All Apologies

The past few days a Christian student group (Chai Alpha, I think) has been out on the oval handing out fliers and free Bibles to people passing by. Meanwhile they have someone nearby giving a dramatic reading of the Gospels. Part of me finds this rather inoffensive, it's certainly less offensive than most of the "Christian" activities on the oval.

But another part of me finds this really offensive. It's the part of me who has to deal with my friends who are offended by this stuff. One of my Jewish friends again vented to me because of an exchange she had with the people handing out the Bibles. She is so tired of the Christians on the oval trying to force feed Christ into her life. She's said there are parts of Jesus' teachings that intrigue her, but those people make her really not interested in learning anything because they're not willing to learn anything about her faith.

She's a little high strung and is becoming more in tune with the teachings of Judaism and how they differ from the traditional Christian point of view. Combine that with several bad run ins with arrogant insensitive Christians and I understand why she's so pissed off. I initially just chalked her current frustration up to all of this and thought that in a normal scenario this handing out of Bibles wouldn't have bothered her a great deal.

But then she brought it up to another one of my Jewish friends, who is not all that observant, and she felt the same way. This made me back up and re-think this whole thing. This other person is pretty laid back and easy going, so if it's offensive enough for her to say something, then there must be something wrong.

Thinking about it some more and dialoguing with my friends I decided this is why it's offensive: There is a feeling of superiority to these actions. The fact that the people on the oval don't know the students they're trying to talk to shows a lack of love and true concern for people. This combined with their pushiness makes them highly offensive. Put it this way, what makes the Jehovah Witnesses' and the Mormon evangelizers so offensive? Isn't it because they're strangers who invade your space claiming to know just what you need? If the Mormons were to be passing out the Book of Mormon on campus wouldn't those same Christians be offended? I think they would.

So anyway, all I could do through all of this was acknowledge my friends' anger and frustration and apologize for the ignorance of many Christians. I hope that this will at least help them to not hate all Christians.