The Agnostic Pentecostal

I’ve been quite sick for the past two weeks, so haven’t posted lately. Here’s another post I shared on the Journey Refractions blog. I’ll have one more of these coming, then something a little different very soon…

I walked into a Christian book store today. It’s a harmful practice I normally abstain from, but I was drawn in. No sign grabbed my attention; I just felt it had been a long time and I should just go in, wander around, and maybe get saved in the process. Or perhaps the point really was to exercise my personal spiritual discipline of wedging myself into stupid situations that I know will test my tolerance — my self-proclaimed open-mindedness — to its breaking point.

It didn’t take long for a message to emerge. Most of the book, music, and video titles, the T-shirts, children’s products, and front-counter impulse buys, including candies, presented a common theme: Christianity is under attack. The right way of living and believing is under attack. Our children’s minds are under attack. Our bodies are under attack, and even our very breath is under attack, which explained the “Testamints.”

I bought the most liberal magazine possible and asked for a controversial book that I knew they wouldn’t carry. I noticed, to no surprise, the primary demographic of the patrons. And as I walked out, I hoped that anyone seeing me exit the store wouldn’t think I was one of “those people” who frequent that sort of place.

And that’s when the deeper lesson hit me: Who am I to slot individuals into a category of which I disapprove, even when I’ve never listened to their story? I was doing the very same thing I accuse some of my faith-neighbors of doing. Because I feel my perspective is under attack.

Action plan: I’m going to try to refrain from getting on the defensive and just let God sort us all out. And maybe try some Testamints in the meantime.