Rules of Engagement #1 - Stick To It

If you ask me who my favorite band in the world is... Well, I think most of you can finish this sentence by now. It will do you no good - avail you absolutely nothing in the slightest - if, during our discussion, you insist that Screeching Weasel (this is a real band) is better than Led Zeppelin, especially if your evidence is the Screeching Weasel song "I Hate Led Zeppelin" (which is also real, not that any of you should go listen to it, because it's also real bad).

When discussing whether Rick Deckard is a replicant or not (spoiler: he is), it serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever to ask whether Han or Greedo shot first. (Han, and I don't care what your fancy-pants special edition DVD says.)

I wish I could come up with examples for this that aren't completely nerdy, but hey, I'm a nerd. It's what I know.

But the point - nerdy or not - is entirely the same across all of everything: if you're talking about oranges, apples do not bear much relevance to the topic at hand.

Guess what?

Strangely enough, that is still true for discussions about God.

Storytime!

When I was up in Kansas a few weeks ago for my friend Sarah's wedding, she was THE only person I knew there. Like, in the entire state. I knew ONE person, and that was the bride. I didn't have a car, and I'd missed my opportunity to be out for the night, so I was definitely in... watching Sarah and her bridesmaids sew dresses and enjoying the BBC Pride and Prejudice. The one with Colin Firth.

Let me clarify this: Sarah and her bridesmaids were enjoying it. I was not. I do not like Mr. Darcy, I do not like Elizabeth Bennett, and I do not like being the only guy in a room full of women swooning for a guy who isn't me. That he is fictional only adds insult to the injury.

It so happened that one of Sarah's bridesmaids, Kimi, brought along her fiancé, Kevin, who was also one of the groomsmen. This guy SAVED MY LIFE. Finally, in the midst of this rampant chick-flickery, I get to hang out with a dude. And what a dude he was.

There was little time lost between our introduction and a deep conversation being struck between myself and Kevin. We talked about a great deal many of the things that two men talk about when the women are off being "the women," but our conversation eventually wound up circling around a discussion of morality, religion, and the social progression of humanity.

My goodness, it was a fascinating conversation.

We talked for what seemed like hours! We covered so many different ideas and understandings and points of view, and the entire time, we just built off of each other and leapt to new ideas and new ways of seeing exactly what the other was talking about... It was wonderful!

And the fun part of it was that Kevin is an atheist.

I've got atheist friends. Having a discussion on these topics with someone who does not believe the same things I believe is not a foreign idea. And it's not even that this conversation went so well that is particularly what matters, because I've had that happen before, too.

What really tickles me about it is actually what happened the day after the wedding. I was talking to Jimbo, Sarah's ridiculously cool husband, for what was really the first good chat the two of us had been able to share. I'd met him for about ten seconds on Thursday, the wedding was on Friday, and Saturday's the first time he's actually had a minute to breathe, let alone talk to some dude his wife went to college with.

As Jimbo and I were talking, I was surprised when the conversation Kevin and I had shared came up. Specifically, it came up when Jimbo said, with a strong note of astonishment in his voice, "So I heard you talked religion with Kevin the other night! I am impressed."

"Wait, what? Why impressed?"

"Dude. NOBODY talks religion with Kevin. It is just IMPOSSIBLE to do."

"What, are you serious? That guy was so chill! He wasn't a jerk about it, he didn't try to shove his beliefs down my throat, and he respected that we can talk about what we agree on and what we disagree on without having to demonize the other guy."

"Hey, he said the same thing about you, man."

"Really?"

"Well, kinda. When we were getting ready for the ceremony, I asked him, 'So, what about that Aaron guy?', and the first thing he said was, 'Man, that Aaron guy is one Christian I can talk to.'"

True story!

How about that? I managed to talk to a guy I'd never met, never even seen before in my life, for a solid three hours about a topic that we completely disagreed on. And all the while, both of us have a reputation in some circles for being difficult people to discuss that topic with! I know for sure that not all of my conversations with atheists have gone as well as that one did, and I know Kevin's had some difficult conversations with Christians, as well.

It's hard sometimes to talk to someone whose fundamental definition of reality is different from yours. But I think that if you have a certain attitude in mind, it just gets a lot easier.

I think Kevin and I were both really rockin' on that attitude that night. I hope this doesn't sound like I'm bragging about my insane skills at talking to atheists or anything... #1, it's not like that field is gonna be getting its own merit badge or anything anytime soon, and #2, "bragging" implies that I did this on purpose, like I had some kind of clue what was going on. No, no... That was not me. I did not have my hands on the wheel at that point. The Spirit was definitely working in me.

And who knows? Maybe it was working in Kevin, too. I have a feeling he'd doubt that, though...

(For the six of you who will get the joke, I'm gonna pull a Jonathan Storment here.)

I tell you that... to tell you this...

I think the reason Kevin and I were able to have such a great discussion (through the working of the Spirit or through whatever else might have happened) was that we both managed to actually stick to the discussion we were having.

When Kevin asked me a specific question about my beliefs, I was able to give him an answer that didn't include a sermon, and I didn't go outside of the question by trying to bring up other beliefs he didn't ask about. He asked me about oranges, I talked about oranges. And I wasn't a jerk. (Woo! Go me!)

When I asked Kevin a specific question about his view of the God he doesn't believe in but I do, he was able to give me an answer that wasn't disparaging of my belief, and he didn't bring out his (dis)beliefs with an aim towards heating up the conversation. I asked him about apples, he talked about apples. And he wasn't a jerk. (Woo! Go Kevin!)

Man... I really ought to try to be like that every single time I talk to people. That would probably be pretty cool.

I think that's the first rule about talking religion with somebody. Whatever the question was, your answer has to stick to it. Be specific, be honest, and don't bring up the things that don't matter for that question.

If you ask me who my favorite band is, I will talk your ear off about Led Zeppelin, not The Firm. Yes, there's a fairly decent connection between the two, but it's not at all the answer to the question you asked.

This may seem like a pretty obvious thing to say, but I really think we (I) could use somebody writing some of this stuff down, because we're kinda bad at this. And not just on the Christian to atheist front. We're bad at this with fellow Christians.

If someone asks you about your beliefs on the nature of God, an answer about the evils of adultery is not going to be a whole lot of help. We get lost in the distractions instead of sticking to the point.

And the worst part about that is that the point is really simple.

BE GOOD.

That's the point.

The point is not that we all agree 100% on the interpretation of every single passage of scripture. The point is not that we all go to the same building every Sunday morning. The point is not that we all clap-or-don't-clap during the singing.

The point is that you behave yourself. That's the point. God set up everything in the world to show us who He is, and once you know who He is, you behave yourself.

So stick to that.

Don't worry about what other people are wearing, or saying, or doing, or thinking, or believing if it doesn't take away from the glory of God.

If they're not Christians, you're not going to convince them that we're the team to join if you're frothing at the mouth because they don't believe the same things you believe. And if they are Christians, you're not going to score any points with anybody by insisting that we all read the same version of the Bible as you and burn the rest.

Again, this may sound basic, and even pedantic, but I think it's worth laying out, because it lays the foundations for a couple of other things I really want to talk about.

But uhh... I guess I'm done for now. Next week, we'll talk about the nature of sin. That's gonna be fun.