The Unlikely Disciple Part 11

Meanwhile, others in my group are having more success. I walk over to another part of the sidewalk and catch Scott's wife Martina deep in conversation with a large, muscled man.

"Jason," Martina says as she sees me approach. "Meet my friend Kevin." We shake hands. Jason is slurring his speech and leaning against a palm tree for support, clearly many drinks into his night. But perhaps because of this, he's really opening up to Martina.

"Listen, Martina," he says. "I just met you, and I like you a lot."

"That's very sweet," she says. "Listen to me, though."

He slumps back against the tree, a little maudlin, eyes sloshing around in his head.

"Jason. Are you able to focus on me?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Jason, if you died tonight, without the blood of Jesus covering you . . ."

"He's all over me."

"Well, how do you know? You don't read the Bible."

"I don't, you're right."

"And you've never been born again."

"No, I haven't. But I still feel . . ."

"Jason, you need to be born again."

"So what if I am? Then tomorrow, I come back out here and go drinking again, and nothing's changed. What good is that?"

"You won't come back out here tomorrow if you get born again. You'll have the Holy Spirit guiding you."

The issue of postsalvation behavior is an interesting one. Claire raised it earlier tonight. "What happens when these people go back home?" she asked Scott over dinner. "Witnessing is great, but I don't want to just look at them as a number."

"If somebody's truly born again," Scott responded, "the Holy Spirit is going to lead them. The most important thing is that they get Jesus."

I thought, when Scott was teaching us to evangelize, that we'd be told to do some sort of follow-up with successful converts, if we had any--guide them to a local church, maybe, or at least take their contact information. But there's no such procedure. If Jason had decided to get saved (he didn't), Martina would have led him through the Sinner's Prayer ("Jesus, I am a sinner, come into my heart and be my Lord and savior" or some variant thereof), she would have let him know he was saved, perhaps given him some Bible verses to read, and they never would have seen each other again. Cold turkey evangelism provides the shortest, most noncommittal conversion offer of any Western religion--which, I suspect, is part of the appeal.

If the new believer backslides, though, like Jason was suggesting he might, Christians are likely to believe that he wasn't really saved. False conversions are a glaring wart on the face of Christian evangelism. In the book that accompanies our Way of the Master program, I found several sobering statistics about the percentage of apparent converts who stay involved with the church in the long term, including one from Peter Wagner, a seminary professor in California who estimated that only 3 to 16 percent of the converts at Christian crusades stay involved.

Those are good statistics for me--they mean that even if I did manage to convert someone with my bad evangelism, there's only a 3 to 16 percent chance it would matter in the long run. But the false conversion rate is profoundly depressing if you believe in this stuff. After all, if we get ten converts during this week--an optimistic number--and our false conversion numbers are consistent with the average, this group has spent a week's worth of twelve-hour days, thousands of dollars, and suffered ma.s.sive amounts of emotional trauma for what? One more Christian? Two?

There must be an easier way.

1015h: Andrew

On the third day of the trip, my witnessing partner is Caitlin, a blonde soph.o.m.ore from Oklahoma. She's a sparkly, bubbly girl, which makes her first encounter of the day all the more surprising. She approaches a small Asian man outside a Starbucks.

"Excuse me, sir. If you got hit by a bus today and died and had to stand before G.o.d's judgment seat, why would you tell him you deserve to go to heaven?"

Caitlin, I've learned, is a bulldog witness. Last night at our postclub debrief, she castigated the rest of us for being too easy on the people we met.

"It's really great to tell people that Jesus loves them," she snapped, "but you guys need to show them their sinfulness, too. The Bible says that people who are not saved are children of wrath. We can't forget that."

Apparently, success and tact don't go hand in hand in evangelism. Caitlin is the most experienced evangelist in our group. While at Liberty, she started a small student team that goes out to Lynchburg malls and trailer parks to convert the locals. Since her freshman year, by her count, she has converted 235 people.

She certainly doesn't take rejection well. When the Asian man tries to walk away from Caitlin, she follows him down the street.

