I'm
thinking about how it got to be so uncool to be an Evangelical Christian. Was
it always so? And if not when did things get turned around? Was it the Big
Haired Televangelists that are responsible, or did it happen much
earlier?
I've been listening to Chris Brady's "So Dark the Con of Man'" among other things and musing on just how uncool we are. And the total irony that I used to be one of the people who thought all Evangelicals were idiots who couldn't think their way out of a paper bag. And then I met some really smart, funny, thoughtful Christians, and I was baffled. I tried to reconcile what I was experiencing with what I "knew to be true". Ha! I had to admit, my worldview was inaccurate, or at least incomplete. How could these brilliant minds subscribe to such an uncool and intolerant worldview? Wasn't it obvious that the only sensible viewpoint was the "There are as many paths to God as there are people", "truth is relative and situational" view that I embraced?
Besides the fact that I now knew several Evangelicals and not one of them had Big Hair or railed at me about how I was headed on the next train to hell, there was another little fact that was gnawing at me. For all of the stuff I had tried (from Native American sweat lodges to Hindu Goddess ceremonies and a whole lot of other stuff in between) none of it had produced happiness or made me into a better, more compassionate person. I could not discount the evidence that was piling up that I was on the wrong track somehow, despite what my culture told me.
The crack in my cosmic armor was widening enough for our friend Dave to drive in the wedge. The conversation went something like this. Me "I don't believe the Bible is true." Dave "Have you ever read the Bible?" Me "Well...no." Dave "Then how can you say it's not true?" Me "Ummm". Then he triple-dog-dared me to read it.
Now since I had quite a
bit of pride about being open-minded and all, and also culturally literate and
well-read, it occurred to me that I really should read it "Since even
though I don't believe it, it's such a huge influence on contemporary Western
culture, I probably should". Ha-ha, this just makes me laugh now - I was
so arrogant I can hardly stand it.
It just so happened that many years before, a friend had given me a
One Year Bible which had been collecting dust on a shelf. And so I read it.
Warning -if you want to hang onto your identity as a cool, tolerant relativist
do not read this book with an open mind. It could make you ask questions. It
could make you look for a church. It could turn you into an uncool geeky friend
of Jesus. 'Nuff said.
