A few weeks ago, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole. After my friend Denise was indoctrinated by a fundamentalist organization of Christians, I reached out to her. For a few weeks now we’ve gone back and forth on social media. And though neither of us got very far in convincing the other of our beliefs (or lack thereof), we still managed to keep things civil. Our interactions culminated in her inviting me to participate in a Thursday Bible study of hers.
As a cynic on the subject of organized religion, I admit I was reluctant to attend. That first Thursday I let pass me by, deciding instead to go see Cocaine Bear with my girlfriend. Whether a sign from God or Satan himself I’m not sure, but that our movie was directly next to a showing of Jesus Revolution felt like something a little more than an accident. Was it why I decided to participate in their next Bible study of hers? No. In truth, I did it because it was hosted over Zoom and I wouldn’t need to leave my bedroom.
Before blindly jumping in, though, I asked Denise if I’d be able to ask questions.
“Absolutely,” she confirmed. My interest was sufficiently piqued.
“Awesome! I’ll try not to make them too pointed,” I replied only half-kiddingly.
As the next Thursday rolled around, I logged into Zoom in a timely fashion. Having never fully gotten the hang of Zoom, though, I entered the conference in the middle of what I hadn’t realized yet was a sermon with an abrasive “Can you hear me?”
A few less-than-encouraging looks from the congregation confirmed for me that my microphone was, in fact, on. My video camera, too, was a little too operational for my comfort. So I turned off my camera and added my “B” to the queue of letter-named squares of people who’d cleverly and prudently opted for Zoom call anonymity.
Denise had told me that I’d be allowed to ask questions, but she hadn’t told me just how much sermonizing I’d need to listen to in order to get to that part. She didn’t tell me there’d be a few-minute-long portion devoted to the assembly speaking in tongues, nor did she warn me about the five and a half minutes of Jesus praise at the end that was so overlayed and disordered that it resembled a bar room sports argument more than religious worship. As everyone loudly spoke over one another and the Zoom box struggled hilariously to decide on a speaker, I sat there losing patience.
“OPEN UP YO MOUTH! THANK YOU JESUS” said one congregant.
“HIS NAME IS TO BE PRAISED!” said another.
“HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH!” affirmed another.
“IF YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO PRAISE AND YOU LET THE ENEMY SQUEEZE YOU DOWN — ” preached another before being loudly interrupted by another barrage of overlapping hallelujahs. As I sat there anxiously tapping my feet, Denise kindly spoke up for me and asked for my permission to speak.
“Ben you are welcome to unmute your microphone and ask your question,” spoke up the congregation’s leader graciously, the rest of the group visibly disheartened with the interruption to the impending chorus of “THANK YOU JESUS!” written across their faces.
Caught a little off guard but thankful to finally get my opportunity on the floor, digitally speaking at least, I wasn’t equipped exactly with a question.
“So Denise and I have been going back and forth for a couple of weeks on the subject of religion… and the reason we started going back and forth — I saw some of what she was posting on Facebook and it struck me as very hateful. I don’t feel as though religion is harmful in itself, but this notion that you’re saved and everyone else is going to hell has always been a hard thing for me to wrap my head around.” After briefly explaining myself I conclude by asking, “Is that something you personally believe?”
A little reluctant to have her first statement aloud to her new perspective congregant be one of, “Yep, you’re going to hell,” she obfuscated slightly. I didn’t entirely mind.
“…I didn’t find Jesus because he wasn’t lost. I came to the knowledge and understanding that I needed a savior. Because of sin, I’m lost. And because of God’s word, all that is lost will remain lost unless you are born again,” she explained.
Thankful for the courteous meandering but still a little frustrated with her indirect answer, I decided to press on the question a little further.
“So I personally do believe there is a higher power. Do you think that because I don’t believe in your form of it I’m destined to an eternity in hellfire?”
“Um, The Bible says — The Bible that I believe — says that there is only one way. And that one way is Jesus Christ. He is the way, the truth, and the light.”
“I think a lot of my issue with that kind of thinking is that I don’t really view that belief as any different from the way that Muslims feel about Islam or the way the Hindus feel about their beliefs… I don’t feel as though the connection that you feel to your religion is any different from what Jews feel, or what Hindus feel, or what Muslims feel.”
At this, the congregation’s leader began to show some frustration. “Again, I don’t have religion, I have a relationship with a higher power. I can’t tell you about what I don’t know. I know about the lord Jesus Christ because I have a personal relationship with him.
It’s not my job to convince you, my job is to share the gospel and once I share the gospel you have to make a decision. If you choose not to accept Christ, that’s your decision,” she concluded with an almost fiery condemnation.
“I think the notion that I’m going to hell just because I don’t buy into your version of this is a little bit absurd.”
“Well, again, my Bible says there is one way. And that way is Jesus Christ… but at the end of the day, the God that I serve, he loves all of his creations including you and others who believe in some other power.”