"In Revelation 21:8, G.o.d says that all murderers, fornicators, and liars will have their part on the lake of fire!" Caitlin shouts behind him.

"I don't think I'm going to h.e.l.l," the man replies, turning to face her.

"Why not?"

"I do good things for people."

"But we're going by G.o.d's standards, not yours."

"Yes, but . . ."

"Sir, have you ever been wrong about anything?"

"Yes, but . . ."

"Do you think you could be wrong about this?"

Three hours later, Caitlin and I (mostly Caitlin--she got frustrated with my forbearance after two or three approaches) have gotten maybe fifty walk aways. Seeing her confront people so coa.r.s.ely never gets less shocking. Still, I've got to admit, if you have to evangelize, Caitlin is a great partner. After her introductions, nothing I add can offend anybody.

Later in the day, I ask Caitlin why she's so harsh when she evangelizes, especially since she's such a gentle soul otherwise.

"Well," she says, "I want to save as many people as possible. So I don't get into arguments about the facts or evolution or anything. People can look that stuff up. But if I spend twenty minutes arguing with someone, that's four more people I could have approached."

I'm trying to treat Daytona as a weeklong thought experiment. For one, a little mental distance is the only way I can keep myself from feeling like the Grinch Who Stole Spring Break. But more than that, it's the only way I've found to place myself into the moral s.p.a.ce of aggressive evangelism, to try to understand how well-intentioned Christian kids--some of the nicest people I've met all semester--can end up on street corners in Florida, shouting h.e.l.lfire and d.a.m.nation to the ma.s.ses.

Part of it, I'm sure, is that these students are convinced that their actions are compa.s.sionate and altruistic. All week, we've heard pep talks like this one from Scott at last night's post-Razzle's debrief: "To me, here's the motivation to evangelize: If I'm a doctor, and I find the cure for a terminal illness, and if I care about people, I'm going to spread that cure as widely as possible. If I don't, people are going to die."

Leave the comparison in place for a second. If Scott had indeed found the cure to a terminal illness and if this Daytona mission were a vaccination campaign instead of an evangelism crusade, my group members would be acting with an unusually large portion of mercy--much more, certainly, than their friends who spent the break playing Xbox in their sweatpants. And if you had gone on this immunization trip, giving up your spring break for the greater good, and had found the sick spring breakers unwilling to be vaccinated, what would you do? If a terminally ill man said he was "late for a meeting," you might let him walk away. But--and I'm really stretching here--if you really really believed your syringe held his believed your syringe held his only only hope of survival, and you hope of survival, and you really really cared about him, would you ignore the rules of social propriety and try every convincement method you knew? cared about him, would you ignore the rules of social propriety and try every convincement method you knew?

Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't. For these students, the choice is clear: the risk of being loathed and humiliated by strangers is far outweighed by the possibility that even one person will see the light and be saved.

Of course, just because the choice is clear doesn't mean it's easy. Tonight, at Razzle's, I see Valentina, the Italian girl from New York, sitting on a curb with a homeless veteran, her arm slung around his shoulder. It's pouring rain, a real torrential storm, and both of them are being pounded by the thick drops. Valentina is witnessing to the bearded, ragged veteran, and she looks frankly miserable. Her hair is dripping, and she has to wipe the water from her face every few seconds. After a few minutes, she stops telling the veteran about G.o.d's love and just sits there, holding him. And from across the street, I see her start to cry.

Later, back at the host church, Valentina tells the group about her breakdown.

"I was just sitting there on the curb, and I started thinking about how sad this all is. How sad it is that billions and billions of people are just dying without Christ and how much I wish it wasn't true. I hate it. I hate that h.e.l.l is a real place, and I hate that sin came into the world through Adam, and most of all, I hate thinking about how all we can do--all anyone can do--is try to tell these people that there's hope out there. They might not want to listen, but we have to keep telling them. For the rest of our lives, guys, we have to keep telling them."

