Max finished the semester with straight A’s, which included four classes: The Bible and Western Culture, A History of Judaism, World Religions, and, of course, College Algebra.
Over Christmas break, Julie had decided to go home and spend it with her family. Max was surprised how much he missed her.
But the Maxwells had plans of their own. Max and his mom and dad made their regular annual trip to spend Christmas with his dad’s brother, Oliver, who lived in Columbus, about eighty miles away. Oliver was also a man of the cloth, the head pastor of a large Baptist church in Columbus. He had never married and had no children, but his home was designated as Christmas central. It was the center location since his dad’s sister lived an hour south of Columbus.
His dad’s sister, Mary, made up for the lack of kids from the brothers by having five of her own, ages six to fourteen. Her husband was not a religious man, so he had long since stopped attending the family Christmases here, but Mary made the trip with all five kids in tow.
Max had always enjoyed Christmas time with his family, especially his cousins, all of whom were younger than he. But this Christmas was different. He played with the kids, helped with dinner, and went through all the motions as always, so it was doubtful that anyone else could tell this Christmas was any different at all for Max. But the difference wasn’t visible; it was in his mind. He couldn’t stop thinking about the Bible study classes with Brad. He couldn’t stop thinking about Brad’s dad and his unusual teachings of the Bible. He couldn’t stop thinking about Professor Stoner’s class and wondering what near-impossible task with which he would be presented. And mostly, he couldn’t stop thinking about Julie.
Julie texted Max a few times during the day, mostly to wish him a Merry Christmas. Each time he returned the text and sentiment.
After Christmas dinner, Max’s dad and Oliver drove to the store to pick up some ice cream for everyone. When they returned, they were covered with snow.
Mary turned on the TV to catch the latest weather forecast. Everyone watched as the report was not good. The storm had gotten worse, and they were talking of closing all the major roads by nightfall.
The reverend thought they should be going, but Max’s mom was worried they would get caught right in the middle of it.
“I got plenty of room here for everyone,” Oliver offered.
The decision was made to stay the night and drive the next day. Mary had to call her husband to let him know, and the kids were happy to spend more time with Max.
Max was happy, too.
When it came time to go to bed, Max’s parents got one spare bedroom, and Mary and her three youngest got the other. Her two older kids, both boys, got to share the living room with Max. This, of course, led them into trouble, as they kept disturbing the adults with their laughter, which prompted the reverend to get up and threaten to make them sleep outside if they didn’t allow anyone to get some rest.
This made them laugh even more.
Finally, they all got to sleep, except Max, who lay on the sofa with his mind still racing. Eventually, at about 2:00 a.m., he gave up and sat up and grabbed the TV remote. He activated the mute as soon as the TV came on so as not to disturb anyone.
His uncle had all the cable channels and Max liked surfing to see what was on. Back home, they had a simple antenna that got the four basic networks. As he scanned through the long list of available channels, he came across an old episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy. He laughed to himself, wondering how Bill would fare in Professor Stoner’s Near Impossible Assignment.
Then something else caught his eye. The channel above the one showing Bill Nye listed this as the current program: FFY ministries. Max moved the bar upward and looked in the upper right-hand where it gave the details of the programming. It read, Faith for You Ministries, Inspiration, Arthur Clavin delivers his sermon to his church in New York.
Max clicked the ‘select’ button. As the programming filled the screen, he recognized Arthur Clavin right away from his website. And he noticed Brad was right; the church and the congregation were enormous. He searched the remote to find the caption setting since he didn’t want to disturb anyone with the volume. He found it and activated the captioning, then sat back and read what Arthur Clavin was saying.
“People keep talking about Jesus being about love and peace, and I’m wondering what Jesus are they talking about? Jesus said himself that he came not to bring peace but a sword. Some people only understand one aspect of Jesus, but Jesus was about wrath and judgment also. Some Christians feel like they have to try to be nice all the time and try not to offend anyone, but that’s crazy. The gospel should be offensive. If I go somewhere and preach and people come up to me later and say they were offended, then I praise God that I did it right. We have to deliver the Word of God like a hammer hits a nail. We don’t have time to be polite. It’s like the Bible says—we are the salt of the world. Let me explain what that means. If you rub salt into an open wound, it stings. It hurts. That’s why we are the salt. We are to throw ourselves into the world with a fury and make it hurt. That’s what we’re called upon to do. We are at war. Paul tells us to don the armor and be prepared for battle. We are at war against the nonbelievers, and we will prevail.”
