(by Dave, 20-25 min)
The news story flashed across the television screen in the Student Union. The ticker tape across the bottom of the screen read: “Christian stabs neighbor following argument over election.” Megan shook her head in disappointment.
“What’s the matter Meg? Afraid one of your own has flown off the handle again?”
Megan glanced over at her friend. “Can’t you ever leave it alone?”
Courtney looked back up at the television screen while a new atrocity scrolled across the ticker tape.
“Hey, I’m just saying you’re all the time telling me how great Christianity is and…”. She flipped her hand over, palm up sweeping it toward the television. “Seems like you guys are pretty willing to violate your own rules.”
“Let me ask you something, Courtney.” Megan turned in the couch on which they were both sitting to face her friend directly. “Do you think Christians are any better than anybody else?”
“Oh, definitely not. But you all think you’re better than everyone else.” Courtney also turned in the couch and stretched out, propping her head on the arm of the sofa and her feet on Megan’s lap.
“Why do you say that?” Megan asked, looking disappointed. “Do you think I see myself as somehow superior to you because I am a Christian?”
Courtney pondered that a bit. “Are we going to be honest?”
Megan’s eyebrows furrowed as she realized what her friend was thinking. She glanced around the large room of the University’s Student Union. Many of her friends were playing air hockey, or ping-pong or just happily chatting. I shouldn’t have let an expression cross my face at that news story, she thought to herself.
“Well?”
“Go ahead Courtney. You are going to tell me anyhow.”
“I know what you Christians think about the rest of us.” Courtney had an edge to her voice as she spoke her thoughts. “Let me prove it to you.” She pulled herself upright and perched on the arm of the couch facing her friend. Megan watched her move, preparing for another onslaught.
“Why do you feel the need to attack me all the time, Courtney?”
“Oh, I’m not attacking you, Meg. I’m attacking what you believe.”
“Okay, why do you feel the need to attack what I believe all the time?”
“Because you people are so self-righteous that’s why,” she spat it out acrimoniously.
“Then why do you stay friends with me, Courtney? If my behaviors irritate you so badly, if you’re all the time so upset by my self-righteous behavior, then why don’t you find someone else to spend your time with?”
This was the first time Megan had ever confronted her friend about her constant attacks of Christianity. The two had known each other for three years and had roomed together for two of those. They had a long history, but increasingly Courtney had become more and more belligerent about Megan’s beliefs, taking every opportunity she could find to confront her friend.
“Well that’s a Christian response,” Courtney said sarcastically.
“You know what Courtney? I am sick and tired of you judging everything that I say and do, throwing it back at me as if Christians are supposed to be absolutely perfect.” Megan’s eyes were uncontrollably filling up. “I’m human Courtney, just like you, and it hurts my feelings when you are constantly attacking me.”
Courtney was unmoved. “Like I said, it’s what you believe not you.”
“Well, it sure feels like it’s me. What have my beliefs ever done to you?” Megan asked.
“Your beliefs are offensive, that’s all. You saw that ticker tape.” She turned her head slightly nodding at the television. “That’s what your beliefs produce and that’s why I think they need to be confronted in those who endorse them.” Courtney’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes intense.
“Fine! Megan said a little too loudly as she stood to go. “But I did not ask you about the guy on the television. I asked you what my beliefs, coming from me, have done to you.” She wiped at the tears rolling down her face. “I’ve never done anything to you Courtney but be nice because that’s what my beliefs tell me to do. And it’s more than that. It’s what I wanted to do because I care about you. If you don’t believe what I believe, that’s fine.” She paused collecting herself while wiping her cheeks again. “But I want you to think about this. I’m the Christian. The one with the reprehensible beliefs. Who between us right now is just being mean?”
“Whatever,” said Courtney. She stood and walked out of the room.
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Megan was sitting at her desk studying when her friend returned to their shared dormitory room. She looked up and Courtney met her gaze.
“I’m sorry Megs”, she said with genuine warmth.
“Me too, I didn’t mean to shout at you.”
Courtney walked over and sat down on her bed. Megan’s desk lamp was all that lit the room. The two women had many discussions about life, their parents and classes in this setting. There was something about the night that just brought it out of them. Megan closed the book she was studying.
“Can we talk about it?” Megan said. “I don’t want to feel this way. You are my best friend.”
Courtney nodded her head in agreement. “For me too.”
“I can’t defend the action of every Christian, Courtney. The guy who stabbed that person was wrong. He was violating one of our Commandments.”
Courtney looked over at her friend and began to stroke her left eyebrow with her index finger. Megan knew the gesture well. It came always before they talked about deeper things. Things that people care about the most.
