus language" in the course of our conversation, but it was very clear that she had met him, and was determined to follow him.  In contrast to all those who trumpet and grind others beneath the word, she seems perfectly happy to simply be...

...Christian.

The Parental Nightmare of Religious Kids

Remember the good old days when all parents had to worry about was their kids getting on drugs. Now, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal, parents have to worry about religion. The story reports on the emerging trend of kids from good, solid, respectable secular parents finding a new sense of spirituality through one religion or another -- and in so doing, scaring the parents to death. So, here is the new scenario: kids worrying that their parents are going to hell, and parents telling their kids to get off their backs. It is, it seems to me, an ironic reversal. It would have been like me, in junior high, begging my parents for a haircut and them insisting that I wear it long.

So, what is a modern parent to do?

I am tempted to say, "get real and get over it and thank your lucky stars." But I suppose I shouldn't be too flippant. There are, after all, plenty of religious fanatics -- within every religious tradition -- of whom I would be terrified should my children become devotees. Religion, unfortunately, attracts some strange and dangerous characters who serve tainted Kool-Aid and bomb clinics and fly planes into buildings (and yes, I do lump them all together). But such miscreants are thankfully the minority.

What concerns me most about the story is not the reaction of the parents; it is, rather, that the fingerprint religion has left on so many people's psyche is so negative. If I am inclined to ask "how is it that religious reputations have sunk so low," I need only look around. While I want to counter that religion has done so much good -- and my deep conviction is that this is so -- I cannot deny that it has also caused much pain. Never mind the historic examples like the Inquisition and the Holocaust, the exit aisles from too many churches are stained with the blood of children and neighbors and parents and friends whose identities and aspirations have been summarily shredded by holy condemnation. I'm sure it always happened in good Christian love, but those rejected and wounded almost certainly missed the agape.

And so the church has apparently redoubled its evangelism efforts among those with whom it stands the biggest chance of finding success: those too young to have much of a memory.

I can't speak for Muslims or Jews, but perhaps secular parents might be less frightened of the Christianity their children are bringing home if the Gospel they saw Christians espousing really seemed like "good news" -- joyful rather than cursing; affirming rather than condemning; encouraging rather than demeaning; life-giving rather than...

...well, you get the point. It gives me pause to wonder how a parent might react should their kid come home with the Gospel I proclaim. Maybe Sunday's sermon -- and the life that proceeds from it -- isn't quite finished after all.