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Max sat there with his bottom jaw dropped. As the programming broke away for a commercial break, a standard disclaimer appeared:
The views of this programming do not necessarily represent the views of this network.
Good call, Max thought They don’t represent my views either.
Max couldn’t believe that someone would take metaphors from the Bible and try to make them read as if they weren’t metaphors. When Jesus said he came not to bring peace but a sword, it was a symbol of the division that could be caused by some accepting Him and some not. It had nothing to do with an actual sword. The same when Paul talked about putting on the armor of God―it was a metaphor. Unless somehow a person believed that the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation were all referring to actual pieces of equipment to strap onto your body. Even in that scripture, it mentions the “gospel of peace.” How could someone think that meant war?
And the Salt of the World parable was one of Max’s favorites.
Matthew 5:13: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”
It had always had one simple meaning to Max. It meant that Christians were the pure of the world. But what happens if a Christian loses his faith? They are no longer able to spread the Word and are now no different than other men. This was the first time he had heard anyone give an alternative meaning to that wonderful parable and it bothered him.
Max watched as the programming came back on with an address for where to send your donations. He turned off the TV and tried to go to sleep. But still sleep shied away from him as if he were trying to trick sleep into getting closer, but sleep knew it was a trap. So, he lay there wondering how someone could preach these things and how so many people could follow these teachings.
He understood now why Brad embraced conflict over reason. The Faith for You website was full of messages about war and conflict. Now Max had seen his first TV broadcast and, ironically, it mentioned war as well.
Max had always struggled with his views on war. Every Christian he knew, including his father, believed that you should support war if it was a just war in defense against an evil aggressor. Max had even tried to embrace this belief, but when he really thought about it, he realized the only wars he supported were those led by the United States, and it made him wonder if they did indeed hold a monopoly on justice. He knew that when people decide for themselves what is just, who is evil, and what constitutes defense, it leaves a lot of room for personal prejudices. In the last decade, it had been suggested that preemptive attacks are considered defensive acts. Max knew it was easy to let your support of the troops translate to support of the war, and it was the only time he worried that his Christian values might not lead the way. He often wondered if his patriotic views took precedence.
Max knew that the word “war” was only mentioned fourteen times in the New Testament, and seven of those times are in Revelation talking about things like the war in Heaven. Of the other seven places it is mentioned, three places are in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which mention wars and rumors of wars. Two other places mention war against the mind and soul. One place is Jesus telling a metaphor about a king going to war. The only one of the fourteen that seemed to be providing insight to Christians about their stance on war was 2 Corinthians 10:3 where Paul wrote, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.”
It was very confusing to Max. But one thing he was certain of was that war was not something to promote and embrace as the Clavins seemed to do. It might only be mentioned fourteen times in the New Testament, but when Max did a search on the Faith for You website, he found it listed over twenty-two hundred times.
Between Brad and his father, Max began to realize that everything they taught seemed to cater to basic human instincts. The message seemed to be that you are one of the chosen ones so you’re set; you won the lottery; you found the last Golden Ticket. The other people, those who were not chosen, don’t have it and never will. What’s more, there’s nothing they can do to get it. Since you’re one of the chosen, you are supposed to be judgmental, you are supposed to be aggressive and offend people, and you are supposed to be about conflict and war. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, make them pay for it.
Finally, it became clear to Max. That’s the reason that Clavin’s message was accepted by so many. It required no discipline or sacrifice at all. Max had always believed that what separated a Christian from everyone else was devotion and sacrifice. It’s not easy being a Christian and the Bible never said it was going to be. In fact, the Bible says the opposite. As a Christian, you are called upon to rise above all of the emotions, shortcomings, and weaknesses of the human condition. But now, along comes pastors like Arthur Clavin and they tell you that it’s okay to be all of these things, that you’ve been granted salvation no matter what. The more Max thought about it, the more he understood the appeal. That would sound great to anyone.
Now Max understood why Brad was so gung-ho and borderline militant. That’s why he chose conflict over compassion, friction over union, justification over joy. Brad accepted his father’s philosophies one hundred percent and parroted them in every Bible study session Max had attended. It was like they took bits and pieces of scripture, certain words from certain passages, and entire metaphors, to completely ignore the simple teachings of Jesus, to reinvent the message from Christ to fit their own personal views.
And people ate it up.
Max finally understood.