“Meg, why do Christians feel it necessary to have Commandments at all? I know you don’t agree with killing your neighbor over an election, but that guy was acting on your Commandments.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Megan said slowly shaking her head back and forth. “Murder is wrong in my faith.”
“Okay. If he wasn’t acting on your Commandments, then why do you think he stabbed that guy?”
“I don’t know why he did it,” Megan said, anxiously shaking her head back and forth. “I can’t explain the actions of others. I just know that what he did was wrong.”
Courtney stacked her pillows against the headboard and moved back against them as she stretched her feet out on the bed. “Okay let’s find out. You have your laptop over there right?”
Megan’s eyes shifted to her computer sitting on the corner of the desk.
“Why don’t you pop it open and see if they’ve determined why he did it.”
Megan looked back at her suspiciously. “You already did that didn’t you,” she said knowing her friend very well.
“Yep. I was wondering if my assumptions about that guy were correct after we argued, so I checked it out.”
“Why did he do it?” Meg asked.
“Because he thought he needed to defend his religion and the country from people like his neighbor.” Courtney raised her eyebrows and stared at her friend.
Megan looked back chewing on this information. “But Courtney, the Bible I believe in says don’t murder. It doesn’t go on to say except you can kill someone who is denigrating your religion. It just says don’t commit murder. What he did was wrong.”
“Well, that may be how you think about it Meg, but many Christians would disagree and think what he did was just fine.” Courtney crossed her hands behind her head. “My point is that having these Commandments leaves them open for interpretation and gives people the sense that they need to act on them because of divine command. Religious people are the worst at this kind of thing. Religious white supremacists, the Crusades, jihads. All this religious mumbo-jumbo just makes the world a more dangerous place. Can’t you see that?”
Megan had an insight about her friend. “So, it’s not just Christianity you don’t like, it’s all religion?”
“Yes, I think religion is destructive, and we have a gruesome history that now includes today’s news story proving my point.”
Megan pushed her chair back from the desk, stood and started to pace. It was a habit she had that seemed to help her thinking. She wanted to pace during tests so much it was almost a distraction. “You think that much of the violence in the world is the fault of religion?”
“I do,” said Courtney matter-of-factly.
Still pacing back and forth, “You would prefer a world without religion.”
“Correct again roomy.”
Megan stopped and looked at her friend. “I think you are confused. People behave violently toward one another no matter what the circumstances. That they do it sometimes in the name of religion is not evidence that religion itself is the cause. The cause is being human.”
Courtney sat up from her pillows and moved to the edge of the bed, clearly agitated but fighting to control it. “Really, this is what you believe?”
Megan sat back on the edge of her desk, ideas crystallizing in her mind. “It’s not what I believe, it’s what is.”
“I just pointed out the atrocities that people have committed in the name of religion, and you are just sweeping that all under the rug as being human.”
“You are ignoring huge pieces of human history in order to attribute everything to religion.”
“I am not,” said Courtney indignantly.
“Sure, you are,” replied Megan. “Hitler had no religion. Mao Tse Tung banned religion in China and Stalin believed religion to be an opiate of nonsense for the masses that needed to go. Yet all of these people and their followers who denied religion killed huge numbers of people.”
“Well, that may be true but their devotion to their cause was down-right religious in nature.”
“That’s my point, Courtney, it has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with being human.”
“I’m not buying this.”
Megan stood back up and began to pace again as she collected her thoughts. “Okay, so let’s take the guy today on the ticker tape. You read on the Internet that he committed his actions because he believed his neighbor was a threat to his religion and country. Right?”
Courtney shook her head yes.
“Yesterday on the news there was a guy who killed his girlfriend because he got angry at her in an argument.”
Courtney was shaking her head, no, back and forth seeing where this was going. “Meg, I know not all violence is because of religion, but if we could eliminate the religious-oriented ones, we’d have a lot less violence.”
Megan was still pacing, but now with her arms crossed and staring down at the floor. “But Courtney, we already know that human beings in the absence of religion will do exactly the same kinds of things that people do when they are religious. It’s being human that causes people to do the things they do. Blaming it on religion is simply cherry picking the evidence so that religion seems to be the culprit.”
Courtney abruptly stood and walked over to her desk, pulled the chair out and plopped down with an enormous sigh. “You just don’t get it.”
Megan stopped pacing and looked at her friend. “No, I think I do get it.” She was shaking her head up and down and even started to let her index finger point at her friend up and down in an identical rhythm. “You think religion makes zealots out of people, right? At least some of the people wouldn’t do the things they do, if they didn’t have this zealous desire to do them based on religion.” Her eyebrows shot up as she looked to see if her idea was correct.
