Religion

Religion

"These people have no filter," she thought as they all sat in the living room talking.

The #1 rule of small talk (as every good ESL/EFL teacher or student knows) is NO POLITICS OR RELIGION. Especially when you meet someone for the first time.

But this idea was as foreign to them as their several hours of church were to her.

And this was what it was--what she couldn't put her finger on, what she had felt like she should warn her friends about upon meeting these people for the first time. But she hadn't been able to identify the threat quite clearly enough to put it into words:

These women have no filter.

She was a well-trained American Christian, trained to follow Jesus of course, but also trained to offend no one, cause no awkwardness, and keep people from getting bored. After all, people in the US have often been burned by Christians, and we don't want to resurrect old memories or scare anyone away. Especially when complemented by 2-3 Bible studies lasting 2-3 hours during the remainder of the week, four-hour-long church services are not practical nor attractive, and the most important thing is, of course, to be attractive--or at least not repulsive.

Not that she was one of those Sunday Christians--the ones who did the scaring away by going to church on Sunday and living as they wished the rest of the week, those who did the right thing because they thought they probably should and not because they truly desired to follow Jesus. On the contrary, she understood what it meant to follow Jesus and avoided being "religious" in that hypocritic way. Her anti-religion ideals proudly included omitting overtly orthodox phrases like "sin" and "salvation"--replaced by more basic, non-offensive phrases to fit with her training in Reaching The Lost--which of course is too church-y and should actually be called Talking To Friends About Beliefs.

But these people had no such filter, not for the timing of their references to their faith and not for the careful painting of the vehicles in which these references arrived.

And by this she began to recognize that perhaps, what she had always thought about the difference between religion and following Jesus might, in reality, be 95% off base.

Especially when they prayed during one of the multiple, extensive (:Plenty-long) group prayers that she would recognize her religious heart and turn away from living by religion to seeking Jesus fully.

This lengthy prayer and its pointed position threw her off balance in two ways--well, by that time she had already seen how little they regarded time when they gathered to meet Jesus. What could be so important as to cut it short? This was in line with her anti-religion ideals and introduced little angst. Even when the workload was piling up, "God has made promises (like Matthew 6:33) for the purpose of keeping them."

And the second, more shocking way--well, of course good American Christians pray for each other, and of course they pray for each other in a group, but never like this. Never would they pray such direct prayers of desired repentance for their brother or sister; similarly, never in prayer would they single out a visitor who had just arrived for the very first time--disregarding all lack of knowledge about the guest's spiritual standing, asking openly that their hearts would be drawn close to the Lord. Never would such bald hearts be presented publicly before God and the group. What if someone was offended? What if the visitor felt awkward and never came back? "Too risky," runs the mind of the American. "Too risky!" (And perhaps it is not fair to label such a mindset as specifically American. All groups are heterogeneous, all countries have their share of these "safe" Christians).

But good teachers know this principle of disequilibrium, the state into which she was thrown by their good-hearted, barb-tipped prayer. And it therefore stands to reason that an all-knowing God might've built this principle into the heart of a life of religionless following of Jesus. If someone is thrown off balance by what they hear, they think about it more. They have to reconcile new information, regain their mental balance. Growth doesn't always--in fact it rarely--comes by comfort.

The apostle Paul ran in this anti-American vein when he admitted before an entire court that it was actually his intolerant desire that all of them would be as he was, that all of them would be persuaded to be Christians.

Such a principle of disequilibrium, of disregard for awkwardness, properness, or convenience--this principle renders a filter absolutely unnecessary.

And for this reason, with minimal to non-existent knowledge of their audience's spiritual position, the unfiltered, wild women felt free to mention the times they had spent with Jesus in their description of what they had done that day.

They felt free to mention the ways in which they had seen him work in their lives that day.

They kept the water of timidity far from the fire of the Spirit and felt free to proclaim His goodness and His involvement in their lives without hesitation or awkwardness (at least on their part). They kept the capital H sans respect for modern conventions of capitalization.

And by this, she began to see a small glimpse of the animal she had thought she knew inside and out.

And instead of the spots she knew well, it seemed that it was more like the stripes she had been trying to avoid.

And she realized that looking at the skin was her first mistake anyway--one of the clearest earmarks of religion: over-attention to outwardly coverings.

So instead of observing its skin, she zoomed out to look at behavior.

Maybe a tiny part of this animal--she couldn't hope to guess at the whole--but maybe a small part of its structure, a fraction of its function, could be said to be slightly less concerned about the formats of words themselves and slightly more preoccupied with their liberal placement, their lack of restrictions thereof.

But this animal is so wild, uncivilized, and barbarous that it wouldn't quite hold still long enough for her to take hold and examine.

Perhaps another glimpse will be caught, later on in this jungle.

For now, equilibrium stalks in the shadows of questions such as:

What IS the core of religion as a hostile entity to faith?

How can it be avoided?

Where does it hide in me?

And new questions splash up as it runs by through the muddle of thinking:

What if Christians made attention small or none when they regarded cultural norms and conventions in the light of the Spirit and his leading?

What if they spoke Christianese with such passion and authenticity that learners would pick up the words through context instead of translation?

What if attention was all on Jesus and not on contours and forms?