“I don’t think an all-loving God would send people to eternal hellfire. That’s a really hard idea for me to wrap my head around. If he had all the power in the universe he could just as easily not send people to hell.”
“God doesn’t send people to hell. People make the choice to reject His son and that’s why you go there… Ben, do you believe that you are a sinner?”
“I don’t really buy into that side of Christianity very much.”
“It’s not a Christianity question. I’m asking what you believe. Do you believe you are a sinner?”
“Do you think you could clarify the question a bit more?”
“Do you believe you’ve always been in the right position with your God or a higher power?”
“I believe the God that created this universe that’s 93 billion light years across doesn’t care who I have sex with and doesn’t care what I eat. I think a higher power likely exists but I don’t feel as though he’s invested in my life and the decisions that I make.”
“Well, you know what, I don’t agree with any of that, Ben… if you don’t believe in Jesus, I can’t make you believe in Jesus…”
After this, she spoke for a couple of minutes before we circled back toward the subject of the eternal hellfire reserved for non-Christians.
“It just doesn’t make sense to me that an all-loving God would do that — and I heard what you said earlier about how ‘that’s because they didn’t accept Jesus,’ but still, even then, it doesn’t seem like a reason someone should suffer, not just for a hundred years, not just a thousand years, but suffer for a billion trillion years just because they didn’t accept Jesus? It just seems gratuitous.”
“Yeah, I get what he’s saying, I understand,” chimed in a new speaker of the congregation before the Zoom session went discernibly silent. As the gravity of her agreement began to dawn on her, as the weight of twenty judicious, sidelong glances began bearing down on her, she started preparing to backtrack. The notion she could see where I was coming from on this point left the congregation simply stunned.
“Ch — Ch — Charlotte — you said you understand what he’s saying?” pressed the leader of the congregation, struggling to restrain her shock.
Charlotte remained radio silent as she sat in the Zoom conference like a deer in the headlights.
“Sorry… I, uh, I was just… talking to a friend,” she explained unconvincingly as the congregation abruptly let their guard down and turned their attention again toward me.
“So what I’m hearing, Ben, is that it wouldn’t make sense for me to give you scriptures because you don’t believe in them anyway,” explained the leader astutely. It’s surprisingly refreshing when the religious don’t try to use religion to justify their religion. “Would that be correct?”
“Yes,” I confirmed brightly.
“Let me ask you this — ” interjected a new voice. “If you died tomorrow, would you go to heaven or hell?”
“I — ”
“He doesn’t believe in heaven.” The congregation leader was on a roll now.
“I definitely understand the argument and I guess that my big issue still is that I think your convictions here are similar to the convictions that Muslims have toward Mohammed and Jews have toward their holy scriptures. I don’t feel as though you have any more insight into the big questions than I do.
Another frustrating aspect of religion for me is how much of our affiliation is decided by where we’re born. If you’re born in Alabama, there’s a very, very good chance you’re going to be Christian. If you’re born in Mecca there’s a very, very good chance you’re going to be born Islamic.
If you’re born in India there’s an incredibly good chance you’re going to be Hindu. To me, that alone says that religion is largely a product of where we’re born.”
“… What I’ll tell you, what’s important… the fact of the matter is sin. There’s one truth and a thousand lies. One way is truth. There are no two truths, there are no half-truths, and everything else is a lie.
What God says, his son is the way, the truth, and the light. So it all goes down to sin. It doesn’t matter what you believe..,” explained another member of the Bible study before I decided it was about time to make my exit.
So I thanked the group for their time and for their restraint. Even while they condemned me to hell more times than I have fingers or toes, that they didn’t curse me out when I poked holes in their faith is a courtesy I haven’t always found in these conversations.
For that, I had to give them credit. I explained that if nothing else, even while I find religion to be one of the great dangers plaguing our species, there’s something still to be said for Jesus’ teachings.
Do I regret joining the call? I don’t. I enjoy the opportunity to have these conversations. If even one of the points I made was enough to cast even the tiniest shred of doubt on this extremist belief structure, I’ve accomplished something. As history has told us time and time again, the types of problems that can emerge from faith-based thinking are far too colossal to ignore.
While Christianity can so often hide behind the kind-hearted face of the religion, alive and well in Christianity is so much of the thinking we associate with only the most brutal Islamic regimes. While Christians so often state that they’re only trying to save non-believers from the fiery pits, it’s difficult to ignore sometimes the level of wishful thinking that goes into these fantasies.
At best, these conversion attempts seem well-intentioned, even if woefully misguided, but at worst they’re steeped in the fervent belief that non-acceptance of Jesus is truly worth an infinity of unimaginable torture. It’s a kind of thinking that can’t be allowed the pass it so often gets. It’s a kind of thinking that, when left unchecked, results in oppression, wars, and holocausts.