When I was in college at Brevard, and I was all of 19 years old, I was an ardent Christian. I was also an insecure Christian, stung by years in a country Methodist church where each altar call was like a knife dug into my soul. That experience combined with attending small, sparsely attended Baptist churches with my grand parents - where though sparsely attended, no effort was spared in painting the full grimy picture of my guilt: all slimy, dark, inescapable, woven into my personality like the amino acid sequence in my DNA, and all pointy, and every one could see it, and I should be ashamed to walk the earth in daylight, and I could never repent enough. In light of all this, when I discovered God's grace (which had been there all along; but since it's not a popular topic for revival preachers, you wouldn't know it had been there all along. Oh they'll mention it in passing; there's even a popular hymn with the word in the title. The message of grace, that God has accepted us from the beginning of the world, is antithetical to the production of guilt necessary for the altar call. Best to make grace something you earn, something God gives to the good people, something you can lose), when I discovered God's grace, I discovered that I was all right after all, that whatever litany of accusation went on in my head wasn't from God. I was pretty ticked: years spent feeling like crap when I didn't have to (no one has to), feeling like God hated me. I was an angry Christian. I had unfortunately discovered the truth of grace while hanging out with people who might be called "fundy." I had certainly bought into the whole inerrancy, miracles, "the Church is filled with unbelievers: Liberals!" polemic that continues to be popular to this day.One day, the group of us had a conversation with the Methodist minister from across the street from campus. He was all about form criticism, documentary hypotheses, Babylonian mythology, and such - very threatening stuff. He said something intelligent and persuasive and I snapped. I laid into him, arguing that he wasn't a real Christian. I was full of indignation. (I was also projecting onto him my frustration with the Methodist Church). I remember him telling me, "you and I are not so far apart." But I would not be reconciled. I was triumphant.
Years later, while at seminary, reading the Anchor Exodus commentary by Propp, I thought, "hmmm, Exodus is probably some kind of vision quest story, like other stories with heroes who go into the desert and have a vision from God. There is no archaeological evidence that it ever happened, but that's not important and doesn't detract from its usefulness or message." I can look at the Bible as a hodge podge of stories, tendentious, politically motivated , disputatious, testimonial, reflecting the crises of exile, death, resurrection, persecution, martyrdom, poverty, loss - all that. Daniel? probably written as a polemic during the Maccabean times, with the intention of avoiding the violence the Maccabees used, while still offering resistance to the Syrian-Greeks: at least when you look at it that way, it all snaps into place.
I was thinking these thoughts and I thought of this minister that I had vilified as "not really a Christian." I thought of him, and I realized that I had become him. I am now the person I railed against 28 years ago.
I've mentioned this realization to a few people now. I was talking to someone yesterday and I said, "it's only a matter of time now before some young kid, full of the Holy Spirit and righteous indignation, latches onto something I say and from the depth of his being launches into a full scale defamation of my status as a Christian. With great anger he'll say, 'You're not really a Christian.' I know it's only a matter of time, and you know, I welcome it."
"What will you tell him, what will you say?" my friend asked.
I thought for a moment. There is only one thing that I could say, "Tag."