On the last day of our trip, group morale is mixed. On one hand, we've had a pretty good time by ourselves. Between beach crusades and trips to Razzle's, we played beach volleyball, conducted piano sing-alongs, even went swimming for a spell. Everyone on the trip gets along really well, and it's been a faint approximation of a vacation.

On the other hand, our nets are far from full. Caitlin led a high school boy to Christ yesterday, and one woman we spoke to later visited the Daytona host church and got saved under the care of one of their pastors, but that's it. Two people. We've been cheering each other up, saying things in prayer circles like, "Lord, we know we've done a good work here this week, and we trust that you'll follow up in these people's hearts."

Then again, maybe this trip was never all about the spring breakers. Battleground evangelism, it turns out, can be just as useful for the evangelists as for the nonbelievers. For these Liberty students, going to Daytona is a tool for self-anesthetization, a way to get used to the feeling of being an outcast in the secular world. The first forty times someone blows you off, it feels awful. The second forty times, you start rea.s.suring yourself that all of this must serve a higher purpose. By the end of the week, you get the point--you are going to be mocked and scorned for your faith, and this is the way it's supposed to be.

Today, after a hard day of witnessing, Brandon marked off with Post-its all the verses in his Bible that describe early Christian responses to mockery (like 1 Peter 4:14, "If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of G.o.d rests on you"). Sitting at the dinner table, he read them aloud to all of us. Amber, a shy brunette from Virginia, looked around the table after Brandon was finished.

"Guys, I realized this week that I'm going to be laughed at for being a Christian for the rest of my life," she said.

"I am, too," Brandon said. "We all are."

"Christians have always been laughed at," added Valentina. "We're in good company."

"I love the part in Romans," Brandon said, "where it says we take up Christ's cross, and we bear his suffering. I like that a lot."

Around 8:00 AM AM on Sunday, eight days after arriving, we pack our suitcases, deflate our air mattresses, and shove it all in the back of the Jesusmobile for the twelve-hour trip back to Liberty. To the last, Scott remains upbeat. on Sunday, eight days after arriving, we pack our suitcases, deflate our air mattresses, and shove it all in the back of the Jesusmobile for the twelve-hour trip back to Liberty. To the last, Scott remains upbeat.

"Sharing Christ is so exciting!" he says as we pull away. "It's a way of life! Man, it's just such a thrill to introduce people to Christ!"

As we cross the Daytona city limits, Brandon turns to me in the backseat.

"Was this a productive trip?" he whispers.

I shrug.

"Unless I go on another mission trip," he says, "I probably won't evangelize like this again."

"Do you think we made a difference?" I whisper back.

"I mean, anything can happen when the Lord is involved. But personally, I don't think us being here was very productive."

Scott looks back from the driver's seat. Seeing us whispering, he smiles warmly.

"Boys and their secrets . . ."

He turns back to face the road, the Jesusmobile presses on, and we never look back, not once, not even to remember the effort.

Near in Their Mouth, But Far from Their Mind

I thought we'd try something new before cla.s.s today," says Nathan, the Evangelism 101 teaching a.s.sistant. "A little cheer." thought we'd try something new before cla.s.s today," says Nathan, the Evangelism 101 teaching a.s.sistant. "A little cheer."

My roommate Eric turns to me. "G.o.d is good. Bet you ten bucks."

Before I can ask what he means, Nathan sets down his microphone and shouts through cupped hands, "G.o.d is good!"

"All the time!" responds the cla.s.s in unison. Eric pumps his fist.

"Awesome!" says Nathan. "You guys must remember this from your youth groups. Now, let's see if you remember the second part: and all the time and all the time . . ." . . ."

The cla.s.s shouts back: "G.o.d is good!"

Nathan waves his arms with brio, conducting the cla.s.s like John Philip Sousa leading a parade march.

"G.o.d is good . . ." . . ."

"All the time!"

"And all the time . . ." . . ."

"G.o.d is good!"

