Dialogue

I was watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition several Sunday nights ago. It was the episode where Ty and the gang came to Nashville to rebuild a school that had considerable damage during the May floods. I found it interesting to see my hometown on a TV show that I watch regularly. This was the school that my high school played against in football. More than that, it was one of the few schools we actually beat in football because they were always worse than we were. Lighthouse Christian School was just a hop skip and a jump down the road from where I grew up and seeing the flooding on the news that day in May really hit home.

I had been looking forward to the broadcast of the Extreme Makeover show for some time. Right from the start, however, something wasn’t right. Something didn’t feel normal when the show started. I got a text from my mom which pointed out that which I hadn’t noticed yet. Each time they said the name of the school on the show, they called it Lighthouse School. They left the “Christian” part out...on purpose. They said the name of the school nearly 30 times in the show and each time they made a point of calling it Lighthouse School. At first, this was a little surprising, but then as I thought about it, it really wasn’t.

Our culture continues to fight anything that contains the slightest resemblance of Christianity. In our quest for political correctness, we continue to create more rules and legalism of what is and is not proper in terms of freedom of Christian speech. Our book of social mores continues to evolve and become more complex as we desperately attempt to keep everyone happy and comfortable.

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I met a teenager the other day. I discovered in a roundabout way that he was an atheist. The conversation led to my college experience which led to a discussion of what my degrees were in. I told him that my bachelor’s degree was in Theology and my master’s degree was in Counseling. He snidely rolled his eyes when I said Theology and said, “Theology? Why would you get a degree in Theology?” I then mentally rolled my eyes at God and silently said, “Gee thanks God. This is exactly how I want to spend my time. I love being berated by ill-mannered teenagers who just wants to fight for fighting’s sake.” It was then that I violated a social more by challenging this delightful youth by asking, “What did God ever do to you to piss you off?”

He looked shocked.

“I just think it’s bullshit that people will sit and tell you that this God that is all loving and shit sends people to hell and doesn’t even want them to be happy.” He sat back in his chair with a smugness that screamed that he felt he had defeated me.

“Yeah, I don’t think God sends people to hell,” I said. “Furthermore, I think God gives people whatever they want.”

More shock on his face. This was obviously not the response that he was used to in his practiced and strategic defensiveness and smugness.

“Ok here’s how I see it,” I told him. “God desperately wants you to love him. He loves you more than you or I could ever imagine. Part of Him loving you is allowing you the choice on whether to choose to love Him back or not. It’s all up to you man. No one is forcing you to accept this ‘bullshit.’ Not even God.”

Now I had him going. No one had ever been this crass about discussing God with him before.

NOTE: Teenage boys and anything lewd or crass connect extremely well. This includes but is not limited to swearing, body noises and odors, and obscene sexual innuendos.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” I asked.

He nodded, “yes.”

“Is she hot?” I asked.

Another “yes” nod, this time more confidently combined with a sly smile as his eyes glazed over for a split second. I fear to imagine what mental picture he had in his teenage male head at that moment.

“For instance,” I continued, “if I told you that you had to love your hot girlfriend or else I was going to beat the crap out of you then that wouldn’t truly be love because you were being coerced to love her right?”

Obviously a man of many words, he nodded again slowly in agreement.

“So since God wants authentic love with you, He’s not going to coerce you or force you to love Him. He’s going to give you the choice on how to respond to His love.”

I wondered if anything I said was making any sense. Did it sound in anyway rational?

“So how does everyone get whatever they want that way? And how would a God that loves people send them to hell,” he asked.

“I think it all depends on how we define heaven and hell. People have different ways of looking at it. How do you picture hell?” I asked.

“Hot with fire and a lot of rocks. Satan would be there obviously and it would be miserable,” he answered.

“And heaven would be little fat babies with wings flying around with bows and arrows and flitting from cloud to cloud right?” I continued.

“Right,” he said laughing.

I could tell that he was tracking with me well now so I went for it.

“Ok, I admit that I’m a God follower. Here’s how I view heaven and hell. I can’t imagine anything better that being in perfect union and relationship with God all the time. I want to be with him in heaven for eternity because that’s what heaven is; life the way God meant for it to be from the beginning. I see that opposite of this as being totally separated from God, cut off from Him in every way. That’s how I would define hell.”

I continued, “So…God wants you to choose Him, but he loves you enough to respect your choice either way. If you live your life against Him and trying to push Him further and further away from you, then he gives you what you want; eternity without Him. That’s what makes hell so horrible. God doesn’t send you there or want you to go there. You choose to go there of your own freewill.”

Silence.

More silence.

Silence that even makes a therapist feel awkward (this is hard to do by the way).

“I’ve never heard it explained that way before,” he said.

“Does that make any sense whatsoever or was I just rambling,” I asked.

“You rambled a lot but most of what you said made sense,” he said lowering his head and laughing a bit.

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I don’t think anything I said converted him.

He’s not headed to a church building anytime soon to learn all 87 verses of the hymn “Just as I am.”

I knew a guy in one of those types churches that made it a point of beating people with his Bible. He even offered a class on how to teach others to offer beatings to non-Christians. I went once to be polite and then never went back. He was certifiably insane. He was also manipulative, using back door tactics to guilt and scare people into seeing things the way he did. “Believe the way I do right now or God will stick you on the end of a stick and hold you over hell like you’re a marshmallow,” was the general feel of the Gospel as he presented it.

If we’re talking numbers, then he’s likely shared his Gospel with more people than I have shared mine. Maybe there’s a place for searching out people like a heat seeking missile and targeting their weaknesses to destroy the sin in their lives through exposing their past disgraces. Perhaps that’s what God intends for us to do.

I feel like open honest dialogue that is intentional but also patient might be more effective though. I think God deliberately places certain people in our lives because we have been gifted with some special frame of reference or skill set that would be ideal for talking with them about Jesus in a language they can understand.

There’s a branch of counseling called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It involves looking at 1) Thoughts 2) Feelings 3) Behaviors. What are your thoughts and feelings about our culture and its fear of Jesus? Also, what behaviors do your thoughts and feelings elicit in your life? Fear of acting and sharing or excitement to act and share?