Jesus the Pickup Artist

Last week I experienced attempted evangelization in an unexpected setting. A scientist asked me for some technical advice. I was happy to help and we decided to talk over coffee.

He took a couple of calls as we worked on his problem. In one of them he relayed to someone the plans for a bible study group meeting. He spoke loudly enough for me, and everyone around us, to hear. I was a bit stunned as I heard him announce what chapters and verses were being covered by the group that night.

I hadn’t realized he was religious. My first thoughts were, ‘well that’s nice, he’s a nice guy, he doesn’t seem like the type, especially not the type I grew up with, maybe he’s a decent modern xstian.’ My next thoughts were ‘ah, I doubt he knows I’m gay. Why would he? We aren’t more than professional acquaintances. There’s no reason it would have ever come up.’ I brushed all of that off and figured it was just a private call made semi-public by bad cell reception. I figured it didn’t concern me at all.

After finishing our technical discussion, we sat for a minute chatting while he finished his coffee. I was ready to go back to my lab, but didn’t want to rush off since he was still drinking. Then it came:

“You should come to our bible study.”

“Me? Um, yeah, you know. I … I don’t think so. It’s really not for me.” I was caught off guard. I grew up in an evangelical new lifer church and I immediately recognized his outreach. It had been so long since I’d been near anything like that and simultaneously so unprepared. Not that being off guard to that sort of thing is a bad thing; it’s comforting to know that the adult world I’ve set myself in doesn’t include some of the more uncomfortable things from my past. But I really stammered for a second.

“Really? You don’t want the glory of Jesus? You should open your heart to him. It’s great really. We sit around and just read the bible. Then we sing about it while someone plays guitar.” His eyes were a familiar shade of starry.

‘This is someone I know to be a decent guy. He’s not rude. He’s always considerate,’ I thought to myself. At the same time, I recognized the language he was using.

If a group of people got together and just read the bible, their language probably wouldn’t include sell terms like “glory of Jesus” and “open your heart.” I know what lexicon those are from. He might believe they are getting together completely independent of outside influence. In fact, I’m pretty sure he believes that. But somewhere in the history of, or in his group itself, is a born again with a full compliment of born again rhetoric.

“No, you know, I used to be very religious as a child. But, I’m not now.” I told him. I could have gone off on a tirade about how it was really inappropriate for him to bring religion into a professional relationship. I could have been condescending to him. I could have been stern or even nasty. But evangelicals have responses for all those responses. Besides, this wasn’t one of the new lifers from my past sitting in front of me, it was someone I had always known to be decent and someone I only knew professionally. I wasn’t eager to open a can of worms or worse, give him insight into me that could encourage, or be used in, further proselytization attemps.

“Really? I was just the opposite. In school my heart was closed to Jesus. Now it’s open. You should come. You’d like it.” He said while smiling widely. I could almost hear the ‘Aren’t you afraid to spend an eternity without him?’ question being formulated in his head. I told myself not to project too much of my past onto him.

“No, that’s ok. Well hey, I’d better get back to the lab. Are you good on everything we went over on [his technical issue]?” I asked, initiating my exit.

“Yes, yes, thank you very, very much.”

“No, it’s no problem at all. We’ll see you around.” We left the café together and parted at a juncture down the hallway.

I was still stunned as I walked back to the lab. The Jesus talk was so unexpected. But, I’m glad I wasn’t nasty to him. I was brief and firm. I didn’t overly engage him. I didn’t start singing Radiohead’s “just cause you feel it, doesn’t mean it’s there” (I do love that song though). I didn’t consciously mean to, but in my shock, and desire to get out of the situation, I think I responded in a WWJD kind of way. How’s that for turnabout being fair play?

That said, here are some cool shopping links for Jesus Sports Statues (one of my favorites) and Fish Emblems.