JANE 

I am a frequent, if not daily reader of Salon.com and the other day I came across this article.  It was an excerpt from the book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University by Kevin Roose.  Of course I had to forward the link to Lizzie right away.  And yet another conversation was born…

LIZZIE

I have had so many times of feeling like that young woman sitting with the veteran on the curb.   Just overcome by the awfulness of so many "unsaved people" spending an eternity in hell.  It’s quite a weight to carry around, and the concern for people’s eternal destinies turns every encounter into a possible divine appointment.  That said, I was never as brave (or as  foolish, depending upon your perspective) as those college students.  If someone asked me a question about my faith and seemed to really want to talk about it, I would happily share (including the plan of salvation, as those students were).  But I never could bring myself to look at every person I met as an evangelism opportunity.  It seemed to me to violate the other person’s trust that I simply liked them and wanted to be a friend.

For awhile I felt hypocritical and cowardly over my evangelism-shyness.  Especially when a group of women from the church formed an evangelism "club" (don’t know what else to call it) and would challenge each other to do things like ask the person in line behind them at the Dollar Tree if they knew for sure where they were going when they died.  According to them, people were just gettin’ saved right and left.  The Holy Spirit was "with them in a mighty way."

Hmmmmm….. But then I started having my suspicions about that sort of "outreach."  In my experience, the guy in line at the Dollar Tree is not at all excited and interested if you turn around and imply that he’s on the express bus to hell.  And what does the Holy Spirit think about common courtesy?  Plus, we only had their word for it that all of those people were so strongly impacted with their message.  I decided that God did not make me to operate that way and that it violated my conscience and my common sense to shove the gospel down some unsuspecting stranger’s throat.  Besides, why should I think that just because someone doesn’t express their belief using Campus Crusade jargon, that they are not "saved"?  (Keep in mind, I was still thinking in terms of saved and unsaved–I just concluded that I couldn’t be the one to determine whose names were written in that big Book of Life.)  

I told one woman at church about my conclusion and personal choice, and she expressed disappointment that I was putting "pride and the fear of rejection" above the sharing of the gospel.  Oh well.  Second-class Christian.  I could live with that.  (At least I hadn’t alienated all of my non-church friends by haranguing them about hell and death.)  

So, that’s some of what that article triggered in me.  My heart went out to those students, because I know very well what they had been indoctrinated with.  And, while what they were doing seems disrespectful and foolish, they really were looking around and seeing a whole bunch of people on that express bus to hell–and were horrified by that prospect.

The author seemed to comprehend his peers’ sense of urgency and horror over people being damned eternally.  I will be interested in the rest of the book.  (Even though I am a little ticked off at him for pretending to be someone he was not, just to get a book contract.)

JANE

Initially, I didn’t think enough about the article to anticipate your response.  Wow.  Because the person I related to the most in that piece was the girl who said to her friend, “creepy”…  And I’m not trying to be harsh – it’s just a knee-jerk reaction to the thought of someone pushing their values on me.  Maybe it’s a political thing, maybe it’s a Jewish thing…  Be aware, don’t letanyone evangelize you…  Except as sometimes my response is similar to when a telemarketer calls during dinner.  I want to use a few choice words and hang up.  Hmmm, evangelism and telemarketing – there’s an interesting connection.  Wow, everything comes back to selling something.  Life insurance and salvation.  (LIzzie, please tell me you are smiling right now…  Not wincing or cringing)

I am cringing at the thought of getting stuck in the register line at the Dollar Tree, with no immediate out unless I abandon my purchases, next to a person who is going to start asking me if I am going to Heaven or Hell… I have to be honest and say the thought just wearies me.  But… on the wrong day, I wouldn’t just wearily sigh, I’d be really pissed off.  Which of course, would not be worth the energy.  

I’ve had Mormons and Watchtower folks ring my door bell.  I used to think if I just told them I was Jewish, that would shut them up.  And sometimes it did.  Sometimes I’d take the literature to shut them up… And also because it has to be really hard to do that.  Don’t they know most of those pamphlets wind up in the circular file?  Sometimes I’d then have to shut the door in their still-talking face, despite my protestations of “not interested, not interested”…  It’s a violation.  It really is.  

The idea of sending teens and young adults to Spring Break, trying to save souls in a place where most kids go specifically to indulge in their worst, most base behavior is bizarre… That adult teachers and advisors send them into that lion’s den ( Heh heh nice biblical metaphor, right? ) is mind-boggling.  Is it really to save souls, even just one or two?  Is it to “toughen their skins” against the non-saved world?  To strengthen their conviction that their way is the right way?  (it reminds me of when the Amish people send their teenagers out into the world for a chunk of time, to make sure they know the lifestyle they are committing to, as opposed to the one they are choosing to opt out of – but I wonder about the difference in motivation)  

What’s curious is this – for the most part, Jews don’t do this.  Especially the more assimilated ones.  But even the most religiously observant cloister themselves into little areas to practice their religion, hopefully left alone by the outside world.  (well, except for Chabad, the outreach organization who’s goal it is to find non-observant Jews and bring them “back”, or to bring Judaism to parts of the world where it is uncommon or non-existent… which is another conversation altogether).

It’s hard to picture you distraught at the thought of so many unsaved souls.  It’s sad that you had encounters of such judgmentalism that you felt you were being called a second class Christian.  I understand that most of the kids in the article really were horrified by the fact that so many people are headed for the lake of fire.  And wanted to save them from their certain fate.  It’s just that they went so innocently to face such a daunting task, surely without the maturity you had, to realize “well, I still have really cool friends who love me”.  How devastating for them, to fail to save those souls.  Do they feel the burden of those unsaved?  What a heavy load.

Yes, you are right, that kid was an opportunist.  Like Cameron Crowe, who famously headed back to to high school for a 1981 book  that became  “Fast Times At Ridgemont High” ; or Norah Vincent, whose books are fascinating; Self Made Man: One Woman’s Journey Into Manhood and Back and Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Looney Bin… perhaps opportunistic, but a tried and true journalistic method.   One that ensures you break the trust and friendships of those whom you have “infiltrated” to get your story… 

LIZZIE

I understand your reaction, and it’s reassuring to know that you understand mine too.  The "creepy" response was mine in college–when groups would come to preach and proseletyze on the Lawn at UVA.  I thought they all seemed glassy-eyed and creepy.

I’m so grateful for my siblings and my girlfriends.  (And I would add that not everyone at my church was judgmental like the woman I described.  Like any place, it had its more extreme element–and they were the ones who seemed to think they knew who’d been "washed by the blood of the Lamb" and who was still an object of God’s wrath.  I believe that it was my friends–one fellow seeker within that church, but mostly the ones outside the church–who kept me grounded.  Some of those people whom the "Evangelism Club" would definitely have deemed "unsaved" were so good at loving unconditionally.  And good at laughing too!