I've been back from spring break for two days now, and I'm starting to settle back into my cla.s.ses. As you might guess from a lecture that begins with a cheer, Evangelism 101 is somewhat of a gut. Our professor, Pastor Andy Hillman, conducts the cla.s.s like a large, for-credit session of Sunday school, with test questions like: G.o.d wants to be your ____.

a) Slaveb) Best friend*c) Priest The ultimate goal of the universe is to show ____.

a) the love of G.o.db) the glory of G.o.dc) the power of G.o.dd) all of the above*

The upside of an easy cla.s.s like Evangelism 101 is simple: I'm not failing. In fact, in most of my courses, I'm improving much more quickly than I expected to. n.o.body's going to be throwing any Rhodes scholarships my way after this semester, but most of my grades are up in the B-plus range.

Despite it being my worst cla.s.s grade-wise, I'm still liking my Old Testament cla.s.s better than any of the others. In addition to the lessons about Deuteronomy and Judges, it's fun to flesh out the oversimplified nuggets of Old Testament lore that make it into secular pop culture. For example: I've heard a million ESPN commentators refer to a lopsided matchup as a "David and Goliath situation," but I'd never read the Bible's account of the actual battle. I didn't know that Goliath was not only huge--about nine feet tall, with a 125-pound cloak of armor--he was also "uncirc.u.mcised," according to 1 Samuel 17:26. This bit of information gives me a leg up on my ESPN-watching secular friends. A juvenile leg, but a leg nonetheless.

I'm finding that my favorite courses, like Old Testament and Theology, have something in common: they're surveys, cla.s.ses in which the professor's goal is simply to introduce a body of new information. The information always has a literalist slant, of course, but on the whole, the cla.s.ses are fairly straightforward. You'd find the same thing at a hundred other Christian colleges and Bible study groups.

There's another type of cla.s.s, though--the agenda-driven cla.s.s. In these courses, professors aren't teaching new knowledge so much as teaching students how to think about the world around them.

A week or two before spring break, I started sitting in on GNED II, a mandatory second-semester extension of my GNED course. I'm only at Liberty for one semester, so I'll never get to take GNED II for a grade, but people on my hall kept talking about it, and I wanted to get the flavor. The GNED II cla.s.s I've been going to, like my GNED I cla.s.s, is taught by Dr. Parks. In it, Liberty students are taught to view sociopolitical topics like h.o.m.os.e.xuality, abortion, and euthanasia through an ultra-conservative Christian lens. And unlike its first-semester counterpart, GNED II pulls no punches. Its workbook contains fill-in-the-blank sections like: What are the consequences of immoral s.e.x? What are the consequences of immoral s.e.x?

1. Physical A. Unplanned Pregnancy B. Abortion B. Abortion C. STDs C. STDs 2. Emotional A. Unrelenting guilt (Proverbs 5:11-14) B. Unwanted memories (Psalm 51:3) B. Unwanted memories (Psalm 51:3) C. Less peace of mind C. Less peace of mind And: II. Myths Behind the h.o.m.os.e.xual AgendaMyth: The h.o.m.os.e.xual lifestyle is happy, healthy, and responsible. Response: AIDS is most prevalent among gay men and is rising rapidly among lesbians. Response: AIDS is most prevalent among gay men and is rising rapidly among lesbians.Response: Monogamy among h.o.m.os.e.xuals is the exception, not the norm. It is a compulsive lifestyle involving many s.e.xual partners throughout a lifetime. Response: The average gay has multiple s.e.x partners during their gay life, many of which are anonymous encounters in bathhouses, nightclubs, and p.o.r.n shops. Response: The average gay has multiple s.e.x partners during their gay life, many of which are anonymous encounters in bathhouses, nightclubs, and p.o.r.n shops.