“Exactly!” Responded Courtney. “Look, that guy on the ticker tape would never have stabbed his neighbor if it hadn’t been for his religion. That’s all I’m saying. He held a religious conviction and believed it was okay to kill someone based on it. He interpreted your commandments to include that act. If there is no religion, the neighbor does not get stabbed, and we have one less act of violence.”
Megan looked back at her friend, nodding her head. “Okay I have it now. So, I have a question for you.”
“Let it fly,” Courtney replied.
“Why do you think it was wrong for the Christian guy to stab his neighbor?”
“Because it’s wrong to kill somebody,” Courtney responded without hesitation.
“Why is it wrong?” Megan shot back quickly.
“You can’t be serious, Meg. Do you really think it was okay for that guy to stab the person?”
“I’m not asking you because I think it was okay”, Megan replied. “I am asking to see why you think it is wrong to kill someone in the first place.”
“Well, we can’t just go around killing people, Meg.”
“Why not?” Megan still stood in the middle of the room looking at her friend. Courtney’s expression was part shock and part amusement at this turn in the discussion.
“You think it’s okay for people to kill each other?” Courtney asked incredulously.
“No, I don’t,” replied Megan. “But why do both of us believe it is wrong to kill someone?”
“It just is.”
“Who says so?”
“All of us,” said Courtney. “Societies everywhere believe it is wrong.”
“Not true, Courtney. The Nazis did not believe it was wrong to try and exterminate every Jew in their country. Stalin did not believe it was wrong to starve and imprison to death millions of people simply because they disagreed, or even worse, might disagree with his vision of the future. Not everyone agrees with you, so why do you think killing someone is wrong.”
“Well, if we all went around killing everyone we would not survive as a species,” Courtney replied. “It doesn’t make any evolutionary sense.”
Megan began to pace again. “Yes, it does. In fact, Hitler used exactly the Darwinian argument to justify his brutal actions and genocide. He certainly didn’t believe he was bringing about the destruction of the human species. He believed he was improving it, perfecting it even. Hitler thought evolution justified killing people while you think it makes no evolutionary sense to kill people. Therefore, it is the person that determines how they interpret evolution and that is my point.”
Courtney looked at her confused. “What point?”
“The point that it’s not religion that produces violence, it’s people. A derailed person can use evolution as an explanation for why she should kill just as easily as a derailed person can use their religion.”
“I still think we would be better off without religion.”
Megan looked over at her friend. “Well, do you still think killing is wrong on evolutionary grounds? Because if you do, you are no better than me and should be just as critical with yourself as you were with me when the news story came across the TV. You’ve just substituted a scientific rationale for a religious rationale of why we should not kill. The only problem is that your scientific rationale has also been used to kill millions of people. If you think we would be better off without religion, then you must also think we would be better off without evolution. Do you?”
“This is ridiculous, evolution never killed anybody.”
“Neither did religion and that, once again, is my point. It’s people that go wrong and kill each other. They always find a way to justify their actions and sometimes it’s religion, sometimes science, sometimes delusions. The point is it’s people. If you want to blame science or religion, then you have to ban it all not just the part that you happen not to like. Humans have used it all to justify killing. But that wouldn’t work either, would it? We can’t ban all thought, metaphysical theories, and other things that motivate people to do what they do. Again, my point is that if you substitute evolution for religion there are still going to be people who kill in the name of it. Hitler clearly showed us that’s the case. Getting rid of religion will not do anything to reduce acts of violence. In fact, most Christians that I know are transformed to be less hateful by their faith, not more.”
“Fine,” said Courtney. “I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.”
“I guess so, but don’t you wonder Courtney why we think killing is wrong in the first place? I do. And it always brings me back to a created world where God has made it wrong.”
“Megs, please don’t start again.”
“Okay, but you should give it some thought. Your evolutionary theory for why killing is wrong really doesn’t hold much water. Are you willing to be as critical of your own thinking as you are of mine?”
“No,” said Courtney smiling. “I’m hungry, let’s go get something to eat.”
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Religion gets blamed for a lot of things these days and many who look at our faith are willing to blame a host of the world’s trouble on Christians. This story hopefully helps to illustrate that people are the source of trouble, not faith. Someone who questions our faith, and does not know it, is unable to see that the vast majority of practicing Christians are changed by their faith for the better. Without this knowledge, they will often critically focus their attention on those who commit public sinful acts. I believe it is imperative for us who wish to spread the good news to help people see that religion is not the enemy, sin is. If we can help folks see this, then perhaps we can introduce them to the faith that has transformed so many of us into caring, loving people.
May God be with you this and every day of your faith journey.
Dave
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