Cheese and Religion

by Tyler Zach

Imagine going to the grocery store and seeing two nicely dressed women standing in the dairy aisle. One of them is pointing and talking about the brand of cheese she represents. The other is silent and has a tray of little cheese samples in front of her.

You stop, in an awkward fashion, and briefly glance at both of them. First, you direct your attention to the talking lady who is young with nice hand gestures. She is eloquently talking about the value, freshness, brand name, and delightful taste of her product. Second, you glance over at the second lady - who is a little shorter, looks more like grandma, and picks up a sample piece of cheese for you to eat.

You take the piece of cheese and chew it very slowly as both women stop to watch your reaction. The cheese is absolutely saturated with flavor and goodness. You take and pack of the second lady’s cheese and continue shopping.

Sometimes, it feels like the church (and our spiritual movements on the college campus) can feel like the first lady. We are attracted to her because of her stellar gestures, her solid persuasion, and her ability to make you feel like you are doing the right thing by buying her cheese. But we don’t know for sure for sure because we haven’t tasted the cheese.

Paul, in the Scriptures, said, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.”

In Luke, we read the passage about Jesus telling them to ask God to raise up laborers for the harvest. We usually think of laborers as people who go out and get people on the right team. But a few verses later Jesus tells these first laborers, “Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God is near you.'”

So the order is to demonstrate the Kingdom and then announce the Kingdom.

Earlier on in Luke, Jesus was healing people when a person came up and asked whether or not he was The One. Jesus told him to go back to John the Baptist and say, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard.”

So the order again is seen (the Kingdom demonstrated) and heard (the Kingdom being announced).

What are our students “seeing” and “hearing” in the church or in a Campus Crusade movement? Do they simply hear persuasive words or have they seen a demonstration of the Spirit? Do they see students leaving behind addictions such as alcohol or sexual immorality? Do they see students serving the campus or eating and hanging out with non-Christians? Does the campus or city look different? As the amount of bible studies increase, does injustice decrease?

I hope that we as Christians will not become Pharisees, who study the Scriptures so much that we became confident and persuasive, at the expense of missing the point of the Scriptures completely. Love God. Love others. Demonstrate. Announce.

I’d like to be like the second lady in the analogy above. My desire is to help others to experience the Kingdom of God and then delightfully announce its source.

But, I think I'm more like the first lady.

Atheist Reflections on Christianity

Here are some interesting thoughts and reflections from an atheist, Hemant Mehta, exploring Christianity. After visiting multiple churches across the US, he wrote a book called I Sold My Soul on eBay.

I think that we can learn a lot from this "outsider" perspective.

“Earlier I mentioned that Pastor James at Harvest Bible Chapel did something similar, zipping through large number of Bible verses. However, Rob’s [Rob Bell] 'look at how interesting this is' tone resonated with me much more than Pastor James’s 'it’s in the bible; trust me' tone. At Mars Hill we took the time to read these verses together and understand how the theme applied.”

“To convince me I am mistaken in not believing in God, a church would need to appeal to my sense of reason and my insistence on empirical evidence. Every church I went to took so much for granted – without offering reasons for their assertions. It was as if the speakers assumed everyone in the audience was already on board with their line of thinking, so they didn’t bother to back up their statements.”

“Do Christians feel that since belief in God requires faith, they don’t need to try to make Christianity more welcoming for everyone, especially atheists and agnostics? Does the faith requirement somehow give Christians a free pass to be intolerant, or arrogant, or disinterested in the nonreligious people around them?”

“If you want to get through to nonreligious people, you need to first understand where they are coming from.”

“If any church were to convert me, I felt it would be a place such as Willow Creek. It wasn’t a fire-and-brimstone service. It wasn’t a worship-God-out-of-fear-of-hell service. It was a place where I could think about the message after I left.”

“I know that many religious rituals are highly meaningful. But I personally have a problem with rituals for one simple reason: I don’t believe everyone present knows why they are performing a certain action… Without knowing why certain actions are performed, the actions are meaningless."

“The church should be more than a religious club that meets for a couple of hours once a week. I suggested already that there should be more volunteering during the course of the week, but there should also be postsermon programming. It would help alleviate two problems: lack of intimacy and a lack of opportunity to ask questions about the points that are raised in the sermon. At so many of the churches I visited, as soon as the final amen was heard, the majority of people were out the door… I picture a gathering where people can stay around for food and conversation and where they could ask the pastors questions about the sermon.”

“When we atheists see how a church is making a positive difference locally and globally by meeting crucial physical needs of people, it’s hard to argue that churches are not a valuable part of society...”

“When churches launch charitable and humanitarian efforts, I have noticed one problem. Many of the efforts seem to be focused on helping those who are Christians or those who seem likely to convert.”

“I enjoyed the service at Willow Creek Community Church, and they have beautiful buildings and a scenic lake on their campus… But at the same time, I felt the same thrill at Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan, whose space is essentially a giant, empty box. A church’s high energy level is not produced by meeting in a beautiful building. The positive feeling I picked up came from other churchgoers. It stands out when you are around people who look forward to coming to church, people who are glad to see one another. That vitality brushed off on me.”

“I’m disappointed that the [experts and pastors] represent only the Christian viewpoint. So here’s a suggestion for something churches should start doing – which I observed at only one of the churches I visited: why not sponsor a debate, or at least a discussion, with opposing viewpoints equally represented? Why is such a dialogue important? Because it shows outsiders that Christians are confident in their beliefs…”

“Generally I enjoy the music I hear at churches. However, I’m convinced that a lot of Christians don’t care about it. How did I reach that conclusion? Because I saw plenty of people walking in late to the service. I have the impression that churches begin their church services with music to serve as a sort of buffer so that even if churchgoers arrive late, they won’t miss the “important” part (that is, the sermon)."

“One would think that the adults would be role models, listening to the pastor, maybe even taking notes. Instead, what I saw especially in the smaller churches were adults who were obviously bored. They were looking through the program, looking around the room, even looking at their watches. Part of the blame rests on the pastors of these churches (they were among the less-interesting speakers). Why am I calling attention to this? For one reason: if you don’t like church, then don’t go to church. It will just make your kids resent getting out of bed on Sunday.”

“There is religious elitism at work when Christians prefer to do business with other Christians. Some of the churches I visited make Christian business directories available to their members. The implication to me is that non-Christians are not good enough to do business with… The existence of Christian business directories tells me that Christians prefer to associate with other Christians.”

“Many churches boasted about their rate of planting new churches. However, starting a new church is nothing to be proud of – not unless that church is working to improve and serve its community, including all the people that live there.”