Who will win?
I asked myself that question tonight when a soft-spoken old lady I work with asked me who I thought the Antichrist was.
"What makes you think I believe there is an antichrist? Doesn't the bible say there are many antichrists?"
"Gary, your disbelief in the Antichrist will not make the Antichrist go away. What's real is real," she said, half in this world -- half in her own.
"Your belief in an antichrist doesn't make an antichrist real either, does it?"
"No, but the bible is right, and that's how you and I know the Antichrist is real -- regardless of our beliefs... ...you be careful, mister."
The salt-and-peppered, long, straight-haired lady looked at me with genuine concern. "Jesus loves you. Do you care?" she seized the moment.
It was a question I had asked people before, and being on the receiving end this time, all I could realize is what this lady thought of me. I am a person "on the other side" to her. A person with only one hope, perhaps, without hope altogether. I have no doubt about her genuine concern for my soul, and it's really hard for me to bite my tongue in a situation like this. Being her superior about to clock-in, I smiled, and said no more.
I can hear the whispers echoing in the few church buildings of the Upper Peninsula where I have made friends with Christians who generally make no bones about my Antichurch Contentism. Those buildings have tall walls, and I swear I hear the echos on Wednesday nights. "I pray for Gary Phillips. Save him." I'm a name in a list of "the other people." I might be squeezed right next to grandma and grandpa, but I'm in the list. I'm a person worthy of someone's time, and that means something to me.
I don't have a list.
I don't have a collection of people that I pray over. I don't preclude the great battle of good and evil to the great void of philosophy. After all, I believe in things. I think there is a battle, and I am concerned. The same forces that raise churches are within me raising concern for humanity. I see a nuclear holocaust a real possibility, and I'm afraid of people who find it a certainty.
In the end, a belief in Antichrist, is my antichrist, for only without one is there hope.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 follow-up thoughts!:
I have had this same discussion with people - and I have had the discussion from both sides! Ha!
The thing that keeps me from diving back into christianity is the question I can't answer yet: Why do I need to?
You might need to dive back in if you love some of the people in it. I have found that those who are in it can only get so close to those who are out before they stop a developing relationship.
People on the outside, however, can get close to people on the inside but it tends to be a one-way-relationship for awhile before burning out.
Then there is the possibility of bring people out of it and into your own community... whatever that may be. That takes a lot more work I hear.
Post a Comment