Smear Christianity

C.S. Lewis is the man. Even though his mind operated differently than mine does, no matter how many times I read his work, I find myself thinking something I never thought before. I love that.

Whether or not you’re inclined to agree with its author, Mere Christianity is required reading. Mr. Lewis’ response to God forces readers to mentally articulate why they are responding to Him in whatever way they are. Or whatever way they aren’t.

The first time I saw those car magnets, the Christian fish that have sprouted legs with DARWIN written on their bellies, it was 1997 and I was traveling behind a Nissan that was wearing one on its back bumper. I was gripped with the strangest urgent feeling. My friend in the passenger seat and I abandoned our original route and followed the car for about 10 miles until it pulled into a parking lot. I parked behind the evolved foreign car and jumped out to speak with whoever climbed out. When he emerged, the driver looked at me quizzically, saw his car parked in by mine, and finally realized that a crazy person had been stalking him through the streets.

I pointed at the bumper magnet. “Did you grow up in the church?” was exactly how I started our temporary relationship. Not, “Hi, do you have time for a question?” or something far more respectful of his life and automobile. No, I just wanted the facts. We were both in our 20s at the time, and he calmly smiled at my question.

“Yeah,” he said, “my Dad is a pastor.”

“I knew it!” I declared as I lifted my arms in triumph in the grocery store parking lot as if I’d won the Olympic gold. Thrilled with my keen sense of discernment about all things rebellious, I gave a satisfied look to my friend through the windshield as she slouched in the seat trying to avoid being recognized by anyone who happened by.

“So did you,” he interrupted my self-celebration. “You grew up in the church.”

I looked at him stiffly with my chin in the air. “How do you know?” I boldly baited back, trying to act as if I’d been raised in a violent street gang to throw him off my trail.

“You wouldn’t care about my bumper if you didn’t. You wouldn’t have parked me in or feel the need to defend God.” He smiled.

Defend God? I wasn’t defending God. I was proving I was right. I stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to say next. It was a conversation after all, and it was my turn. The more I tried to figure out why I was there, why I had followed him and why I was acting like I was, the sense of strange urgency I had felt before was being replaced with the beginnings of embarrassment – still more pink than red.

“Wanna shop?” he took my turn, relieved my discomfort and continued to stand before me.

“Sure.” I left my car illegally parked, made sure the car windows were cracked so my still hiding friend could breathe, and walked into the store with him. Up and down the aisles, he told me of a stifling childhood in a fundamentalist home. He had a father who preached the wrath of God, a mother who followed all the rules, and questions were simply not allowed. He was gentle and sad and bought oranges.

The facts aren’t always the facts. I have no doubt that when I read Romans 2:4, “do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?” I glean a completely different meaning than my friend in the market because God’s kindness is so foreign to him. Does that make the Scripture less true? For him it does. For me, it creates a new urgency.

I realize that my disgruntled parking lot acquaintance was a lot like C.S. Lewis. His response to Jesus forced me to think about my response to Jesus. I smiled to myself and labeled his bumper rebellion, Smear Christianity, finding it equally helpful for my own fledgling faith. I have since grown to learn that it is far more important to be righteous than right and that God doesn’t need defending. Instead, I will urgently be like Him, showing kindness, tolerance and patience, in and out of the grocery store.

"Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity