Witnessing

The current religio-political climate makes me very uncomfortable. It brings into sharp relief the difference between who I am and how I was raised. The religion I was taught as a child is the same rule-based, fear-ridden brand that seems to be in ascendancy today. The intensity has been dialed up, and the persecution complex seems to be growing even as they gain more power. But it strikes me that as they’'ve shifted focus to the political arena, there’'s less focus on evangelism. They aren’'t really trying to convert everybody else; they'’re just telling them what they can and can'’t do.

Back when I was a teenager, the Great Commission was a big deal. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, from Matthew 28:19, in the King James Bible, of course. While my parents were willing to use the Revised Standard Version, or even the New International Version, there were still people in the church who believed that the King James Version was the only true version. Sometimes I wondered if they thought Jesus spoke in King James English.

“"Witnessing"” was a big deal. One way of witnessing was “"giving your testimony”", telling how you came to be saved. Having been “saved” at 10 years old, I didn'’t exactly have the most dramatic testimony, so I never had to give my testimony to a group of people. I did do some other forms of witnessing though, like going door-to-door to invite people to church or to Vacation Bible School.

I also went on a mission trip with my parents and some other families from our church. This was after we moved from the very small, very rural church to a little bit bigger, little less rural (but still not “city”) church. We drove in caravan up to someplace in Michigan, I forget where. We camped out in a state park for a week while the men helped build a church and the women went out in the neighborhoods and held little mini Vacation Bible Schools.

But there were several things bothering me about the whole process, though it’s only been with the benefit of many years’ experience and hindsight that I’ve been able to understand it. Back then, I just knew that witnessing was making me increasingly uncomfortable. Eventually, there came a point where I just couldn’t go along anymore. One day, a bunch of people from our church were going to be handing out flyers at a local grocery store, and I just couldn'’t do it. I finally told my parents that I didn’'t want to do it, that I didn'’t feel comfortable doing it. I told them that I didn'’t like it when other people accosted me coming out of the grocery store wanting to give me flyers, so I didn’'t feel comfortable doing that to other people. I don'’t think they were really that comfortable with the whole idea, either, because they didn’'t try to change my mind.

Much later, long after I had left that church, I encountered Alcoholics Anonymous, and the idea of attraction rather than promotion, as stated in AA'’s 11^th tradition. Then I understood what had bothered me about witnessing. There are certainly similarities between witnessing as I saw practiced back then, and what goes on in AA meetings. AA meetings are full of testimonies, people telling how they were saved from alcoholism. And the 12^th step of AA'’s program tells us to carry the message to other alcoholics, which is similar to the Great Commission.

But the focus on attraction rather than promotion changes the whole tenor of the process. It'’s the difference between sharing what has worked for me, and telling you what will work for you. I can tell another alcoholic, “"This is how I got sober”"; I don’t tell another alcoholic, “"This is how you need to get sober".” AA members don’t go to bars and hand out flyers for AA meetings. We don’'t carry the message to other alcoholics by telling them they need to get sober. We show them a different way of life, and offer to help if they want it.

By contrast, the witnessing that I saw practiced assumed that we had the answers, that if other people weren'’t following our path, they needed to be saved. There was a somewhat grudging acceptance of other Christian denominations, but back then, at least, before the alliance over abortion, Catholics weren’t really regarded as “Christian” by many of the Southern Baptists I knew. The same people who would get annoyed at the Jehovah’'s Witnesses knocking at their door would go knocking on other doors without any sense of irony.

So, the presumption that “"we’'re right, everybody else is wrong, and it’'s our job to save them”" was one reason I was uncomfortable with the evangelism I saw. Another reason I was uncomfortable with it was that I had a hard time inviting people to attend a church that I was having difficulties agreeing with. This was in the 70’s, when the fundamentalists were starting to take over the denomination. Inerrancy was becoming a big deal, and that was something I couldn’t accept or agree with. I remember my pastor asking me if I knew how we could know the Bible was true and quoting John 1:1 as the answer: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. His point was, we knew the Bible was true, because the Bible told us the Bible was true. There’s a deep strain of anti-intellectualism in most of the southern, conservative churches I saw growing up, and I couldn’t go along with it. “"God said it; I believe it; that settles it.”"

A third problem I had was racism. Southern Baptists, as a denomination, do not have a good track record with racism. The denomination was formed in a split over slavery. Southern Baptists weren'’t out there promoting civil rights. And my church wasn'’t really very interested in witnessing to blacks. Not that the people in the church didn’t think that blacks needed to be saved, but they didn'’t really want blacks worshipping with them. I remember a discussion one Sunday night about what our response should be if a black family came to church; one prominent member said that we should direct them to one of the black churches in the community, “"where they'’d feel more comfortable.”"

When I left home to go to college, I pretty much stopped going to church. The few times I did attend church over the next four years, it was a Presbyterian church. After college, I stopped going to church at all, except to keep the peace when I came to visit my parents. It took many years, and becoming a parent myself, to want to seek out a new church, one that I could be comfortable with. I researched, and talked with friends, and even prayed, and joined an Episcopal church, looking for a place to teach my daughter, and discovering a place where I could find my own long-dormant spirituality. And I get there, only to find that the fundamentalists are trying to take over that church, as well...