In today's GNED II cla.s.s, Dr. Parks announces that we will be talking about gender roles in the evangelical world. Dr. Parks spends the first ten minutes of cla.s.s laying out the two main positions evangelical Christians take on gender issues. The first position, egalitarianism, means exactly what you'd expect it to mean--men and women are equal, both in the church and in the home. Women can be pastors of a church, they can teach Sunday school, and husbands and wives share equal authority in marriage. The second position, called complementarianism, means, in Dr. Parks's words, that "G.o.d created man and woman with different roles that complement each other." Complementarians believe that only men can be pastors, that only men can teach Sunday school or other Christian education cla.s.ses (unless it's an all-female cla.s.s). Complementarians also maintain that the husband should be the head of the household. They quote Ephesians 5:24, "As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything."

"You can obviously tell where I am on this," Dr. Parks says. "I am definitely a complementarian, without apology. I think the egalitarian view is greatly skewed."

Dr. Parks clicks a few b.u.t.tons on his laptop to start a PowerPoint slideshow. The text is accompanied by photos of white, suburban couples clutching each other, loving gazes plastered on their faces. As the presentation plays, we fill in the blanks in our workbooks: The role of the husband: The role of the husband:1. Love his wife and sacrifice for her. 2. Head of the wife. 2. Head of the wife. 3. Provide for the family. 3. Provide for the family. 4. Honor and respect wife. 4. Honor and respect wife. 5. Provide a positive environment for children. 5. Provide a positive environment for children. The role of the wife: The role of the wife:1. Submit to her husband. 2. Love her husband and children. 2. Love her husband and children. 3. Keep the family a priority. 3. Keep the family a priority.

Dr. Parks realizes that to a non-evangelical, the complementarian view of gender roles can sound misogynistic, but he a.s.sures us that it's not. Women can still hold high-power jobs under the complementarian model, he says, and they should still get equal pay for equal work. But when push comes to shove, a woman's priority should be her family. "For a woman," Dr. Parks says, "if the career is most important, and the family gets left out, that's a problem."

At first, I couldn't believe Liberty actually had a course that teaches students how to condemn h.o.m.os.e.xuals and combat feminism. GNED II is the cla.s.s a liberal secularist would invent if he were trying to satirize a Liberty education. It's as if Brown offered a course called G.o.dless Hedonism 101: How to Smoke Pot, Cross-dress, and Lose Your Morals.

But unlike that course, GNED II actually exists, so I've had to figure out how to process it. I keep thinking back to Marcus Ross, the Liberty professor who was written up in the New York Times New York Times for his doctoral research on 65 million-year-old reptiles. Ross was able to compartmentalize his brain into two functional halves--a religious half and a secular half--and for a while, I was too. I could sit in History of Life cla.s.s and hear Dr. Dekker talk about the flaws in Darwinism without going crazy, because I convinced myself that I was just filling an alternate s.p.a.ce in my brain. What's the harm in that? for his doctoral research on 65 million-year-old reptiles. Ross was able to compartmentalize his brain into two functional halves--a religious half and a secular half--and for a while, I was too. I could sit in History of Life cla.s.s and hear Dr. Dekker talk about the flaws in Darwinism without going crazy, because I convinced myself that I was just filling an alternate s.p.a.ce in my brain. What's the harm in that?

GNED II is different, though. I can't convince myself that those lessons about fornicators and h.o.m.os.e.xuals are innocuous. For one, whereas I'm not an expert in evolutionary biology, I do have enough experience with gay people to know that h.o.m.os.e.xuality is not a "compulsive lifestyle involving many s.e.xual partners." (In fact, some of my gay friends at Brown spend a lot of time complaining about how little s.e.x they're having.) But aside from the patently offensive content, my biggest issue with GNED II is the way it bundles political and social issues with religious issues, and what that means for a guy who's trying to give Christianity a fair shake.

Over spring break, I finally finished Left Behind Left Behind, the apocalyptic novel I started a month or so ago. And per my expectations (spoiler alert!) the secular journalist Buck Williams has a religious conversion. I'll spare you the details--it involves a Romanian politician who turns out to be the Antichrist--but suffice it to say that Buck deals with his skepticism, gets down on his knees, and accepts Christ as his savior.